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Election 2006 (and beyond): Digital Copyright Canada
From: russell_-at-_flora.ottawa.on.ca
Date: 27 Oct 1998 11:10:48 -0500
Web posted Monday 26 October 1998
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/hightech/981026/1964496.html
Select the above if you want the accompanying visuals.
Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998 10:50:00 -0500 (EST)
From: jesse hirsh <jesse@tao.ca>
Subject: tao: (en) "E-Guerrillas in the mist" Ottawa Citizen Oct 26 (fwd)
From: "Stefan Wray <sjw210@is8.nyu.edu>"@alpha.netvision.net.il
________________________________________________
A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
http://www.ainfos.ca/
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E-Guerrillas in the mist
One by one, the world's most prominent
Web sites are falling to the cyber bullets
of Internet hackers. Unlike in the past,
the new breed of electronic intruder has
a political agenda.
Bob Paquin
The Ottawa Citizen
On Oct. 12 the Website of Mexican
president Ernesto Zedillo was attacked
and compromised.
The date of the event was significant. Oct.
12 happens to be Columbus Day in
America -- an almost irresistible call to
action for the members of the New
York-based Electronic Disturbance
Theatre.
The Zedillo hack was not the work of bored
teens. It was a political act, an
occasion for Internet activists -- or
"hacktivists" -- to "demonstrate
continued resistance to centuries of
colonization, genocide, and racism
in the western hemisphere and
throughout the world," according to the
Theatre.
Nor was the Oct. 12 attack an isolated incident. In August, the
Mexican group X-Ploit hacked the country's finance ministry
Website, replacing it with the face of revolutionary hero Emiliano
Zapata, in sympathy with the Zapatista rebellion in the Chiapas
region in southern Mexico.
And if Mexico is a popular target of hacktivism, it is by no means the
only target.
In June, the group MilwOrm, whose logo features the slogan "Putting
the power back in the hands of the people," hacked India's Bhabba
Atomic Research Centre to protest India's recent nuclear tests.
Later, in July, MilwOrm and the group Ashtray Lumberjacks, acting
together, orchestrated a unprecedented mass hack of more than 300
sites around the world, replacing Web pages with an anti-nuclear
statement --Êcomplete with angry red mushroom cloud -- directed
towards all of the nuclear powers.
On Aug. 1st, the Portuguese group Kaotik Team hacked 45
Indonesian government Websites, altering Web pages to include
messages calling for full autonomy for East Timor.
Mailbombs were delivered and several other Indonesian government
sites were hacked on Aug. 12th by hackers from China and Taiwan,
to protest the fact that Chinese-Indonesians were targeted for
torture, rape and looting during the anti-Suharto riots in May.
On September 13th, the New York Times had its Website replaced
with a long screed calling for the release of jailed hacker Kevin
Mitnick, and aiming a few barbs at Times reporter John Markoff,
whose coverage of the Mitnick case raised a fair amount of
controversy both in the hacker and media communities.
On Oct. 13th, political activists took over an Indian government
Website and posted messages and photos calling attention to alleged
government-sponsored repression and human rights violations in the
contested northern Indian state of Kashmir.
Indeed, as the year 2000 approaches, incidents of cyber-activism
are becoming commonplace. And no wonder. Never in the long and
storied history of political and social activism have dissidents had at
their disposal a tool as far-reaching and potentially effective as the
Internet.
"The technology is changing the equations of power, challenging the
conventional channels of communication, distributing and
disseminating influence in the broadest possible fashion, to the point
of democratizing the channels and getting rid of the gatekeeper," said
Canadian foreign affairs minister Lloyd Axworthy at an NGO
conference last month in Montreal.
"The technology has a mind-boggling potential to break through
barriers and overcome political obstacles to educate, inform and be
an agent of political change," he added. "The mouse is mightier than
the missile."
And while Mr. Axworthy noted that the Internet provides
opportunities for the communication of dissent and opposition under
repressive regimes, he stated categorically that the medium should
not be a law-free zone.
And yet, as far as hackivists are concerned, the Internet is not only
law-free, but a vast, high-profile canvas for political graffiti.
According to a recent report from the California based think-tank the
Rand Corporation, entitled "In Athena's Camp: Preparing for
Conflict in the Information Age," authors John Arquilla and David
Ronfeldt define infowar, or cyberwar, as "conducting military
operations according to information-related principles."
"It means disrupting or destroying information and communications
systems. It means trying to know everything about an adversary
while keeping the adversary from knowing much about oneself. It
means turning the 'balance of information and knowledge' in one's
favour, especially if the balance of forces is not. It means using
knowledge so that less capital and labour may have to be expended."
Research in Canada into this aspect of the intersection between
communications, political action, and the internet is thickly peopled
by representatives from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service,
the Communications Security Establishment, the RCMP, the
Department of National Defence, various private sector
security-related companies, and select academics.
When asked to comment on the hacktivism phenomenon, a
spokesperson from the Department of National Defence said that,
while national security infrastructure was evidently not under attack,
there was just cause for concern.
"This is our business, and we need to protect ourselves."
The world of information warfare is "a world where logic bombs,
computer viruses, Trojan-horses, precision-guided munitions, stealth
designs, radio-electronic combat systems, new electronics for intelligence
gathering and deception, microwave weapons, space-based
weapons, and robotic warfare are being discussed, developed and
deployed," wrote University of Ottawa human-rights professor
Gregory Walters in the Ottawa Citizen earlier this year.
"I have been predicting and warning about this kind of activity for
years," said computer-security expert Winn Schwartau, whose own
"Infowar" Web site, is a repository of information on hacking and
infowar.
"Cyber-terrorism. Cyber civil disobedience. Each seems to begin 24
months or so after we publish how it's done," said Mr. Schwartau,
who is also the author of the book Information Warfare: Chaos on
the Electronic Superhighway.
Not only are political hackers discovering how to infiltrate and
disrupt "secure" networks, most feel ethically justified in doing so.
Toronto-based hacker cell The Hong Kong Blondes, led by a
Chinese dissident known as "Blondie" Wong, claims to have affected
the usefulness of a Chinese satellite as part of their campaign to
cripple Chinese military and security networks, as well as Western
companies doing business in China.
Mr. Wong recently formed another group of hackers -- The Yellow
Pages -- based in Canada, the US, and Europe, to protest Chinese
government conduct over human rights, and Western investment in
the country.
Mr. Wong justified his controversial approach to political reform in a
July interview: "It is better to light a candle than to curse the
darkness."
He added, "There has been a shift in consciousness, I believe.
Younger people have a great deal of talent, although they can be very
awkward.
But the point is, I think they are different from the generation of hackers
before them.
They want the recognition and attention, but they also want to do something to
contribute to change things in a positive way."
The earliest generations of hackers revelled in the challenge of
electronically exploring the digital geography of the new landscape
that was brought into being through the computer revolution.
This, of course, included the odd malicious hacker, intent on using
the tools of the trade for personal and often pernicious ends.
However, a second generation has come to the fore. So-called
hacktivists engage in cyber-activism, or what some have titled ethical
hacking.
"Hacktivists are savvy, subversive and are seasoned veterans of the
Cola War," said Jamie Batsy, a Toronto-based network-security
consultant and member of the activist Tao Collective.
"Advertisers and other opinion makers are now in a position where
they are up against a generation of activists that were watching
television before they could walk. This generation wants their brains
back and mass media is their home turf."
And Mr. Batsy sees the battle between Internet activists and the
political elite heating up: "Corporations and governments are at a
huge disadvantage in this respect, as they have to relearn what we
were born knowing."
"Hacktivism has become such an effective means of activism. It was
founded by a generation whose language was taught to them by
advertisers, whose habitat is almost entirely electronic."
Borrowing from the language and theory of Henry David Thoreau,
some hacktivists see themselves as engaged in non-violent direct
action and civil disobedience.
"While all hackers are clearly not averse to transgressing the
boundary between the legal and the illegal, not all hackers are
political. But today, the politicized hacker is clearly a growing subset
of the larger hacker world," said Stephan Wray, one of the founders
of the New York-based Electronic Disturbance Theatre.
Writing in the Earth First! Journal, Mr. Wray observes, "Today we
are witness to a convergence of the computerized activist and the
politicized hacker."
He describes hacktivists as proponents of Electronic Civil
Disobedience (ECD), borrowing the tactics of trespass and
blockade from these earlier social movements and applying them to
the Internet.
Mr. Wray sees these activities as pushing the envelope and
advocating the notion that the Internet should be an avenue for direct
action, since "there are times when it becomes imperative to break a
law, or set of laws, that appear unjust in comparison to what some
would call a higher law."
The Electronic Disturbance Theatre is a small group of cyber activists
and artists developing the theory and practice of ECD. The group
has focused its electronic actions against the Mexican and U.S.
governments to draw attention to the war being waged against the
Zapatistas in Mexico.
On Jan. 1, through the Electronic Disturbance Theatre,
Sub-cyber-commandante Z, of the Intercontinental Cyberspace
Liberation Army, issued a press release which stated that "bands of
netwarriors around the world, members of the Intercontinental
Cyberspace Liberation Army, are converging in cyberspace to
instigate information warfare, netwar, against the PRI controlled
Mexican government
"No longer shall we sit idly at our computer screens. No longer shall
we wait, hope, and stupidly think that justice will prevail on its own
accord. Justice will only prevail through struggle. And we,
netwarriors of the Intercontinental Cyberspace Liberation Army, are
ready to launch a co-ordinated attack."
Goals of this attack include the interference in and obstruction of
Mexico's digital networks, the de-stabilization of Mexico's
telecommunication infrastructure, and the virtual destruction of U.S.
corporate presence in Mexico.
The Electronic Disturbance Theatre has produced a Java script
program called Floodnet, which is used to flood and block a targeted
Website by repeatedly calling for a specific or non-existent Web
page on that server.
The program is posted on a Web site, and participants have been
called on to visit that page during a designated time period.
This prompts the Floodnet program to zero in on the targeted Web
site for a "Denial of Service" attack, which renders it inaccessible for
the duration of the attack.
The group estimated that up to 10,000 people took part in a recent
attack, sending 600,000 hits to each of the three targeted Web sites
per minute.
Over the past year the group has targeted various Mexican
government Web sites, also sites of the White House, the U.S.
Department of Defence, the Pentagon, and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
The last concerted attack took place on Sept. 9, with a follow-up
skirmish taking place on Oct. 12.
A recent press release from the Electronic Disturbance Theatre
warns that the next attack will happen on Nov. 22, and is aimed at
the U.S. Department of Defence's "School of the Americas," which
has trained many representatives from repressive Latin American
military and intelligence forces.
In June, the Mexican government retaliated with Java of their own,
deflecting the attack and prompting Floodnet participants' browsers
to crash.
As with the Mexican government's efforts, the Pentagon retaliated
during the Sept. 9 attack, with a few tricks up their digital sleeves.
"Our support personnel were aware of this planned electronic civil
disobedience attack and were able to take appropriate counter
measures," said U.S. Defence Department spokesperson Suzan
Hansen, in a report in Wired Magazine's Hotwired Web site.
However, the Electronic Disturbance Theatre software designers are,
meanwhile, cooking up countermeasures.
While some activists have questioned the groups' methods,
describing them as technologically ham-fisted and too politically
correct, Mr. Wray and his cohorts' actions have received
wide-spread coverage in the media.
Two weeks ago, Mr. Wray made a presentation on the Electronic
Disturbance Theatre's activities to Harvard Law School's Berkman
Centre on Internet and Society.
Mr. Wray argued that his group is "still operating within a window of
opportunity that -- if not ahead of the law as strictly interpreted -- is
definitely still out ahead of the prosecutorial or political range of the
U.S. Department of Justice."
This barely touches on the tremendous debate taking place within the
hacking community itself on the ethics of hactivism, however.
To some extent the debate centres on the activities of hacker
vigilantes -- "white hat" wannabes -- who, a couple years ago, began
quietly targeting child-porn collectors. The vigilante hackers launched
a campaign to harass and expose those they were able to track
down, and to disable their computers and relevant networks.
Given that hackers define their activity as primarily being driven by
curiosity, and not by malicious intent, most observers in the hacker
community were opposed to this "go it alone" approach, which was
seen to have crossed a line of principle.
But, in an attempt to define this line, where civil disobedience
intersects with the ethics underlining these issues, U of O's Prof.
Walters asks, "If Hitler had a Web site, would one not be morally
justified in attacking it?"
While he disputes the terminology, and considers the terms "ethical
hacker" or "hactivism" to be oxymorons, Prof. Walters argues that
the debate in our society has not kept pace with technological
evolution.
"The problem," he said, "raises foundational questions about the role
of political, legal, and moral rights and responsibilities in the
information age, as well as classical problems surrounding civil
disobedience, law and morality."
The debate continues to evolve. John Vranesevich, founder of the
Antionline Web site, which tracks hacking news and events, reported
earlier this year that "out of the thousands of e-mails that we've
gotten about Milw0rm (the Indian Web site anti-nuclear hack), about
97.3 per cent of them think that Milw0rm are heroes of sorts, with
less than three per cent thinking of them as criminals."
One letter writer did add, "bottom line to me is that the hackers have
no moral right to break into someone else's system. É India and
Pakistan have no inherent moral right to put humanity at risk and to
further damn our environment. Conflicting moralities do not justify
vigilante action."
Asked if his activities fall under the general rubric of Infowar,
Electronic Disturbance Theatre's Mr. Wray answered with a wary
affirmative.
"But the entire notion of information warfare needs to be approached
cautiously. Always remember who it is that is creating the language,
rhetoric, discourse, definitions, etc. of infowar. Before entertaining
the ideas, it is necessary to identify in whose interests these ideas are
being promulgated."
Mr. Wray added: "Remember, the military always needs a scapegoat
and an enemy. With the end of the Cold War, emerges the drug war
and information warfare."
Mr. Wray would like to see his group's political hacking redefine the
Infowar doctrine espoused by governments and within the media.
He told the Harvard presentation, "what we might call an example of
'hacktivism,' information warfare theorists -- like those at RAND, the
U.S. National Defence University, or for that matter, within the U.S.
Defence Information Systems Agency -- might define pejoratively as
a subcategory of cyber-terrorism.
"We need to seriously question and abandon some of the language
that the state uses to demonize genuine political protest and
expression."
Most of the hacktivism examples cited above were perpetrated by
individuals or disparate groups around the world, each with differing
motivations, but with the common aim of conveying a message
through direct cyber-action.
However, people are networking, and recent media coverage of the
proliferation of these activities has led to plans for more co-ordinated
action.
The Electronic Disturbance Theatre suggests that their high profile
has made them a magnet for information on online activists, and that
they have been contacted by groups in Australia, Asia, Latin
America, and Europe that are already involved in direct actions of
their own and are eager to contribute to greater initiatives.
The group's actions will escalate with their latest project, "Swarm,"
which Mr. Wray describes as "an array of Floodnet-like devices,
arising, acting, and dispersing simultaneously against an array of
cyberspacial political targets.
"If the electronic pulses generated by our Floodnet actions are
represented by a small mountain stream, the electronic pulses
generated by a swarm of convergent ECD actions are a raging
torrent."
Plans are under way for hacktivism-related conferences in the next
year. These conferences include a conference next March in
Amsterdam to discuss the possibility of developing a political hacker
code of ethics.
York University professor Reg Whitaker argues that, while much of
the hacking that gets reported by the media is fairly inane, it does
indicate potentially more dangerous directions.
"My own view is that hackers are, in their own, generally pretty
harmless, if infantile and annoying. However, if their skills can be
detached from individualist anarchist aims and harnessed by larger
groups, whether states, corporations or terrorist organizations, they
may be transformed into serious menaces."
Hacktivism is in its infancy and, given the ubiquity and democratic
nature of the Internet, we will see the movement's growing pains and
increasing maturity. As it grows in influence, more people and
organizations will become involved.
"As of this moment there are groups of highly sophisticated hackers
that are willing to help whatever cause suits them. It's not a matter of
'if,' it's 'when,'" stated Toronto activist Jamie Batsy.
How governments and society evolve to address this assault has not
been sufficiently addressed.
Says Mr. Batsy: "I think it has brought an enticingly literal definition
to the term 'level playing field.' We just have to wait and see who
gets levelled."
The High Tech Report is a weekly feature of the Ottawa Citizen.
Web posted Monday 26 October 1998
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/hightech/981026/1964496.html
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