The Elements Of Hacktivist Computer Science Essay

The Elements Of Hacktivist computer cognizance EssayHacktivism a portmanteau of hack and activism is the nonviolent use up of dirty or leg every(prenominal)y ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of governmental ends. These tools include tissue site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service antiaircrafts, information theft, meshwork site parodies, realistic go tos, virtual(prenominal) sabotage, and soft state of wargon development.1 It is often understood as the writing of inscribe 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 directs to those produced by regular activism or civil disobedience.Hacktivist activities span m both political intellectls and issues. Freenet is a prime example of translating political thought into code. Hacktivismo is an offshoot of Cult of the nonviable Cow its beliefs include access to information as a basic human right. The loose ne devilrk of programmers, artists and radical militants 1984 network liberty league is more concerned with issues of free speech, surveillance and privacy in an season of increased technological surveillance.Hacktivism is a controversial term, and provide often be misconstrued as cyberterrorism. What separates hacktivism from cyberterrorism is a distinctly political or social stir behind the h save. Some argue it was coined to describe how electronic direct action might work toward social change by combining computer programming skills with critical thinking. Others use it as practically synonymous with malicious, destructive acts that spelunk the security of the network as a technical, economic, and political platform.Essentially, the controversy reflects two divergent philosophical strands within the hacktivist movement. bingle strand thinks that malicious cyber-attacks are an acceptable form of direct action. The o ther strand thinks that all kick should be peaceful, refraining from destruction.ControversySome people describing themselves as hacktivists break interpreted to defacing websites for political reasons, such as attacking and defacing government websites as considerably as web sites of free radicals who oppose their ideology. Others, such as Oxblood Ruffin (the foreign affairs minister of Hacktivismo), afford 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 nix will win. In 2006, Blue Security tested 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.Depending on who is victimisation the term, hacktivis m can be a politically constructive form of nihilist civil disobedience or an undefined anti-systemical gesture it can star sign 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, piece of music those given to conspiracy possible action hope to see in hacktivism an attempt to precipitate a crisis office online.Elements of Hacktivist HactionsA Haction usually has the following elements.Politically motivatedPlace a premium on humor, and often resembles a digital form of trickOwns a moderate Outlaw Orientation as opposed to terribleThe result of aggressive policy circumvention rather than a gradual attempt to change a policyAlways non-violent- a haction never places some other in direct dangerCapacity for solo activity while most forms of political activism require the strength of masses, hacktivism is most often t he result of the power of one, or small group.Is most often carried out anonymously, and can take place over transnational borders.Forms of HacktivismIn order to defy 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 fashionable website, or launched from a website with click of a button. Some of the more wholesome known 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 varlet of a companys or governemental agencys website.2. Web Sit-ins In this form of hacktivism,hackers attempt to stake so much traffic to the site, that the overwhelmed site becomes inaccessible to other users.3. electronic mail Bombing Hacktivists send scores of e-mails with large file attachments to their targets e-mail lotNotable hacktivist eventsThe earlier known instance of hacktivism is documented by Julian Assange as follows4Hacktivism is at least as old as October 1989 when DOE, HEPNET and bracing (NASA) connected VMS machines world wide were penetrated by the anti-nuclear WANK worm. WANK penetrated machines had their login screens modify 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 System Has Been formally WANKed /_____________________________________________/You talk of times of peace for all, and whence 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 S hu Lea Cheang published in InfoNation in 1995.The hacking group milw0rm hacked into the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) in 1998, refilling 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 whirl Theater conducted virtual sit-ins on the Web sites of the Pentagon and the Mexican government to bring the worlds attention to the dilemma 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 eastbound Timor in 1998 by Portuguese hackers.6On December 29, 1998, the Legions of the Underground (LoU) say cyberwar on Iraq and china with the intention of disrupting and disabling internet infrastr ucture. On January 7, 1999, an international coalition of hackers (including Cult of the Dead Cow, 2600 s staff, Phracks staff, L0pht, and the Chaos Computer Club) issued a joint statement condemning the LoUs declaration of war.7 The LoU responded by withdrawing its declaration.Hacktivists attempt 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 disruption their keywords further. The idea was to give the Echelon computers so many hits they overloaded. It is not known whether JED was boffo in actually jamming Echelon, although NSA computers were reported to have crashed inexplicably in former(a) work on, 2000. A second Jam Echelon Day (JEDII) was held in October 2000, however the idea never regai ned 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 case Convention in New York City, conducting sit-ins against Republican web sites and flooding web sites and communication systems identified with conservative causes. This received 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 needed bronc 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 f or 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 despatch in Atenco, in solidarity with striking french students and against the Minutemen and immigration laws.8On March 25, 2007, hacktivists organized the event freEtech in response to the OReilly Etech conference, and started a series of tungsten 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 unknown. The group declared Project Chanology, essentially a war on The Church of Scientology, and promised to systematically expel The Church from the internet. everyplace 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 computer hacker leaks the personal data of 6 million Chileans (including ID card numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and academic records) from government and armament 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 burn 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 self-complacency 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 widespread street actions.Intruders hacked the website of commentator Bill OReilly and posted p ersonal elaborate of more than 200 of its subscribers, in retaliation for remarks OReilly do on dodger News condemning the attack on Palins Yahoo email mark 1.In 2008 hacktivists developed a communications and monitoring system for the 2008 RNC protests called Tapatio.In early 2009, the Israeli invasion of Gaza motivated a number of website defacements, denial-of-service attacks, and field of honor name and account hijackings, from both sides12. These attacks are notable in world amongst the first ever politically-motivated domain name hijackings.During the 2009 Persian election protests, Anonymous played a role in disseminating information to and from Iran by displace up the website Anonymous Iran13 they also released a video manifesto to the Iranian government.On August 1, 2009, the Melbourne International Film Festival was forced to unsympathetic down its website after DDoS attacks by Chinese vigilantes, in response to Rebiya Kadeers aforethought(ip) guest appearance, th e screening of a film about her which is deemed anti-China by Chinese state media, and strong sentiments following the July 2009 rmqi 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