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916 lines
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_______ _______ __
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/ _____/ /__ __/ / /
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/ /__ / / ____ __ __ __ ___ __ __ ____ / /
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/ ___/ __ / / / __ \ / / / / / //__/ / //_ \ / __ \ / /
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/ /____ / /_/ / / /_/ / / /_/ / / / / / / / / /_/ / / /
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\_____/ \____/ \____/ \____/ /_/ /_/ /_/ \__/_/ /_/
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April, 1996 _EJournal_ Volume 6 Number 2 ISSN 1054-1055
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There are 914 lines in this issue.
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An Electronic Journal concerned with the
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implications of electronic networks and texts.
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760 Subscribers in 32 Countries
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University at Albany, State University of New York
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EJournal@Albany.edu
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CONTENTS: [This is line 20]
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HACKER FOLKLORE ON USENET:
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A RHETORICAL APPROACH TO HACKER SUBCULTURE
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by F. Sapienza
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[sapief@rpi.edu]
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Editorial Comment -- A Fifth-Anniversary Note [ at line 801 ]
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Information about _EJournal_ [ at line 826 ]
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About Subscriptions and Back Issues
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About Supplements to Previous Texts
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About _EJournal_
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People [ at line 878 ]
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Board of Advisors
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Consulting Editors
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*********************************************************************
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*****************************************************************
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* This electronic publication and its contents are (c) copyright *
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* 1996 by _EJournal_. Permission is hereby granted to give away *
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* the journal and its contents, but no one may "own" it. Any and *
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* all financial interest is hereby assigned to the acknowledged *
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* authors of individual texts. This notification must accompany *
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* all distribution of _EJournal_. *
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*****************************************************************
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======================================================================
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HACKER FOLKLORE ON USENET: [line 52]
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A RHETORICAL APPROACH TO HACKER SUBCULTURE
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by F. Sapienza
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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
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Department of Language, Literature
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and Communication
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[sapief@rpi.edu]
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ABSTRACT
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Hacker subculture greatly affects computer mediated communication
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for all users. With the emergence of hacker influence comes
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increasing interest in the subculture's values, norms, and rules.
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Stories, and especially folk narratives, are often transmitters of
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cultural presumptions. This essay argues that hacker stories offer
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insight into the subculture, and it examines one hacker folk
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narrative with the goal of learning how hacker identity, conduct,
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and community are contested, negotiated, and reconstituted through
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storytelling.
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INTRODUCTION: THE HACKER INFLUENCE ON COMPUTER MEDIATED
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COMMUNICATION
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The modern growth of the Internet, the World Wide Web, and various
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other online computer networks has given the "hacker subculture" an
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unprecedented position of influence over computer mediated
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communication. Connected to the nerve centers which make the whole
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net "tick," hacker subculture views itself as having tremendous
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control over the enterprise. As Martin Lea notes, hacker subculture
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"is a community of experts who see themselves at the forefront of
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social as well as technological change. This perception is strongly
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and repeatedly communicated to one another and largely defines the
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group in contradistinction from the rest of society" (Lea et al,
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1992:93). No longer limited to clandestine programming circles, the
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influence of hacker norms and values is felt in most every instance
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of interaction with a computer.
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[line 89]
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Recent scholarship has contributed much information about the norms,
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values, politics and morals of this culture (see Turkle, 1984; Levy,
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1984; Perrolle, 1987; Roszak, 1986). While this research approaches
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the hacker community from psychological, sociocultural and
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historical perspectives, the research does not fully examine hacker
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subculture from rhetorical perspectives.
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One important rhetorical component of any culture is the art of
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storytelling. Stories function as instruments which organize,
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store, and transmit knowledge of experience. As Walter Ong states,
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stories make up the bulk of what constitutes knowledge of human
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experience:
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Human knowledge comes out of time. Behind even the
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abstractions of science, there lies narrative of the
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observations on the basis of which the abstractions
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have been formulated. . . . All of this is to say that
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knowledge and discourse come out of human experience
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and that the elemental way to process human experience
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verbally is to give an account of it more or less as it
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really comes into being and exists, embedded in the
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flow of time (1982:140).
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Narrative is an essential component of the construction and
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transmission of human knowledge. Furthermore, narrative plays an
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essential rhetorical role in persuading community members towards
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certain modes of response and action (see Abrahams, 1968; Fisher,
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1989). For that reason, any full analysis of a culture requires an
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examination of its storytelling practices.
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[line 119]
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The aim of the present work is to enrich present scholarship about
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hacker subculture through analysis of the rhetorical practices of a
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"hacker" folk narrative. In particular, I will analyze one story
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which appeared on the Usenet newsgroup comp.society.folklore in
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October 1994. In the words of the group charter,
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Comp.society.folklore is dedicated to the discussion of "computer
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and Internet history and legends, both the truly legendary and
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'urban legend' style legends" (Group Charter, 11/01/1994). Within
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this group, participants exchange stories, jests, tall tales and
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practical jokes. These stories typically involve interaction
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between hackers and non-hackers, a situation whose contrasts and
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confrontations bring the hacker identity into sharp focus. For this
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reason, the stories on this newsgroup are excellent cultural
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artifacts from which to observe this community. Through an analysis
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of one of these stories, we will gain a better sense of how language
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is valued by this community, of what elements, both formal and
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substantive, are required to construct a hacker story, and of the
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ways hacker identity, ideology and culture are represented and
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reconstructed rhetorically through narrative.
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HACKER ANTI-AUTHORITARIANISM AND TRICKSTER STORIES
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The stories on comp.society.folklore, as David Sewell argues, serve
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as "vehicles for solidifying the folk culture" of the electronic
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frontier (1992). They are not poorly written anecdotes; they
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contain a rich diversity of sophisticated narrative devices. This
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fact reflects considerable rhetorical skill on the part of the
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writers -- a skill not always associated with hackers. The
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individual who relates the story is a frequent participant on Usenet
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and considers himself a hacker. In his words, a hacker "is a person
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who likes to get into the trenches, play around and see what they
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can get the computer to do" (Dan Newcombe, personal correspondence,
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4/5/95).
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This hacker's story falls into a genre that Richard Bauman calls
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"trickster" stories, the kind built on "complex structures"
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involving "information management . . . backstage activity, frame
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manipulation, fabrication, concealment, and differential access to
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information about what is going on" (1986:35). The following
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discussion of the story will reveal that the trickster story not
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only entertains, but serves as moral discourse for the construction
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of hacker ideals and norms.
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[line 162]
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It is important to note that tricks, pranks and practical jokes have
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a long tradition within hacker subculture. The _New Hacker's
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Dictionary_ identifies jokes as one of most favored forms of hacker
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humor (Raymond, 1991:203). Dubrovsky notes, "Pranks, tricks and
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games are benignly tolerated when not actually encouraged. . . .
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Mild larceny, such as faking accounts, breaking codes, stealing
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time, and copying proprietary software, is admired if not regarded
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explicitly." (Dubrovsky, in Lea et al, 1992:93). The historical
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origin of these behaviors is quite complex. In part, it is rooted
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in the hacker ethic "Mistrust Authority -- Promote Decentralization"
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(Levy, 1984:30). Theodore Roszak states that these ethics have a
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connection with the "guerilla" hacker subculture of the late 1950s
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and 1960s, a group of individuals who harbored "anti-establishment,
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anti- war, pro- freedom, anti- discipline attitudes" (1986:142).
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Roszak credits these guerilla hackers as having most affected the
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political image and direction of the computer (138).
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The hacker subculture's approach toward computer mediated
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communication, and toward Usenet in particular, became the general
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public's perception of the Internet: It is a non- authoritarian,
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open system available for the free, uncensored exchange of ideas.
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This value is articulated in the hacker dictum: "All information
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should be free" (Levy, 1984:30). David Sewell outlines the dynamics
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of this norm:
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. . . information (both data and text) should flow
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freely; authority over information systems should be
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decentralized; the aesthetics of programming (or any
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other creation; a poem can be a "good hack") is more
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important than the material uses to which it may be
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put. . . . The core characteristic of Net governance
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is that conventions and rules emerge from community
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practice and consensus rather than being imposed from
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the top (Sewell, 1992).
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The spread of these norms has generated considerable debate both
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among popular media and legislative institutions. Recent obscenity
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cases on Usenet fueled the debate over the U.S. Communications
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Decency Act (S 314/HR 1004) in Congress, legislation whose prospect
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has prompted heated discussion on Usenet and a campaign to stop
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passage of the bill (see Campaign notice posted to comp.org.eff,
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4/5/95).
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[line 205]
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Such heated debate about this issue is not surprising. Principal
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opposition to regulation comes from a culture which prefers
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"community practice" and "consensus" over hierarchical governance.
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Passage of such legislation is viewed as a major threat to the
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fundamental political philosophy of hacker subculture. Preference
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for a more horizontal versus vertical form of government also
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explains the importance of enacting tricks in the hacker subculture.
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While they may function to amuse perpetrators at the expense of
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victims, tricks also enforce hacker conduct. A community governed
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by consensus depends on these tricks and the stories about them not
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just for amusement but for its survival. The story that follows
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illustrates one narrator's attempt to do just that.
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A HACKER TRICKSTER NARRATIVE
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The story to be analyzed is called "USENET/Internet Revenge." It
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emerged in response to the following post which appeared on
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comp.society.folklore in October 1994:
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Strange question, but run with it: What's the best
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case of someone getting even/exacting revenge on
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someone else for something that happened on the
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Internet, or where the revenge took place over the
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Internet
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Petty shit like mailbombing someone into oblivion need
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not apply -- I'm curious what stories and accounts of
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truly imaginative revenge you can recall.
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Here is one respondent's revenge story:
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Lets see. Back in college... (running on a VMS/CMS and
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MUSIC system on an IBM 3090). There was one kid
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(freshman) who had planted himself in the computer
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center. He used two terminals and two accounts, one
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for telnet, which he used to connect to Muds, and the
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other for monitoring incoming e-mail, which was a
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tedious job, as he subscribed to both AD&D-L and
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STREK-L. It wouldn't have bothered a few of us that
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much, but he insisted on using the nice terminals, that
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had some extra keys, extra lines per screen, and did
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graphics (IBM 3179G terminals). [line 247]
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Also, the kid never went to classes, so we knew he must
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be failing. We (being about 3 - 6 people) decided to
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take it upon ourselves to help this kid pass for the
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semester (and get him the hell off the terminals.)
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Here are some of the things that we did that I can
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remember:
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1. Subscribed his account which he used for MUD's to
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the AD&D, STREK-L, and FREETALK lists, plus a few other
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ones. We thought it might annoy him out of there...no
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such luck.
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2. One of us self-proclaimed GPA saviours had access
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to an account that could look up passwords, so she gave
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us his password. We whipped up a program that looked
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exactly like the CMS Telnet. It captured his MUD
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characters name and password, sent that information to
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another account for out later viewing, wiped out all
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traces of itself, and caused the terminal to reset
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itself, as if there was a really odd situation. He
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then logged back in, telneted and all was fine.
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3) Now, armed with this new info, we waited til he left
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for dinner, which gave us a bit of time. We logged into
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the MUD he used, and had his character go around
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attacking random other players, who would fight back
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and beat the living daylights out of him...or we'd have
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his character "donate" all of his possessions to other
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people. Anyway, we destroyed his character.
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After he went through the shock of seeing what
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happened, he actually found out who ran the mud, and
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BEGGED them to restore his character, which they did.
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It seems we can not win with him. [line 283]
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4) Once again getting into his account, we fixed it
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(using CMS/CP commands) so he couldn't connect to his
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MUD's. What we did is defined the TAB character [sic]
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to be . This way, everytime the system sees a . it
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thinks it's a TAB. This is a major problem for
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entering IP numbers or hostnames, as they translate to
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127<tab>0<tab>0<tab>1 It would come back saying that
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the address was not found. He filed a problem report
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on this one. The sys. admin's response to this report,
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after doing some poking around was : "Works for me...he
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must have pissed someone off on the Internet who has
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cut him off." Not the most correct, but she didn't
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care if he couldn't get to his precious games.
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Anyway, this brought us to the end of the first
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semester. He failed out. He wrote an appeal letter,
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which was accepted, and came back. Turns out he failed
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all course, except one, which he got a D- in. He had
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something like a .3 GPA.
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The second semester, we had pretty much given up on
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him, but came up with a few interesting things.
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5) You were not allowed to have food or drinks in the
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computer center. He always did (can't break from
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mudding to eat/drink, now can we?). We would send him
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e-mail from some of the student adminstrative accounts
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we had (I worked there, as well as being a student.)
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saying no food or drink allowed. He would look around
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to see if he could see anyone watching him, but he
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didn't see us (we were good at this.) He wouldn't
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leave, so we'd send him a second warning, this time
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threatining [sic] to call security. Sometimes he'd
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stand right outside the door eating. Once he actually
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threw his food away.
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6) The best thing I remember. Nature called one night,
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and he had gotten upto take a leak. It was about 8:30,
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and most people were in class, in dinner, or just plain
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inebriated. So he would run down the hall to the
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bathroom. We walked over to his terminal and typed
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'kill guard with sword'. Now, in MUDs, when you attack
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automatic characters, they, and any other automatiac
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[sic] characters usually attack back - very fierce.
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When he got back, it told him that he had been killed.
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He looked around frantically, and then logged off and
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left (to cry?) He returned a couple hours later
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though. [line 332]
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A few other odds and ends:
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1) the kid had the palest skin I've ever see
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2) along with the greasiest hair
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3) Once, the power had gone out in a big way (someone
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fell into a transformer or something like that.)
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Anyway, power was out for about 4 hours. Right after
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it went out, he went running downstairs to where
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operations was, and asked the operations manager if the
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3090 was going to be OK. When she told me about it, she
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was still laughing.
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Well, that's as best as I can remember. This was a few
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years ago.
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Hmm...reminds me of a roommate I had once that failed
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out. Spent most of his time playing nintendo/c-128
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games. Skipped his Sociology final to solve "Super
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Mario Brothers." For a 5 page final paper in Creative
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Writing, he wrote a 43-page definition for a
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programming language, which he pretty much copied right
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out of the Turbo Pascal books.
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Boy, does this stuff bring back memories. Makes me
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wish I was back in school again.
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(Dan Newcombe, posted 10/11/94 comp.society.folklore)
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THE NARRATOR AS CONDUIT OF THE COLLECTIVE TRADITION
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The narrator's first accomplishment is the construction of his
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"voice" as a legitimate, responsible and trustworthy member of this
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discourse community. His choice of certain vocabulary words index
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his legitimate standing within the "hacker subculture." Terms such
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as "IBM 3090," "VM/CMS," "CMS/CP" and "MUSIC," unfamiliar to most
|
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novice users, are one means by which he constructs his identity as a
|
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person who knows what he is talking about. The narrator also
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implements what might be called a looking- back- with- an- air- of-
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nostalgia motif, indicated by "Let's see . . . Back in college . .
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." and "Boy, does this stuff bring back memories." This technique
|
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is part of a time-honored tradition in hacker subculture. As
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privileged members of the computer elite, they often wax nostalgic
|
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about such things as the "old Arpanet days" (posted to
|
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comp.society.folklore, 10/16/94). Finally, the narrator adopts the
|
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"voice" of the person who originally requested the submission of
|
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stories by dropping subjects from sentences, a device called the
|
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"pro-drop" parameter (Ferrara et al, 1991:19). Thus we have
|
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sentences which begin like, "Subscribed his account..." and "Skipped
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his sociology final..."
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[line 381]
|
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The borrowing of the requester's voice points out how community
|
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rules emerge as the result of discursive interaction between
|
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participants. When the narrator drops the subject, he adopts what
|
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he perceives is a legitimate way to articulate this kind of story.
|
|
That legitimacy is reinforced, if not called forth, by the previous
|
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poster to the newsgroup. The fluidity of electronic discourse is
|
|
amenable to the kind of rule-sharing that goes on here. Electronic
|
|
texts emerge as the collective product of the entire discourse
|
|
community rather than of one individual. As David Sewell points
|
|
out, the development of Usenet stories "resembles the evolution of
|
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epic in an oral culture: any individual participant is free to
|
|
alter, supplement, or redirect the narrative, but only those
|
|
innovations that are accepted by the community survive" (Sewell,
|
|
1992:603).
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Usenet is one arena of computer mediated communication in which this
|
|
kind of participatory process fosters the creation of new texts.
|
|
The proper rules for discursive interaction and, to some extent, the
|
|
direction of a particular narrative, emerge from the more fluid
|
|
aspects of the medium. The text is not a "closed system" in the
|
|
sense that it alone relates a single-minded authorial voice whose
|
|
meaning is necessarily "immanent" upon its completion. Rather, as
|
|
Douglas Brent argues, the "sliding together of texts in the
|
|
electronic writing space... [calls for] significantly more effort to
|
|
keep the ownership of the ideas separate" (1991). The text is owned
|
|
and sanctioned by the community, and the meaning of that text is
|
|
shared as it is reinterpreted and reconstituted. In this sense, one
|
|
can, as Richard Bauman argues, view "the item of folklore as the
|
|
collective product and possession of society at large, the performer
|
|
...[in] the role of passive and anonymous mouthpiece or conduit for
|
|
the collective tradition" (1986:8).
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FOLKLORIC NARRATIVE AS MORAL DISCOURSE [line 414]
|
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|
|
Let us now turn to a structural analysis of the story. As mentioned
|
|
earlier, the story falls into a genre of narratives called
|
|
"trickster" stories. The formal structure of trickster stories is
|
|
comprised of these elements:
|
|
|
|
1) A description of some user who is misusing the
|
|
system.
|
|
2) A description of the backstage machinations of
|
|
constructing the trick(s).
|
|
3) The implementation of the trick(s).
|
|
4) Result of the trick(s).
|
|
5) An "evaluative statement" (Bauman, 1986:35; Labov,
|
|
1972:363).
|
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|
|
This story is composed of many shorter trick stories that fit within
|
|
the larger trickster structure. The description phase occurs in the
|
|
second and third clauses (the "freshman," "planted himself in the
|
|
computer center," etc). Next comes the description of several
|
|
tricks (subscribing to the multiple lists, resetting the terminal
|
|
and then destroying his character, etc.). Occasionally, the
|
|
narrator fuses the backstage and implementation elements when the
|
|
trick fails (e.g., "no such luck," "all was fine"), while in the
|
|
more successful tricks, the narrator describes the result in greater
|
|
detail ("BEGGED," filing the report," looking around "frantically").
|
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|
|
Interestingly enough, none of the tricks succeed in getting the
|
|
"kid" "off the terminals," or in helping him to "pass for the
|
|
semester." Thus the evaluative statements ("It seems we cannot win
|
|
with him," "pretty much given up on him") function not so much to
|
|
glorify the success of the tricksters but rather to heighten the
|
|
impossibility of the task involved. The story does not diminish the
|
|
effectiveness of the tricks or the craftiness of the tricksters, but
|
|
rather suggests that their ineffectiveness is due more to the
|
|
unusual obsession of the "kid."
|
|
[line 458]
|
|
Indeed, the physical and behavioral labels cast the narrator's
|
|
fellow student as an "Other." The casting as other is also
|
|
accomplished through paralinguistic means. The use of brackets to
|
|
distance the "(freshman)" from the narrator is a device that prompts
|
|
readers to recall cultural stereotypes about the ineptitude and
|
|
immaturity of college freshman. The "freshman" is not equal to the
|
|
narrator and therefore deserves less humane treatment. The line is
|
|
now drawn between the heroes and villains: The greasy-haired
|
|
pale-skinned computer nerd battles the "self-proclaimed GPA saviors"
|
|
on the battlefield called university computing lab X.
|
|
|
|
Casting the "kid" as a "greasy haired" Other is ironic in light of
|
|
the fact that most hackers, as Sherry Turkle's work suggests, are
|
|
conceived as "ugly" men:
|
|
|
|
"Dress, personal appearance, personal hygiene, when you
|
|
sleep and when you wake, what you eat, where you live,
|
|
whom you frequent -- there are no rules [for hackers].
|
|
At MIT, that community is known as 'computer hackers.'
|
|
Elsewhere, they are known as 'computer wizards,'
|
|
'computer wheels,' 'computer freaks,' or 'computer
|
|
addicts'" (Turkle, 1984:213).
|
|
|
|
Turkle points out that this indexes a greater social narrative which
|
|
identifies the mechanical with ugliness, with the unaesthetic.
|
|
Thus, "In the case of seeing computation as ugly, as perversion, it
|
|
is carried by taking a special community within the computer-science
|
|
world and constructing the image of the 'computer person' around it"
|
|
(1984:200). Turkle notes that at MIT, for instance, this cultural
|
|
narrative is parodied through the yearly ritual of the Ugliest Man
|
|
on Campus Contest.
|
|
|
|
The freshman eats, breathes, and lives the computer. For him, as
|
|
for many hackers, the computer is not just a tool for the
|
|
accomplishment of an end. The interaction with that tool is the end
|
|
in itself (Turkle, 200). The "computer hacker" of this story sits
|
|
in contradistinction from the hacker who is narrating the story.
|
|
Like the self-mocking parody instigated by the MIT Ugliest Man
|
|
Contest, this narrative parodies hacker conduct at the risk of
|
|
mocking the hacker narrator himself. The narrative thus becomes the
|
|
focal point of tension, the battleground on which hacker identity is
|
|
contested, negotiated, and reconstructed.
|
|
[line 493]
|
|
The trickster story also functions rhetorically to convey values
|
|
about conduct. It conveys these values in part through entertaining
|
|
its audience. Thus, the playful dimensions of the story are not
|
|
mere embellishments but integral to the success in conveying the
|
|
morals involved. It is in this sense that folkloric narratives like
|
|
this one can be seen as rhetorical. As Abrahams notes, the
|
|
narrative:
|
|
|
|
"demands a recognition of an intimate sympathetic
|
|
relation between a proposed solution of a recurrent
|
|
societal problem and the movement involved in the
|
|
artistic projection of that problem. [This linkage is
|
|
made] not at the expense of the play element of
|
|
culture, but rather by insisting on the essential
|
|
utility of the 'playing-out'" (1968:168).
|
|
|
|
Playfulness serves not as an additive but as an essential ingredient
|
|
in the moral import of this passage. Because of the playful
|
|
portrayal of these problems, and the moral advice proposed through
|
|
their rhetorical enactment, audience members are moved towards
|
|
certain modes of response.
|
|
|
|
THE NARRATIVE AS A CREDIBLE INSTRUMENT FOR MORALIZING
|
|
|
|
For the story to be a credible conveyer of its message, its audience
|
|
needs to perceive that the elements and events hang together
|
|
coherently. To accomplish this, the narrator has to organize and
|
|
present his narrative within a framework of values his audience
|
|
recognizes -- in this case, values regarding the proper rhetorical
|
|
construction of such a narrative. In other words, the "true" story
|
|
in this case will emerge from the effective mixing of its "play"
|
|
elements and its "literal" elements. This in turn calls for good
|
|
"performance," a characteristic associated with oral narration but
|
|
relevant to the fluidity of electronic discourse. Richard Bauman
|
|
explains: Performance
|
|
[line 529]
|
|
represents a transformation of the basic
|
|
referential... uses of language. In other words, in
|
|
artistic performance of this kind, there is something
|
|
going on in the communicative interchange which says to
|
|
the auditor, "interpret what I say in some special
|
|
sense; do not take it to mean what the words alone,
|
|
taken literally, would convey."(1977:9)
|
|
|
|
Good narratives arise from the effective mixture of aesthetic and
|
|
literal elements, so as to create a coherent and recognizable, and
|
|
thus credible, set of relationships. But the creation of these
|
|
relationships and the events depicted depends on how well the story
|
|
is performed. Thus, again, as Bauman states:
|
|
|
|
the narrated event, as one dimension of a story's
|
|
meaning, evoked by formal verbal means in the narrative
|
|
text, is in this respect emergent in performance,
|
|
whatever the external status of the narrated event may
|
|
be, whether it in some sense 'actually occurred' or is
|
|
narratively constructed by participants out of cultural
|
|
knowledge of how events are -- or are not, or may be --
|
|
constituted in social life (1986:6).
|
|
|
|
The author of this story recognizes the relationship between
|
|
"performing" a good narrative and the actual, "literal" nature of
|
|
the events. In a private communication, he indicated that he
|
|
shifted events and embellished characters. He mentioned that the
|
|
kid who got a D- was perhaps his roommate. Furthermore, the
|
|
freshman had not "BEGGED them to restore his character" but "just
|
|
sent an e-mail." And for event "3" of his narrative, when the group
|
|
destroyed the freshman's MUD character while he was at dinner, the
|
|
author indicated that the episode might have occurred at a different
|
|
time: "There were various times we were on as his character, so I
|
|
may have something listed here that we did at a later time"
|
|
(4/5/95).
|
|
[line 565]
|
|
Despite these embellishments, the author told me that for the most
|
|
part he considered the events as "true," that he preferred "to
|
|
remain factual about most things" (4/5/95). His response indicates
|
|
that his narrative, while true "in spirit," is not necessarily an
|
|
absolutely accurate account of the event. The author felt free to
|
|
shift temporal elements and embellish his descriptions of the "kid."
|
|
These choices were intended to enhance the aesthetic value of the
|
|
work; they recognize that the "truth" is a function of the interplay
|
|
of aesthetic and literal elements. A "new" event was reorganized by
|
|
and emerged from the performance of the narrative, and it then
|
|
became the "true" event.
|
|
|
|
The credibility of the events in the narrative affects its
|
|
rhetorical effectiveness. For instance, if audience members are to
|
|
properly place the "freshman" as the villain and the "GPA saviors"
|
|
as the heroes, events must hang together in a recognizable, coherent
|
|
way. This is because the primary aim of the story is to present an
|
|
allegorical problem situation that calls forth "sympathetic" -- to
|
|
borrow Abraham's term -- responses from the audience, not to
|
|
didactically prescribe a set of behaviors. When it is easy to
|
|
recognize and associate itself with the story's principal characters
|
|
and events, the audience is likely to accept and adopt the conduct
|
|
that the story validates.
|
|
|
|
MAKING A CASE FOR ANTINORMATIVE CONDUCT
|
|
|
|
A buried irony in this story is that the tricks are viewed
|
|
positively even though they did not succeed. The narrator told me
|
|
in a private e-mail message that the purpose of the tricks was "one
|
|
of saving this kid." The "save" motive raises an important issue
|
|
with respect to hacker tricks. Earlier, I mentioned that tricks are
|
|
traditionally regarded as important cultural artifacts of hacker
|
|
subculture. But such tricks have been identified as "adolescent"
|
|
and linked to forms of antinormative conduct ranging from flaming
|
|
(Lea et al, 1992:93) to computer crime (Perrolle, 1987:97; Stoll,
|
|
1991).
|
|
|
|
But the association with criminal and antinormative conduct does not
|
|
sit well with most hackers. Those interviewed by Sherry Turkle
|
|
expressed dismay "that their vocation has been tainted with the
|
|
image of 'computer crime'" (Turkle, 1984:233). The author of the
|
|
narrative we are considering bristles at the association of
|
|
criminality with hacking:
|
|
[line 609]
|
|
The media seems to think that a hacker is someone who
|
|
steals creditc [sic] cards, breaks into computers,
|
|
etc... I guess in a sense that is hacking as it is
|
|
pushing the limits of what can be done, but personally
|
|
I tend to think of them as assholes. Hacking should be
|
|
non-destructive, except perhaps to your own stuff (ie.
|
|
you shouldn't cancel someones [sic] credit cards just
|
|
to see if you could do it, but if you happen to fry you
|
|
[sic] video card while playing around, that really
|
|
doesn't hurt anyone else (Dan Newcombe, personal
|
|
correspondence, 4/5/95).
|
|
|
|
This declaration strongly implies that hackers by and large are
|
|
aware of and able to function within accepted social boundaries.
|
|
But inside their own, smaller community they want to enforce their
|
|
own norms by their own methods -- including the kinds of
|
|
"tricks" narrated above.
|
|
|
|
I have already discussed the linkage to guerilla hacker norms
|
|
informed by the anti- establishment atmosphere of the 1960s. Other
|
|
relatively "horizontal" organizing constructs include Usenet and the
|
|
Unix operating system. Usenet was created to let the developers of
|
|
Unix share programming ideas, problems, and solutions. Both Usenet
|
|
and Unix were to serve as environments "around which a fellowship
|
|
could form" (Unsworth, 1995:6).
|
|
|
|
The desire for fellowship mirrors the technical organization of the
|
|
Unix system itself. Unix does not need rigid, hierarchical
|
|
operating structures like those found in the MS-DOS system. It is
|
|
much more "open," permitting users a wide range of alternatives for
|
|
modification and customization of the operating environment. As one
|
|
of the original developers of Unix noted, Unix grew from the ground
|
|
up rather than "by some major management figure sitting at his desk"
|
|
(Unsworth 1995:5).
|
|
[line 644]
|
|
The absence of hierarchical rigidity is clearly a valued
|
|
characteristic of hacker subculture. And flexible, "horizontal"
|
|
social organization requires a set of self- governed procedures for
|
|
policing improper hacker behavior. Such procedures are illustrated
|
|
in the Hacker Narrative. Casting the freshman as an Other indicates
|
|
that he is the transgressor of proper computer behavior, and that
|
|
the narrator is justified in trying to "save" him. Moving the
|
|
transgressor outside the sphere of hacker fellowship is the
|
|
equivalent of putting the dunce cap on him and sending him to the
|
|
front of the room. He is placed in a "liminal" -- an in-between --
|
|
state, separated from the good hackers (i.e., the GPA-saviors).
|
|
Because he is no longer a fellow hacker colleague, tricking him with
|
|
the hope of "reaggregating" him into normal hacker conduct is
|
|
appropriate behavior. (The terms "liminal" and "reaggregating" are
|
|
borrowed from Victor Turner's _The Ritual Process_ (1969).)
|
|
|
|
Coming to the defense of these pranks implies awareness that they
|
|
might be perceived by outsiders as wrong, even though the hacker
|
|
subculture may be tolerant of them. The trickster element of hacker
|
|
subculture must be understood in terms of the sociocultural need to
|
|
preserve their community. The stories about such tricks, with their
|
|
implications about who is Out and whose behavior deserves applause,
|
|
are a gentle but powerful part of the "enforcement" structure of the
|
|
"horizontal" hacker subculture.
|
|
|
|
The fact that the story is narrated within a kind of "playground"
|
|
frame of language (delimited by the "USENET/Revenge" thread) further
|
|
suggests that the narrator and audience recognize that such trickery
|
|
is appropriate only in certain special contexts. But if someone
|
|
violates the context, then, Who knows? -- perhaps that person too
|
|
will become the next Outsider in a USENET/Revenge narrative.
|
|
|
|
CONCLUSION [line 677]
|
|
|
|
This paper argues that stories like the Hacker Narrative are
|
|
essential artifacts for examining the hacker subculture. Through
|
|
examination of these stories, one comes to a fuller understanding of
|
|
how hacker identity, conduct, and community are contested,
|
|
negotiated, and reconstituted. Such understanding is important
|
|
because the hacker subculture greatly affects network environments
|
|
for all of us, not just hackers. Even though there has been much
|
|
attention to the psychological and historical dimensions of hacker
|
|
subculture, there is a need for more analysis of the linguistic
|
|
norms of this culture, and especially its storytelling.
|
|
|
|
This particular narrative shows that "pranks" need to be understood
|
|
within the larger sociocultural ethos of proper computer-using
|
|
behavior, as defined by the hacker subculture. Rather than as
|
|
immature jokesters, the "guardians of the enterprise" see themselves
|
|
as members of a horizontally governed community and therefore both
|
|
responsible and authorized to correct misbehavior. In this sense,
|
|
the story's "mild larceny" is far from illegal within the hacker
|
|
subculture. Such trickery, and the stories about it, are necessary
|
|
for its survival.
|
|
|
|
REFERENCES
|
|
|
|
Abrahams, Roger D. "Introductory Remarks to a Rhetorical Theory of
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|
Folklore." _Journal of American Folklore_. 81:143-58, 1968.
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|
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|
Babcock, Barbara. "The Story in the Story: Metanarrative in Folk
|
|
Narrative." Richard Bauman, ed. _Verbal Art as Performance_.
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|
Illinois: Waveland Press, 1977.
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|
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|
Bauman, Richard. _Story, performance, and event: contextual studies
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|
of oral narrative_. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1986.
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|
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|
---------------------. "Verbal Art as Performance." _American
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|
Anthropologist_. 75:300-21, 1977.
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|
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|
Bolter, David Jay. _Writing Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the
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History of Writing_. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1991.
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|
|
Brent, Doug. "Oral Knowledge, Typographic Knowledge, Electronic
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|
Knowledge: Speculations on the History of Ownership." _EJournal_.
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|
V1N3, University at Albany: New York, 1991.
|
|
(http://www.hanover.edu/philos/ejournal/ejournal.html)
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|
|
|
Burke, Kenneth. _Counter-Statement_. Berkeley, CA: University of
|
|
California Press, 1953.
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|
|
|
Ferrara, Kathleen, Hans Brunner and Greg Whittemore. "Interactive
|
|
Written Discourse as an Emergent Register." _Written
|
|
Communication_. 8:1:8-34, 1991.
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|
Fisher, Walter R. _Human Communication as Narration: Toward a
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|
Philosophy of Reason, Value, and Action_. Columbia: University of
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|
South Carolina Press, 1989.
|
|
|
|
Herring, S. "Politeness in Computer Culture: Why Women Thank and
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|
Men Flame." Forthcoming. Bucholtz, Mary, Anita Liang and Laurel
|
|
Sutton, eds. _Communicating In, Through, and Across Cultures:
|
|
Proceedings of the Third Berkeley Women and Language Conference.
|
|
Berkeley Women and Language Group_.
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|
|
|
Labov, William. "The Transformation of Experience in Narrative
|
|
Syntax." _Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English
|
|
Vernacular_. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 1972.
|
|
|
|
Lea, Martin, Tim O'Shea, Pat Fung and Russell Spears. "'Flaming' in
|
|
computer-mediated communication: observations, explanations,
|
|
implications." Martin Lea, ed. _Contexts of Computer-Mediated
|
|
Communication_. New York: Harvester Wheatleaf, 1992.
|
|
|
|
Levy, Steven. _Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution_. New
|
|
York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1984.
|
|
|
|
Newcombe, Dan. Personal Correspondence, 4/5/1995.
|
|
|
|
Ong, Walter, S.J. _Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the
|
|
Word_. London: Methuen, 1982.
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|
|
|
Perrolle, Judith. _Computers and Social Change: Information,
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|
Property, and Power_. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co., 1987.
|
|
|
|
Raymond, Eric S, ed. _The New Hacker's Dictionary_. Cambridge, MA:
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|
MIT Press, 1991.
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|
|
|
Roszak, Theodore. _The Cult of Information_. New York: Pantheon
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|
Books, 1986.
|
|
|
|
Sewell, David. "The Usenet Oracle: Virtual Authors and Network
|
|
Community." _EJournal_. V2N5, University at Albany: New York,
|
|
1992.
|
|
(http://www.hanover.edu/philos/ejournal/home.html)
|
|
|
|
Stoll, Cliff. _The Cuckoo's Egg_. New York: Pocket Books, 1990.
|
|
|
|
Turkle, Sherry. _The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit_.
|
|
New York: Simon and Schuster, 1984.
|
|
|
|
Turner, Victor. "Liminality and Communitas: Form and Attributes of
|
|
Rites of Passage." _The Ritual Process: Structure and
|
|
Anti-Structure_. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.
|
|
|
|
Unsworth, John. "Living Inside the (Operating) System: Community in
|
|
Virtual Reality." T. Harrison and T. Stephen, eds. _Computer
|
|
Networking and Scholarly Communication in the 21st Century
|
|
University_. Albany, NY: SUNY Press, in press.
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
F. Sapienza
|
|
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
|
|
Department of Language, Literature
|
|
and Communication
|
|
[sapief@rpi.edu] [line 789]
|
|
|
|
--------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|
|
[ This essay in Volume 6, Number 2 of _EJournal_ (April, ]
|
|
[ 1996) is (c) copyright _EJournal_. Permission is hereby ]
|
|
[ granted to give it away. _EJournal_ hereby assigns any and ]
|
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[ all financial interest to F. Sapienza. This note must ]
|
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[ accompany all copies of this text. ]
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SENIOR EDITORS - April, 1996 [line 886]
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ahrens@alpha.hanover.edu John Ahrens Hanover
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Consulting Editors - April, 1996
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bcondon@umich.edu Bill Condon Michigan
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djb85@albany Don Byrd Albany
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folger@watson.ibm.com Davis Foulger IBM - Watson
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gms@psu.edu Gerry Santoro Penn State
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nakaplan@ubmail.ubalt.edu Nancy Kaplan Baltimore
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nrcgsh@ritvax Norm Coombs RIT
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r0731@csuohio Nelson Pole Cleveland State
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ray_wheeler@dsu1.dsu.nodak.edu Ray Wheeler North Dakota
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srlclark@liverpool.ac.uk Stephen Clark Liverpool
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twbatson@gallua.gallaudet.edu Trent Batson Gallaudet
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wcooper@vm.ucs.ualberta.ca Wes Cooper Alberta
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Editor: Ted Jennings, emeritus, English, Albany
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Editorial Asssociate: Jerry Hanley, emeritus, Theater, Albany
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University at Albany Computing and Network Services
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University at Albany, SUNY. Albany, New York 12222 USA
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