Re: is this the work of hactivists?

[ZoeScanner <zoescanner@yahoo.com>]

[: hacktivism :]

 Greetings!
              Here is an interesting article
found on ITN from the BBC. (sorry no link,the
link woundnt take,so I copied the article here)
ZoeScanner
               ****************
 
Fears as anarchists organise on the Net 
 
The world's leaders will come face to face with
thousands of protesters and anarchists later this
month when the World Trade Organisation meets in
Seattle.
Protests will also take place in the world's
financial centres in a re-run of last June's
anti-capitalism demonstrations which cost the
City of London millions of pounds. 

That action was organised over the Internet. 

Now new notices are appearing on the Net and
London is being targeted again, as Channel Four
News' Mark Easton reports.

Protest and direct action have logged on. 

Political activism is resident in cyberspace
where infowar, hacktivism and electronic attack
are much more than the empty jargon of computer
nerds.

President Clinton has pledged $2 billion this
year to protect the United States from what has
been called “an electronic Pearl Harbor”.

In Britain the Government is also waking up to
the threat. 

The Cabinet Office has confirmed to Channel Four
News that measures are now being put in place to
protect the "critical national infrastructure"
from cyber terrorism attacks which officials
concede could lead to "the loss of considerable
electronic data and complete system failures".

If politicians needed convincing 1999 has
provided plenty of reasons for concern.

"The threat is escalating on pretty much a weekly
basis. New tools and technologies are evolving
all the time." 

"The Internet is a military experiment that has
escaped from their control. It's a whole new way
of organising," said DK Matai, from Mi2g
software.

The world's biggest-ever protest is being
organised right now, on the Internet.

Called N30, it is timed to coincide with the
World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle on
November 30th. 

Activists around the globe have been swapping
ideas by email since the plan was first floated
on the web in July. 

Everything from street theatre and marches to
sabotage, wrecking and appropriating capitalist
wealth. 

They promise an international carnival against
the global capitalist system.

"At the moment the estimated number of groups
involved is about a thousand from 70 different
countries. 

"There will be organised demonstrations occurring
all over the world including the UK," Internet
intelligence agent Roy Lipski told Channel Four
News.

The people who dreamed up N30 make no secret of
the fact that they took as their blueprint the
J18 demonstration London in June. 

That saw tens of thousands of people converge on
the City with tens of thousands more in linked
protests taking place in over forty countries. 

Who was behind such an international uprising? 

The correct answer to the question is the most
disturbing answer of all for government. 

The answer was no-one.

"Organisers of demonstrations normally co-operate
early and fully with the police to ensure that
arrangements for peaceful events are satisfactory
to all concerned.

"In this instance, however, no co-operation from
the organisers was forthcoming," Home Secretary
Jack Straw told the Commons shortly after the
June clashes.

The point was, though, that there were no
organisers in the conventional sense - no
committees, no-one was in control. 

The Sunday Times tried to pin it on Chris
Grimshaw, an Oxford-educated, middle-class
anarchist who spends his days campaigning against
big business and the profit motive.

But his organisation, Cooperate Watch, just tried
to impose a little order on the chaos publishing
maps and propaganda.

Asked whether he was the ringleader of the J18
protest, Grimshaw told Channel Four News:

"No. Not at all. This was our contribution - just
helping people to understand 
what the world of finance is about, what the City
of London is. That's it.

"We are passionate about those issues."

The story of J18 is the story of contemporary
protest. 

It began as an idea passed around by email, then
last year a proposal for the most ambitious
web-based action ever was was published on the
Internet.

The idea swept throughout the chat zones and
Internet sites of political activists like a bush
fire. 

Not just anti-capitalists - anyone who wanted to
change the system jumped on board and soon the
J18 protest had its own web pages with input from
a range of different pressure groups in Britain
around the world.

But the key to raising awareness was the email
list. 

Anyone with a particular concern can put their
name on a relevant list that means they
automatically receive information about
developments. 

For instance, the campaign against genetically
modified crops this summer was coordinate through
a genetics email list.

Chris Grimshaw pointed out an example of a web
site detailing a demonstration:

"This is about the large demonstration that's
going to be happening on Sunday at Watling  and
it's just giving you details of where its
happening and transport arrangements. 

"Now that's going out to thousands and thousands
of people so, as a result, tens maybe hundreds
will turn up and will know how to get there."

Indeed they did. That particular email circular
resulted in a mass trespass on a GM trial site,
the destruction of crops and headlines on the
evening news. 

And yet the protesters may have had no contact
with each other beyond a single shared e-mail. 

It was just the same with J18,  except the
ambition was much greater.

As J18 approached the web pages began advertising
for 'video activists'.

Liz Thomas responded to an email and came to
Backspace - a little nest of computer activism on
the River.

The idea was to use the Internet to bypass the
editorial controls of the mainstream media.

"When I finished a tape I would go to find a
courier who was at one of the pick-up points, a
person on a bicycle, and send the footage back
and have that go out instantly and have that go
unedited over the Internet."

The aim it was said was to counter the inevitable
"thugs in city riot" headlines. 

It was a novel way of using the technology but
not without precedent. 

In February this year environmental activists
targeted the offices of Shell UK in London. 

They had come for a bit of direct action armed
with just a computer, a mobile phone and a video
camera. 

A live video stream meant supporters could log on
and watch as police realised what was happening. 

The power and phones were cut, but so long as
batteries lasted the protesters could conduct
email interviews and broadcast pictures of their
sit-in. 

Even the moment the building was stormed was seen
live on the Internet.

The Internet can turn a small single-issue
campaign into a global crusade.

The plight of the Zapatista Indians in southern
Mexico was forced onto the international agenda
because they had access to the worldwide web.

The Liverpool dockers had an Internet site. While
trade unionists were banned from sympathy strikes
here, dockers in the United States took
industrial action.

The Internet, though, is much more than a
propaganda tool - increasingly it is being used
as a weapon.

"June 18 had two faces. The first face of June 18
was what we all saw on television. Lots of
physical violence. There was a parallel face on
the Internet," said DK Matai.

Hacking software is often provided free on the
Internet. A simple search brings up an array of
viruses and tools, including a software device
called 'FloodNet'.

If a large number of activists go to the same
target web site and launch the programme it
prevents anyone else logging on.

"On June 18th we had 18,000 unique requests to
the FloodNet browser.

"What's more interesting to us is the fact that
there were 18,000 people from all over the world
who came from forty-six different countries that
were drawn to this action," said FloodNet creator
Stefan Wray.

Now financial institutions and media
organisations are on the alert again. 

Channel Four News has intercepted emails which
show that News International is among a number of
UK 'targets' selected for attack on N30. 

"In the City of London if you were to hit two or
three places - nor more than that - they would be
able to turn the city off and that would stop the
banking system and it would stop the
share-trading system. 

"Identifying the crazed, skilled cyber attacker
is perhaps the single most difficult task that
the cyber spooks face at the moment," said Peter
Sommer from the London School of Economics.

There is a great irony in all this. The Internet
was invented by the American military as a way of
protecting the communication systems which
underpin western society. Anarchists threw bombs
at computers.

Today the activists embrace it as their own,
while the authorities find themselves scurrying
around to find ways to prevent their weapon doing
exactly what it was designed to prevent.
 
 
 
 
Welcome to ITN Online, Britain's leading
multimedia news site. If you are a first time
visitor you will find up to the minute coverage
of breaking sports stories and today's other news
stories from ITN's reporters in Britain and
around the world: click here. Also visit Desktop
News to receive your own personalised news and
video to your email address at the time you want.

 
 
 




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