Format Instructions:

The page layout and text format for the written work should be as follows
● Cover page with your name, the lecturer’s name, course title, and the topic
● Line spacing : 1.5 lines
● Paragraph spacing: 12 points or Single Line Spacing
● Number the pages after the cover page
● Text : 11 points Arial
● Headings : Boldface

- 8-10 pages including references.

- table of contents
- introduction
- Describe the issue by fully stating the problem and/or conflict that is central to it.
- Describe all related concepts, and define any terms, especially technical terms, that are
necessary to understand the problem.
- Provide any historical, socio-cultural, or legal background and context in which to
understand the problem.
- Give your judgment on the issue: Is it appropriately resolved? If not how do you think it
should be resolved?
- What is the outlook for the future? Must anything change - underlying technology?
Society itself?
- Conclusions and recommendations
- References
- Turnitin plagiarism report
- Include pagination
- Figures, tables is allowed
- Print rubrics too

Term Paper Presentation

15-minute oral presentation of your term paper
present as creative as you can for example using powerpoint, flash, videos, drama, infographic
etc.
Extra marks will be given for creativity!
- Asking opinions from relevant facebook group about the topic.

- Explain the meaning of hacktivism.

- Present about public opinion (asked online) in slide.
-

Submission: (softcopy and hardcopy) 7 June 2015 for term paper and presentation date for this
task is on week 13 and week 14.
Hacktivism and Free Speech

- Is hacktivism a legitimate form of activism?

- what is the rationale of hacktivism
- compare it with other forms of activism (from non-violent kinds to kinds that involve an
element of destruction or interference with others)
- Should hacking for social or political reason be given more lenient punishment?
- Is hacktivism legitimate in a repressed or totalitarian society?
- What delineates political activism from criminal activity and pranks?
- Relation to cyber terrorism

Table of Contents

Introduction

Hacktivism can be defined as the act of computer hacking or breaching into a computer
network system with a politically or socially motivated intention such as free speech, human
rights and information ethics. Hacktivism make use of the technology to try and give impact to
the social change and usually the main reason is to spread the message in online space. The
individual who performs an act of hacktivism is known as a hacktivist.

The term hacktivism is originally coined in 1994 by a hacktivist called Omega who is also
a member of a group known by the name of Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc). Having a broad
meaning, hacktivism possess a really blurred line between legal and illegal and it mostly
depends on how the hacktivist take an action in questioning. Hacktivism is viewed as a criminal
activity by most people for the reason that it causes damage when there is already various way
to express nondisruptive free speech. However, it is still debatable because some other defend
the act as they insist that it is equivalent to an act of protest and thus it is protected as a form of
free speech.

There are three different types of hacktivism which are political cracking, performative
and political coding. There are two dimensions of variations, origins and orientation. Origins
means the political culture in which the hacktivism is emerged. While orientation is the
determination of relative position of the something. Below are the table that differentiate the
types of hacktivism by hacktivist origins and orientation.

Table 1: Types of hacktivism by hacktivist origins and orientation

Hacker-programmer World Postmodern Left

Transgressive Political coding Performative hacktivism

Outlaw Political cracking

Political coding and performative hacktivism under the transgressive orientation

challenges the legal and political order but still in relation to it even though it still relate with the
norms of the liberal democratic order such as legitimacy and accountability. While the political
cracking is an outlaw that contrast the transgressive orientation which is completely rejects the
legal and political order. Political cracking is the most legally risks but the least effective form of
hacktivism, while for performative hacktivism are more likely a bit progressive street activism
and political cracking is related with the political software development.

The activity of hacktivism can resulting in both good and bad effect. The outlook of the
hacktivism in the future is still in evolving along with the advance in technology. The bad effect
of hacktivism can be shown by this example where because of the structured of Anonymous is
decentralized, no true leadership and malicious actors can and sometimes co opted the
Anonymous to do harm operations on their own. In 2011, a group within this Anonymous in the
United Kingdom leave the group and form their own sub unit called Lulzsec. Lulzsec attack
variety of private organizations such as Target, Sony, U.S government websites of the CIA, the
Senate, NHS and the Serious Organized Crime Agency.These attack however are not driven by
political or other motives but merely just to cause disturbance and to brag about their hacking
skills. Based on this example, even though hacktivists claims that they mean no harm but it is
not possible that one day hacktivists may continue to be involved in militant issue in the future
for their own enjoyment and they will be far from their main purpose as hacktivists.
 Figure x: Aaron Swartz

Aaron Swartz is one of the famous and active hacktivist that revolutionise not only the
web but also the real world. He was born as a prodigy and responsible in the development of
major … His involvement as has hacktivist has contribute positive impact
Hacktivist can also be working in group and of the most famous group activist called themselves
Anonymous.

Figure x: Anonymous mask

The term cyberterrorism is the merge of cyberspace and terrorism. Cyberterrorism is highly
motivated to hack operations and causing a great damage such as loss of life or serious
economic damage. For example, hacking an air traffic control system to make two planes collide
with each other. However, although papers are giving the different definition of these three
terms, an individual can be all the three described by papers. Based on Joshua 2014,
hacktivists are different from any of the other categories of cyber attackers. Their purposes are
mostly on political and social change. Unlike others, they are not encouraged by profit and
having no interest in cyber destruction. Their main goals is to send as a message because they
want to further their main policy goals of free and open access to information and opposition to
Internet censorship. In our opinion, based on what stated by Joshua, the law must treat
hacktivists differently from other types of cyber attackers. This is because in certain country, it is
the right of a citizen to protest against policies that he disagree and everyone have the freedom
to speak. Figure X below show the original hacker ethic described by Steven Levy.

Figure X: Hacker Ethic of 7 main tenants

(Source: Joshua, 2014)
 In order to consider hacktivism as a form of protest done by the hacktivist, there are five
different techniques that suit the discussion which each justify the reasonable expression. One
thing that should be paid attention here is that hacktivism also will change parallelly with the
technology. The first technique is Denial-of-Service attacks. DoS attacks mostly used during the
WikiLeaks incident where someone trying to block access to websites. User that trying to get to
the website that have been attack can experience a significantly slow access or not getting the
access to the website at all. DoS attacks increased considerably over these past few years.
Next technique is site defacements. Site defacements considered as gaining unauthorized
access to a web server and changing a web page with the new content to deliver a certain
message. However, this approach may be constrained to a single site or may happen in huge
volumes across hundred or thousands of sites. Defacements will not damage the targeted site
but it is used to deliver a message and to show the technical prowess of the defacer. The third
technique is site redirects. Site redirects will direct the user to a site that is different from the one
the user intended to go. This is done by taking over the access to a web server without the
owner’s knowledge and the address settings will be changed. By doing this, the hacktivist will
control the content that is displayed to the Internet user when the user enters the web address
of the targeted site. The fourth technique is Virtual Sit-Ins. The purpose of Virtual Sit-Ins is
similar with the DDoS attack because both type of attacks are targeting to slow down or crashed
the targeted server with requests for information. However the different in this approach involve
when users manually and repeatedly reloading the targeted web page. The last technique is
information theft. As the name itself, information theft will gain unauthorized access to computer
or network and they will steal the private data. Figure X below summarize the five techniques
discussed.
 Figure X: 5 different techniques of Hacktivism

Even we used the new technology, the hacktivist can still hack or do something for people to
know about it. For example the Google Glasses you wear is Hacked, the watch phone, and the
car being DDOS. Coha said that the malicious cyber activity become a serious issue since the
use of internet and smartphone is increasing.For the future of hacktivism, the unemployment will
increase the hacktivist activity that participate by the professional groups like anonymous. In
addition, the depreciation in economics encourage the young generation to involve in the
hacktivism. The social media nowadays also is too open in information and there is no
boundaries for them to take any actions in the social media.

Conclusions
References

Noah C.N. Hampson, Hacktivism: A New Breed of Protest in a Networked World, 35 B.C. Int' l
& Comp. L. Rev. 511 (2012), http://lawdigitalcommons.bc.edu/iclr/vol35/iss2/6

Plagiarism Report