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Russel Handorf personal website, and unsecureAn Observation of our State of Affairs

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Friends, firstly, I thank you for taking time to read this; what I have to say will be communicated will be in a conversational format, because I feel it’s all time we have a serious talk. As the title suggests, I plan on staying as objective and subsequently neutral, not use terms that compartmentalize groups of people such as “SJW” or “White Male Privilege.”

We’ve lost the hacker spirit, we’ve lost sight of what we use to be as we’ve all gotten older. I am disheartened to see genuine and good people on both sides of the table begin to create a rift and divide in the community over the actions of other individuals. What I hope to outline is how I feel how we got here, some non-named community examples (you’ll be able to infer who it is if you research hard enough) and hopefully a plan that both the community, conferences, and attendees can engineer and adopt.

Background

In order to understand how I’ve arrived to my opinion, I’d like to explain a little about my background and life’s experiences, so that you may be able to understand how I’ve arrived to the conclusions I’ll later explain. I joined the hacker community when I lived in the South in the mid 90’s; like so many others, I danced madly on the lip of the volcano of what is legal vs a Terms of Service violation from an upstream provider. However I’ve never meant any direct ill intent. My moral compass was derived from the Boy Scouts, where I became an Eagle Scout. I had an educationally challenging childhood, that included lots of bullying and observed at an early age as to what happens when a community attempts to police itself.

On the topic of police,I also work in a federal law enforcement agency, and have so for almost a decade. I’ve seen the best of humanity, and the worst; more frequently, I see the worst because we go after the worst. It gets to me sometimes… I see flashes of horrific videos and images from a variety of events on occasion when I’m alone with my thoughts. I’m not asking for a hug or pity by disclosing these experiences. I chose this job to help people and to give back to society… to catch the monsters in the closet.

What we all recognize is that growing up is hard, everyone takes a different path, and some folk never quite find their way; in all cases, this is fine to some degree. Being a legal adult is different from being an actual adult; making the hard choices now for a better outcome in the future is one of the pinnacles of those lessons. But even folks who are adults by day, at events such as our conferences, become children by night. This is unfortunate, and I’ve spoken to many people to gain insight into their experiences in our community. Good people make mistakes, and bad people keep getting away with bad behavior; combining the two, I feel, is a disservice, but more on this later.

We do have monsters, and it’s time to address how I feel we’ve allowed them to grow and become part of the hacker community.

The Scene__Having been to many hacker conferences since my first Hackers On Planet Earth almost over two decades ago, I’ve seen a reoccurring theme from legal advisors and hackers alike: don’t talk to the police. Big names and heroes in the community have echoed and championed this position, and law enforcement agencies have opened themselves up to criticisms of “attacking the hackers” for decades. __The position of don’t talk to the police used to be limited to the context of “if you’re a suspect,” but it has now turned into “don’t talk to the police, ever.”

This position has also gained popular momentum from what I feel is increasing public awareness regarding police brutality and abuse of authority that have made national attention. This has created the environment in which victims of abuse have nowhere to turn for support.

Over the last year and a half, we’ve seen one popular anonymity community battle with this very problem. A predator exists in that community that has been able to successfully isolate victims from obtaining support from law enforcement… by re-enforcing fears about law enforcement. Those events are tragic, especially for the victims, because now they have no legal recourse and the predator may continue their abuse (and by some accounts, still does).

__The Monsters__Every community our size has monsters; we’re not unique in this situation. From abusive family members, predatory clergy, opportunistic politicians, and more… people are going to be people and eventually make bad decisions. But we’re hackers. We pride ourselves in not being like the others….

http://russell.handorf.org/space.html