Re: Fwd: Some questions for discussion?

[batz <batsy@vapour.net>]

[: hacktivism :]

On Thu, 28 Oct 1999, Grugnog wrote:

:[: hacktivism :]
:I'm writing because I have questions about hacktivism and I'm hoping that
:a discussion could possibly give me some answers. Any way here it goes
:(and if you think any of the questions are stupid reply and let me know
:why?) 
:
:1 Is hacktivism more the activist community using digital skills or is it
:the political expression of  hackers?

Listening to hackers talk about politics is like listening
to politicians talk about code. 

I really hope that it is about the activist community using hackery. 

:2 Is there a difference between hacktivism and electronic civil
:disobedience? If yes was JED really hacktivism?

IMHO, the crew that were generating random packets with JED-blocks
were using hacktivist tactics. It was clever and they hacked together
some code to do it. 

There was no disobediance on JED except maybe violating
the spam policies of a few ISP's. There aren't laws in
existance that prevent people from sending each other
meaningless messages over the net. 

:4 How does the older hacker ethos (information wants to be free... etc.)
:influence hacktivism? 

One would hope that it would shape it and be the basis for the
founding of the methods. 

:5 Does hacktivism have a certain political philosophy that is prevalent
:left vs. right if so why?

IMHO again, it's a method, a tool and a way of acting up, regardless
of your political leanings. I think the most prevalent
politic is suburban libertarianism and juvenile social 
darwinism that affects teenage boys that don't get out of
their subdivisions enough to realize that bad things happen 
to Good people and not everyone has a computer. 

Hopefully the hacktivism list will bring some articulate
voices to online and information activism. 

"3y3 0wn y00. phr33 k3v1n 0r ph33l m3y3 wr4tH." is not 
activism. Subtle disinformation or undermining 
electronic occupation as a political act, maybe, 
but activism it is not.  



--
batz
Chief Reverse Engineer 
Superficial Intelligence Research Division
Defective Technologies



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