Lecture 6

Chaos Computer Club (1982) — activism

hacking to make political statement
positive meaning at the time, when they hacked a bank they were hailed as heroes by the people
but they also had their own agenda
by 1988 hacking was criminalised, and Wernéry was arrested for computer crime.

Demoscenes in 1980s

personal computers

netherlands — governments were trying to teach people how to use it
from 1986, government made computer education for future gainz
by 1980s, 30% owned a pc. by 1995, 60% did.
real support by the governments
1993 — hacking at the end of the universe conference.
1994 — de digitale stad (digital city). not only hacktivists, but also civilians learned about it, and all modems were sold out in 3 days.

Rise of Internet

“confluence of 3 desires”

government and France Telecom offered the Minitel computer. one of the largest consumer networks, larger than most American stuff

netherlands — Viditel (1980), Dutch version of Minitel. was not as popular because the gov didn’t fund it as much

electronic mail (1981) was one of the biggest uses in America, not as much in Europe. still, companies/unis/gov used it.

in the US, it’s big networks owned by companies. in EU, every country had its own network, owned by governments.

Rise of gaming:

In the US, they started as a group. in France, mainly from social sciences or engineering schools

First NL Bachelor program was in 1981, you have a masters since graduation in 1973

Bachelor in Information Science was first at Tilburg Catholic School (home of SSAA) — sign of professionalisation

Eventually, the three traditions split into various courses (approximately):

info society => knowledge society

studied econ at Harvard, wealthy parents
both parents studied exact sciences
did good investments
CEOs valued her observations in her newsletter “Release” and Release 2.1 about digital culture