Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:43:01 +0100
From: "lsi" <stuart@...erdelix.net>
To: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk
Subject: [: hacktivism :]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hactivism

Hacktivism
>>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
(Redirected from Hactivism)

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. The term was coined by author/critic Jason 
Logan King Sack in an article about media artist Shu Lea Cheang. The 
article was published in InfoNation in 1995. 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.

Essentially, the controversy reflects two divergent philosophical 
strands within the hacktivist movement. One strand thinks that 
malicious cyber-attacks are an acceptable form of direct action. The 
other strand thinks that all protest should be peaceful and non-
violent.

Contents [hide]
1 Controversy
2 Notable hacktivist events
3 Quotes
4 See also
5 References
6 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]).

Critics suggest that DOS attacks are an attack on free speech; that 
they have unintended consequences; that they waste resources; and 
that they could lead to a "DOS war" which nobody will win. In 2006, 
Blue Security attempted to automate a DOS attack against spammers; 
this lead to a massive DOS attack against Blue Security which knocked 
them, their old ISP and their DNS provider off the internet, 
destroying their business. [2]

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 or political protest; it can denote anti-
spam activists, security 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
The earliest known instance of hacktivism is documented by Julian 
Assange as follows:

"Hacktivism is at least as old as October 1989 when DOE, HEPNET and 
SPAN (NASA) connected VMS machines world wide were penetrated by the 
anti-nuclear WANK worm, which changed the system announcement banner 
to be:

       W O R M S    A G A I N S T    N U C L E A R    K I L L E R S
     _______________________________________________________________
     \__  ____________  _____    ________    ____  ____   __  _____/
      \ \ \    /\    / /    / /\ \       | \ \  | |    | | / /    /
       \ \ \  /  \  / /    / /__\ \      | |\ \ | |    | |/ /    /
        \ \ \/ /\ \/ /    / ______ \     | | \ \| |    | |\ \   /
         \_\  /__\  /____/ /______\ \____| |__\ | |____| |_\ \_/
          \___________________________________________________/
           \                                                 /
            \    Your System Has Been Officically WANKed    /
             \_____________________________________________/

      You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war.

In our book [Underground, [3]], Suelette Dreyfus and I track the 
source of the worm to Melbourne, Australia."

One of the earliest documented hacktivist events was the "Strano 
Network sit-in," a strike action directed against French government 
computers in 1995.

In 1998 the Electronic Disturbance Theater conducted "virtual sit-
ins" on the Web sites of the Pentagon and the Mexican government to 
bring the world's attention to the plight of Indian rights in the 
Mexican state of Chiapas.

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 ([4]) condemning the LoU's declaration of 
war. The LoU responded by withdrawing its declaration.

Hacktivists attempted to disrupt ECHELON (an international electronic 
communications surveillance network filtering any and all satellite, 
microwave, cellular, and fiber-optic traffic) by holding "Jam Echelon 
Day" (JED) on October 21, 1999. On the day, hacktivists attached 
large keyword lists to many messages, leveraging listservers and 
newsgroups to spread their keywords further. The idea was to give the 
Echelon computers so many "hits" they overloaded. It is not known 
whether JED was successful in actually jamming Echelon, although NSA 
computers were reported to have crashed "inexplicably" in early 
March, 2000. A second Jam Echelon Day (JEDII) was held in October 
2000, however the idea never regained its initial popularity. JED was 
partly denial-of-service attack, and partly agit-prop.

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]

See also
Hacker culture
Hacker ethic
Citizen Lab
Crypto-anarchism
E-democracy
Electronic advocacy
Electronic civil disobedience
Internet activism
Internet democracy
Open source government
Culture jamming
HackThisSite
[edit]

References
[edit]

External links
Hacktivist.net Popular site of hacktivist opinions and information
Hacktivism in the Culture Jammers Encyclopedia
Hacktivismo's Projects Page
Hack This Site! Hacktivist training ground
What is Hacktivism?
White Hat, Black Hat, Grey Hat links
Hacktivism information and discussions
Hacktivism in the context of body modification (usage coined by Lukas 
Zpira)

Categories: Activism | Politics and technology | Computing 
portmanteaus | Computer hacking

---
Stuart Udall
stuart at@...erdelix.dot net - http://www.cyberdelix.net/

--- 
 * Origin: lsi: revolution through evolution (192:168/0.2)

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