Hackers of the world unite

By Mark Fonseca Rendeiro
Comment is free
guardian.co.uk
13 January 2010

The 26th edition of the world's largest annual hacker conference, 26C3, took place in Berlin last week. With about 2,500 attendees, a combined total of 9,000 participants worldwide (via live streams), and an array of features that no other conference in the world can match, it was very much a milestone.

A bit on the word "hacker", as I know the term might be bothering some of you. I am not using it in the stereotypical way mainstream society often does, to refer to criminal and malicious activity. The hackers I am talking about go back to the origins of the word: one who tinkers, one who deconstructs out of a natural curiosity about how something works and how it could be made to do something it wasn't originally intended to do. Such abilities are akin to the skilled locksmith, and do not automatically make a hacker a criminal. Unfortunately for many who work in mainstream media, the word has been hijacked to be synonymous with "electronic evildoer". Yet, like many words that have been used to keep minority groups down, hackers are taking the label back.

Announcements such as the GSM encryption crack may have made international headlines last month, but something much more significant is clear: throughout the world, hackers have come out from their bunkers and opened up community spaces. They go by various names (co-working spaces, clubhouses, hideouts, space stations) and are a global-scale breakthrough for a community that for decades has not always been willing or able to go public. By opening up, they've not only gone public, but have also opened their doors to anyone curious or interested in the world of technology and how things work.

This phenomenon may be bigger than it has ever been, but in some corners of the world, it is not altogether new. Groups of German hackers have long organised themselves as officially recognised clubs and taken on challenges of a technical (or non-technical) nature. In North America, the movement has seen its greatest expansion in the past few years, with spaces such as NYC Resistor in Brooklyn, Pumping Station: One in Chicago and Noisebridge in San Francisco providing a creative space for a rapidly growing membership. The hacker space movement includes clubs in different parts of Latin America, as well as in South Africa, Israel, Iran, Dubai, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan and Australia. Every month, the list gets longer as more groups come forward and post their details online at hackerspaces.org, a central hub and wiki for all info about spaces, including how to start one.