Throughout history, many hackers have stood firm and challenged corporate capitalism and government surveillance. The corporations and the governments, including the mainstream media, funded by the corporate donors, worked together countless times to fool the masses, manufacturing consent to several policies that are indeed harmful to the masses but beneficial to the elite ruling class. And throughout the long and rich history of struggles for democracy, many of the rebels who have stood tall in the face of authoritarian regimes were hackers.
The history of hacking predates the internet. One of the earliest incidents of hacking existed since the telephone era. David Condon, a key influential figure in the ‘phone phreak’ movement, pioneered a form of hacking that exploited a vulnerability in telephone systems. He discovered that by inputting specific audio tones into a phone line, it was possible to bypass billing systems and make free calls to any destination on the network.
The initial phases of hacking were significantly influenced by individuals motivated by political and social ideologies, rather than purely technical curiosity. Rene Carmille, who had been called the “first ethical hacker” in history, was a member of the Resistance in Nazi-occupied France, and his hacking saved thousands of Jewish lives as he hacked “the Nazi’s Database of French Jews.”. Being a skilled operator of punch-card computers, who owned the equipment utilised by the Vichy French government for data processing, upon the Nazi occupation, he discovered the regime was employing these machines to track and identify Jewish citizens. While not an anti-Semite, Carmille devised a plan. He surreptitiously modified his own computers, ensuring that despite any information entered by the Nazis, the system would never definitively label an individual as Jewish. The precise number of Jewish lives saved by Carmille during the Nazi era remains unknown due to the limitations of historical records, probably hitting thousands at the bare minimum. In 1944, he was sent to the brutal Dachau concentration camp for such acts and consequently got killed afterwards.
Similarly, those from the cypherpunk movement and the members from its mailing list were united for a political cause of digital democracy, privacy, and free market economics against corporate capitalism and government surveillance. Timothy C. May, one of the crypto-anarchists who started the cypherpunk movement, wrote a document called the ‘Crypto Anarchist Manifesto’ in 1988. In his manifesto, he expressed concern that governments would try to control the internet by making it more centralised, which would lead to increased censorship and the ability to monitor people’s activities. Timothy C. May believed that crypto could enable anonymous and untraceable transactions. This, he argued, would create a market system where individuals could freely exchange goods and services without government interference, leading to a form of society where the market is self-regulating, known as crypto-anarchy.
In 1986, a document called the ‘Techno-Revolution Manifesto,’ which was written by a hacker named ‘Doctor Crash’, argued that hacking is not just about intellectual curiosity or a mental challenge. It claimed that the origins of hacking are linked to activities like phone phreaking (exploiting phone systems), credit card fraud (carding), and the principles of anarchy (rejecting authority). The manifesto encouraged hackers to take control of the internet, which was initially developed by the military and the defence industry towards a freer and more open internet, ultimately reducing the government’s control over it. The GNU Manifesto, which was released in 1985 by Richard Stallman, called for open collaboration between the developers working towards the freedom for users of software, free software distributions, and to challenge the status quo of copyright.
In 1983, David Chaum, who often is referred to as ‘the Godfather of Crypto,’ authored a groundbreaking paper titled ‘Blind Signatures for Untraceable Payments’. This work was published during a period when cryptographic technology fell under the jurisdiction of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) and was classified as a munition. His innovation enabled users to store and spend digital currency anonymously. By employing blind signatures, which conceal the message content from the signer, the system ensured unlinkability between the withdrawal and spending of funds. This crucial feature effectively prevented banks and governments from tracking individual transactions, thereby safeguarding user anonymity.
The “Cult of the Dead Cow”, a pioneering hacking collective that coined the term “hacktivist” and the concept of the “ezine,” engaged in a series of politically motivated cyber-attacks targeting authoritarian governments and the corporates. Notably, they collaborated with a group of Chinese dissidents known as “The Hong Kong Blondes” to disrupt computer networks within the People’s Republic of China, enabling citizens to access censored online content. Furthermore, the Cult of the Dead Cow actively challenged Silicon Valley tech giants, particularly Microsoft, Yahoo!, Google, and Cisco (dubbed the “Gang of Four”), when the tech giants acquiesced to China’s internet censorship policies around 2006. 20th-century hacker movements were largely driven by an ethos of resistance against corporate capitalism and government surveillance.
Eva Galperin, the Director of Cybersecurity at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and technical advisor for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, who was born into a Jewish refugee family fleeing from USSR and its state sponsored antisemitic policies, co-founded the Coalition Against Stalkerware. Stalkerware is a type of malicious software that is designed to be installed on a person’s device without their consent, in order to monitor their activities and track their location. It is often used by abusive partners or individuals to spy on victims, and can be used to access private information such as messages, calls, location, and browsing history.
The Cult of the Dead Cow’s tactics align more with a “black” or “grey hat” red team approach, while Eva Galperin represents a “white hat” blue team ethos. Both, however, embody the hacker spirit. However, a parallel trend emerged, where some hackers, driven by a more pragmatic or self-interested approach, leveraged their skills to secure positions within large corporations. This shift in focus prioritised technological curiosity and professional advancement over the core principles of the above-mentioned movements, such as copyleft, digital democracy, anti-corporate activism, and resistance to digital authoritarianism. This fraction of cybersecurity specialists who deviated from the ethos of hackers and chose the cybersecurity career path has become increasingly popular, leading to a cybersecurity industry dominated by professionals focused on corporate certifications rather than the broader social and political implications of their work.
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