Week 9 - response to content

Cyberpolitics and Hackers- are we all somehow one?

An interesting quote by Blankership (1986) from the article titled, 'Citizen-Hacker: Doing Global Democracy' from the weekly readings this week mentions "This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons? We explore... We seek after knowledge?."

This statement got me thinking about how true this statement was back in the late 80's and how relevant it is today.

A question that could be raised is are many of us today in fact, citizen hackers? Curious and simply wanting to explore and delve into the knowledge mind of a computer to gain 'digital inclusion and universal access'? (Lenczner, Townsend & Proulx et.al 2011).
I know myself, that I am forever curious as to how and why software is the way it is as I gain further knowledge, and therefore the more I want to find out about.

That's also why I believe open source software is so important and something that I have a strong ethos towards and the fact that there should be much more of it readily available for users to share with one another.

Another point that springs to mind is the fact that many years ago when they use to have meetings in the public sphere, and those who wanted to voice their opinions or share information were able to do so, I suppose it could be somewhat similar where today particular kinds of 'hackers' simply want to find out more information that they believe should be readily available for all to use and share, but cannot, therefore they hack into a system to somehow try to find it themselves.

So could it be possible that we really all are somehow a 'hack' at some point in that we wish to seek out knowledge and information that perhaps we so rightly deserve to know?

Reference:
1) Lenczner, M, Townsend, A, Proulx, F, Hall, J, Kaplan, A, 2011,
Citizen Hackers: Their Disappearing Role in the Community Wireless Movement, viewed 22 September 2011, http://www.cuwinpdf