Imagine our surpise at the October 2600 meeting in Ottawa, when CBC reporter Rodney Palmer showed up looking to do a story on Canadian Hackers. Rodney has had a bit of experience interviewing hackers in the past, having hung out with the L0pht boys at H0H0C0N '94 to write an article for Shift magazine. He also checked in for an interview with Emmanuel Goldstein after an airing of Off-The-Hook in New York. Somehow through the grapevine he heard about our local meetings and came for a look. After coming in and talking with us for a while, Rodney asked if a camera crew could come in and film us... who am I to say no? Twenty minutes later there they were, a camera man, a sound tech and their associate producer Adrian Callender. I don't think we could've asked for a better bunch of guys, they were all interested and open minded to our ideas.
Those who wanted to split before the cameras showed up did, but a good portion of our attendees stuck around and got on film (oh no, now the F3dZ know who we are....). It was an entertaining evening, the crew set up and filmed some of our 'round table' discussion. After the meeting the camera crew went 'adventuring' with a few of our gang, and set up presonal interviews with some of us. We even did the McDonalds thing together, after our 'adventurers' were startled by a police siren (which had absolutely nothing to do with their activities... Heh!). It should be interesting to see what they put together for a story!
For those interested in watching, the segment will be airing on the CBC show Undercurrents on Tuesday November 28th at 7pm (but check your local listings). Even though the TV guide indicates the segment about the 'secret hacker club' aired on November 7th it didn't.
Well the segment has aired. What can I say? It looks like they went for a 'youth of today looking for their place in an Information Society' theme in the segment. Not too much editorializing, just a load of facts and information about us. Would've been nice if we'd been able to put together our own piece about our meetings with some more time to focus on some of the issues that are important to us, but we don't run these things (yet... Looking for information on satellite transmission piracy! e-mail me!).
Thanks to Rodney, Adrian and the crew for avoiding the typical hacker hype usually found in the media.
Check out the link to our story: Hacking the Planet 
Transcript to come shortly...
Local coverage with Rogers Cable and Cyberpunk Live
