EchoDitto Blog

Hacktivism for Dummies, and the ethics of activism

posted by Lanya Shapiro
August 23, 2004 - 11:03am

I thought we’d reached a milestone in online political activism when I read this message encouraging folks to “Gear up for the republican convention protests by taking action from home!”

Alongside the now common (yet still powerful) tactic of coordinating letters to the editor, I found this gem:

Help thousands of others disrupt the republican web sites during the convention by requesting downloads and page refreshes. The below web sites will be targeted each day, starting at noon, Eastern, from August 29 to September 2:
www.2004nycgop.org
www.rnc.org
www.georgewbush.com

For those of us who at times can't even break the code of our own password-protected online bank accounts, this opens up a whole new world. You, yes YOU, can be a hacker! But online civil disobedience isn't new anymore. What's new is the scale.

This is the first Presidential election cycle with potentially millions of armchair hacktivists, and in which more than a handful of people would even notice if a party website crashed. Ironically, there are now so many opportunities for online activism, I doubt whether enough people will choose *this* activity to truly stir up any trouble (one of my personal litmus tests for jumping in).

The truth is, I WON'T be hitting those sites. Jamming the bad guys' website is the equivalent of covering your ears and shouting "LALALALALA -- I can't hear you!" Only you're not covering your own ears; you're covering someone's mouth. And since the internet is about community, freedom of assembly is at stake too.

Rather than muzzle the RNC, I'd rather see us provide positive alternatives. As a civil libertarian -- yes, I'm a card-carrying member -- I believe first amendment rights trump ideology (and even the thrill of trouble-making) every time. [In light of the Bush Administration's horrors, many activists evidently feel that the ends justify the means -- particularly re: third party candidates. It's great food for thought. But that's another post.]

One thing's for sure -- the number of people who faced these questions four years ago was a tiny fraction of those who are grappling (we hope) this year. Credit where credit is due: the fuel is our fear and rage at the Bush Administration. The vehicle is the internet.

Lanya Shapiro's blog
( categories: Grass Roots | Organizing | Politics | The Web )

I laughed this morning when I got that email too, encouraging us to slashdot the Repug sites. I think you're probably right that it wouldn't do much good if it worked, and that it probably wouldn't work -- don't you think the RNC has enough friends in big IT corporations who can donate enough hosting space to withstand whatever DOS attack we could muster? Still, it's potentially a fun way to at least imagine making mischief. And really, loading up web pages isn't illegal or unethical, even if you don't agree with them. (Now if someone set up a script somewhere to automatically swarm RNC servers with page requests, even hijacking innocent computers to do the dirty work, now that would really be hacking.)

PS. Way to go, Lan (oops).

Submitted by Jonathan on August 24, 2004 - 12:10am.

Silencing the opposition is what the Republicans are good at - we don't need to stoop to those tactics.

(Did you see that photo last week that was on the front cover of the Portland Tribune of a middle-aged Bush supporter assaulting a K/E supporter by trying to hold her mouth shut? That's absolutely emblematic of what they do.)

I like to think that we stand for creation, not destruction. They can say what they want, but we'll fight back with more - with truth and creativity and outreach. (I just hope that can drown out their lies.)

Submitted by I agree. on August 24, 2004 - 12:27am.

Woops...."I agree" was me, Maura in VA. ;-)

Submitted by Maura in VA on August 24, 2004 - 12:27am.

hacktivism has always been a little controversial, even within the computer security community (i won't bore you with details, but what most people call a hacker, a hacker would consider a script kiddie, so i'll use a term i find more easily defined). what our friend here calls jammin' is also called DoSin' (for denial of service). yes, taping your F5 key down (to refresh a page) can both boost votes (well, could) and be considered a DoS when used in this way...

LaLaLa. throughout the dean campaign, and now since, people would ask me about what one might consider to be "negative" campaign tactics. i have a philosophy: one shouldn't consider negative tactics until you've done everything you can to lift your own candidate up and identified, motivated and mobilized all the support for that candidate that's possible. strangely, doing that never leaves one time to play nasty.

that's also ethical.

hacktivism is interesting. it is an attempt by those with technical skills to give voice to those people and causes with no voice, by interrupting the communications of those who exploit those with no voice. a case can certainly be made for that. but that doesn't apply here. democrats have a voice, a candidate and the means to make that voice heard. that makes this clearly *not* hacktivism and very obviously plain ole denial of service. lanya reaches the same conclusion from an entirely different perspective.

way to go!

Submitted by snowbored on August 24, 2004 - 8:38am.

I think that it should be commended that Lanya would suggest that someone take the high-road and not trump the freedoms of speech and assembly. Two negatives multiplied may equal a positive, but two civic wrongs do not equal a right. Thanks Lanya for a suggestion of much more intelligent and civil action.

Submitted by HM of NC on August 24, 2004 - 10:01am.