[no subject]

[Ben Earnhart <bearnhar@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu>]

[: hacktivism :]

Subject: Re: request for assistance

[note, the posting below is only about 2/3 thought out, sending it anyway,
since a full thinking might make it too late to be relevant... call me an
Ent who hasn't fully put down roots]

not to be *too* offensive, but I think that the whole "Free Kevin" thing
was counterpoductive, and isolated hackers and hacker-aware individuals
from anything useful, rational, or, in any way socially beneficail.  He
[Mitnick] was/is a good posterchild for the way that the FBI/CIA/NSA/theMAN
can watch people, pinpoint them, and destroy them.  But the reaction was
useless and weak, IMHO, and almost entirely individualistic.  So what if
you shut down the FBI website for a few minutes? So what if you deface a
website that is restored in 15 minutes to a few hours?  Big deal.  

If you cannot either:  1) grab (preferably positive) attention to your
issue, or 2) hit them in the pocketbook or the voting booth, then you did
little or nothing. 

I think that the two most important moments (so far) in hacktivism are the
Zapatista incident and associated activities with the EDT [thus involving
governments and the creation of at least some public attention which
hopefully influenced governmental policy], and the etoy(s) incident [thus
involving industry and real money]. The recent Mexican elections do not
prove this thought, but they are consistent with it.  The etoy(s) thing is
more iffy -- it's still an unproveable counter-factual as to why the
decline in stock value, but etoy and rtMark sure did not help.  Note that
both issues here involved large numbers of participants, not the
hack-this-hack-that individualism of the "Free Kevin" issue.  

The CDC and/or the HKB had some interesting ideas and/or initiatives that
involved individualistic hacking in ways that might positively affect many
people re: China, but so far, as far as I have seen, have come to nothing.
Could be wrong though, might be shit that just doesn't hit the news I read.  

What I think we need, is to have a way to engage a large number of people
in a way that can cause social change.  Obviously, ordinary organizational
tactics for change are enhanced by modern technology, but so are the
tactics for maintaining the status quo.  Gotta stay ahead of the Man, gotta
get to his tools before he does.        

I could be wrong, and probably am, but I call's 'em as I see's 'em until I
stand corrected.  enjoy my thoughts, and/or please disagree with them in an
intelligent way.
    


At 06:36 PM 8/14/00 GMT, you wrote:
>you want material for hacking-vision.
>look up Kevin Mitnick in the hacked pages arcive att attrition.org or 
>www.hackernews.com
>you will see a lot of the pages say "free Kevin".
>the free kevin campaign was not a group thing, it was (in a way... ) an 
>effort by indivules to bring a point up to people that he was in jail so 
>long with out a trial.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
           Ben Earnhart
    Department of Sociology (student)
         University of Iowa
          Iowa City, Iowa
           (319) 335-2505
    bearnhar@blue.weeg.uiowa.edu
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


[: hacktivism :]
[: for unsubscribe instructions or list info consult the list FAQ :]
[: http://hacktivism.tao.ca/ :]