hacker\culture

John Stevenson
             2000.06.11

As I detail within problematics, hacking is a slippery concept, one which has fascinated me since my weehood. The principle objective of this Web site is to provide primary documentation, and a little guidance, for those who wish to research the culture around hacking either from a general or an academic perspective.

Material is divided into four memes which follow a rough chronological order:

explorations presents logs of sessions with hacker BBSes which I visited in 1993.

aohell looks at software piracy and virtual squatting which took place on America Online from 1995 to late-1996.

approaches is a brief review of critical and popular perspectives on hacking, and is meant as a jumping off point for further exploration.

problematics identifies certain questions around hacking from the position of a critical theoretician.

In support of this material, two other sections provide links to further resources:

bibliography lists academic and popular work, mostly in print.

further links to additional related Web sites.

Some of the material one will find here is available at other Web sites as well, but much of it is not. Hacker\culture is a personal Web site: the "hacker" is me, and the "culture" is what I have explored over the past ten years. I was introduced to hacking not through academic writing but by the direct experience of having immersed myself in it, and with the sort of too-immediate understanding which sometimes makes close examination difficult.