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Conclusion

Members of both of these internet communities seem to be addicted to the virtual spaces in which they interact. Members often spend countless hours discussing, testing developments, or researching new methods to bypass security systems. “If I’ve got access to the net, I’m always around,” says 28 year old owner of a restaurant, a bar, and a motel. There are cases where people have collections of hundreds of Xbox games or HD-DVD movies that have been illegally shared over the internet. It has become an obsession to collect them, and it seems like many have lost track of their original intentions of just “having fun.”

It wasn’t unusual to find cases where members would incessantly check websites that report advances on the communities’ efforts. “I check the main page at least 30 times a day.” Or “my alarm clock is actually the RSS feed of Xbox-Scene.com read aloud by a rather annoying voice.” In general, people seem to have found a place where they can talk about things that interest them and simply love to “live” in these alternate realities.

The size of the communities, and the anonymity the community users enjoy, seems to play an important role in their development. Having a large number of people certainly facilitates things such as massive testing of new findings. However, most important breakthroughs are usually done by very few people, usually one or two persons. In this sense, security breaching is not that different than science, where advancements are only possible when one stands on the shoulders of giants. Moreover, by remaining anonymous to the public, most of the members of a community are able to express their opinions and discoveries, without being liable outside the virtual world.

We also noticed that when communities get fairly big, size affects development. Large groups of idlers simply wait for new findings and don’t contribute back to the community: “most people are using this [large quantity of idlers] as an excuse instead of thinking of more ways to crack the system.”

Finally it seems like these people like to play cat and mouse with corporations, taking new technologies as new challenges. “Nothing is secure.”

 

On to the References

 


Copyright © 2007 Daniel Vogel & Daniel Espinosa. All rights reserved.