SXSW Film Reviews
By Cindy Widner, Fri., March 15, 2002
OWNED
D: Jennifer Read.Documentary Feature First Films, World Premiere Here are some words used to describe hackers in Owned, Jennifer Read's stylish study of computer geeks and their shenanigans: adventurer, explorer, (h)activist, visionary, a person having fun, as if on a playground. What's left? Oh, yeah: criminal (also: white, male). Owned is compelling not for its efficient take on the history of hacking (which we can't call "computer hacking" because, as more than one interviewee points out, hacking is modifying any kind of machinery or structure to increase its performance, or just to fuck with someone or something, or both), but because it focuses on several hackers who did some serious time for their transgressions (which include such national security threats as rerouting phone lines so they could win Porsches in a radio-station contest). Owned flows seamlessly from the true-crime silhouette of mystery man Fugrag, to the strangely sad monologues of Kevin Mitncik, once "The FBI's Most Wanted Cybercriminal," to the affable tales of Yippie-era phone phreaks, to the vaguely Burning Man atmosphere of Las Vegas hackfest Defcon, all without telling us whether to think hackers are despicable or heroic. Instead, it does what most good docs do: sits back and lets the geeks tell the story.