Fergus Cassidy

Torrential reign

IT is the morning after the night before and Wavy Gravy moved to the centre of the vast stage. "What we have in mind, is breakfast in bed for 400,000", he boomed toward the mud-caked, sleep-deprived mountain of youth.

In the 36 years since the Woodstock 'happening' at Yasgur's Farm, Wavy Gravy has continued doing his thing (man) and is still keen to illuminate what he has in mind. But after the Live Aid concert in 1985, a new question was added to those frequently asked of him: "What was Woodstock in aid of?"

The fact that it was in aid of nothing is neither here nor there. But the similarities and parallels with yesterday's Live8 concerts and Woodstock is definitely here.

Musicians have once again found a prominent role as spokespersons for social and cultural change. Live8 is a campaign to raise awareness, Woodstock was about raising consciousness and both events took place during wars that the United States was heavily involved in, Vietnam and Iraq.

In the build up to the Live8 concerts, Bono referred to the event as "a defining moment for our generation". Twenty years earlier at Live Aid, legendary '60s folk singer, Joan Baez, opened the Philadelphia concert and proclaimed: "This is your Woodstock and it's long overdue".

Woodstock was a defining moment according to Glenn Gass, a professor of music at Indiana University: "It seemed like an almost heroic event, not because of the artists, but because it demonstrated just how big the counterculture had become. As Neil Young said, 'it showed just how many of us there were'." Half a million strong, by Joni Mitchell's estimates.

If the seeds of counterculture blossomed at Woodstock, many young people wearing flowers in their hair made their way to San Francisco and on to Silicon Valley.

Stewart Brand was one of those. Author, editor, and creator of The Whole Earth Catalog and the now iconic online community The WELL. He recalled the late 1960s as a time which "seemed dangerously anarchic, but the counterculture's scorn for centralised authority provided the philosophical foundations of not only the leaderless Internet but also the entire personal computer revolution".

Writer William Gibson has his own take: "A bunch of hippy acid heads actually invented the personal computer".

Brand "bought enthusiastically into the exotic technologies of the day. We learned from them. Most of our generation scorned computers as the embodiment of centralised control. But a tiny contingent - later called 'hackers' - embraced computers and set about transforming them into tools of liberation. That turned out to be the true royal road to the future".

Hackers had their own code and beliefs, among which were: unlimited and total access to computers; art and beauty can be created on a computer and computers can change lives for the better. And hackers also had children.

Barry Cohen is assistant professor of the computer science department at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, New York. His research interests include computational biology, algorithm design and cryptography. He's also very involved with Portside.org, which "aims to provide varied material of interest to people on the left".

Born in 1975, Barry's son Bram showed great interest in puzzles from a young age. Barry taught his son some basic computer code and languages.

Six years ago, aged 24, Bram wrote a personal manifesto. It included: "I am a technological activist. I have a political agenda. I am in favour of basic human rights: to free speech, to use any information and technology... . I release my code and writings freely, and publish all of my ideas early to make them unpatentable".

One of Bram's ideas is BitTorrent, computer-to-computer file distribution software which allows large files to be easily distributed over the internet. It was designed as a cheap way to swap Linux software online.

Since its release three years ago (under an open source license), BitTorrent has become hugely popular and is nearing 20m downloads. It's been estimated that BitTorrent accounts for more than one third of all data sent across the net.

Last week, Bram's software was unwittingly at the centre of a dramatic struggle between the counterculture and the bean-counting culture. Between those who innovate and those who suffocate.

The entertainment industry has been out to cripple file-sharing software like BitTorrent. It blames copyright infringement on file-sharing technology and has gone to court and spent millions trying to stop it. Unsuccessfully so far.

Bram now has young children of his own and is content to live on the income from donations to his BitTorrent site. He embodies the hacker journey from the road to Yasgur's Farm and on to Live8's long walk for justice.

"The only way to fundamentally succeed is by changing existing laws. If I rejected all help from the political arena I would inevitably fail".

In the 1960s, the political system turned a blind eye to social injustice and change, now it might have to sit up and take notice. Maybe even do something. If not, then another 1960s hacker urging may be resurrected: "Ask not what your country can do for you. Do it yourself".

With the spread of personal computers and the internet, that possibility doesn't seem so far out.