I've often wondered before why hackers avoid journalists, even the ones with the most positive intentions. I wonder no more. Seriously.

I was interviewed by a young journalist recently - curious, interested, open minded. She knew little about hackers and hacktivism, but wanted to write an article for the Special issue of the Link newspaper, whose topic was "Nerds", and the article "Hack to Basics". I took the necessary time to explain the sensitiveness of the issue around the negative vision of "hackers in mass media", some nuanced ways of dealining with certain questions. Edited her article in the end. And then - when it was published, it came out that the story looks like any other stereotyping story over the media. My edits were ignored, and typos appeared on the URL of the hackerspace name, and even on the street name on which it is located.

When Virginia Eubanks visited Montreal a couple weeks ago, she stayed at my place. Before she left, I asked her to sing her book for me. At the end, she said: "And thanks for teaching me what hacktivism is."

If I were to sign a book for Virginia, I would say: "and thanks for teaching me what popular technology is". I'd rather explain.

"The Digital Dead End - Fighting for Social Justice in the Information Age" is an awesome reading for every type of reader. It is easy to understand, full of anecdotes, and yet.. very scientificly grounded. What is it about?

I am changing these days. My mind is changing, and my thoughts - with it. I think it is my MA thesis which is changing me. Each day I discover new things around women's contribution to FOSS development, which is sometimes difficult to explain, but is tempting to make it heard by more people. This is why preparing a speech is a birth of a new challenge. It cannot be done months before it is given. And instead of doing my slides in the plane, I kept working on my research. Because the more I advance into the issue, the more what I will talk about will be new. And the more it is new, the more it is passionate. And by presenting it to other people, will make me advance with the research.

Every hacker conference confirms things, and opens up for some new thoughts. My point of view seems rare, since I am into three things at the same time: I do hacktivism, I do feminism, and I do research on these both things. Well, going to hack conferences is the rarest of the conference topics I actually do. More often I get the chance to go to academics ones, where I need to define what is FOSS, what is “women” and what is “contribution”. Then to ones on women rights and feminism (need to introduce information and communication technologies through FOSS). As for me, the hacktivism ones are my favourite ones. These really touch to so many issues I do not get the chance to hear about elsewhere then at the presentations.