Hacktivism: good or evil?
4000 words
Introduction – 400 words
Hacktivism is a type of activism, that’s not always democratic. Hacktivism generally supports the people, meaning the hackers serve, or claim they serve interests of the global population. These organisations usually target powerful governments and commercial institutions such as Microsoft. But in most cases it is done anonymously, disregarding the claim as it is not accountable to anyone. In a lot of cases, it is hard to distinguish the people who support their cause. Sometimes the targets and ideas displayed by these agents can be extreme and can follow ideas that don’t have much votes from involved democratic countries. Just one hacktivist, can display many different cyber-personas on the internet anonymously. Often lacking political support, they still have power as their cyber expertise allows them to hack into pretty much anything, for example, infrastructure, stealing commercial secrets, the exposing of classified government information, and can even spread malware to commercial or even private computing systems and servers.
Currently, hacktivism has entered the mainstream via social Medias such as twitter, it targets websites anywhere from the US department of defence to the church of scientology (https://www.scientology.org.uk/ ). Protected by anonymity, hacktivists are less inhibited in expressing ideas, and can be unaffected by criticism and debate, whereas traditional activists are limited as they have a public image and can’t fully express their ideology. Compared to traditional forms of activism, hacktivism is shadier and often performed by outsiders and fringe groups. #
There are many types of cyber activism, but the power of some is illegitimate. Therefore it is less legitimate than the power of some usual democratic states, even when hacktivism is used for ordinary protest. Lawless, elusive, stateless, and determined and 99% of the time anonymous, these people are particularly unaccountable in governments that protect privacy and that recognize freedom of expression. In the cyber space, an individual could have the power of a fully-fledged commercial institution.
I believe hacktivism is good, kids that feel they have been failed by the system with no direction find drive to learn some simple code and get back at the ones who made it in unfair ways or to show how easy it is to infiltrate security systems. Hacking can give people a hobby which could be very powerful for people who are ‘lost’ who have 2 choices, play the game and live a normal life for all your efforts put in or turn to illegal activities in an attempt to make it.
Literature Review – 1000 words
In the article by Dai Davis, he contrasts physical protesting to doing so electronically, he mentions that damage can be done electronically, and is done so anonymously but is no different to protesting outside an organisation’s headquarters with a hood or mask. Physical protests can cause innocent bystanders to get targeted as he included in his example, so damage done electronically can be expensive, it’s not as expensive as people’s wellbeing, especially those who are not on either side and still get involved in the physical violence.
Furthermore, electronic attacks can bring with them collateral damage as well. In an attempt to embarrass users of a porn site, a group by the name of LulzSec released tens of thousands of emails and passwords to then find two Malaysian officials and 3 members of the US military signed up to the site, leaking their emails and passwords which apart from the humiliation could include passwords to classified files and things like that. Facebook reacted to this by restricting access to Facebook accounts signed up with the emails assuming some of the passwords may be the same allowing virtually anyone to access the accounts. That means over 20,000 users could not access their Facebook accounts which comes with a large amount of consequences.
Politically motivated attacks can have much bigger repercussions, such as the CIA website being down for 2 hours, things like this can be very costly for the government and can interfere with running investigations. On the other hand the hack on the NHS was done to show the government the vulnerabilities in the security systems so they can be fixed before people with actual bad intentions can take advantage of them. Many governmental organisations in Portugal were hacked in response to police brutality against austerity measures held on the 24th of November 2011. But as with me=any of these attacks, as Dai Davis notes, the cause of some hacks cannot be concluded as anonymity is important for a lot of these people.
Not all hacktivists work in secret, white hat hackers at google, twitter and SayNow collaborated to allow the people of Egypt to communicate with the rest of the world when the Egyptian government tried to shut down the internet in 2011.
Red hack happily took the blame for people illegal messages sent via twitter, and even instructed them to use twitter as a pose to other social media platforms as twitter cannot prove the identity of the sender. This proves the motivation of these groups is to help the public, but leaves in question if it was done for publicity as Red hack gained over 600,000 followers following this.
A hack during the 2013 Zimbabwe election attacked and closed down 50 websites, and was justified by pointing out a certain parties regime had plenty of airtime to promote its views on TV whereas none was given to the opposition, a lot of citizens of the UK blame Brexit for happening because of the same reason, parties for it having more airtime on TV than parties against it meaning the final vote was unfair. In contrast, little evidence was there to justify the attack of South Africa based independent newspapers, some say this attack was a unjustified erosion of freedom of speech. On the other hand, others equate Mugabe, who in a judgement by the council of the European union on 26 January 2009 was said to be ‘ responsible for activities that seriously undermine democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law’ with Hitler and applaud the attack.
(http://www.security-faqs.com/wikileaks-and-th3j35t3r-has-he-made-the-right-call.html)
Commonly defined as the marriage of political activism and computer hacking (Denning 1999; National Infrastructure Protection Centre 2001)
Denning’s influential
1999 paper defines hacktivism as “the marriage of hacking and activism. It covers
operations that use hacking techniques against a target’s Internet site with the intent of
Disrupting normal operations but not causing serious damage.”(Denning 1999) Milone
Uses the term hacktivism to apply to online activism, “[w]hen such activism manifests
itself in the form of surreptitious computer access or the dissemination of potentially
disruptive and/or subversive software.”(Milone 2002) Jordan and Taylor describe
hacktivism more broadly than I do, calling it “ a combination of grassroots political
protest with computer hacking” (Jordan and Taylor 2004); elsewhere Jordan defines it as
“politically motivated hacking” (Jordan 2002). Vegh’s definition is similarly inclusive:
“[h]acktivism is a politically motivated single incident online action, or a campaign
thereof, taken by non-state actors in retaliation to express disapproval or to call attention
to an issue advocated by the activists.”(Vegh 2003)
First, by specifying that hacktivism is nonviolent, it differentiates hacktivism from cyberterrorist acts that harm human beings
These tactical, principled, and cultural choices have birthed hacktivism as a looseknit movement that is defined by its repertoire of contention. The “repertoire” concept comes from Tilly, who observed that social movements must draw on a limited repertoire of collective actions, and that this repertoire changes only over time (Tilly 1978)
The use of transgressive forms offers the advantages of surprise, uncertainty, and novelty, but contained forms of contention have the advantage of being accepted, familiar, and relatively easy to employ by claimants without special resources or willingness to incur costs and take great risks.(McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001)
Noah C.N. Hampson* Abstract: After WikiLeaks released hundreds of thousands of classified U.S. government documents in 2010, the ensuing cyber-attacks waged by all sides in the controversy brought the phenomenon of hacktivism into popular focus. Many forms of hacktivism exploit illegal access to networks for financial gain, and cause expensive damage. Other forms are used primarily to advocate for political or social change. Applicable law in most developed countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, generally prohibits hacktivism. However, these countries also protect the right to protest as an essential element of free speech. This Note argues that forms of hacktivism that are primarily expressive, that do not cause serious damage, and that do not exploit illegal access to networks or computers, sufficiently resemble traditional forms of protest to warrant protection from the application of anti-hacking laws under widely accepted principles of free speech.
(https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1685&context=iclr)
"They say your school days are the best days of your life, but the only way that would be true for me would be if I went straight from school to prison and stayed there forever until I died." I imagine that this line, from the finale episode of The Inbetweeners, unfortunately rings true for a lot of people who've ever been through the British education system. Having recently left school at the age of 18, I can say that it does for me. In my experience, a lot of students tend to waver between these two poles, conflicted by pressure from both sides. School and parents want you to work hard so you can get into university, friends and fellow students provide the temptation of socialising, but are also competitors, and then there's the inner conflict of whether you should "play the game" or not. The internet – rather than being one of the reasons for my stress, anxiety and insomnia – was often the only platform on which I felt I wasn't alone in my worries and could read about others' experiences of exam stress and poor mental health. It was reassuring to learn how they dealt with these pressures. (htt1)
As websites become ever more secure, so those “hacking” them become more sophisticated in their methods. Over the years, many of the more sophisticated hacks have been carried out by groups of hackers or nation states, rather than individuals. (Davis, n.d.)
Whether hacking is worse than a physical assault, such as sending large numbers of useless facsimiles or holding a mass protest outside the buildings of the Church of Scientology, depends on your point of view. Is it worse? At first sight it might seem so, since those protesting electronically invariably do so anonymously.
However, some of those protesting physically do so wearing hoods or masks. Of course, like many protests, innocent bystanders can be hurt. During the campaign against Scientology, a secondary school in the Dutch municipality of Deventer and a 59-year-old man from Stockton, California were incorrectly included as targets. (Davis, n.d.)
Unintended consequences can follow hacktivist attacks. In 2011, LulzSec made an attack on the internet pornsite www.pron.com. LulzSec published 26,000 email addresses and associated passwords, in an apparent attempt to embarrass users. These appeared to include two Malaysian government officials and three members of the US military.
This triggered an unexpected response from Facebook, which prevented users with the same email address from accessing their Facebook account. Facebook automatically assumed that those users might have the same passwords. (Davis, n.d.)
Many targets of hacktivist groups are of a more overtly political nature. LulzSec, in its short “career”, attacked InfraGard a partnership between businesses and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the US. It successfully attacked the US Senate and the Central Intelligence Agency websites.
It defaced the InfraGard website, damaged the Senate by releasing some “secure” information, and hit the CIA by taking its site down for over two hours. It also attacked the UK National Health Service, but in this case it performed a public service, merely sending the NHS an email informing it of the security vulnerability it had found.
Other countries have also suffered from hacking attacks. In Portugal, for example, the websites of the Bank of Portugal, the Portuguese parliament and the Ministry of Economy, Innovation and Development have all been attacked.
This was apparently in response to police brutality at public protests against austerity measures held on 24 November 2011. But, as with many such attacks, it is not always possible to identify the causes conclusively.
Not all hacktivists work in secret. In 2011, at the start of the Arab Spring, the Egyptian government tried to shut down the internet. This provoked a response from Google, Twitter and SayNow.
They collaborated and in a very short time produced a “Speak2Tweet” service allowing anyone, inside or outside Egypt, to leave a message on certain telephone numbers. The messages were then immediately placed on Twitter. The stated motive was: “We hope this will go some way to helping people in Egypt stay connected at this very difficult time.” (Davis, n.d.)
Redhack suggested that protesters alleged to have sent illegal messages by Twitter should say their account had been hacked into by Redhack. Redhack said it would “take the blame [for Twitter users targeted by the state] with pleasure”.
Redhack also advised activists to use Twitter rather than Facebook or Skype because the latter two services confirmed the identities of their users to the authorities, whereas Twitter does not.
The previous targets of Redhack have included the Turkish Council of Higher Education, the country's police force, army, Türk Telekom and the National Intelligence Organisation. After it offered to assist those targeted by the authorities, the number of followers of Redhack's Twitter account numbered more than 600,000. (Davis, n.d.)
A recent example of hacktivism concerns the activities of hacktivist group Anonymous Africa. During the 2013 Zimbabwean election, it attacked and closed down 50 websites, including those associated with the ruling Zanu PF party as well as those of the regime newspaper The Herald.
Some justified this by pointing out that president Robert Mugabe’s regime was allowed plenty of airtime on state TV to support its own message, while giving none to the opposition.
Harder to justify was the attack on the website of South Africa-based Independent Newspapers. This was targeted following a pro-Mugabe opinion piece in one edition. Some say the action, an unsophisticated denial-of-service attack, was an unjustified erosion of freedom of speech.
Others equate Mugabe, who in a judgment by the Council of the European Union on 26 January 2009 was said to be “responsible for activities that seriously undermine democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law”, with Hitler and applaud the attack. (Davis, n.d.)
Research: 1000 words
1. Interview with somebody who thinks it’s it is a positive thing
2. Interview with somebody who thinks it is wrong
Choose the people – 10 people who are discussing this.
Write 5 questions
Send it out to the people
Do you think hacktivism is morally justified?
Do you think hacktivism is an issue?
What’s worse, physical or electronic protesting?
Do the benefits of finding security flaws outweigh the legal negatives?
To what extent is the act of hacking justified?
Bibliography
Denning 1999; National Infrastructure Protection Centre 2001
Hampson, Noah, Hacktivism: A New Breed of Protest in a Networked World found at https://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1685&context=iclr – September 2018
https://academic.oup.com/jhrp/article/7/3/391/2412155