‘The hacker’ is the epitome of a cybersecurity threat and the embodied misuse of the Internet and associated technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT). Portrayed as being both a state, semi-, and non-state actor, hacking and corresponding communities carry a strategic role in the political interactions and practices on cybersecurity. However, in recent years the term has begun to change. Concepts such as hackathons, white hat hackers, and ethical hackers became prominent and made hacking a mainstream concept. Leonie Tanczer will draw on her extensive research on hackers and hacktivists to discuss the shifting state of one of the most prominent cyber(in)security notions and identities that populate the computer security space.

Leonie Maria Tanczer is Lecturer in International Security and Emerging Technologies at University College London’s (UCL) Department of Science, Technology, Engineering and Public Policy (STEaPP). She is a member of the Advisory Council of the Open Rights Group (ORG), affiliated with UCL’s Academic Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security Research (ACE-CSR), and former Fellow at the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society (HIIG) in Berlin. She tweets at @leotanczt.