Hacktivism

"Hacktivist" redirects here. For the band, see Hacktivist (band).

Hacktivism or hactivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism) is the subversive use of computers and computer networks to promote a political agenda. With roots in hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to the free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements.[1]

The term was coined in 1994 by a Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) member known as "Omega" in an e-mail to the group.[2][3] Due to the variety of meanings of its root words, hacktivism is sometimes ambiguous and there exists significant disagreement over the kinds of activities and purposes it encompasses. Some definitions include acts of cyberterrorism while others simply reaffirm the use of technological hacking to affect social change.[4][5]

Overview

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.

"Hacktivism" is a controversial term with several meanings. The word was coined to characterize electronic direct action as working toward social change by combining programming skills with critical thinking. But just as hack can sometimes mean cyber crime, hacktivism can be used to mean activism that is malicious, destructive, and undermining the security of the Internet as a technical, economic, and political platform.[6]

Controversy

Depending on who is using the term, hacktivism can be a politically motivated technology hack, a constructive form of anarchic civil disobedience, or an undefined anti-systemic gesture. It can signal anticapitalist or political protest; it can denote anti-spam activists, security experts, or open source advocates.

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 Cult of the Dead Cow and Hacktivismo), have argued forcefully against definitions of hacktivism that include web defacements or denial-of-service attacks.[7]

While some self-described hacktivists have engaged in DoS attacks, critics suggest that DoS attacks are an attack on free speech and that they have unintended consequences. DoS attacks waste resources and they can lead to a "DoS war" that nobody will win. In 2006, Blue Security attempted to automate a DoS attack against spammers; this led to a massive DoS attack against Blue Security which knocked them, their old ISP and their DNS provider off the internet, destroying their business.[8]

Following denial-of-service attacks by Anonymous on multiple sites, in reprisal for the apparent suppression of Wikileaks, John Perry Barlow, a founding member of the EFF, said "I support freedom of expression, no matter whose, so I oppose DDoS attacks regardless of their target... they're the poison gas of cyberspace...".[9] On the other hand, Jay Leiderman, an attorney for many hacktivists, argues that DDoS can be a legitimate form of protest speech in situations that are reasonably limited in time, place and manner.[10]

Forms of hacktivism

In order to carry out their operations, hacktivists might create new tools; or integrate or use a variety of software tools readily available on the Internet. One class of hacktivist activities includes increasing the accessibility of others to take politically motivated action online.

  1. Code: Software and websites can achieve political purposes. For example, the encryption software PGP can be used to secure communications; PGP's author, Phil Zimmermann said he distributed it first to the peace movement.[11] Jim Warren suggests PGP's wide dissemination was in response to Senate Bill 266, authored by Senators Biden and DeConcini, which demanded that "...communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications...".[12] WikiLeaks is an example of a politically motivated website: it seeks to "keep governments open".[13]
  2. Website Mirroring: is used as a circumvention tool to bypass censorship blocks on websites. It is a technique that copies the content of a censored website and posts it to other domains and subdomains that are not censored.[14]
  3. Geo-bombing: a technique in which netizens add a geo-tag while editing YouTube videos so that the location of the video can be displayed in Google Earth.
  4. Anonymous blogging: a method of speaking out to a wide audience about human rights issues, government oppression, etc. that utilizes various web tools such as free and/or disposable email accounts, IP masking, and blogging software to preserve a high level of anonymity.[15]
  5. RECAP is software that was written to 'liberate US case law' and make it freely available online. The software project takes the form of distributed document collection and archival.[16]

Notable hacktivist events

The earliest known instance of hacktivism as documented by Julian Assange is as follows:[17] "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."

Anonymous

Main article: Anonymous (group)

Perhaps the most prolific and well known hacktivist group, Anonymous has been prominent and prevalent in many major online hacks over the past decade. Anonymous originated on the forums of 4chan during 2003, but didn't rise to prominence until 2008 when they directly attacked the Church of Scientology in a massive DDoS attack.[22] Since then, Anonymous has participated in a great number of online projects such as Operation: Pay Back Is a Bitch and Operation: Safe Winter.[23][24] However, while a great number of their projects have been for a charitable cause,[23] they have still gained notoriety from the media due to the nature of their work mostly consisting of illegal hacking.[25]

Related notions

Media hacking

Media hacking refers to the usage of various electronic media in an innovative or otherwise abnormal fashion for the purpose of conveying a message to as large a number of people as possible, primarily achieved via the World Wide Web.[26][27] A popular and effective means of media hacking is posting on a blog, as one is usually controlled by one or more independent individuals, uninfluenced by outside parties. The concept of social bookmarking, as well as Web-based Internet forums, may cause such a message to be seen by users of other sites as well, increasing its total reach.

Media hacking is commonly employed for political purposes, by both political parties and political dissidents. A good example of this is the 2008 US Election, in which both the Democratic and Republican parties used a wide variety of different media in order to convey relevant messages to an increasingly Internet-oriented audience.[28] At the same time, political dissidents used blogs and other social media like Twitter in order to reply on an individual basis to the Presidential candidates. In particular, sites like Twitter are proving important means in gauging popular support for the candidates, though the site is often used for dissident purposes rather than a show of positive support.[29]

Mobile technology has also become subject to media hacking for political purposes. SMS has been widely used by political dissidents as a means of quickly and effectively organising smart mobs for political action. This has been most effective in the Philippines, where SMS media hacking has twice had a significant impact on whether or not the country's Presidents are elected or removed from office.[30]

Reality hacking

Reality hacking is any phenomenon that emerges from the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of politically, socially, or culturally subversive ends. These tools include website defacements, URL redirections, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, web-site parodies, virtual sit-ins, and virtual sabotage.

Art movements such as Fluxus and Happenings in the 1970s created a climate of receptibility in regard to loose-knit organizations and group activities where spontaneity, a return to primitivist behavior, and an ethics where activities and socially engaged art practices became tantamount to aesthetic concerns.

The conflation of these two histories in the mid-to-late 1990s resulted in cross-overs between virtual sit-ins, electronic civil disobedience, denial-of-service attacks, as well as mass protests in relation to groups like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The rise of collectivies, net.art groups, and those concerned with the fluid interchange of technology and real life (often from an environmental concern) gave birth to the practice of "reality hacking".

Reality hacking relies on tweaking the everyday communications most easily available to individuals with the purpose of awakening the political and community conscience of the larger population. The term first came into use among New York and San Francisco artists, but has since been adopted by a school of political activists centered around culture jamming.

In fiction

The 1999 science fiction-action film The Matrix, among others, popularized the simulation hypothesis — the suggestion that reality is in fact a simulation of which those affected by the simulants are generally unaware. In this context, "reality hacking" is reading and understanding the code which represents the activity of the simulated reality environment (such as Matrix digital rain) and also modifying it in order to bend the laws of physics or otherwise modify the simulated reality.

Reality hacking as a mystical practice is explored in the Gothic-Punk aesthetics-inspired White Wolf urban fantasy role-playing game Mage: The Ascension. In this game, the Reality Coders (also known as Reality Hackers or Reality Crackers) are a faction within the Virtual Adepts, a secret society of mages whose magick revolves around digital technology. They are dedicated to bringing the benefits of cyberspace to real space. To do this, they had to identify, for lack of a better term, the "source code" that allows our Universe to function. And that is what they have been doing ever since. Coders infiltrated a number of levels of society in order to gather the greatest compilation of knowledge ever seen. One of the Coders' more overt agendas is to acclimate the masses to the world that is to come. They spread Virtual Adept ideas through video games and a whole spate of "reality shows" that mimic virtual reality far more than "real" reality. The Reality Coders consider themselves the future of the Virtual Adepts, creating a world in the image of visionaries like Grant Morrison or Terence McKenna.

In a location-based game (also known as a pervasive game), reality hacking refers to tapping into phenomena that exist in the real world, and tying them into the game story universe.[31]

See also

Other

References

  1. ↑ Krapp, Peter (Fall 2005). ""Terror and Play, or What was Hacktivism?" Grey Room". MIT Press. Retrieved 2013-02-28.
  2. ↑ "Old-time hacktivists: Anonymous, you've crossed the line"." CNet News, March 30, 2012. Retrieved March 30, 2012.
  3. ↑ Shantz, Jeff; Tomblin, Jordon (2014-11-28). Cyber Disobedience: Re://Presenting Online Anarchy. John Hunt Publishing. ISBN 9781782795551.
  4. ↑ Peter Ludlow "What is a 'Hacktivist'?" The New York Times. January 2013.
  5. ↑ Jordon, Tomblin, (2015-01-01). "The Rehearsal and Performance of Lawful Access". curve.carleton.ca. Retrieved 2016-01-16.
  6. ↑ Peter Krapp, "Noise Channels: Glitch and Error in Digital Culture". University of Minnesota Press 2011.
  7. ↑ Ruffin, Oxblood (3 June 2004). "Hacktivism, From Here to There". Retrieved 2008-04-19.
  8. ↑ Lemos, Robert (17 May 2006). "Blue Security folds under spammer's wrath". SecurityFocus. Retrieved 2008-04-19.
  9. ↑ Reuters (2010-12-09). "Analysis: WikiLeaks — a new face of cyber-war?". Retrieved 2010-12-09.
  10. ↑ Leiderman, Jay (22 January 2013). "Why DDoS is Free Speech". The Guardian (London).
  11. ↑ "PGP Marks 10th Anniversary". Phil Zimmermann. Retrieved 2010-08-23.
  12. ↑ "The Persecution of Phil Zimmermann, American". Jim Warren. 1996-01-08. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
  13. ↑ "WikiLeaks homepage". WikiLeaks. Retrieved 2011-02-01.
  14. ↑ Ben Gharbia, Sami. "Mirroring a Censored Wordpress Blog". Global Voices Advocacy. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
  15. ↑ Zuckerman, Ethan. "Anonymous Blogging with Wordpress and Tor". Global Voices Advocacy. Retrieved 2011-02-09.
  16. ↑ "Recap the law". Retrieved 2013-05-20.
  17. ↑ Assange, Julian (25 November 2006). "The Curious Origins of Political Hacktivism". CounterPunch. Retrieved 2008-04-19.
  18. ↑ "Anonymous Iran @WhyWeProtest.net". Iran.whyweprotest.net. Retrieved 2011-06-03.
  19. ↑ "New Hacktivism: From Electronic Civil Disobedience to Mixed Reality Performance". Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics at NYU. hemi.nyu.edu. August 24, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-01.
  20. ↑ Singh, Ujjwal. "Some weekend work that will (hopefully) allow more Egyptians to be heard". Google. Retrieved 3 May 2011.
  21. ↑ Galperin, Eva. "Egypt's Internet Blackout Highlights Danger of Weak Links, Usefulness of Quick Links". Electric Frontier Foundation. Retrieved 2011-02-10.
  22. ↑ "Feature by Chris Landers: Serious Business | 4/2/2008". 2008-06-08. Archived from the original on June 8, 2008. Retrieved 2015-12-02.
  23. 1 2 "#OpSafeWinter: Anonymous fights homelessness worldwide". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 2015-12-02.
  24. ↑ "4chan Users Organize Surgical Strike Against MPAA - MediaCenter Panda Security". MediaCenter Panda Security. Retrieved 2015-12-02.
  25. ↑ Goldman, David. "Hacker group Anonymous is a nuisance, not a threat". CNNMoney. Retrieved 2015-12-02.
  26. ↑ Bohan, S. (2005). "Media Hacking". SeanBohan.com. Retrieved February 9, 2007.
  27. ↑ Heavens, A. (2005). "Hacking Baby Cheetahs and Hunger Strikes". Meskel Square. Retrieved February 9, 2007.
  28. ↑ Peter Kafka (2008-06-20). "Obama, McCain Debate Via Twitter: How To Follow Along*". Alleyinsider.com. Retrieved 2011-07-01.
  29. ↑ "Twitter backlash over McCain campaign 'suspension'". Good Gear Guide. 2008-09-25. Retrieved 2011-07-01.
  30. ↑ August 22nd, 2006 by Howard Rheingold (2006-08-22). "Blog Archive » Wikipedia on SMS, political impacts". Smart Mobs. Retrieved 2011-07-01.
  31. ↑ "The art of game-mastering pervasive games" (PDF). Delivery.acm.org. doi:10.1145/1501750.1501803. Retrieved 2011-07-01.

Further reading

External links

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Sunday, April 17, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.