Keren Elazari: The Heroes and Anti-heroes of the Information Age

Keren Elazari (@K3r3n3) was talking about The Heros and Anti-heroes of the Information Age at dConstruct these are my notes from her talk.

I'm here because of Angalia Joile in Hackers - I realised that everything I enjoyed was called hacking.  And because of Moto Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell.

Clarke's third law:  any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Second law:  the only way to find the limits of the possible is to go into the impossible.

Singularity University.  Preparing humanity for accelerating technology.  Technology is already part of our lives, it's a reality not science fiction.  Information is power?  As our lives are becoming more digital it's hackers that have become powerful because manipulating data is now power.  Rules, laws and operating system are man made rules and can be bent and broken.  Stanislaw Lem - the Futorlogical Congress.  Hacking your Oyster card for unlimited travel is a form of music.

For hackers of the last centenary information should be free.  The mainstream media portrayed them as criminals bent on destruction.  The hackers pushed the boundary of the possible.  The Hacker Manifesto.  As hackers came together so did networks.  The doomsday scenarios of Hollywood started to come true - Stuxnet was a cyber weapon that changed the world bcause remote systems are connected.  Cyberspace is the 5th area of warfare, modern armies harnessed the power of the hacker.  The F35 fighter jet has a problem - the specs have leaked, China has it's own copy.  Current models of drones are human piloted, the next generation won't be:  Skynet.  These killing machines can be hacked.

Wikileaks harnessed the power of hackers to create WikiLeaks to try and make governments more transparent.  "Give man a mask and he will speak the truth."  See anonymous and the V masks.  Anon was born online and is an organic internet phenomenon - a ghost in the shell.  Arguably the most effective format for protest, appeals to those to disinterested in politics.  You cannot arrest an idea. ~@topiary  Aaron Swartz - a crime of curiosity.  Snowdon - a hero or a traitor.  C21st cyberpunks.  It's not what's going to happen to them, it's what's happened to us, what's happened to democracy.  Pirate Parties are challenging democracy.  Citizen's movements like Crypto Party.  BitCoin is democratising money.

Hacking the human mind is understanding biology is a living operating system.  Oscar Pistorious shows how we can enhance the human body.  Miss Left Anonym (sp?) is adding sensors to her body.  Differentiates between the born and the made.  Amal.net will implant you with an RFID chip for $30 and a liability waver.  Medical devices can be hacked with potentially fatal results.  Neural hackers are working on brain waves with magnets and electricity.  Science fiction is becoming reality.  Hackers will rule this increasingly digital world.

Hacking is a metaphor for fixing problems with imaginative and creative solutions.