Democratic hacktivism?

Abigail thought she was doing the right thing to blow the whistle on company corruption but she lost her job anyway, so she feels she is in a good position to judge what hackers are doing and the penalties they should get, if any, for exercising their democratic rights as citizens to expose all that is rotten in the world.

"My complaint against company corruption was swept under the carpet and I was swept out the door," says Abigail, "so I can understand why hacktivists prefer direct action like hacking to indirect action like lodging complaints, rallying a protest group or setting up a website to publish their grievances."

"The former hits the target, the latter doesn't," says Abigail. "However, which ever path is taken there is a penalty to pay in one form or another - exercising democratic rights or doing the right thing is never without personal costs."

"Peaceful protests often get out of hand and activists are arrested and charged with aggravated trespass and other misdemeanors, ending up in prison for anything up to three months or more," says Abigail, "and it does seem grossly unfair that hacking 'protests' carry anything up to 10 years in prison in the UK (and twice as much in the US)."

"Let's face it, the majority of these hacktivists are kiddie scripters with basic IT skills and putting them behind bars for anything up to 10-20 years when they're still in their teens is totally out of proportion," says Abigail. "Sure, they know what they are doing carries heavy penalties and is seen by some as cyber terrorism, but when you're motivated by idealistic principles and you know that nothing else is going to work besides exposing to the world all that is rotten about governments and their buddy corporate crooks the risk seems worth it."

"Also, I am perfectly aware that hacker collectives such as Anonymous and LulzSec do not always engage in 'democractic' hacktism," says Abigail. "LulzSec, particularly, is a splinter group which appears less concerned with political agendas than with hacking for lulz (laughs) and why they targeted Sony is beyond me, but perhaps the company has many disgruntled young employees who wanted to wreak revenge by hitting the company where it would hurt most."

"Taking the Visa and Mastercard websites offline and targeting PayPal in protest against the blockade these companies placed on WikiLeaks was definitely political," says Abigail, "and same goes for the hacking of security firm HBGary which revealed, of all things, a proposal by them to the Bank of America to discredit journalists and activists."

"I believe that the vast majority of hacktivists have no criminal intent - they do not steal data and sell it to the highest bidder - and in protesting against rotten government and corporations by taking down their systems (Dos, denial of service) they are definitely helping to improve IT security by exposing the vulnerability of systems."

"At a time when more and more sensitive government information about us is put online in addition to the masses of online information about us collected by private companies we need to know that the people we entrust with this information are keeping up to date with security."

"That some hackers actually believe they should be given monetary compensation every time they successfully breach IT security says it all," laughs Abigail. "I, too, believe that I should have been handsomely compensated for exposing company corruption - but instead I was shown the door."

"Emperors don't like being told that they have no clothes on, and if it takes a bunch of kiddie hackers to show us how rotten the emperor and his empire is then that's okay with me," says Abigail. "They are not terrorists; they are not killing anyone or threatening lives; they target the bad guys; and they are doing a job that somebody needs to do."

"The right of activists to protest against heavy-handed government is enshrined in democratic nations," says Abigail, "and the sort of activism that once worked to end apartheid and bring about civil rights will not work on the problems we have today."

"Hacktivism is the way of the future,” says Abigail, “and whatever ‘crimes’ hacktivists like LulzSec and Anonymous commit they are chickenfeed compared to the crimes committed by governments and corporations.”

Read more by Abigail:

haunted by whistle blowing

The interview circuit’s grapevine

whistle blower in difficulty

Cyber wars and Chinese time bombs