Hacking : digital media and technological determinism / Tim Jordan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Jordan, Tim, 1959-

Series:

Digital media and society series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hackers.

Computer crimes.

Computer programming--Social aspects.

Computer programming.

Open source software--Social aspects.

Open source software.

Computers and civilization.

Social aspects.

Physical Description:

vi, 160 pages ; 21 cm.

Other Title:

Digital media and technological determinism

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2008.

Summary:

Hacking provides an introduction to the community of hackers and an analysis of the meaning of hacking in twenty-first-century societies. On the one hand, hackers infect the computers of the world, entering where they are not invited, taking over not just individual workstations but whole networks. On the other hand, hackers write the software that fuels the Internet, from popular web programmes to software fundamental to the Internet's existence. Beginning with these two main types of hackers, categorised as crackers and Free Software/Open Source respectively, Tim Jordan provides an insight into the varied identities of hackers, including: Hacktivism: hackers and populist politics, Cyberwar: hackers and the nation-state, Digital Proletariat: hacking for the man, Viruses: virtual life on the Internet, Digital Commons: hacking without software, Cypherpunks: encryption and digital security, Nerds and Geeks: hacking cultures or hacking without the hack, Cybercrime: blackest of black-hat hacking.

Hackers end debates over the meaning of technological determinism while recognising that at any one moment we are determined by technology. Hackers work constantly within determinations of their actions created by technologies as they also alter software to enable entirely new possibilities for action in the virtual world. Through this fascinating introduction to the people who create and recreate the digital media of the Internet, readers will gain new insight into the meaning of technology and society when digital media are hacked.

Contents:

The hack

Cracking : black hats on the Internet

Free software and open source : collaboration, objects and property

Hacking the social : hacktivism, cyberwar, cyberterror, cybercrime

Hacking the non-hack : creative commons, hackers who don't programme, programming proletariat, hacking sub-cultures and nerds and geeks

The meaning of hacking.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 145-151) and index.

ISBN:

9780745639710

0745639712

9780745639727

0745639720

OCLC:

228275783