Response by Gabriella Coleman. As someone whose job is to study hackers, I have nothing but admiration for the journalists and authors who have penned wonderful books on hackers. Bruce Sterling is one of those luminaries and without fail, I always assign a few chapters from The Hacker Crackdown, which reveals in stunning and humorous ethnographic detail the cultural logic of the hacker underground. Given that WikiLeaks can only be understood in light of hacker values and traditions, I was wondering when Bruce Sterling would chime in to connect the dots between WikiLeaks, the organization, and the wider culture of hacking from which it emerged.
He finally did, and like most of his writing, it is a tour de force: lyrical and seductive, thought provoking with many excellent points.