The case of biohacking is an interesting development as I do see that as quite connected to the hacker milieu, in spirit and in ethics, if nothing else because there are biologist programmers who have been clearly inspired by open source and are modulating†(your term) the practice in other areas. Further, since biology is now seen in informational grounds, this too is another way that folks imagine the connection between biology and hacking. And finally the DIY hacker ethic seems to be exploding in many different realms (Make magazine, hardware hacking, electronics etc) and is supported by the unbelievable explosion of hacker spaces (kinda like a return to the guild, though more open). All of this is converging with and supporting the DIY bio ethic and I wonder when and if people might create amateur workshops (if they get the legal clearance to do so).

But as you already noted Chris, I don’t think all manifestations of hacking carry over to bio-hacking (there can’t be a bio-hacker underground… Well now that I think about it, how about http://www.erowid.org/ ?? Some of those folks, first, are active in the hacker scene, and given they are dabbling in drugs and often making and experimenting with them, there might be an overlap to explore there as well).

I also wanted to mention that when discussing the underground (and this has nothing to do with biology…), it is always a struggle to define its proper limits and scopes. I don’t like the whitewashing that happens, where those who engage in illicit hacking activity are tagged as non-hackers (’crackers’). But I think it is important to recognize even those engaging in illicit activity are also erecting ethical boundaries and think of themselves as hackers as well (as Bruce Sterling called it their ethic was “elitist contempt†which meant the hack would have to be interesting and far more interesting than just stealing someones credit card).

It would be interesting to find those shadowy Russian “hackers†among others who scavenge the net for YOUR credit cards and see what native ideologies of hacking, if any, they have: do the read 2600? Is Mitnick and others their heroes? Until someone relays this information, I am reluctant to call them hackers and as far as I know, no one has talked to them.

Related to this, I am fond of the new term “trolling†as well as it specifies the specific form of hacking that is often meant to cause grief to people (covered in Matt Swartz NYT times article and perhaps related to Amazon’s recent glitch: http://www.pcworld.com/article/163024/hacker_claims_credit_for_amazons_gaythemed_book_glitch.html)

Finally in terms of the Critical Art Ensemble, they remind less of the underground and more of a type of hacking that Alex and I barely addressed at all, except in a passing sentence, and that is explicitly political hacking and often critical of capitalism. These hackers are especially prevalent in Europe (especially in places like Spain/Italy/Croatia) and many host autonomous hack spaces and also provide support and services to activists around the world (such as http://www.autistici.org/it/ in Italy and Riseup in the US).

Again, all these groups are not entirely distinct: many are united by how they approach technology, the technologies they use, and the craft of hacking. The radical anti-capitalist hacker can also be found at a free software conference and so on but still worth differentiating then just lumping together. And it seems to me that the computer—being a machine that can be made to do many different tasks—is a good object to sustain this sort of diversity, more so than biology (but time will tell, I guess).

More soon
Paul