Archival Documents   »The “Hack”

Material related to the “hacking” of the self-encrypting diskette containing William Gibson’s poem and the release of its text onto the MindVox BBS on Dec. 10, 1992 (and subsequently into the wilds of the Internet). See Matthew G. Kirschenbaum’s discussion of the competing explanations of the “hack” and whether it was a code hack at all or instead a low-tech hack accomplished by transcribing from video footage shot at the Dec. 9, 1992, “transmission” event at The Kitchen in New York City, where the poem was played on a big screen.

Re:Agrippa (Experimental Video of Dec. 9, 1992, ‘Transmission’ of Agrippa) (1993)

Screenshot of video
Item #D16. Experimental video Re:Agrippa by “Rosehammer & Templar” based on footage of the Dec. 9, 1992, “Transmission” of Agrippa (produced 1993).

This experimental video composition is based on the “Transmission” event on Dec. 9, 1992. It includes selected footage of the text of William Gibson’s poem in Agrippa scrolling up the screen, accompanied by a soundtrack of Penn Jillette reading from the poem; shots of publisher Kevin Begos, Jr., introducing the work; and experimental-video-like montage, sound, and titling effects added by the video’s makers. A transcription of the footage on which this video is based may underlie the so-called “hacking” of the poem and its release to the Internet on Dec. 10, 1992. (See “-Templar- Rosehammer & Pseudophred’s” introduction to the text of the poem that appeared on that date on the MindVox BBS; see also Matthew G. Kirschenbaum’s discussion of various explanations of “the hack.”)

For Windows Users (WMV9, streaming)
» Excerpt: Gibson’s poem scrolling up screen (.wmv, 20 secs.)
» Full video (.wmv, 5 min., 32Mb)
For Macintosh Users (Quicktime 7, streaming)
» Excerpt: Gibson’s poem scrolling up screen (.mov, 20 secs.)
» Full video (.mov, 5 min., 27Mb)

Note: The Windows Quicktime plug-in for IE and Firefox is flawed and may crash when streaming Quicktime 7 (H.264) content. Windows users are encouraged to view the WMV files above or download the Quicktime files prior to viewing (rather than streaming).

‘Templar’s’ Introduction to the First Online Copy of Gibson’s ‘Agrippa’ Poem (December 10, 1992)

Item #D44. Introduction by “Templar” to the First Online Copy of William Gibson’s “Agrippa” poem

This introduction, which claims that the code of the Agrippa diskette was “hacked & cracked,” precedes the first version of Gibson’s poem posted online (to the MindVox BBS) on Dec. 10, 1992. The transcript here is from a now defunct Web page version of the MindVox posting available until early 2005 at http://riverbbs.net/pub4/ebook/Agripp.Txt (currently available only in the Google cache here) For the way the poem leaked online and different views about whether it was ever actually hacked, see Matthew G. Kirschenbaum’s discussion. See also the experimental video Re:Agrippa based on footage shot at the Dec. 9, 1992, “transmission” event at The Kitchen (one theory is that transcribing from this footage may be the low-tech way the poem was hacked).

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