socialhacking photos on Flickr

2009SEP111406 by Peter Renshaw

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Now published at seldomlogical.com/2009/09/12/a-benevolent-social-hack

Updated link to original statement by PM.

A benevolent social hack

Today I witnessed a social hack by a UK hacker who in the space of a month turned around 60 years of history. What did it take? A simple idea, a measure of determination some imagination and a bit of luck. What did he achieve? He persuaded the government of the United Kingdom with the help of fellow citizens, to acknowledge the maltreatment of a fellow citizen. But this was no ordinary citizen.

What is a Hacker?

You might have heard of Hackers in the media. [0] Those pesky 12 year-old boys and their computers at it again. Breaking into Government computers and causing millions of dollars damage. If you listen to the media, Hackers are also responsible for numerous other electronic sins when the most likely explanation is probably a poor choice of operating system. [1] Hackers have something of an image problem. In fact the term Hacker has been hijacked and misused. It used to mean a person who playfully enjoyed puzzles, reveled in understanding complicated technology by gaining access to machinery they had no permission to access. Hackers tend to be benevolent. Less interested in exploiting for gain [2], more interested in mastery and exploits to show amongst their friends. [3]

Instead, the media cottoned onto the term Hackers to describe malevolent behaviour and the broken understanding has persisted ever since. [4] So Instead of using the correct technical term Cracker, the term Hacker has now become synonymous with bad. Here is a simple way to correct this. Whenever you hear the term Hacker in the media, ask yourself is the behaviour benevolent or malevolent? If it's malevolent substitute Hacker for Cracker. If the behaviour is benevolent you are getting a definition closer to the original idea describing a Hacker. So to summarise, Hackers are curious and benevolent by nature. The alike understanding the complex and enjoy creating new things, especially technology. [5]

What is a "social hack"?.

What is a social hack?

Just as Hackers enjoy breaking and rebuilding technology, sometimes malevolent Hackers, Crackers try to re-engineer people. The intent is sometimes playful but the most reported reason is to gain access to information for misuse [6] by exploiting the cognitive biases of humans. [7] I can only think of a few instances of social hacks being done for good instead of evil. [8] But today I witnessed a benevolent social hack. And a big one at that. Now I have an example that probably best illustrates the benevolence of Hackers and what exactly a good "social hack" is. But first a bit of technology history.

A bit of history

If there is a birthplace of modern hackers you might be tempted to think MIT. [9] But you'd be wrong. Modern computer technology has it's birthplace in the United Kingdom. First there was Charles Babbage. Babbage created a mechanical calculating device and with the help of another Ada Lovelace between them the became the original, hardware/software team. [10] Babbage and Lovelace might have supplied the early inspiration but it took the Second World War, another 83 years [11] to encourage the theoretical framework and a complete working example of what we now know as Computers to exist. And at the centre of all this was one man, Alan Mathison Turing. [12]

Turing is the original Hacker, a mathematician, code breaker and computer scientist. Turing had a measurable effect on the infant science of computers with the creation of the

Turing machine" [13] and the thought experiment, "Intelligent Machinery". [14] Turing also designed machines, part electrical, part mechanical to crack the German Enigma and numerous other algorthyms to help crack encrypted messages vital for the German war machine.[15] In the mid to late 1940's, Turing continued to apply himself to the big problem of the time, outlined in "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" [16], software for the Manchester Mark 1 [17] and developed the "Turing Test" [18] as a means to test if a machine is in fact intelligent.

What is a social hack again?

Enough of the history, lets get back to social hacks. Turing was clearly a man of his time able to influence the future course of computer technology for a better world. But Turing was also a man born into the wrong time. Turing's crime was his sexuality. In a time where sexual orientation was not a choice but the law, Turing was persecuted. Turing was also subject to unethical medical procedures by the UK Government. The same Allied government who turned to ordinary people like Turing to help to defeat Nazi Germany. To defeat the Nazi regime and put a stop to the extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and anyone else who didn't fit into the master plan.

So the idea behind a social hack is to somehow change the way people behave, perceive or do things through some mechanism. A social hack is much harder to achieve than a playing around with technology. A social hack relies on being able to persuade other people to do something they might not have thought of, want to do or imagined possible. A good social hack is done, for a greater good. A good social hack improves some aspect of society without personal gain.

A social hack howto

Almost a month ago a UK Hacker and nerd, John Graham-Cumming, wrote about [19] a petition [20] he was forming to get the UK Government to apologise formally to Alan Turing for the treatment he received at their hand. Well almost a month later after many emails, blog posts, twits later, John has got the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown on behalf of the government of United Kingdom to publicly apologise to Alan Turing, his treatment and formally recognise the importance of Alan Turing's technical and scientific application to the war effort. [21] And the contribution he made to science and technology in general. Probably the most rewarding part was also the discovery of members of Turing's existing family who now get some closure. In 2012 it will be the centenary of the birth of Turing London on June 23. [22] For nerds and people who work in computing, the Turing year is going to be big. Maybe not as big as Y2K, but big enough.

So thanks John for this benevolent "social hack". A reminder that Hackers do good things. A reminder that in a just society, people and Hackers alike should be judged by their achievements and not their race, religion, sex or orientation.

Reference

[0] Bruce Stirling, "The Hacker Crackdown",