Hello. I’m
here again to post new article about hacking. But after we go on our
discussion, how are you? Have you considered hacking as an ethical or
unethical? Or you are also part of those hacking activities? And where do you
consider yourself to be (White, Black or Grey Hat Hacker)?
Hacking on the point of view of this hacktivist is something to be as a grey hat hacker. As I went on searching for some interesting topics regarding this there were three websites that can explain also this kind of topic.
Ethical
Hacking which was define by the Group GT2-S1 in their blog site named
Cybercrime, under their topic Ethical Issues,
this kind of hacking “that comes into
play with cybercrime, “Ethical hackers,” or “white hat hackers” are those who
try to compromise computer systems for the sake of informing the content owner
so they can fix the problem. Some security professionals do this for a living,
so there is no ethical issue, since the target company is aware of and is
paying for this service.” Moreover with this, “sometimes the motivations of hackers play into how hacking is viewed
in the ethical realm. When hackers attack something for some type of gain,
monetary or otherwise, that would come at the cost of the targeted system, they
are often looked down upon – there is not really an ethical ground to stand on
in this case. But when hackers break into systems for fun, or to better their
own skills and learn more about security, there is an ethical gray area.
Motivation definitely affects how hackers and their actions are viewed by
others, but does motivation play a part in the ethics of the action?” 
Hacktivism,
still on the article I found online, “is
exactly what it sounds like: hacking + activism, using computers and the
Internet to promote a political or social cause. Obviously, some types of
hacktivism are illegal, like breaking into proprietary systems or stealing
information. Some types of hacktivism are legal, like website parodies. One of
the most common types of hacktivism is a denial of service attack. This attack
involves sending large amount of traffic to a certain website until it reaches
its limit and crashes. More recently, DoS attacks have been done in a
distributed manner, so that traffic comes from hundreds or thousands of nodes
around the world. This makes the source of attacks much harder to trace. DoS
attacks are illegal under US law, but very hard to enforce.” While reading this, the author believed that Hacktivism
is in an ethical grey area. But there are some questions still unknown which
are, “Today, the Internet is the primary
medium for our communication, and grassroots movements are using it as such. Is
it ethically acceptable for social causes to use hacktivist techniques to
further their opinion? Where should the line be set? How do we balance free
speech rights and still protect corporations and individuals from too much
hacktivist harm?”
Going to the
second article I found, from the Network Security Resource, based on their article,
“The debate on
the information protection industry”, Ethical Hackers and Politics on this
content was considered as a “third type
of hacking for the greater good diverges significantly from this framework, hacktivists
generally seek to pursue a political goal through blatant attacks on computer
systems. The attacks are often not very sophisticated - hacktivism by and large
differs from the other hacker forms discussed above in that the political goal
completely overshadows concerns for demonstrations of technical ability and
networking finesse. Many ethical hackers are opposed to standard hacktivist
techniques, which include replacing home pages with political content and
pseudo-denial of service attacks that make web sites inaccessible for a period
of time.” Stephen Wray, in Electronic Civil Disobedience and the World Wide
Web of Hacktivism: A Mapping of Extra parliamentarian Direct Action Net Politics
discusses a subgenre of hacktivism, electronic civil disobedience. These
hacktivists generally acknowledge that some of what they are doing (changing
the content of targeted web pages, for example) is and should be illegal.
Hacktivists are not trying to call attention to networking issues. They want to
use the network to call attention to broader political issues. They borrow "the tactics of trespass and blockade
from . . . earlier social movements" to generate greater public
awareness of an issue. Electronic Civil Disobedience, following this heritage,
generally is undertaken in the open, without pseudonyms and without efforts to
avoid arrest. Ironically, hacktivists may be in complete agreement with that
establishment about the legitimacy of the ownership of information and the need
to secure that information on networks. Like civil disobedient before them,
they don't (necessarily) claim that the laws they are breaking are wrong, or
even that their actions are not disruptive - they simply claim that sacrifices
can and should be made to higher goals. More recently, hacktivist activity is
taking place in the name of superpower rivalry between China and the United
States. Conclusion that the author written about this was, “Even for those who do not count themselves among the ranks of the ethical
hackers, it is important to be aware that security often does come at the
expense of openness, convenience and efficiency. University systems are acutely
aware of this (as are hackers), and in keeping with general commitments to
openness and the free exchange of ideas, have much less secure systems.
Information technology security is often the challenge of balancing the demands
of users with the need for data confidentiality and integrity.”
Lastly, from
Mr. Vic Hargrave on his article, Hacker,
Hacktivist, or Cybercriminal? “Hacktivism does not fit neatly into either
white hat or black hat categories.
Unlike either their white hat or black hat counterparts, hacktivists are
motivated by politics not profit. They
find themselves at ideological odds with many organizations and feel justified
in their computer attacks against them. However,
depending on whether or not you agree with a given hacktivist group’s point of
view, you could see hacktivists as either white hats or black hats. In October,
2011, Anonymous took down 40 child pornography websites and publicly revealed
the names of over 1500 people who frequented those sites. But the group also
attacked computers belonging to the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) and leaked
personal information of over 2000 BART users on the Internet. This was done in
retaliation for BART officials shutting off cell phone service to prevent
people from communicating to coordinate a protest against a police shooting on
a BART train. Whether or not Anonymous
agrees with BART’s actions is not really the important thing. The group took
action against BART without due process and leaked personal information of BART
users who were unlucky enough to get caught in the crossfire of this feud.”
To a certain
extent, hacktivists blur the distinction between white hat and black hat
hackers. They often get involved in illegal activities but, as we’ve seen with
Anonymous, for causes that can in some cases can be considered just. Hacktivists
in another category of hacker can be known as grey hat. The term grey hat was
coined by the hacker group L0pht back in 1998. It was originally used to
describe hackers who report the vulnerabilities they find to the organizations
whose computers security they breach. Later in 2002, the Anti-Sec community
used the term to describe people that work in the security community during the
day and work as black hat hackers on off hours. Since 2002 grey hat has taken
on diverse meanings. The Electronic
Frontier Foundation, a non-profit digital rights advocacy group, defined grey
hats as ethical hackers who inadvertently or intentionally violate the law to
research and improve security. It is
this definition that can be best applies to hacktivists, except that they are
not so much interested in improving security as they are in advancing their
political causes.
2 comments:
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