The Reith Lectures are considered to be one of the pinnacles of British broadcasting achievement, an annual event with a long history [www.bbc.co.uk] of erudite presentation from big names in academia (and real life too).

This year’s lecturer is Wole Soyinka, Nigerian Nobel Laureate, Activist and Author – and I mention him especially because he seems to have a real majorly harsh down on virus writers, as quoted from his second lecture:

Soyinka: [www.bbc.co.uk]
Lecture 2: [www.bbc.co.uk]

Warped Genius

Actually, that ogre has long been displaced in my estimation by a creature against whom I readily confess that I nurse a deep, murderous loathing. To him belongs the modern crown of furtive, invisible power. I refer to the domination freak whose warped genius creates those invisible, proliferating Frankensteins from his dingy computer den and sends them in virtual space to invade and destroy the work of individuals and institutions. These monsters are without an ounce of hatred in their veins, with no wrong to avenge, no cause to promote, without physical territorial ambition, indeed with no motivation other than the lust for power over unknown millions, both the meek and the powerful, the affluent and the deprived, the professor and the school pupil alike. The most recent of these, like Mr. “Call me God” the Maryland sniper, is not without a message for his captive world – “Have the Guts to call the name of Jesus” is the name of the stalking horse on which his cannibal creation rides in cyber space to wage his war of destruction on the unsuspecting.

It takes little imagination to picture this figure at his computer, with, literally, the whole world at his fingertips, locked in a competitive lust with unknown others for the power to inflict the maximum injury on industrious humanity. This – usually youthful – individual is of course impelled by a genuine passion for discovery, but the space between that motion of a technological curiosity and the gesture that launches a virus on the world is the space that separates the explorer from the conqueror, the adventurer from the imperialist, the liberator from the dictator: it is the space of pure, unadulterated ecstasy of power.

…and so forth; the whole lecture is themed around issues of power – who has it, and who has not – and is an interesting read although perhaps better consumed via MP3 download, which the BBC are making available on a trial basis. [www.bbc.co.uk]

I could react to his comment, although I feel confident that the rest of the world does not give a damn what a 35-year-old Computer Security analyst thinks with regard to the writings of a Nobel Laureate; that said, this is my blog where I am free to say what I damn please, and so I shall.

I think he’s just not quite right.

I know people who have written viruses. I know hackers (of all kinds) and crackers too, and I am even cognisant of the differences between the different kinds.

I believe a better understanding of the motivating force for – shall we say non-commercial? – virus writers was written as below; I don’t agree with everything in the Jargon File, but I find this apposite:

[www.catb.org]

Hackers are control freaks in a way that has nothing to do with the usual coercive or authoritarian connotations of the term. In the same way that children delight in making model trains go forward and back by moving a switch, hackers love making complicated things like computers do nifty stuff for them. But it has to be their nifty stuff.

There are different sorts of power, and Mr Soyinka (to my tastes) is not distinguishing adequately between them; I have my own personal theories about gender and power, including notions of Men being drawn to the exercise of action at a distance – a theory which pulls in spears, cannons, missiles, toy trains, radio-controlled aircraft and hacking – and I believe that geek personality types take one aspect of this to an extreme.

But Mr Soyinka? May I refer you to an extract from the first lecture:

[www.bbc.co.uk]

What happened was quite simple: my routine on most flights is quite predictable: laptop – mealtime and winetime – a bit of reading into – sleeptime – then laptop, all of which take place in a state of near total oblivion to my surroundings. On September 11, the routine was no different. I must have been in one of my sleeptime modes when the event occurred and announcements were made. On waking up, I simply reported back for duty with my laptop.

He has a duty to his laptop? I feel like that sometimes, but I continue to feel that I am master of my computing environment, not least because I choose my software applications entirely on that basis.

So: I suspect that the man’s been burned by a virus. If so? Regrettable, and frustrating, but hardly a reason to project your understanding of power-dynamics into the mind of a virus writer without adjustment, refinement, or modification.

I worry that greater numbers of plain, ordinary folk might begin to think like this. I fear having to suffer highly refined versions of those ancient cyber-security debates which rest entirely upon dubious analogies:

• “like giving guns to children”
• “like hiding keys under doormats”
• “like giving away lockpicks”
• “like giving away hacksaws”

…and of which I have extensive experience; [groups.google.com] is a long thread analysing the same.

If we geeks ourselves are challenged to argue by analogy, please god forbid that having Nobel Laureates skating over selfsame thin ice does not presage the imminent arrival of politicians likewise.