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In Berlin, just after Christmas last year, more than 2,000 hackers and information activists gathered at the CCC's annual conference to discuss technology and the future. Gonggrijp gave the keynote speech, which was startlingly prescient in light of subsequent uprisings, revolutions and riots. "Most of today's politicians realise that nobody in their ministries, or any of their expensive consultants, can tell them what is going on any more. They have a steering wheel in their hands without a clue what – if anything – it is connected to. Our leaders are reassuring us that the ship will certainly survive the growing storm. But on closer inspection they are either quietly pocketing the silverware or discreetly making their way to the lifeboats."
The hacker community may be small but it possesses the skills that are driving the global economies of the future. So what is a hacker? Hackers often describe what they do as playfully creative problem solving. It's much easier to attack than to defend a system, so the best hackers are those who build things. The ones who break them are known as "crackers". The world wide web, and free software operating systems such as the GNU Project and the Linux kernel, could all be considered hacker creations. Even Facebook began as a hack. That is not to say hackers don't attack systems and take things apart. They do, with a compulsive glee, and the more adolescent hackers use their skills as much to show off to each other and rebel against authority than for any greater good. There are good hackers and bad hackers. Some of the best hackers say the line between hacker/cracker or white hat/black hat (ie, good/bad) is of little relevance. Some are amoral, interested only in the intellectual challenge, while others think the ethics behind hacking are all-important. A hacker could use his skill to protect a system he knows is used to track down and kill protesters. He's not "cracking" but how can he be considered a white-hat hacker? The ethics of hacking, like life, are slightly more complicated than a 1950s western movie.