HACKTIVISM

Don’t call them hackers but "theorists and practitioners of the electronic civil disobedience" (Kaplan, 1). Ricardo Dominguez and Stefan Wray planned to disrupt a Web site in Mexico and any other sites that supported Mexican polices because they were sympathetic to the Zapatista rebels in Mexico. The Zapatista rebels and the Mexican government have been in a tense internal war since 1994. How did they plan to disrupt the site? They planned to disrupt it with a virtual ‘sit-in’ that would have obstructed government systems making them impossible to use. Dominguez and Wray didn’t see any harm in their strategy, they believe that the law of human rights means more than the laws of trespassing of cyberspace, but some of their colleagues believed "the electronic sit-in would invite retaliation" (Kaplan, 2). The retaliation originates from the federal government against the indigenous Chiapas Indians who are looking for agrarian, ethnic, and social rights.

The Varna Hacking Group hit a cartoon network in the U.K. pleading for "suffering and homeless" Bulgarian children, asking, "aren’t all children equal? Don’t all children deserve a normal life and guaranteed future?" (Ziegler, 68). Political activists are now realizing that institutions are more vulnerable in cyberspace than in the real world. China’s human rights Web site was fractured by a hacktivist: "China’s people have no rights at all, never mind human rights. How can the United States trade millions of dollars with them and give them the most favored trade status when they know what is happening?" (Hacking into Heaven, 1). The Indian government found "Save Kashmir" scrawled on the page that is used to provide information about the region. Portuguese hackers attacked the Indonesian servers so that they displayed "‘Free East Timor’ in large black letters" (Heaven, 1).

Hacktivism is way to make yourself or your cause known to a large group of people. Jack Vranesevich, founder or AntiOnline says, "recently, most web page hacks aren’t political at all, despite their claims to the contrary. Instead, they’re just temper tantrums in disguise" (Ziegler, 70). It seems today that everyone is a hacker and there are few, if any, political messages. Real hacktivism has an obvious message and is fluently written. There are a few places on the web that house these messages from hacktivists.

The Hackers News Network site has articles by hackers that have content; Stealth’s Digital Resistance archives only politically motivated hacks by hackers who "fight against injustice, oppression, racism and censorship" (Ziegler, 71).

Most hacktivists can think for themselves, which gives them a better image. ‘Script kiddies’ are the exception, a new generation of hacker that lacks the knowledge and political insight of a veteran hacker. Except for script kiddies, most hackers are not hacking for personal gain, but for political reasons; however, not everyone agrees that hacktivism works.

Ira Winkler from ZDTV.com argues that hacktivism is "counterproductive, and violates the principles that activism relies upon" (Winkler, 1). Winkler also refutes hacktivism by stating that hacktivists hide behind the First Amendment and proclaims, "replacing someone’s content with your own is violating their right to freedom of speech". (Winkler, 2). If you have a message that needs to be heard, start your own website and if people don’t come to your website then nobody is interested in your cause.

Internet Services Manager for NASA, Brian Dunbar deals with a steady diet of hacks everyday. "We’ve got a variety of systems that in some way deal with protecting people’s lives, and it’s not something we want people who aren’t part of NASA fooling around with, even if it’s with the purest of motives" (Ziegler, 72). Hacking a page of NASA’s stature will shut down the organization for a day and cause the safety of the Americas’ people to be in jeopardy. If a hacker is in and out of a site quickly there has to be a full security audit on the compromised machine. Everyday a government system is compromised, which causes government offices to run at a decreased capacity and, not to mention, is a violation of privacy.

Paul Coggins, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas is responsible for enforcing all legislation for the Internet, like The Communications Decency Act of 1996, which ignited a wave of protest from hackers by blacking out thousands of web pages. He emphatically states that "[hacking] is not a victimless crime. If you break into a mailbox and read a letter, you’ve committed a federal crime. It’s no different with computers" (Ziegler, 69). Coggins continuously reinforces that there is a full-scale war underway, against hackers, and the government will not take any hacker for granted and realizes that anyone could be extremely dangerous.

There is fear by some government officials and from seasoned hacktivists that an unethical hacker could damage the infrastructure of the country and, therefore, cause an electronic holocaust. As more people are trying to catch up to the technological age, businesses and people are bound to be careless in their security. This formula of unfettered security and inexperienced users makes it possible for information to be exploited. "There are two kinds of hackers in this world, one that has the intention of making money and another who searches for vulnerabilities and tries to patch it up. We just have the urge to learn more about how the systems works" (Ziegler, 72).

In closing, hacktivism, or ‘electronic civil disobedience’ will not go away, in fact, it will get bigger in the years to come. Hacktivism is moving to replace the traditional framework of civil disobedience because the world is gravitating towards the information highway. The information highway is a critical instrument for activists and civil disobedience because it is easy for thousands of people to hear your affirmation. I don’t know how effective true acts of hacktivism are but we should expect the fundamental form of discourse to be almost exclusively electronic. In my opinion, hacktivism is illegal and should be controlled. If I want to make my voice heard in a democracy then I will stay within the boundaries of the law because I’m lucky to have the First Amendment to protect me.