Episode 6 (2020): Stéphane Couture - Hacker Culture and Practices in the Development of Internet Protocols

Stéphane Couture is a Professor at the Faculté des arts et des
sciences - Département de communication at the University of
Montreal. 


Referring to previous work done on hacker culture and free and
open source software,  Stéphane's presentation will look at
the cultures, practices, and power dynamics of the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF) and its sister and peripheral
organization, the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF). IETF is
the main organization building Internet protocols, namely the
formal specifications and standards that specify the rules and
forms of computer communication on the Internet. He proposes to
look at protocol development from the perspective of hacker
cultures and practices described by authors such as Coleman and
Kelty. Indeed, while the ‘protocol’ artifact is different than
the software ‘code’ of hackers, many aspects of its development
are reminiscent of hacker culture.