The Hackers

Dec 19 2021 11 ep. 624

The Hackers Podcast artwork

Gabriella Coleman, a digital anthropologist most famous for her work with the Hacktivist collective Anonymous, interviews the most influential actors in each era of the evolution of hacking culture from the 1970s to the present day, unveiling how they have moulded the digital world, pop culture and global politics.

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Broken

Dec 19 2021 14 mins

In the past, it was natural to open your phone and pop in a new battery. Today, to do that you may have to be a hacker. Biella speaks to representatives from the EU Right to Repair Movement, and farmers Nebraska to talk about this new, and unexpected frontier in hacker culture we may all soon belong to - the Right to Repair Movement.

Sharing

Dec 19 2021 14 mins

One of the core beliefs in the many subsets of hacker culture is that information should be freely accessible and shared. But there are two distinct ways of achieving this freedom of information - Piracy, and The Open Source.Biella talks to Peter Sunde, co-founder of the Pirate bay, and Karen Sandler of the Software Freedom Conservancy, to discover how both movements have become en

Wetware

Dec 19 2021 14 mins

Biella explores biohacking - the hacking of the human body - and the different reasons why people are becoming cyborgs. She speaks with artist Moon Ribas about how tech can be used to push the boundaries of creative expression while putting humans in touch with the earth, and even the cosmos, and Winter Mraz an engineer who in the aftermath of a horrific car crash, used various imp

End User

Dec 19 2021 14 mins

In the past, state-sponsored hacking focused on espionage, stealing sensitive information and disrupting technological systems. Nowadays, the focus has shifted. Rather than hacking technology, state-sponsored hackers are targeting people. Biella speaks with Darren Linvill about a new kind of malevolent hacking, and how by playing to the algorithms on various social networks, these

For the Lulz

Dec 19 2021 14 mins

Biella and technology journalist Frank Bajak discuss how two teenage hackers, calling themselves Lulzsec Peru, managed to expose corruption and shook the Peruvian government to the core with a massive leak of documents - and in doing so become some of the most impactful hacktivists of the early 2000s.

Aaron

Dec 14 2021 14 mins

Biella explores the legacy of Aaron Swartz. From the age of 14, Aaron was a prolific hacker, inventor and activist. He was integral in the creation of Creative Commons and the Internet Archive, co-founder social media site Reddit, and was passionate in his activism work that culminated in the dismissal of the Stop Online Piracy Act in the USA. But Aaron took his own life at the age

Press Ganged

Dec 14 2021 14 mins

Biella uncovers the story of how in the 1980s and 90s the French government forced hackers to work for them, drawing young men who had skirted the law into the depths of international cyber warfare.

Hail Satan

Dec 14 2021 14 mins

Hackers have long been portrayed as the bad guys, but Biella uncovers how the ethical Grey and White Hat hackers created the modern security industry, despite the risk to their careers, and fierce opposition from major tech and software companies who wanted to keep any vulnerabilities in their products hidden from the public eye. She talks with Chris Wysopal, member the high-profil

The Worm

Dec 13 2021 14 mins

In 1988, the first major computer worm shook the early internet to his core, disabling computers across the network and even causing panic in the Pentagon. Biella uncovers the story with Eugene Spafford, the first person to analyse the worm that caused so much chaos, and finds out why worms can still be so devastating decades later.

Phreaks

Dec 13 2021 14 mins

Biella explores the earliest hacking subculture - The Phone Phreaks - an entire subculture that learned to manipulate the phone system with plastic whistles and tone generating blue boxes, and played a part in birthing the modern digital world. She talks with Phil Lapsley, author of ‘Exploding the Phone’ and a UK hacker who was one of the last generation of traditional phone ph