Boston BSides Keynote with Dr. Gabriella Coleman
Channel: BSides Boston
Date: 2016-07-25

Anonymous -- the masked activists who have contributed to hundreds of political operations around the world since 2008 -- were perfectly positioned to earn the title of cyberterrorists. In this talk Dr. Coleman considers the various factors, from their uptake in Hollywood film and TV to the timing of their contributions that allowed them to narrowly escape this designation.

Dr. Gabriella Coleman holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific & Technological Literacy at McGill University. Trained as an anthropologist, her scholarship explores the intersection of the cultures of hacking and politics, with a focus on the sociopolitical implications of the free software movement and the digital protest ensemble Anonymous. She has authored two books, Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking (Princeton University Press, 2012) and Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (Verso, 2014), which was named to Kirkus Reviews’ Best Books of 2014 and was awarded the 2015 Diana Forsythe Prize by the American Anthropological Association. The Chronicle of Higher Education named her "the world's foremost scholar on Anonymous".