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Hacker Cultures: The Conference Podcast
As Covid-19 turned most conferences virtual, so to combat Zoom-fatigue, at 4S/EASST 2020 we decided to try another format and turn a conference session into a podcast. Among hundreds of panels, papers and sessions, our panels rounded up all sorts of researchers who study what it is to be a hacker, and what hacking, programming, tinkering and working with computers is all about. We have continued biennally for full three seasons.
The newest season comes to you from the 2024 join Society for Social Studies of Science/European Association for the Study of Science and Technology conference (4S/EASST) in Amsterdam, titled "Making and Doing Transformations".
The second series was from EASST 2022 titled "The Politics of Technoscientific Futures" held in Madrid in July 2022. Our panel was titled "Hacking Everything. The cultures and politics of hackers and software workers". The first series was from 4S/EASST in "virtual Prague" in August 2020, titled "Locating and Timing Matters: Significance and agency of STS in emerging worlds".
We the hosts are Paula Bialski, who is an Associate Professor at the University of St. Gallen, Andreas Bischof who is a Research Group Leader at Chemnitz University of Technology, and Mace Ojala, a PhD scholar at Ruhr-University Bochum. Audio production by Heights Beats at Hotmilk Records. The theme track of first series is "Rocky" by Paula & Karol. Heights Beats produced the theme track of the second series. Funding for the editing of this first series comes from University of St. Gallen, the second from Chemnitz University of Technology.
Hacker Cultures: The Conference Podcast
Episode 6 (2020): Stéphane Couture - Hacker Culture and Practices in the Development of Internet Protocols
Stéphane Couture is a Professor at the Faculté des arts et des sciences - Département de communication at the University of Montreal.
Referring to previous work done on hacker culture and free and open source software, Stéphane's presentation will look at the cultures, practices, and power dynamics of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and its sister and peripheral organization, the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). IETF is the main organization building Internet protocols, namely the formal specifications and standards that specify the rules and forms of computer communication on the Internet. He proposes to look at protocol development from the perspective of hacker cultures and practices described by authors such as Coleman and Kelty. Indeed, while the ‘protocol’ artifact is different than the software ‘code’ of hackers, many aspects of its development are reminiscent of hacker culture.