Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-skm99 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T16:31:43.962Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 8 - Computer Hacking as a Social Problem

from Part I - Problems Related to Health, Safety, and Security

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 March 2018

By
Brian Alleyne
Edited by
A. Javier Treviño
A. Javier Treviño
Affiliation:
Wheaton College, Massachusetts
Get access

Summary

This chapter introduces the ideas and practices of digital technology enthusiasts who fall under the umbrella term of “hackers.” We will discuss how their defining activity has been constructed as a social problem and how that construction has been challenged. The chapter concludes with several policy suggestions aimed at addressing the more socially troublesome aspects of computer hacking.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Social Problems , pp. 127 - 142
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alleyne, Brian. 2011. Challenging code: A sociological reading of the KDE Free Software Project. Sociology 45(3):496–511.Google Scholar
Assange, Julian, and Dreyfus, Suelette. 2011. Underground. Paris: Editions des Equateurs.Google Scholar
Barassi, Veronica. 2015. Activism on the Web: Everyday Struggles against Digital Capitalism. Routledge New Developments in Communication and Society Research. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bartlett, Jamie. 2015. The Dark Net. London: Windmill Books.Google Scholar
Becker, Howard Saul. 1997. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New ed. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Benkler, Yochai. 2006. The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Berman, Marshall. 1988. All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Berry, David M. 2004. The contestation of code: A preliminary investigation into the discourse of the free/libre and open source movements. Critical Discourse Studies 1(1):65–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cavallaro, Dani. 2000. Cyberpunk and Cyberculture: Science Fiction and the Work of William Gibson. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
Coleman, Gabriella. 2015. Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. Reprint ed. London: Verso Books.Google Scholar
Connor, Stuart. 2013. What's Your Problem? Making Sense of Social Problems and the Policy Process. Northwich, UK: Critical Publishing.Google Scholar
Curra, John. 2000. The Relativity of Deviance. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
DeVoss, Dànielle Nicole, and Porter, James E.. 2006. Why Napster matters to writing: Filesharing as a new ethic of digital delivery. Computers and Composition 23(2):178–210.Google Scholar
Dyer-Witheford, Nick, and de Peuter, Greig. 2009. Games of Empire: Global Capitalism and Video Games. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Embar-Seddon, Ayn. 2002. Cyberterrorism. American Behavioral Scientist 45(6):1033–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frediani, Carola, and Ziccardi, Giovanni. 2013. Inside Anonymous: A Journey into the World of Cyberactivism. Rome: Informant.Google Scholar
Gerbaudo, Paolo. 2012. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Gibson, William. 1984. Neuromancer. New York: Ace.Google Scholar
Harris, Shon, Harper, Allen, Eagle, Chris, and Ness, Jonathan. 2008. Gray Hat Hacking, Second Edition: The Ethical Hacker's Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Osborne.Google Scholar
Haywood, Douglas. 2013. The ethic of the code: An ethnography of a “humanitarian hacking” community. The Journal of Peer Production 3(July). http://peerproduction.net/issues/issue-3-free-software-epistemics/peer-reviewed-papers/the-ethic-of-the-code-an-ethnography-of-a-humanitarian-hacking-community/.Google Scholar
Holstein, James A., and Miller, Gale, eds. 2003. Challenges and Choices: Constructionist Perspectives on Social Problems. Hawthorne, NY: AldineTransaction.Google Scholar
Hong, Renyi, and Chen, Vivian Hsueh-Hua. 2013. Becoming an ideal co-Creator: Web materiality and intensive laboring practices in game modding. New Media & Society 16(2):290–305.Google Scholar
Jamrozik, Adam. 2008. The Sociology of Social Problems: Theoretical Perspectives and Methods of Intervention. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jordan, Tim. 2015. Information Politics: Liberation and Exploitation in the Digital Society. Digital Barricades: Interventions in Digital Culture and Politics. London: Pluto Press.Google Scholar
Jordan, Tim, and Taylor, Paul. 1998. A sociology of hackers. Sociological Review 46(4):757–80.Google Scholar
Jordan, Tim, and Taylor, Paul. 2004. Hacktivism and Cyberwars: Rebels with a Cause? London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kenney, Michael. 2015. Cyber-terrorism in a post-Stuxnet world. Orbis 59(1):111–28.Google Scholar
Lessig, Lawrence. 2001. The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons in a Connected World. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Levy, Steven. 2010. Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution – 25th Anniversary Edition. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media.Google Scholar
MacFarquhar, Larissa. 2013. Requiem for a Dream. The New Yorker. March 11. www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/03/11/requiem-for-a-dream.Google Scholar
Macionis, John J. 2007. Social Problems. 3rd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.Google Scholar
Martin, Nigel, and Rice, John. 2011. Cybercrime: Understanding and addressing the concerns of stakeholders. Computers & Security 30(8):803–14.Google Scholar
Mitnick, Kevin. 2011. Ghost in the Wires: My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker. Boston: Little, Brown.Google Scholar
Raymond, Eric S. 2003. The Art of Unix Programming. Harlow, UK: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Rheingold, Howard. 2000. The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier. Rev. ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Richards, Julian. 2014. Cyber-War: The Anatomy of the Global Security Threat. London: Palgrave Pivot.Google Scholar
Söderberg, Johan. 2008. Hacking Capitalism: The Free and Open Source Software Movement. Routledge Research in Information Technology and Society. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Söderberg, Johan. 2010. Misuser inventions and the invention of the misuser: Hackers, crackers and filesharers. Science as Culture 19(2):151–79.Google Scholar
Spector, Malcolm, and Kitsuse, John I.. 2000. Constructing Social Problems. New ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Google Scholar
Stephenson, Neal. 2002. Snow Crash. New ed. New York: Penguin.Google Scholar
Taylor, Paul A. 1998. Hackers: Cyberpunks or microserfs? Information, Communication & Society 1(4): 401–19.Google Scholar
Taylor, Paul A. 1999. Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Turgeman-Goldschmidt, Orly. 2005. Hacker's accounts: Hacking as a social entertainment. Social Science Computer Review 23(1):8–23.Google Scholar
Turkle, Sherry. 1995. Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet. London: Phoenix.Google Scholar
Turkle, Sherry, and Papert, Seymour. 1990. Epistemological pluralism: Styles and voices within the computer culture. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 16(1):128.Google Scholar
Vegh, Sandor. 2005. The media's portrayal of hacking, hackers, and hacktivism before and after September 11. First Monday 10(2). http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue10_2/vegh/index.html.Google Scholar
Verton, Dan. 2002. The Hacker Diaries: Confessions of Teenage Hackers. Berkeley, CA: McGraw-Hill Professional.Google Scholar
Wall, David. 2007. Cybercrime: The Transformation of Crime in the Information Age. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Yar, Majid. 2006. Cybercrime and Society. London: Sage.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×