HACKTIVISM BY DOROTHY E. DENNING

Hacktivism is the convergence of hacking with activism, where “hacking” is used here to refer to operations that exploit computers in ways that are unusual and often illegal, typically with the help of special software (“hacking tools”). Hacktivism includes electronic civil disobedience, which brings methods of civil disobedience to cyberspace.

This section explores four types of operations: virtual sit-ins and blockades, automated email bombs, web hacks and computer break-ins, and computer viruses and worms. Because hacking incidents are often reported in the media, operations in this category can generate considerable publicity for both the activists and their causes.

About a month after IGC threw the controversial Basque Euskal Herria Journal off its servers, Scotland Yard’s Anti-Terrorist Squad shut down Internet Freedom’s U.K. web site for hosting the journal. According to a press release from Internet Freedom, the squad claimed to be acting against terrorism. Internet Freedom said it would move its news operations to its U.S. site.

The case involving Euskal Herria Journal illustrates the power of hacktivists on the Internet. Despite IGC’s desire to host the controversial site, they simply could not sustain the attack and remain in business. They could have ignored a few email messages demanding that the site be pulled, but they could not ignore an email bombing.

The case also illustrates the power of the Internet as a tool for free speech. Because Internet venues for publication are rich and dispersed throughout the world, it is extremely difficult for governments and hacktivists alike to keep content completely off the Internet. It would require extensive international cooperation, and, even then, a site could operate out of a safe haven that did not sign on to international agreements.

Web Hacks and Computer Break-Ins

The media is filled with stories of hackers gaining access to web sites and replacing some of the content with their own. Frequently, the messages are political, as when a group of Portuguese hackers modified the sites of 40 Indonesian servers in September 1998 to display the slogan “Free East Timor” in large black letters. According to The New York Times, the hackers also added links to web sites describing Indonesian human rights abuses in the former Portuguese colony.Then in August 1999, Jose Ramos Horta, the Sydney-based Nobel laureate who represents the East Timor independence movement outside Indonesia, warned that a global network of hackers planned to bring Indonesia to a standstill if Jakarta sabotaged the ballot on the future of East Timor. He told the Sydney Morning Herald that more than 100 hackers, mostly teenagers in Europe and the United States, had been preparing the plan.

In June 1998, a group of international hackers calling themselves Milw0rm hacked the web site of India’s Bhabha Atomic Research Center (BARC) and put up a spoofed web page showing a mushroom cloud and the text “If a nuclear war does start, you will be the first to scream”.

The hackers were protesting India’s recent nuclear weapons tests, although they admitted they did it mostly for thrills. They said that they also downloaded several thousand pages of email and research documents, including messages between India’s nuclear scientists and Israeli government officials, and had erased data on two of BARC’s servers. The six hackers, whose ages range from 15 to 18, hailed from the United States, England, the Netherlands, and New Zealand.

Another way in which hacktivists alter what viewers see when they go to a web site is by tampering with the Domain Name Service so that the site’s domain name resolves to the Internet protocol address of some other site. When users point their browsers to the target site, they are redirected to the alternative site.

BY MWINYIJUMA REHEMA

BAPRM III - 42686