Hacktivism

From Free net encyclopedia

Hacktivism (from hack and activism) is often understood as the writing of code, or otherwise manipulating bits, to promote political ideology - promoting expressive politics, free speech, human rights, or information ethics. Acts of hacktivism are carried out in the belief that proper use of code will have leveraged effects similar to regular activism or civil disobedience. Fewer people can write code, but code affects more people.

Hacktivist activities span many political ideals and issues. Freenet is a prime example of translating political thought (anyone should be able to speak) into code. Hacktivist.net is an example of hacktivism in action. Hacktivismo is an offshoot of CULT OF THE DEAD COW; its beliefs include access to information as a basic human right.

Hacktivism is a controversial term. Some argue it was coined to describe how electronic direct action might work toward social change by combining programming skills with critical thinking. Others use it as practically synonymous with malicious, destructive acts that undermine the security of the Internet as a technical, economic, and political platform.

1 Controversy
2 Notable hacktivist events
3 Quotes
4 See also
5 External links

[edit]

Controversy

Some people describing themselves as hacktivists have taken to defacing websites for political reasons, such as attacking and defacing government websites as well as web sites of groups who oppose their ideology. Others, such as Oxblood Ruffin (the "foreign affairs minister" of Hacktivismo), have argued forcefully against definitions of hacktivism that include web defacements or denial-of-service attacks ([1]).

Depending on who is using the term, hacktivism can be a politically constructive form of civil disobedience or an anarchic gesture; it can signal anticapitalist protest or commercial protectionism; it can denote spammers or anti-abortion activists, counter-surveillance experts or open source advocates. Critics of hacktivism fear that the lack of a clear agenda make it a politically immature gesture, while those given to conspiracy theory hope to see in hacktivism an attempt to precipitate a crisis situation online.

[edit]

Notable hacktivist events

One of the earliest documented hacktivist events was the "Strano Network sit-in," a strike action directed against French government computers in 1995.
Omega, a member of CULT OF THE DEAD COW, coined the term "hacktivism" during an IRC session in 1996.
One of the more notorious examples of hacktivism was the modification of Indonesian web sites with appeals to "Free East Timor" in 1998 by Portuguese hackers.
On December 29, 1998, the Legions of the Underground (LoU) declared cyberwar on Iraq and China with the intention of disrupting and disabling internet infrastructure. On January 7, 1999, an international coalition of hackers (including Cult of the Dead Cow, 2600 's staff, Phrack's staff, L0pht, and the Chaos Computer Club) issued a joint statement ([2]) condemning the LoU's declaration of war. The LoU responded by withdrawing its declaration.
Internet users alerted to the concept of ECHELON, an electronic communications scanner filtering any and all satellite, microwave, cellular, and fiber-optic traffic, coined the notion of "Jam Echelon Day," trying to disrupt the surveillance and alert the public.
The Electronic Disturbance Theater and others staged a week of disruption during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, conducting sit-ins against Republican web sites and flooding web sites and communication systems identified with conservative causes. This received mixed reviews from the hacktivist community.
Hacktivists managed to break into computer systems at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in India to protest against nuclear weapons tests.
Hacktivists set up web sites such as McSpotlight.org and Bhopal.net to criticize multinational corporations.
Bronc Buster, later a member of Hacktivismo, disabled firewalls to allow Chinese Internet users uncensored access.
Hacktivists worked to slow, block, or reroute traffic for web servers associated with the World Trade Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank.

[edit]

Quotes

"...on the Internet, the code is the law." —Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School professor

"Expressive politics is the struggle to free what can be free from both versions of the commodity form—its totalising market form, and its bureaucratic state form."—McKenzie Wark

[edit]