Hacker Anthropologist Gabriella Coleman

I did find it really admirable and kind of mind blowing that there was a group of people who were like, you know what, when you do You do it in the name of anonymous and you don't seek personal fame and recognition and this was really a living Hello and welcome to the Hacker Next Door Podcast, where we explore the origin stories, exploits, and everyday lives of real

World Hackers. I'm your host, Jeremy N. Smith, and this series is my chance to challenge stereotypes and examine the human side of this extraordinary activity and profession. Who hackers really are and how hacking really works. My guest today is Gabriella Coltman, a hacker author, anthropologist, and public intellectual, and one of the world's foremost Coleman holds the wolf chair and And her two books, Coding Freedom and Hacker Hoaxer, Whistleblower Spy are brilliant myth busting classes.

I'm entertained, challenged, and inspired every time I read something she writes. I know you'll enjoy it. Thank you so much for joining me.

You spent six years immersing yourself in the global activist group Anonymous. Big picture. How does Anonymous start? What does it evolve into and where does it stand now? You can read my book. No. Um, it's a hard question to answer because anonymous morph In the late two thousand But its roots org that emerge from the fact that everyone Exactly. I am Spartacus. That's exactly it.

a taboo and from the very name anonymous that again everyone hundreds and thousands of people A kind of meta identity. And It was really about nothing. having all Where the name of the Where different individuals Often harassed, And then very surprisingly during a trial. And then through a weird set of circumstances that hadn't particularly A debate, a video, ex members of the church asking an eye.

And so at that period you still had trolls advocates using the name and you could do that because For anyone to do. powerful political acts or I should say, you know, important

But what happened was by 2011, the trolling or the peer trolling And almost every action under the guise And it was worldwide. People took the name in Malaysia, the Philippines, Dominican Republic, Australia, Hong Kong, Mexico, Chile. I mean it became totally global. Every action became How do people find it? How do they get involved? At the time that they were quite big again in twenty ten, really eleven, uh the most common way to get involved was to log.

Basically it's a primitive chat program. is run on a server where you basically have different divided by topic. So you'd find them largely there. This scene gets blown up eventually in part. Sure. So first of all, um, you know, a lot of the actions being carried out You know, like look what's happening in Tunisia. involved here's some videos rah rah rah right Pre Twitter.

Exactly. And and they did rely on Twitter quite a bit to get people excited about things. But there was a small fraction of Hoe were Who broke into silence? The US government To do. And at a certain point, they were able to catch one. And they basically flipped it. If you don't come work for us or on behalf of us, we are gonna really And so he felt like He continued to participate in the first time.

That combined with the fact that people weren't necessarily following the best protocols either, the participants meant that eventually a number of people were arrested in the UK and the United States and a lot of the hacker activity You know, you're tough. I wanna kinda go conceptually though, but then how this works on the ground and for all So why is

Yeah, anonymity is so... And it's true. state from the outset that To whitewash the bad elements. But if we lived in a world where no one could be anonymous, The government... The right to track everyone at all moments. And that's just the definition of a There is a reason we don't have security cameras in our house. It would make

There'd be less domestic abuse, for example, which is a huge problem. But we decide that we have to deal Another way of the right to be a little bit more than a little bit. in your domestic sphere, again, that would be a horrid society. And I think, you know, so much of our interactions That is a kind of extensive You would be chipping away at these zones. Where you need that space for privacy, knowing that people are not going to be able to do that.

But then the other side too is that activists and advocates have often relied In order to Critiques or wishes. And the problem is unless you afford society the right to be truly anonymous. technological present that means the right to use encryption, then people won't have that And so then we take away one avenue that Right.

Hopefully carried the concerns the history of psychiatry. Okay. Uh where psychiatry considered homosexuality a medical If you were gay, you had Exactly. Exactly. And when something becomes medicalized like that, it it it exists under the regime of the becomes very hard to contest. How do you contest that? And obviously people who and had to organize and fight. And one of the most powerful moments in that fight happened Yeah, yeah. decided to confess that he was gay.

And he did so anonymously. He had a mask, a rubber mask, he had a voice distorter, and he read a very powerful letter that explains. Why he did not know. This was a disease and why it did not belong in the DSM. And although a debate already existed, this really helped turbocharge it, and I believe within a year it was dropped. And what's interesting is that he was And he was afraid of losing his job if he spoke up. He was indeed anonymous, I believe. Wow. I know. In person. What are we doing?

I'll maybe get it. Great. One concerns whistleblowing, where we have seen a kind of of whistleblowing that has happened. And by whistleblowing you mean Government agency Exactly. And so two of the most famous cases are not anonymous. Edward Snowden. Of the American people, and he chose Chelsea Manning initially was announced. Let's take another. Okay. Fonseca. And these are some of the wealthiest individuals anyway. Absolutely. And A lot of government leaders will. Exactly.

This was anonymous. We still don't know who the person uh behind the Panama Papers is. And you know what? I think that's Because look at Edward Snowden, who's in exile. This is so exciting. Even whistleblowers who are lauded by society as usually have their reputation. And often get annoyed. Legal trouble. So obviously people also use online.

How do we promote good uses of anonymity when the way I approach this issue or problem is terrific With tremendous space. So they have big budgets, they have personnel And many times when people There's also an offline. And so law enforcement can both do things on the right. try to catch people but there's also an ability to And again they're endowed with the Whereas the activity Who are you? Tools and services are not equally endowed. They're really resource poor.

And so anonymity just enables them to exist in a way that doesn't take The resources from law enforcement to go after them. I mean...

Is it even possible to go online without being tracked by Google, Facebook, telecom companies, ad sites, the government, and so on? What tools can people use to stay anonymous or enhance their privacy? If you truly, truly, truly You are Do your homework. Do your homework. Anonymously. Exactly, honestly. Do your homework over a period of time because you can be, but it is tough. It is tough. It's really easy to mess up, but it is possible.

So how can we be more anonymous? I should say if we're sort of There are tools at your disposal. And what's also good about using them is that the more people that The less others who really So these tools kind of are emboldened by a network effect. And so what is available today and was not available. are things like Tor, which among other things allows you to browse the web anonymously with your browser. It also can be good for censorship evasion of websites. There is signal which Okay.

that is very user-friendly. If you want to be a little bit more advanced. In the operating system. Interesting email, harder to install and harder to mess up with. It's one of those things that it's probably a good idea to get some training if you're going to use PGP. Well historically I didn't have a cell phone for five years until very very recently. And I did, I did have a cell phone and then I let it go. You took a sabbatical, a long sabbatical.

For five years and it was in part because of the Snowden revelation. been a lot of information about location data that your cell phone gives and I thought it'd be an interesting experiment. You were Sure. And it was hard. It was definitely, definitely hard. I guess I'm not sure. I gave in, but that's one thing. And then of course there's other things that you can do that are a bit easier. Firefox is the far more privacy friendly or duck duck go.

It's not tracking you in the way that Google does. Those are things you sh you should use and you could let

Can you speak to the if you will, of anonymity. It is really, really, really hard to do something that is admirable and good. And again, I think like the majority of their opportunities. Good, and the majority were also legal, and not ask for any recognition. You know, our society is one that's built so fundamentally. Every one of our music or writing and we're also celebrity obsessed as a culture as well.

And so I did find it really admirable and kind of mind blowing that there was a group of people who were like, you know what, when you do Name of anonymous. Really a living being. Enforced in very tangible. And that was really mind opening. I mean there's always been instances of this of anonymous collect But this was like the most populous. And I do think it's really really hard thing to do. Building up a ramp.

When I started writing about hackers so many friends and family And for themselves as sort of collateral targets. They're like, they're going to destroy you, they're going to blow things up, they're going to hurt you. How can you get involved with these? And the people I met in person were really earnest, especially if I

sort of pretend I was a hacker, you know, I own black t shirts and shorts. Those were not what I would wear when I was hanging out with hackers. I would wear like khakis and a button up shirt to to p specifically like I am not trying to infiltrate. I am trying to learn. And I I think they responded really well to At the same time, how do you I'm sure you got some of the same concerns and maybe in fact you have been targeted in some way. So I wonder

I have a good story in that regard. I mean anonymous for the most part with a few I never felt threatened. I was a little bit afraid. I Going to the public. And every once in a while.

These people go after you, which was nice even though I didn't But there was this one one instance that was very telling where someone a hacker not involved in Anonymous that was kind of part of the sort of security scene had been on a chat channel and A lot of the hackers were making fun of me Also wanted to tease. Admit he thought Anonymous as a movement was kind of lame. And so they were like, they were talking about me, and they were like, we're gonna show her a lesson and break.

Show her what real hackers do. I know. And then a kind of renegade friendly person came and warned me and I was just like I would almost not want the warning. I mean, what can you do? Well, I got offline for a few days and I do know very technically proficient people. I'm not gonna pretend that and I had them help me fortify my system. And maybe they never went through with it. I don't know. I think it's that they felt like threatened and had Macho bravado. You know what I mean?

Sure, it's it's just classic bullying. Exactly. And again, I think that's not the norm in the hacker world. You know, a lot of hackers are really helpful. Many of them do have a lot of power. to help secure systems. But there are, you know, historically and and currently these moments where certain groups or individuals will go out of line. And again, maybe they would never do it and they were just talking about it.

But that really it did scare me. I literally unplugged from the internet for three. Which was kind of nice too. Another another sabbatical. Exactly.

After all your research, what's the biggest thing you find ordinary people still don't understand? May not understand about themselves. So the first part is I still think that a lot of people don't think hackers are quite human. That they they lack They don't have a face. They don't have a face. Even when they admire them, they think they're a little bit off. And in fact that's what bothered me a little bit about Quite good. But Elliot was. And there's nothing wrong with being another

Have that condition. But I just have met many different hackers and they're just like humans of different kinds. have mental health issues in the way that people in society do. Then in In terms of can you can you phrase the second part of the question again? Sure. I guess I asked that because Individual. Anonymously Or in pretty isolated pockets with I kinda wonder if if you only see narrow Right. But I don't mean to put those words or thoughts in your head.

Yeah. You know, not all hap- Was slash. Or even free software developers. Proprietary software. Where you could access Arrow pop. Even They get together independently. They speak up, they have their own values. But they don't fully see how they're that because so many of them are so involved in They could lose their autonomy. Sometimes what I would say is like guard that autonomy because that could be something that helped define. Late fifty.

Where can people find you online if they're interested? I'm on Twitter. What's your handle? They can find my web page as well and be on the lookout for HackCuria, which is the video portal. Well thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you again to Gabriella Coleman. Thank you to Furniture for our theme music, and thank you for the music. Please rate reviews.

Please join me again when I speak with Caitlin Bowden about fighting revenge porn and organizing a hacktivist army. That's next time on the Hacker.