Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Hacktivism is the fusion of computer hacking and political activism. It is aimed at free information, removing censorship, etc. The focus of this article was mostly on the difference between hacking and hacktivism, and the number of activities wrongly defined as Hacktivism such as Denial of Service hacking.

It seemed to me that the most interesting aspect of this article was the idea that governments are trying to impose restrictions on the internet, which in and of itself, is supposed to be a free and ungoverned resource. That raises issues in my mind of the possibilities of a one-world government not based upon the unification of the nations of the world, but on the internet as a global environment. Is the internet its own nation, so to speak, and will we eventually see the internet come under the rule of a government? The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace is flamboyant and idealistic, and I can't help but thinking that the America we live in today is not so much the true democracy the Founding Fathers intended when they made their own Declaration 240 years ago. We may believe the internet can and should be free and ungoverned now in its infancy, but the internet may become a global cybernation with its own non-terrestrial government in the future.

I find the concept of true Hacktivism to be fundamentally profound, although I did notice that a great deal of the article and the quotes from Hacktivists and experts seemed sensational and extremist. The question is, are Hacktivists really freeing information which should be universally accessible, or are they taking a non-discriminatory approach and endangering individual and group security? I think there is a great deal of grey area here. What is positive, constructive hacking that sends political messages, and what is extremist hacking that produces damaging results (and who decides)?

1 comment:

Jessica said...

I think that is a really interesting idea about a government of the internet. I would like to think that as a whole, people would never let that happen, but I'm sorry to say that people as a whole are pretty stupid. So, ya never know. That would be a very sad time though.

I do think you raise another interesting idea about bad hacking and good hacking. How far is too far? That is definitely something to think about.