Globalization & Business IT: Nature of Hacktivism - Essay Example

GLOBALIZATION & BUSINESS IT: NATURE OF HACKTIVISM By Student’s Name Code + Course Name Professor’s Name University Cite, State Date Introduction The emergence of an internet platform has developed substantial level of opportunities for businesses to avail their product or services and, also to communicate with others globally. It can now be ascertained that many businesses and large entities are now executing a significant portion of their operations online in order to catapult their efficiency hence, leading to lower level of costs. For this reason, the aspect of security is considered to be the fundamental concern amongst the aforementioned large entities and corporations to prevent possible disruptions. Most notably, these businesses are more concerned with the protection of their respective financial and confidential information against manipulation and fraud (Chan, 2012). However, most of them are now facing a new crop of hacking in the form of hacktivism, which is defined as being the integration of hacking and activities of activism that are directed towards a given internet site with the intention of disrupting its day-to-day operations but making sure not cause serious level of damages (Denning, 2008). The main focus of this paper will be on examining the nature of hacktivism more as a civil disobedience act rather than a normal cyber crime. There are three important facets that distinguish hacktivism from normal cyber-terrorists acts. They include; first, it is established that the activities of hacktivism are non-violent in nature whereas cyber crimes are mostly conducted with the purpose of harming other human beings and their information materials (McBain, 2014). Second, it is ascertained that hacktivism can adopt either a legal or illegal activity whereas cyber crime is mostly an illegal activity. The fact that hacktivism is executed in a non-violent manner sets it apart from acts of cyber crime and, thus postulated as being an act of civil disobedience (McBain, 2014). Significantly, it is considered as being a political ploy in relation to the level of activities it is concerned with within any given moment. Mass action hacktivism is a fundamental form of online politics that results to hacktivism as a whole. It is more attributed to the invention of electronic forms of civil disobedience in actions that are directed towards taking over of conventional models of protests like boycotts, street demonstrations and go-slows and thereafter reinvent them for virtual platform. It is important to mention, at this point in time, that mass action hacktivism is mostly linked with distinctive forms of anti-globalization movements, with which it relies upon for support of actions of assists (McBain, 2014). For example, Zapatistas or an assist meant to completely close down on meetings to be held by the World Trade Organizations. Consequently, mass action hacktivism is more inclined towards seeking legitimization through looking for support of many persons before it can go ahead to recreate its activities on a cyber platform. It also avails limited implementation of cyber spatial powers in order to ensure that its immediate actions are able to depict mass politics (Anderson, 2008). Digitally correct form of hacktivism is more concerned with the immediate purity of informational based politics. The hacktivists, in this model of hacktivism, are focused on radicalizing hacking’s original cravings in regards to freedom of accessing information. This is achieved by way of ensuring that a formidable number of digital tools are developed to prevent infringement of cyberspace access rights hence, allowing for a free and secure information center for end-users (Hampson, 2012). It is important to note that these hacktivists remain attached to the hacking communities but also, ensure that they can import concerns about the aspect of globalization and its effects on states, particularly in cases where the states adopt a censorship policy aimed at limiting internet access to its subjects (Xiang, 2013). In case of censorship, the intrinsic powers of cyberspace are generated and relied upon in establishing an informational level of politics that would flow with distinct virtuality. The element of informational politics was originally focused on creating an effective and efficient civil disobedience action that related to hacker-specific issues like the censorship of the internet access as well as prosecution of hackers. Nowadays, the focus of informational politics is directed towards international cyber wars between nations like Israel and Palestine as well as between China and America. One of the most popular political hacktivism is depicted by a group known as the World’s Fantabulous Defacers (WFD). The group emerged in late 2000s and was known to have caused a substantial level of anti-Indian and Israeli defacements for a period of two years. Another of form of civil disobedience, which was manifested through acts of hacktivism, can be attributed to the number of attacks witnessed in the period between 2001 and 2003 that exceeded 400 in number. It was later ascertained that most of these attacks were used as a formidable way to attract media attention towards the promotion of human rights abuses of Muslims in both Palestine and Kashmir. Performative hacktivism differs from most of hacktivism models given that its actions are mostly based on legally ambitious activities from hacktivists that depict artist-activists backgrounds. It is noted that their hacking prowess for political functions are solely conducted within a political theatre (Manion & Goodrum, 2000). They are mainly concerned with such societal issues like globalization, corporate power and liberalization. They are focused on conducting actions in form of groups that involves a transitional cohesion of hacktivists whereby their websites are designed and launched in one country but then solicits for sit-in participations from a wider range of cross-national platform (Manion & Goodrum, 2000). In this regards, hacktivism is mostly executed in form of persistent sit-ins or in other cases site parodies that can be likened to the conventional model of protests like street protests and political based theatres. It should be understood that this form of hacktivism is mostly a form of civil disobedience rather than cyber crime given that they are less destructive in nature. Software development initiatives have also utilized this form of hacktivism. For instance, a group known as Yes Men has all long been known to be developing website parodies for a substantial number of years (Nascimento Duarte, 2013). These hacktivists, as earlier mentioned, are more careful with their immediate actions in order to prevent any form of legal action that might be attracted their way. Their civil disobedience model is based on numerous primary attacks that are composed of virtual sit-ins and site parodies that are fundamentally lesser illegal (Jordan & Taylor, 2004). It is mainly attributed to a process where real people are used to overload a webpage to an extent that makes the server ineffective. In this way, they are engaged in efforts that challenges issues attributed to domination by both the media and corporate entities for the benefit of the entire public (Manion & Goodrum, 2000). By reaching out to the entire public, these hacktivists are portrayed as having a deeper calling to improve the level of awareness and, thus develop formidable public pressure and not to affect the end results of corporate in a direct manner. In recent times, the Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) is depicted as a performance hacktivists group that has continued to remain relevant in their fight for awareness. It initiated its operations in 1997 when the return of the Mexican forces to Chiapas left at least 45 peasants deal in Acteal (Nascimento Duarte, 2013). The EDT was thereafter contacted by the Anonymous Digital Coalition, which is a group of hacktivists that are based in Italy, to foster simultaneous visits to specific Mexican government websites by the local population in order to reload them until their respective servers slowed to perform requests or in other cases crash (Knapp & Boulton, 2006). It can be established that hacktivism is a form of civil disobedience rather than cyber crime given that it utilizes a substantial number of people to attain its set objectives, which is helping people to access information and also, prevent possible acts of human beings abuses (Nascimento Duarte, 2013). In conclusion, it can be ascertained from the above discussion that the activities of activism are more inclined towards creating civil disobedience as opposed to engaging in cyber crime activities. The actions related to hacktivism are mostly inclined towards allowing the entire public to attain information freedom and access. It is mostly executed to disembark domination enjoyed by both the media and large corporate across the globe. It has also been noted that the actions of hacktivism, as opposed to hacking, are less risky and thus, they illegally ambitious activities conducted by mostly a group of people. Some of the common ways through which hacktivists attain their objective rest with sit-ins and site parodies. Significantly, hacktivism is meant to reach out to all of internet users irrespective of their country origins that is why a group such as EDT can be contacted by another group that is based in another country to call for mass action hence prevent atrocities that were committed by government forces. References List 1) Anderson, K. 2008. Hacktivism and Politically Motivated Computer Crime. Viewed 20 October 2014 http://www.aracnet.com/~kea/Papers/Politically%20Motivated%20Computer%20Crime.pdf 2) Chan, T.2012. Hacktivism. Viewed 20 October 2014 http://uwcisa.uwaterloo.ca/Biblio2/Topic/Terence_Chan_Hacktivism.pdf 3) Denning, D. E. 2008. Hacktivism: An Emerging Threat to Diplomacy. Retrieved October 22, 2014 from http://www.afsa.org/fsj/sept00/Denning.cfm 4) Eddy, N 2012, ''Hacktivism' Reigned in 2011: Verizon', Eweek, p. 3 5) Hampson, NN 2012, 'Hacktivism: a new breed of protest in a networked world', Boston College International & Comparative Law Review, 35, 2, pp. 511-542 6) Jordan, T & Taylor, P.2004. Hacktivism and cyber wars: Rebels with a cause, London and New York, Routledge Taylor & Francis Group. Viewed 20 October 2014 http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=hew6jmcZvD4C&pg=PA4&lpg=PA4&dq=nature+of+hacktivism&source=bl&ots=Wc5OIXdU1o&sig=vzMdlSr0QZ1YRN7G2fyXN-C5D4E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=s2hGVPm5OovkaLDlgNAD&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=nature%20of%20hacktivism&f=false 7) Knapp, K. J. & Boulton, W. R. 2006. Cyber-warfare threatens corporations: Expansion into commercial environments. Information Systems Management, 23, 2, pp. 76-88. 8) Manion, M. & Goodrum, A. 2000. Terrorism or civil disobedience: toward a hacktivist ethic. ACM Digital Library, 30, 2, pp.14-19 9) McCortnick, T 2013, 'Hacktivism', Foreign Policy, 200, pp. 24-25. 10) McBain, S 2014, 'Hacktivists for democracy', New Statesman, 143, 5204, p. 29 11) Nascimento Duarte, B 2013, 'The Body Hacktivism Movement: A Talk about the Body', Psychnology Journal, 11, 1, pp. 21-42. 12) Xiang, L 2013, 'Hacktivism and the first amendment: Drawing the line between cyber protests and crime', Harvard Journal of Law & Technology, 27, 1, pp. 301-330 Read More