From Acid Burn to Trinity to Lisbeth Salander, the hacker has emerged in popular culture as the hero as often as the villain. As much as we’d like to believe that hackers have great hair and wear cool latex body suits, that isn’t always the case.

Hacking, hackers and hacker culture have had a massive influence on the world, whether it is in popular culture like Wargames or The Matrix, or criminal events that directly effect peoples’ lives like the Equifax or Office of Personnel Management breach.

An important statement from Hacker history declared, “This is our world now... the world of the electron and the switch [...] We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. [...] Yes, I am a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity…”

In this episode of the InSecurity Podcast, host Matt Stephenson is joined by special guest Nic Percoco, Chief Security Officer at Uptake and founder of the THOTCON conference who discusses the evolving role of the hacker in work, society, and culture.