| Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools. |
The moral ambiguity of social control in cyberspace: a retro-assessment of the ‘golden age’ of hackingNorthern Illinois University, USA, jthomas{at}sun.soci.niu.edu The tension between doing right and doing the opposite often blends into blurry boundaries where the two merge and a dialectical dance between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ plays out. Computer hacking helps to illustrate this tension. Here, the dual ethical frameworks underlying the enterprise both of computer hackers and law enforcement agents in the late 1980s and early 1990s is examined. It is suggested that the moral nature of ‘computer deviance’ is slightly more ambiguous and far more complex than we often recognize. The article concludes by suggesting that the broader issue raised here is not so much whether the hackers’ behaviors were wrong, but in determining where the line between right and wrong lies and how this line is defended.
Key Words: computer underground • hackers • hacker crackdown • hacker ethic • social control in cyberspace
New Media & Society, Vol. 7, No. 5,
599-624 (2005) This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
 |
|
Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
