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| The Cryptonet The internet is based on digital code which for the average human is cryptic. We cannot decode it directly with our senses, we need keys, abstract languages, tools to write or read code, and machines which transform the code in physical action, into visualisation or other events for our senses. Our perception and other mental abilities in certain ways become dependent of keys and codes. Who controls and owns this keys and codes? Is it controlled democratically, is it controlled like a good in capitalist economy? Are the codes and keys open source, proprietary or commercially monopolized? The alternative hero in the cryptic is the 'hacker'. A true hacker is a creative coder who usually does not label himself 'hacker'. People who demonstratively call themselves 'hacker' often are immature would-like-powerkids, many of them just small crackers, or when disrespecting the hacker ethics on higher levels, they are no better assholes than managers disrespecting business ethics. Linus Thorvalds did not think about cracking Windows, he hacked a kernel for open software. Hacking in the first place simply is intelligent behaviour, the intelligent creation of code, the intelligent use of networks and machines. When it conflicts with political powers, it becomes electronic civil disobedience. If someone ignores the difference between a cracker and a true hacker, most likely wants to sell you pseudo-protection software. We should be in sorrow more about people who accept or enjoy dirty power and sell their soul to secret services, military forces and economic interest groups. Part of the nasty side are sensationalist journalists also, who produce media brainwash about hackers and security. The cryptic has negative and positive political potential. Democratic groups and engaged media, who suppoort the positive potential, must encourage technologically and scientifically skilled people, to realise their democratic responsibility. Many who touch the cryptic, or work in it and with it, want appropriate democratic controls anyway: concerned social scientists and philosophers; mathematicians, cryptographers or cryptologists, the software engineers and other advanced coders. This is on of the happier contexts in which cryptography happens. Classic cryptography did belong to the arts. The cryptic always questions our perception, in this sense it has to do with art. The work of net artists consequently takes in question how we perceive all those digital networks in our life. From the cryptic lines can be drawn to belief systems, to public and private paranoia, to conspiracy theories, to the extraterrestrian complex and other related phenomena. The essence of such themes in the web is buried under the flood of fancy or ugly junkpages which refer to the same theme. Here are just some cool links to cryptology and into the cryptic. I`ll save my remarks about cryptotactics and counter-cryptotactics for mouth to mouth propaganda. It seems that during each new US-war many US .gov sites get streamlined. |
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Introductory Cryptolinks |