Hacktivism--Wikileaks and Anonymous

The second installment of my lecture on Hacker Culture.

• "White Hat" hackers use their hacking skills to prevent malicious hacking.
• Justifications for Hacking
• Break ins alert the society to security breaches
• Idle Machines
• Social Protector
•  Spafford focuses on the issue of data collection by companies, but there are other issues—e.g., freedom on the internet.
• (Not mentioned by Spafford) Protestor, civil disobedience, vigilante justice. [See Himma for a discussion]
• Wikileaks as engaging in hacktivisim. (If you don't know anything about Wikileaks, you can check our their website or the wikipedia page on them.)
• Note: I mention the "6-D's" they are consequences of digital media: denationalization, demassification, decentralization, despacialization, disintermediation, and disaggregation.
• Anonymous as hacktivists. Is Anonymous engaging in Civil Disobedience?
• Plus a bit about free speech and legal limits on it. 

Hacker Culture

This is the first installment of a couple of video lectures on Hacker Culture.

Main Points

• With the rise of “networks” came people who could get “unauthorized” access to those networks. e.g., “Phone hackers.”
• Hacker culture, however, is broader than that.  I would define it as using technological knowledge computers, and particularly computer networks, in ways outside of the law or everyday morality.
• Spafford  a bit weak on ethics—but discusses the rationales from an ethical point of view, so I thought it would be helpful.
• Justifications for Hacking and Spafford's responses.
• Information wants to be free
• Spafford notes the drawbacks to open information, but fails to mention the drawbacks to secrecy and proprietary information.