Abstract
<p>This paper describes how hacking can be the act of redefining what is seen and not seen in the context of online surveillance. Based on a qualitative interview study with 22 hackers, it discusses the many practices and purposes of ‘hacking online surveillance’, with a specific focus on the techniques of disappearing from view while continuing to be online. Not only do these techniques vary in style and the expertise involved, but they all fulfill multiple functions. They are more than just a coded statement against the uneven powers of surveillance, they are tactics of the everyday life, moments of analytical creativity and reflection, instances of pleasure and play, affective encounters, identity work and forms of communication. The paper dedicates space to these sometimes overlapping and sometimes differing conceptualizations of ‘hacking online surveillance’ by using methodologies that consciously seek out the nonlinear and the multiple.</p>
Highlights
It may be too romantic to portray hackers as illusionists, but this paper describes the ways in which hacking can be a performance of redeining what is seen and what is not seen in the context of dataveillance
Mareile Kaufmann his article seeks to better understand these acts of redeining what is seen and not seen in the context of online surveillance as one aspect of the much larger practice of hacking. It questions the dominant representations of hackers as either criminal (e.g. Furnell, Warren 1999; Rost, Glass 2010) or as counter-cultural (Kubitschko 2015) and activist (Schrock 2016). It analyzes the multiple ways in which hackers interrogate online surveillance or dataveillance, and how they argue about these acts
For example, Brunton and Nissenbaum associate obfuscation with “weak” and sneaky forms of protest. hey consider it a “last resort” as they highlight a number of problematic features: obfuscation tends to be dishonest, its users want to receive services without contributing to their functioning, and some techniques pollute valuable online space. his paper discusses the meanings and implications of hacking dataveillance as more multifaceted than that. he empirical analysis presented in this paper shows that hackers are well aware about the pros and cons of interrogating online veillance and discuss them amongst each other
Summary
It may be too romantic to portray hackers as illusionists, but this paper describes the ways in which hacking can be a performance of redeining what is seen and what is not seen in the context of dataveillance. Mareile Kaufmann his article seeks to better understand these acts of redeining what is seen and not seen in the context of online surveillance as one aspect of the much larger practice of hacking In doing so, it questions the dominant representations of hackers as either criminal (e.g. Furnell, Warren 1999; Rost, Glass 2010) or as counter-cultural (Kubitschko 2015) and activist (Schrock 2016). It analyzes the multiple ways in which hackers interrogate online surveillance or dataveillance, and how they argue about these acts In speciic, it looks at those kinds of hacks that are enacted while hackers continue to share data online. This paper adds more nuances to this conversation It discusses the practices of interrogating dataveillance and online surveillance as a form of hacking, which is broadly deined. In the context of online surveillance, for example, the framing of hacking as political practice has already many facets: it. M Some interviewees would avoid using PGP and deploy other forms of hacking communication standards
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