One theme of mine is territorialization of the digital world, and the tight relationship between cyber criminals and their governments. Sometimes this is practical, as in the fact that Russian cybercriminals can operate freely as long as they do not target Russian /CIS citizens. Sometimes it is felt nationalism as with the patriotism of Chinese hackers. National hacking cultures are a combination of ways of organizing, expectations on participants and the wider digital and state structure in which they are held. Because everything digital is local,, they emerged from the historical evolution of skillbase, opportunity and political economy. It marks the particular division of labour, types of criminal activity and organisational practice that we see in national hacking forums.
极 客精神 is geek spirit (deSombre and Byrnes 2018), the ethos and obligation of community among Chinese pro-government digital activists, hackers and crime entrepreneurs. For Chinese and Russian-speaking cybercriminals the 21st century viewed an evolving relationship between cybercrime, patriotism and nationalism. The authors of this highly informative report say there was a tight relationship between Chinese hackers and patriotic fervour early on. In contrast with the well-known links between the Kremlin and Russian-speaking cyber criminals, that relationship developed as Russian foreign policy evolved in a much more aggressive direction. Chinese hacker patriotism seems to be more organic in form and origin. Starting with first protests in the form of attacks and web defacements against the Indonesian and the U.S. governments. Later, Chinese hackers set up their own companies and contracted services to the Chinese government.
This review of hacker entrepreneurs shows each adheres to a different national culture. This is the case of both mode of practice and overall aims and targets. Something I and others noted with the different interactional ethics in Russian compared to English language hacking forums. English language ones were far more chatty. As the report also confirms, Russian forums emphasize business, not community. Professional in this setting means the cash nexus and the art of the deal, customer care and rewards for loyalty. Social punishments are meted out for weaker and less competent members. Chinese forums are more nurturing. Some hackers run paid apprenticeship programs. It seems there are both civilizational hacking cultures and national ones. Russian hacking sometimes includes the wider ruusky mir. This is not equal. Chinese, of course, participate in English and Russian forums.The reverse is not true. English and Russian speakers do not enter Chinese forums.
Russians and East Europeans saw a criminal market dominated by Americans. They wanted some of that. The report highlights how important Ukraine, especially its Russian-speaking areas pre-war was to the development of a Russian language cyber crime underground. CarderPlanet was formed from a meeting in Odesa in 2000. it was crazy and direct response to the English-speaking Carder group Counterfeit Library. the Russian language for was highly structured and deliberately professionalized in comparison to the anarchic English language one. The harm was significant, costing financial institutions hundreds of millions. As these organizations evolved so did the close links between Russian government and elite cyber criminals. The Russian-Georgian War showed close cooperation in military aims with cyber criminals. The Russian state has been adept at maintaining its cybercriminal capacity.It is hard to maintain the sociological concept of deviance as an explanation for criminal activity in situations where criminal activity is co-opted by the state, where criminals are highly skilled and well rewarded for crime is patriotic.
