“On the Internet, We Are All Pirates, and That’s Good”: An Interview with Jean-Marc Manach

Abstract

This interview with Jean-Marc Manach – investigative reporter, specialist of surveillance and privacy protection on the Internet, and a wellknown French “hacker-journalist” – explores the issues of cyberconflict and cybersurveillance, focusing on the broad phenomenon of “piracy”. In doing so, the interview outlines the different definitions, framings and reconfigurations of those practices, enacted by network users, which have been labeled as “pirate” by different economic and political actors of the Internet value chain. Following Manach’s reflections, the interview provides a few benchmarks towards a critical perspective on “piracy” as an ensemble of situated practices which places us, perhaps for the best of our society, in the condition of being “all pirates” of today’s digital networks – engaged in the construction and sharing of cyberknowledge.