hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr1077.txt

Episode: 1077
Title: HPR1077: FSCONS: Haralanova Hack for Freedom!
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1077/hpr1077.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-17 18:32:28

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You've tuned in to Hacker Public Radio.
And today's episode is called Haralanova Hacks for Freedom.
Hello, everyone.
Today I will give you a really fascinating interview from FSCONS 2011 with Canadian
Christina Haralanova.
She was keynote speaker on the second day of the conference.
And she tells me a bit about her keynote to the presentation she was not able to give.
And we talk about how you teach your kids to hack stuff.
How will we make sure that our culture continues through our children?
And I have to warn you, they were removing chairs and tables in the room next to us.
So there are quite some noise in the background, I'm sorry about that.
But hopefully you won't have any trouble to hear what we are saying.
Hello, my name is Christina Haralanova and I am here at the first society conference
in Nordic Summit, FSCONS.
I was the closing keynote actually today talking about social justice and hackers and hacking
for social justice.
So this is my primary invitation for why I'm here.
I had to refuse another presentation because there were too many and it was about, it was
my geeky one which was about mobile phone hacking, jail breaking and routine of mobile phones.
So I'm a little bit, I'm a little bit hard to give up on this because this is my more
passionate one.
All right, this isn't your first time here, is it?
This is my second time here.
I was at FSCONS 2009.
I very much wanted to come back at 2010 because I drove from Montreal, from Canada and it
is an expensive ticket so I had to plan better so I once or two years is enough.
What's so special about FSCONS?
Why do you really want to come here?
FSCONS is a special conference.
For me, this was the conference which speaks about society, about technology and about
culture and about hacker culture taken together and there's a lot of respect at this conference
and there's a lot of respect about inclusion and diversity so there's more and more inclusion
and diversity and many people coming from every time so the topics are absolutely awesome
and absolutely different from each other and I learn a lot and I love the vibe of this
conference.
I will return again.
Was there any talking specific you really remember from today or yesterday?
I love the track on politics and politics of technology.
I like the training sessions also, there was a training session on Scribus, there were
planning sessions and there was even one on Waffair which I absolutely loved and the
question was if we are able to make free software, if we are able to fix free software, let's
fix Waffair so I think they are so extended from one topic to another that it's really
really awesome to hear them.
If you have to tell everyone about your keynote in say three sentences, what would that be?
I spoke about freedom, I was inspired by Richard Stomen, three sentences.
I wanted to talk about the fact that technology is not separate from life as this conference
shows it very well, that there is convergence between the topics and between the life's
fears, between the politics, the economy, culture, society etc.
So I just wanted to challenge a little bit my audience today on being more respectful
and more inclusive between each other and in this way we can get more diversity and nicer
people around us.
And more generally about your background, what are your interests in the hacker space?
I started with free software in 2001 when I got my first laptop and I met a person in
a hostel, a random person in a hostel who told me, you can as well install Linux.
So I came back home and I saw in the newspaper that there was a Linux install fest the next
day.
So I travelled two hours to the next city to get my computer installed.
So I met this community behind and I got very, very inspired and ever since I've been
very interested into geeking out stuff on my computer.
I live in Montreal, as I said, and I am a member since 2009 of FULAB, which is the Montreal
Hacker Space, FULAB, F-O-U-L-A-L-A-B, dot org, so it's a very inspiring place with
a lot of machines and a lot of possibilities to learn how to make circuits, how to work
with stuff, how to...
There's workshops, at least 10 workshops per year, which we learn Arduino, many, many,
many things, wearable electronics.
And I trust that it's very inspiring, I go there at least once a week if not more.
I am very happy to be involved there and the more I go, the more the more it's interesting,
the more the Hacker horizon opens up with the other interesting things.
I went to Hope in 2010 and I learned to logpick, I even won a competition, so it's inspiring.
It's a trust other, there's nice, nice...
Hacking is a...
If I can say so, Hacking is a way of life.
Hacking is not about certain technology or certain people or certain elite.
Hacking is a way of looking with curiosity to things around you.
I hear people speaking about travel hacking and about all kind of other type of hacking.
And I agree with that because it's a kind of a question of...
If there's technology I need, I want to know how it works.
If there's a project, I want to be involved in this way.
So I like the hacking principles of avoiding warranties and seeing what's inside my laptop
and repairing the fan, if needed, and the principle of recycled reuse and repurposed...
It's absolutely speaks to me and not only in the hacker space, but around in my life.
You mentioned your bikes.
Yeah.
In Fula, we also repair bikes.
There's a stand and there's lots of bikers.
Actually Montreal is rather flat, so there's lots of people who bike.
And it's a transport mean for us and there is also bike paths outside of the city,
so there's a way to go.
And it's a very car in the highway city, so it's very good to have an alternative to cars,
because otherwise you can't go without a car, so biking is better than walking,
but also it's you avoid the dream, because you spend one hour on the bike.
But it's also kind of the fact that I own it, it's transparent, it's technology,
the mechanics is transparent, you can see, you can immediately see where it breaks, if it breaks.
You can repair it rather fast, rather cheap, and I absolutely love it.
Great, that's wonderful.
And that is the hacker spirit, it's an attitude to life, really, no matter what it is.
I think so.
I think so when I try to transfer it to my daughter, she loves the screwdriver,
loves to help me a lot with stuff, loves to disassemble the computer and so on.
So I think this is the way that we should teach our children with the hands on everything,
on things that break, on things that don't break, on things that they are curious about,
and not keep them clean hands and so on, which in schools, that's more and more popular,
that they don't allow them because of security reasons or because of safety reasons
to touch on things, and I think this is the way to learn to put your hands on and just do it.
Yeah, we actually had that exact conversation earlier today.
How do you let the next generation, that is our kids, learn about and appreciate the same things that we do?
Generally, kids grow up despising what the parents love, so it's a hard thing.
I think the best gift one can give to their kids is the curiosity and the imagination.
If you give them these two things, they become thirsty to go,
curious to go and search for the things they are interested for.
If you give them tools, they go learn these tools, but they don't get the curiosity behind.
If you give them too many toys, they get bored.
If you give them one toy, it develops their creativity of finding new ways of playing with the same toy.
So I think this way, and my daughter goes to the hacker space to full up and she enjoys it a lot.
There's other kids who come to and there's ways, we teach them soldiers, for example.
And they are really good. My daughter is four and a half.
There's other kids that are a bit older and do other stuff, and they are really good and very attentive to rules, to the way it's done.
So I think it's a nice age to start teaching them small things.
And if you would like to give the people listening to this idea or a website, a place to go, something to do, what would it be?
What would be your suggestion and your recommendation for people?
What would be your last word in this interview?
Oh, my last word would be hacker round, and start by your phone.
And you can find me on ludoost.aust.org, and on Twitter with ludoost11.
And of course, a long life free software and the freedom.
Hack on, you heard it, people. Thank you.
Wasn't that an awesome interview, right?
So she has gone to Gothenburg from Canada, not once, but twice.
That is how good FSCONS is.
Anyway, you can look forward to more interviews from FSCONS 2011, as soon as I get the time to upload them.
I will post links in the show notes to everywhere where you can find Christina Haralanova, as well as the videos from FSCONS, whenever they might appear.
So keep on hacking and teach the young ones to do so as well.
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Hacker Public Radio is funded by the Digital.Pound and the Infonomicom Computer Club.
Hacker Public Radio is funded by the Digital.Pound and the Infonomicom Computer Club.
Hacker Public Radio is funded by the Digital.Pound and the Infonomicom Computer Club.
Hacker Public Radio is funded by the Digital.Pound and the Infonomicom Computer Club.