The Router of All Evil: Designerly Hacking a Network of One’s Own
David J. Chatting · 2024
This paper contributes a new design research artifact, The Router of All Evil. This is a Research Product that results from and scaffolds a Research Through Design exploration of the domestic Internet. The Router of All Evil is designed to reveal the technical possibility of the humble home router, to define a network of one’s own, where homelife can unfold in creative, fulfilling and private ways, as an alternative to the prevalent corporate and surveillant logics of Silicon Valley’s Internet of Things. Through a methodological contribution described as Designerly Hacking, this paper demonstrates how technical alternatives can first be revealed by hacking or breaking-up a system and then put back together for the use of a broader (designerly) public. To these ends, the Router of All Evil exemplifies Pace Layer design, where rapid design reconfigurations of hardware and software are purposefully afforded.