Hacktivism as a Cyber Crime

Hacktivism is the act of hacking, or getting into a computer system, for a politically or socially determined purpose. The confidential hackers belong to the hacktivisim, it came from in 2003, however, in 2008 the group started to move toward political and social modification. "We are Confidential. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us" (Brian 2012). The anonymous hacker group has presented itself in the street of different cities worldwide after downloading a Youtube video asking all the confidential for a meeting in the street, and beginning their own community.

"After WikiLeaks launched hundreds of countless classified U.S. government files in 2010, the ensuing cyber-attacks waged by all sides in the controversy brought the phenomenon of hacktivism into popular focus" (Noah 2012). After WikiLeaks many forms of hacktivism exploit prohibited. The confidential assistance in saving individuals life in Arab spring nation. As in Egypt the anonymous team up together from the United States and Egypt to offer communication tools for Egyptian people after the Egyptian federal government begins shutting down the web for the entire country (Brian 2012 Anonymous).

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The hacktivisim is used to search for freedom in Arab spring country from the dictatorial government. In Tunisia and Egypt, anonymous took down the government websites, and allowed people to enter the websites, and post their messages in the government consider it as freedom of speech as the websites own by the people not by the government (Kris 2011). Hacktivism most of the time is illegal act of getting secret information from our own government and publish it to the public.

It looks for individual and group freedoms that may achieve with hacking (Shalin 2013). MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal also have been attacked by the anonymous hackers. A phone interview with anonymous in RT news about these hacking, the anonym said “that we did that for the movement of freedom of information speech” as the anonymous support WikiLeaks and the information that WikiLeaks provide, and these three company cut the fund to WikiLeaks. “On February 25 an Anonymous Twitter account with over 280,000 followers began posting “teasers” about a massive Bank of America data leak (Dell 2013)” the anonymous found 4.8 gigabyte of information about people career and salaries. The anonymous collective said “the data was actually retrieved from an open, insecure server in Tel Aviv, Israel, but also managed to obtain a full version of Clear Forest’s text analyzing software (Dave 2013)”, and at the end the anonymous left a message asking about these information and why it’s in the Israeli server.

The anonymous isn’t about the good guy or the bad guy; it’s the character of the individual. One minute they are heroic and good in saving civilization. A few minutes later they are hacking, and doing unethical thing by hacking personal information and put them for the public, and steeling credit cards. “Anonymous was never anyone’s personal army, and never stayed on any one topic for very long (Quinn 2011).” The anonymous can be anything from anywhere, a child, a mother, a doctor, and a teacher anyone can be anonymous. The anonymous groups are people who have opinion, and they express their opinion with hacking corporation and government websites. They are looking for the freedom of speech and exchanging information among others without any limitation from the government that hide information from the people, and from the big corporations that they just look at the people as profit. The anonymous have been success of expressing their opinion in Arab spring country, and they were one of the biggest reasons in starting the revolution in those countries. The anonymous have been hacked many Israeli website to show the world the unethical act that the Israeli government does against the Palestinian people in Gaza. Hacktivism is expressing a lot of people opinion that they can’t say because they are scared of the government, and it is going to play major role in the future, like it’s right now or more. As the technology will get wider the hacktivism will get bigger.

The anonymous might continue with same name or with different name, as long as, people looking for the truth and freedom hacktivism will stay around and grow. The Anonymous is a group of people from all over the world doing illegal acts, but most of the time they are showing the bad activity that government big corporation does to the people. And is hard for any government to follow them and a rest them, because they are anonymous and anyone can be one of them.

Works Sites

1. Anonymous Internet Users Team Up To Provide Communication Tools For Egyptian People (2011 January 29). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/29/anonymous-internet-egypt_n_815889.html
2. Brian Knappenberger. (2013 February 26) Anonymous/4Chan/LulzSec/Hacktivism - Full Documentary. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MYl1CbW5jY
3. Dave Smith (2013 February 28). Bank of America Hacked By Anonymous: Hackers Leak ‘Secrets’ About Executives, Salaries, And Spy Activities. http://www.ibtimes.com/
4. Dell Cameron (2013 February). ANONYMOUS HACKED BANK OF AMERICA AND SEEMINGLY REVEALED THAT THEY ARE SPYING ON HACKTIVISTS. http://www.vice.com/read/anonymous-hacked-bank-of-america
5. Kris Notaro (2011 March 9). From Tunisia and Egypt to Wisconsin: Anonymous Hacker Group Helps Take Down Insupportable Websites. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/notaro20110309
6. Noah C.N. (2012 July 1). HACKTIVISM: A NEW BREED OF PROTEST IN A NETWORKED WORLD. Boston College International & Comparative Law.