In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of hack and activism), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements.
Hacktivist activities span many political ideals and issues. Freenet, a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication, is a prime example of translating political thought and freedom of speech into code. Hacking as a form of activism can be carried out through a network of activists, such as Anonymous and WikiLeaks, or through a singular activist, working in collaboration toward common goals without an overarching authority figure.
"Hacktivism" is a controversial term with several meanings. The word was coined to characterize electronic direct action as working toward social change by combining programming skills with critical thinking. But just as hack can sometimes mean cyber crime, hacktivism can be used to mean activism that is malicious, destructive, and undermining the security of the Internet as a technical, economic, and political platform.
According to the United States 2020-2022 Counterintelligence Strategy, in addition to state adversaries and transnational criminal organizations, "ideologically motivated entities such as hacktivists, leaktivists, and public disclosure organizations, also pose significant threats".
Writer Jason Sack first used the term hacktivism in a 1995 article in conceptualizing New Media artist Shu Lea Cheang's film Fresh Kill. However, the term is frequently attributed to the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) member "Omega," who used it in a 1996 e-mail to the group. Due to the variety of meanings of its root words, the definition of hacktivism is nebulous and there exists significant disagreement over the kinds of activities and purposes it encompasses.
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Anonymous is a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology. Anonymous originated in 2003 on the 4chan representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an "anarchic", digitized "global brain" or "hivemind".
A security hacker is someone who explores methods for breaching defenses and exploiting weaknesses in a computer system or network. Hackers may be motivated by a multitude of reasons, such as profit, protest, information gathering, challenge, recreation, or evaluation of a system weaknesses to assist in formulating defenses against potential hackers. Longstanding controversy surrounds the meaning of the term "hacker.
WikiLeaks (ˈwɪkiliːks) is a publisher and media organisation founded in 2006. It operates as a non-profit and is funded by donations and media partnerships. It has published classified documents and other media provided by anonymous sources. It was founded by Julian Assange, an Australian editor, publisher, and activist, who is currently challenging extradition to the United States over his work with WikiLeaks. Since September 2018, Kristinn Hrafnsson has served as its editor-in-chief.
Public-key distance bounding protocols are well suited to defeat relay attacks in proximity access control systems when the author assume no prior shared key. At AsiaCCS 2014, Gambs, Onete, and Robert designed such a protocol with privacy protection for th ...
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Internet, users often need to assume, by default, that their every statement or action online is monitored and tracked. The Dissent project at Yale University takes a collective approach to online anonymity, based on different algorithmic foundations from ...
Internet blackouts are challenging environments for anonymity and censorship resistance. Existing popular anonymity networks (e.g., Freenet, I2P, Tor) rely on Internet connectivity to function, making them impracticable during such blackouts. In such a set ...