Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
washingtonpost.com
Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
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Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#2Software developers generally occupy positions of considerable (if unacknowledged) power and trust within their organizations. The practice of software development necessarily involves dealing with minutiae in large quantities; in making making dozens of mostly small (but consequential) decisions each day. In aggregate, the effect of these decisions can be (and often is) of enormous import to the business or organization that employs the developer.
The number of decisions that a software developer must make, in general, precludes effective scrutiny by the traditional authority structures of the organization (the bandwidth required to communicate the context and consequences of each decisions would increase the time taken to make the decision by two or three (base 10) orders of magnitude). As a result, organizations are forced to place a large amount of trust in individual developers, effectively granting them carte-blanche for their actions.
As a result, software developers are often in positions that confer considerable power and authority, with little of the visibility or accountability (or remuneration) that normally comes with such positions.
Furthermore, the interaction between developers and the traditional management hierarchy is typically pretty dysfunctional. Most organizations management structures are staffed with individuals who tend to emphasise and practice "soft skills" centred around sales, communication and persuasion, rather than attention to detail, patience and persistence. As a result, rather a lot of what developers do all day tends to slip under the radar.
Is it any wonder that the politics of the software development community tends to be oriented towards decentralisation, individualism, and (borderline) anarchism? This is the world that most software developers inhabit in their workplaces already. The superiority of decentralised decision making over centralised decision making is manifest to all of us - we see the evidence every day.
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#3I've gotta agree with Appelbaum - this thesis is ridiculous and unsupported.
There are tons of activists in many different fields, and there's nothing about being a computer programmer that makes you more likely to be an activist. Just because this guy cited a couple of activists who were also computer programmers is just not support enough -- if he really wanted a balanced review, he would have talked about any activists in any other fields as well for comparison.
The reason it was easy for him to make this connection between digital rights activism and programmers is because it's easy to find activists within a field they work in. So if you're talking about digital rights and internet openness, of course the champions of this are going to be people who work with computers for a living.
If you look at something else like politics, or civil rights, or helping out poor people or people in war-torn countries, you'll find a whole lot less programmers stepping up to the plate on these issues, and for a totally sensible reason - it's not as relevant to them.
I'd like to propose an alternate thesis: Within any field, there will be a certain small number of people who have strong morals and are willing to disobey authority to champion what they think is right. At the current moment, there is a particularly high rate of activism within the "digital rights" field because the internet is comparatively young and people are still trying to figure out what rights you have.
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#4A nice quote from Jefferson that I spotted in the comments:
"[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means."
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#5Software developers generally occupy positions of considerable (if unacknowledged) power and trust within their organizations. The practice of software development necessarily involves dealing with minutiae in large quantities; in making making dozens of mostly small (but consequential) decisions each day. In aggregate, the effect of these decisions can be (and often is) of enormous import to the business or organiza…
>>Most organizations management structures are staffed with individuals who tend to emphasise and practice...communication and persuasion
If only. More like "do it this way cause I say." Looking back at some of the places I've worked, it would be a pleasure if this were more true.
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#6Very light article, with a half-assed counterpoint... shame. Could have been more.
I'd love for there to be a strong correlation between technical skills and opposition to authoritarianism... that would certainly help us in the battle against technologically-driven dystopias.
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#7The article misses a rather large point: We (meaning the tech elite) are the first army in human history to be less concerned with the acquisition of power and control and more about giving that empowerment to the individuals we fight for.
Hear me out.
Those of us over the age of 30 are mostly digital immigrants. We remember a world without CallerID, a PC in every office, and a global network interconnecting all the things. If you were "That Computer Guy/Gal" you were a pioneer along the Oregon Trail that helped pave the way for the common person to have access to the breadth of human knowledge.
While the government spun (and continues to spin) its wheels on how to legislate, tax, and control this virtual landscape, many of us were forced to develop of our code of ethics; many times in complete isolation from one another.
A select few had the worlds biggest glass up against the world's biggest door; and most of us chose (choose) to honor that responsibility by respecting the privacy of one another.
There are some that are corrupted by this power and choose to monitor everything they can about everyone they can but by and large the majority of us drew the line on privacy issues a long time ago. Most of us know how easy it would be to fire up email archives, chat logs, and remote screenshot tools but we've made a conscious decision to not do so outside the context of our daily responsibilities. Even more so, I do not stand alone in my past decisions to inform company users of any changes in the assumed privacy of their workspace instead of merely turning on a new fizzbuzz feature that ends them up in my office.
We developed our own morality in a vacuum where historically the opposite has been done. Nietzsche would be having a field day with this.
The "We Watch Everything" concept pisses us off because it's old thinking. Just because you can doesn't mean you should and the technical elite community has proven that absolute power does not have to corrupt absolutely. We can self-govern while respecting the right to privacy of the individual.
That, in a nutshell, is why I think so many of us are appalled at PRISM and the other programs we all assumed existed.
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#8hierarchy positions are much more political than technical ones, so hackers are picked by skill and quality instead of 'political reasons', in any strict hierarchical organization, the 'rebels' or 'dissidents' or 'opinionated' are gonna be weeded out of positions of power early on, and this serves to maintain, in the upper levels, only people who have the same exact vision and mindset as the people who are already there, be it because they are really strong followers of the institution credo or because they let themselves be molded by it.
Academia, military, corporations all are like this, I believe.
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#9[deleted]
Re: Hackers vs. suits: Why nerds become leakers
#10I've gotta agree with Appelbaum - this thesis is ridiculous and unsupported. There are tons of activists in many different fields, and there's nothing about being a computer programmer that makes you more likely to be an activist. Just because this guy cited a couple of activists who were also computer programmers is just not support enough -- if he really wanted a balanced review, he would have talked about any acti…
What you wrote here is exactly what sprung to my mind upon reading the headline, never mind the story itself. But then after reading it I got to thinking of all the developers that I have met that are absolutely resolute in their belief that, for example, the whole project was done wrong from that start and needs to be written despite the fact that I think it is clear that the risk-reward for such a thing is a terrible trade off. And then there is the over-representation that I perceive in libertarian-types in the tech business.
I don't know, maybe there is something to the idea that spending most of your time engaged in total control over a virtual environment that executes pure logic turns people into activist-types or attracts them. I think the most important thing to being an activist is to be sure you are right and I have met no shortage of hackers that are sure they are right (often no matter how wrong they actually are).