:: Hacking and cyberterrorism ::

In the essaypost I made last week in this space, I mentioned hacking and the counter-reaction to it by the corporate netplaces and their overlords.

While that part of the essaypost was a minor contribution to the overall essay, I received a comment or two about that aspect in particular. One person asked if the subtext to my post meant that I condone or wish to glorify hacking. Someone else basically gave me a virtual two thumbs up. Different keystrokes for different folks, I guess.

As a result of the feedback, I thought I'd clarify my view. First of all, from the scholary perspective of the project that is the underlying reason for this blog, the morality of any online activity is irrelevant. Whether I think something is right or wrong, good or bad, has no place in my thesis or in the overall scope of my examination of the I-Space for this blogproject. Even later, when this blog is no longer part of a blogging-for-marks thing, I hope to avoid the polarization that providing a value judgement of someone's activity can cause. I particularly want to avoid the flaming -- I'm a pacifist at heart.

This is the ideal of course, and I understand that the possibility of having value judgements creep into my thinking and into my writing here is inevitable and must be accepted as par for the course. The only other option is to go back and edit the original essaypost, which, given that I've already done so once, begins to make the idea of essayblogging rather unusable.

So -- since a few of you have asked, here's my opinion....

:: disclaimer ::
This particular opinion should not be considered germane to the more academic nature of this blog - take it for what it is and know that I understand and accept your view may be different.

:: open opinion ::

Hacking for the pure thrill of it is not something that I advocate. I find it particularly reprehensible if hacking is done for the purposes of random malicious damage. Denial of service attacks, site defacements, phone phreaking, etc., are all undesirable if damage to people or information is caused as a result of the actions with no reason whatever than the fact that you can. It is the online equivalent of chopping down your neighbours tree, keying their car and breaking their picture window just because you had the axe, a key and a few rocks, as well as the urge to do it "just 'cause".

Hacking for a reason, be it to protest a corporation's policies or actions, point out the flaws in their security while doing nothing to their information resources, or to learn about cybersecurity in the goal of getting a job to prevent malicious hacking, this I find more palatable. The idea here is that nothing is actually harmed -- no damage is done and no true confidentiality is breached.

It is probably not a secret to anyone who knows me in the meatworld that I, personally, would love to see the virtual equivalent of the Whirlmart protests borne out online in a DOS attack of a blatantly sexist and commercialistic site or event, such as...oh...say....the slavering peepshow (a.k.a cyberfashion show) that happens one or twice a year at Victoria's Secret.

This kind of hacking can be called many things. The most common term that I know of is "white hat hacking", as in the idea of the "good" white-hatted cowboy facing off against the bad, usually black-hatted cowboy in the old westerns. I've also heard it called "hacktivism", which I think I prefer.

Regardless, though, the whole issue is a moral slipperly slope. Just as urban graffiti can be seen as one person's damage and another person's art, the same metaphor could be applied to hacktivism as well. The line is thin indeed.

What I find more disturbing in general is the traditional media's usual kneejerk reaction to hacking as something that is evil, immoral and wrong, wrong, wrong, no matter what. If one digs deeper into the stories and sideways-surfs to a bunch of sites related to the topic, the whole morass starts to resemble a bit of a Certeau-esque strategy of the forces of domination to control the individual's view. I hear echoes of the old propaganda that advocates against individuals or groups who don't toe the current, "spend spend buy buy" passive mode of the online place. I see an aspect of disinformation at worst, or one-sided reporting at best.

:: close opinion ::

As many of the balanced news items about hacking will point out, the only thing that is usually liable to get hurt by a hacking event is data, not people.

Does this mean that I justify it? Again, I don't advocate for either role.

To find out more yourself, go check out a recent well-written post about the topic of hacking and cyberterrorism that was posted on The Washington Monthly Online recently...I found it through a link today in The Literacy Weblog.

I do try to remember that there are always multiple sides to every issue. Digesting information with a critical mind is the key here (note I use critical in the old world sense of a "detailed examination and review", per Webster's Unabridged Dictionary)Just because the corporate media provide one slant on a topic does not make that slant to be the truth. We all have to dig a bit deeper, evaluate and query the text or images, and be willing to use alternative resources to get a more 360 degree view of the topic beforemaking up our minds about something. In doing so, we expand our mindsets and can see the possibly deliberate or unintional closures of representation more clearly.

Stories and resources about hacking:
The thin gray line (CNET.com)
E-Terrorism: Digital myth or true threat? (News.com)
Underground and Hacker sites (Searchsecurity.com grouped links)
The Myth about Cyberterrorism (The Washington Monthly Online)


As always, your opinion on this post or this blog are welcome.