In a World of Hackers
How hacking can act as a moral guide.
As digital technology increasingly invades all aspects of our lives, opinions on privacy and security shift along with it. Who better to discuss the desires and demands of Gen Z in this fluctuating space than a teen hacker? We sat down with CyFi, an artist, founder of r00tz Asylum and white hat teen hacker who uses her hacking powers for good; CyFi’s mom, Nico Sell, tech entrepreneur and leader at Wickr, the non profit foundation dedicated to private communications and free access to information; and Lucie Greene, a JWT futurist and author of Silicon States: The Power and Politics of Big Tech and What it Means for Our Future to talk to about the future of these systems and how hacking can act as a moral guide.
IRREGULAR REPORT: With all the critiques of the internet and social media, can the existing system be fixed or does it almost have to be rebuilt?
NICO SELL: There are a lot of really good, ethical people in both of those spaces. But it does require cannibalizing the current business model. This is an amazing opportunity for people like CyFi and her generation to now make money off of goods and services on the Internet.
LUCIE GREENE: We’re at the moment where we are seeing consumer sentiment and awareness of these issues reach more of a critical mass then we had before. For example, Apple introducing privacy as a key differentiator on their Phone X. Saying privacy is a human right is a big indicator of this shift in awareness. I think that is going to become kind of a self-fulfilling idea that will create a groundswell of consumer pressure. People are starting to think about data collection, security and privacy in a more scaled way now.
IR: CyFi, do you think your generation has a consensus on whether privacy rights should change and in what way?
CYFI: A lot of my peers don’t really think about the security aspect of technology so much. I see a lot of them trying to get into technology and trying to start their own businesses. But I don’t see security as something they take into consideration early on.
IR: When I talk to Gen Z girls about privacy, I get the sense that it’s not a concern. If you can’t hide, then there is no reason to hide your opinion or who you are. Is security and privacy out the window? And if so, is there is any point in caring about privacy?
C: Yeah, I think a lot of my friends have that outlook. It’s
so difficult to stay off of social media, especially when everyone around you is on it. And most people don’t even see the point of privacy. They are like, why do I need to care if the government has all my selfies of my friends?
NS: But CyFi, you’ve done projects that helped convince some of your friends of the importance of security and show them why it’s not just the government they should be concerned about.
C: I think that is the main point I use to convince my friends. That it’s not just the government. There are other people. If somebody has any reason to go after you, there are unlimited resources they could use. Simple stuff like “what’s your mother’s maiden name” are easily accessed.
IR: How is hacking useful in getting your peers to think about security and privacy?
C: My entire school had Chromebooks and that is what we would use for all of our class assignments. We did not have textbooks and we had very few paper assignments. But kids spent a majority of their time just trying to get around the Go Guardian and the blocks that they put on our internet searches. I was taught how to strip Chromebooks down so they worked like average laptops, and so I just brought my own in for class, and started showing my classmates how to get around the blocks.
NS: I think that’s a really important point: if you use the right word with kids, or with teenagers especially, they will be interested. If you frame it as: “Would you like to escape this surveillance of your teachers, principal and parents? Do you want that kind of privacy?.” Every single one of them would
say “yes.” So if you speak to themin those languages, they will be interested. Teenagers are masters of finding ways around the barriers authorities put in place.
IR: Exactly. What do you think is the most critical tool for maintaining control over yourself, your information and your digital presence, as we move towards smarter and more complex systems that are increasingly embedded in our every day?
C: I would go with soldering and how to actually build the physical computers. Because it is so important to understand how things work, especially with computers becoming more mainstream. I do not know how many people have even seen the inside of a computer and know where the connections are. I think it’s a very underdeveloped skill.
NS: CyFi taught all of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders how to lock pick! So I would agree with CyFi, and I’d back it up a little bit more and say hacking is the most important tool. We gave recommendations to the president on cyber policy, and in terms of workforce acceleration our big recommendation was that we need to teach kids of all ages — K through 12 — how to hack. And it was the word hack, not the word security and privacy, that was crucial. Because hacking is cool. It’s something parents don’t know how to do. It’s rebellious and powerful. That’s how we can get everyone to understand technology versus teaching them about privacy and security, which kids don’t really care about unless you frame it in the correct way.
LG: I developed this kind of theory that teenagers are actually the best placed generation to navigate what is fake or manipulated content, because they’ve grown up with digital culture. Fake news could almost be a generational thing that gets eradicated. We now have very sophisticated computers and teenagers who are probably better able to identify what is real and what’s not. Would you agree with that or no?
C: Yes, definitely. I think that growing up with the internet has made my generation a lot more critical about everything around us, because there is so much misinformation and people trying to manipulate you on the internet.
IR: Teaching hacking is an interesting idea. Coding seems so polite and sanitary-not very Gen Z, much more Millennial. Whereas hacking really feels like Gen Z. That energy of resistance and resilience and belligerence, and I mean that in the best possible way-not accepting something as is and really taking things into one’s own hands.
NS: It’s edgy. It’s like skateboarding and surfing. I can’t believe that people never thought surfing was good for you — you know it’s so good for you. And along those lines as well, I think both what the kids have seen now is that they are interested in using those skills to impact politics.
C: Oh yeah, that was super interesting. It’s just amazing that we can teach kids how to do stuff like this and it really draws people’s attention. You know it doesn’t seem so far off, like, “Oh this is some group in Russia who has trained for years on hacking and coding.” We can teach eight year olds how to do this stuff.
IR: How do you create a sense of ethics and ethical responsibility when you are giving them those skills?
We have the honor code posted everywhere at the events and we talk about it a lot. Why would you want to make the internet a worse place? This is our future and it’s a huge part of our lives. We all need to work together to make it a better place. It’s not just our physical communities anymore that people care about.
NS: CyFi’s big brilliance was that we put the honor code into every lesson versus having it as a stand-alone lesson.
CA: lot of those rules are personal. You know: don’t hack stuff you depend on, lock your front door. You don’t want to break that or have something bad happen to it because you do depend on it. You only hack things you own because you don’t know the possible repercussions. And most importantly: know the law and the possible consequences for breaking the law. I think that’s really cool because it’s not just follow the law, do what we say. It’s really, find out and then are you willing to take that risk? Is this something you’re passionate about enough to go ahead and try?
IR: That’s amazing. I’m curious about the teaching of hacking-when you think about teaching to code versus teaching to hack, is hacking less rule driven, almost like improv?
NS: Yes. It’s all about being creative.What we find is that girls are really good at hacking, because it takes both good math skills, good social skills, and good creative skills. That’s what makes a good hacker.
IR: Hacking feels like jazz. If you have five people who are all given the same objective and the same brief, it is possible for them to achieve that thing they’re doing in five different ways, correct?
NS: That’s exactly right and is the big difference between coding and hacking. That’s what’s so cool about it. So the only way you can judge hackers is not by schools or search, but by contests. It never works the second time around in exactly the same way.
IR: That’s amazing.
NS: And on top of that, it is actually a super great community. If you walk into the lock picking village and look lost, someone will come
up to you and be like, “Oh have you never lock picked before? Come over here. This is where you start.” The reason why is because the hacker community is based on the gift economy, so the biggest stars in the community got there because they gave and continue to give back more than anyone else. That’s how you raise your status. So everyone in the community is looking to help everyone else, which you wouldn’t imagine with hackers. But that’s how that community is.
IR: Wow. So if we could only have the rest of the world operate that way we’d be in a pretty good place?
NS: Yeah, I feel so lucky. It is really just the most ethical, smart group of people that I’ve ever encountered. That’s why I’ve been bringing
CyFi there since she was a kid because the best place in the world to learn your ideals is in the hacker community.
