Discourses of Danger and the Computer Hacker

This article argues that the hacker is constructed as an information deviant and that this image is helpful in providing rules for appropriate behavior in an information society. The hacker accounts in this article are designed to give the reader an understanding of the types of things being said about hackers. What is more important, however, is how these narratives are used to support a specific notion of property ownership and government secrecy. In making this argument, this article traces the development of the narrative about the hacker from harmless computer nerd to terrorist.