The Elements Of Hacktivist Computer Science Essay

The Elements Of Hacktivist Computer Science EssayHacktivism a portmanteau of hack and activism is the nonviolent use of illicit or leg whollyy ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends. These tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, study theft, web site parodies, realistic sit-ins, virtual sabotage, and softw ar development.1 It is often understood as the writing of code to promote political ideology promoting expressive politics, free speech, human rights, or information ethics. Acts of hacktivism are carried out in the belief that proper use of code will be able to produce similar results to those produced by regular activism or gracious disobedience.Hacktivist activities span m whatever political approximationls and issues. Freenet is a prime example of translating political thought into code. Hacktivismo is an offshoot of Cult of the Dead Cow its beliefs include access to information as a basic human right. The loose network of p rogrammers, artists and radical militants 1984 network liberty alliance is more concerned with issues of free speech, surveillance and screen in an era of increased technological surveillance.Hacktivism is a controversial term, and can often be misconstrued as cyberterrorism. What separates hacktivism from cyberterrorism is a distinctly political or companionable cause behind the haction. Some argue it was coined to describe how electronic direct action might work toward social change by combining computer programing 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 different 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 witness should be peaceful, refraining from d estruction. literary argumentSome masses describing themselves as hacktivists have taken to defacing websites for political reasons, untold(prenominal) as attacking and defacing government websites as well as web sites of groups who correct 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.2Critics 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 try to automate a DoS attack against spammers this led to a heapive DoS attack against Blue Security which knocked them, their old ISP and their DNS provider off the internet, destroying their business.Depending on who is using the term, hacktivism can be a politically constructive form of anarchist civil disobedience or an unde fined anti-systemical gesture it can sign on 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 makes it a politically immature gesture, while those given to federation theory hope to see in hacktivism an attempt to precipitate a crisis situation online.Elements of Hacktivist HactionsA Haction usually has the following elements.Politically motivatedPlace a premium on humor, and often resembles a digital form of clowningOwns a moderate criminal Orientation as opposed to severeThe result of aggressive policy circumvention rather than a gradual attempt to change a policy ever non-violent- a haction never localises another in direct dangerCapacity for solo activity while close forms of political activism require the strength of masses, hacktivism is most often the result of the power of one, or small group.Is most often carried out anonymously, and can take place over transnational b sets.Forms of HacktivismIn order to carry out their operations, hacktivists use a variety of software tools readily availble on the internet. In many cases the software can be downloaded from a best-selling(predicate) website, or launched from a website with click of a button. Some of the more well cognise hacktivist tools are below1. Defacing Web Pages Between 1995-1999 Attrition.org reported 5,000 website defacements. In such a scenario, the hacktivist will significantly alter the front page of a companys or governemental agencys website.2. Web Sit-ins In this form of hacktivism, navvys attempt to send so much traffic to the site, that the overwhelmed site becomes inaccessible to other users.3. E-mail Bombing Hacktivists send scores of e-mails with large file attachments to their targets e-mail addressNotable hacktivist eventsThe earliest known instance of hacktivism is documented by Julian Assange as follows4Hacktivism is at least as old as October 19 89 when DOE, HEPNET and SPAN (NASA) connected VMS machines world wide were penetrated by the anti-nuclear WANK worm. WANK penetrated machines had their login screens altered toW 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 organisation Has Been Officially WANKed /_____________________________________________/You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war.One of the earliest documented hacktivist events was the Strano Network sit-in, a strike action directed against cut government computers in 1995.The term itself was coined by techno-culture writer Jason Sack in a piece about media artist Shu Lea Cheang published in InfoNation in 1995.The hacking group milw0rm hacked into the Bhabha Ato mic Research Centre (BARC) in 1998, replacing the centers website with an anti-nuclear message the same message reappeared later that year in what was then an unprecedented mass hack by milw0rm of over 300 websites on the server of hosting company Easyspace.5In 1998, the electronic Disturbance Theater conducted virtual sit-ins on the Web sites of the Pentagon and the Mexican government to bring the worlds attention to the plight of Indian rights in the Mexican state of Chiapas. A Mexican hacking group took over Mexicos finance department website in support of the same cause.5One 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.6On declination 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 C ow, 2600 s staff, Phracks staff, L0pht, and the pandemonium Computer Club) issued a joint statement denounce the LoUs declaration of war.7 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, taking advantage of 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 on March, 2000. A endorsement 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 agitprop .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 acquire mixed reviews from the hacktivist community.citation neededThe Hackbloc collective started publishing Hack This Zine a hacktivist research journalHacktivists managed to break into computer systems at the Bhabha Atomic Research Center in India to protest against nuclear weapons tests.citation neededBronc Buster, later a member of Hacktivismo, disabled firewalls to allow Chinese Internet users uncensored access. The Crackers also defaced a Chinese website which explained what the people of China could access over the internet legally. Wired 01.01.98citation neededHacktivists worked to slow, block, or reroute traffic for web servers associated with the World Trade Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the World Bank.citation neededThroughout 2006, Electronic Disturbance Theater joined the borderlands Hacklab for a number of virtual sit-ins, against the massacre in Atenco, in solidarity with striking french students and against the Minutemen and immigration laws.8On March 25, 2007, hacktivists organised the event freEtech in reception to the OReilly Etech conference, and started a series of West coast hackmeetings.Electronic Disturbance Theater stages a virtual sit-in against the Michigan legislature against cuts to Medicaid.On January 21, 2008, a message appeared on YouTube from a group calling itself Anonymous. The group declared Project Chanology, essentially a war on The church of Scientology, and promised to systematically expel The Church from the internet. Over the following week, Scientology websites were intermittently knocked offline, and the Church of Scientology moved its website to a host that specializes in protection from Denial-of-service attacks.A compute r hacker leaks the personal data of 6 million Chileans (including ID card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and academic records) from government and military servers to the internet, to protest Chiles poor data protection.9Throughout early 2008, Chinese hackers have hacked the CNN website on numerous occasions in response to the protests during the 2008 Olympic Torch Relay and claims of biased reporting from western media. The majority of the DDoS attacks took place between March and August, at a time where Chinese nationalistic pride was at an all time high due to the 2008 Olympic Games.1011Electronic Disturbance Theater and the Hacklab stage a virtual sit-in against the war on Iraq and biotech and nanotech war profiteers, on the 5 year anniversary of the war, in solidarity with general street actions.Intruders hacked the website of commentator Bill OReilly and posted personal details of more than 200 of its subscribers, in retaliation for remarks OReilly made on Fox News con demning the attack on Palins Yahoo email account 1.In 2008 hacktivists developed a communications and monitoring system for the 2008 RNC protests called Tapatio.In early 2009, the Israeli impingement of Gaza motivated a number of website defacements, denial-of-service attacks, and domain expose and account hijackings, from both sides12. These attacks are notable in being amongst the first ever politically-motivated domain name hijackings.During the 2009 Iranian election protests, Anonymous played a role in disseminating information to and from Iran by setting up the website Anonymous Iran13 they also released a goggle box manifesto to the Iranian government.On August 1, 2009, the Melbourne International Film Festival was forced to shut down its website after DDoS attacks by Chinese vigilantes, in response to Rebiya Kadeers planned guest appearance, the screening of a film about her which is deemed anti-China by Chinese state media, and strong sentiments following the July 2009 rm qi riots. The hackers booked out all film sessions on its website, and replaced festival information with the Chinese flag and anti-Kadeer slogans.1415In November 2009, computers of the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University were hacked, and email purporting to expose a conspiracy by scientists to suppress data that contradicted their conclusions regarding global warming was made available on a Russian FTP server.16