How hackers use technology as
a mean of conveying their
political ideals
After
a very long presidential campaign filled with
scandals, debates and questions on the coverage of the
presidential race, the United States are divided with protests
and conflicts happening throughout the country. Nowadays
social medias are filled with “activists” who are using different
platforms to share their opinions regarding the newly elected
president. Amongst those activists are a group of people that
are called hacktivists. They are a part of a phenomenon called
hacktivism which is fairly recent, only starting during the
1990’s. Hacktivists are hackers who are using computers and
technology to convey their political opinions regarding
freedom of speech amongst other things. Although hackers
have a poor reputation, they are not all the same.
In a non-political atmosphere there are 3 main types of hackers, black hats, grey hats and
white hats. Black hats are hackers that will try to steal your personal data, like your credit
card number and usually hack to make a profit. Grey hats as well as white hats are
hackers that are trying to reinforce the security of computers systems by finding
weaknesses and proposing a way to improve these vulnerabilities. They work alongside
companies or organizations, the difference between the two is that a white hat will ask
permission to gain access to the system so the intrusion is legal but the grey hat will do it
without asking and will after the hack, contact the company to signal a weakness but this
time it is illegal.
In a political or social atmosphere there are 2 types of hackers, one that will act with bad
intent and the other with good intent. Those with bad intent will try to manipulate public
opinions through disinformation by creating fake allegations or leaking confidential data to
the media to discredit for example a politician with a scandal. Those hackers are not
working to their own ends but are most likely affiliated with an organization or a
government and are acting from behind the curtains to manipulate the strings of a
presidential campaign for example.
Hacktivists are hackers with good intentions. Their goal is to convey their political opinions
and ideas like a protestor would in the street but instead they are using a computer to do
it. Through social media they will try to educate the public on political and social issues
and voice public opinions on delicate matters. Hacktivism is considered as a form of civil
disobedience because they are engaging in illegal activities. Hacktivists are hacking to
disrupt or cripple different companies or organizations and governments while having the
benefit of staying anonymous for example by disabling websites or leaking confidential
information to the public. Hacktivists have different methods to take action, the most used
technique is DDOS or distributed denial-of-service which make websites temporarily
unavailable by overloading the servers of the targeted website. There is as well the
technique of website mirroring to make a copy of a censored website to make it accessible
to the public. Contrary to cyber-terrorism, hacktivism does not cause real harm.
FOCUS ON
“hacktions” against Donald J. Trump
Hacktivists were born with the Internet, and answered the call against each oppressing
policy. Nevertheless, the U.S. political scene has been rather quiet for the last few years,
so those pro-freedom hackers remained focused on other struggles. With the election of
the 45th American president who divides his citizens and flabbergasts the world through his
executive orders, it is a safe bet this government will be heckled by the online defenders
of liberty.
The first notable action aiming to tackle
Trump’s governing ideas dates back to
December 2015, after his speech in which
he claimed that he wanted to ban the
immigration of Muslims in the United
States. At a time when he was just an
unexpected presidential candidate, he had
already incurred hacktivists’ wrath. The
Anonymous group warned Trump of their
actions to come, and #OpTrump was then
launched. They started by crashing Trump’s
business website, www.trumptowerny.com
through a DDOS attack, which made it
unavailable for a short period of time. That
could have been limited as a one-time
action if Trump had not gained coverage
during the Republican primaries. In March
2016, a member of Anonymous called for a
participation of anyone who wanted “to
shut down his websites, to research and
expose what he doesn't want the public to
know”. Threatening to wreck his campaign
on April 1st, and posting several online
targets to attack, the collective obviously
strived to gather people together so that
they would stand up against his revolting
projects. Cyberattacks against Trump’s
websites on the planned day took the sites
offline for a while, jeopardizing the
envisaged protection of an America headed
by Trump if he “can't even protect
something as simple as [his] websites".
Security requirements of his smartphone
were questioned too, when on January 31 st,
Anonymous posted a guide which explained
how to easily hack the device. Previously
tweeting from an “old, unsecured Android
phone”, the President could still use it,
making his personal content vulnerable. We
have not necessarily heard of an outcome
yet, as the White House has not clearly
addressed the questions of security.
Though some think the hacktivism could
have a real impact, the Anonymous
collective
has
only
attempted
to
inconvenience Trump's governance, as the
American voters are divided about the
provocative candidate.
In fact, many
members do not agree on the fact that
attacking Trump is a good idea, thinking
that they would be attacking the free
speech clause, which is not their hallmark.
The #OpTrump could have been more
damaging, but it is just one of the ways
online protestors found to protest Trump’s
policies.
Recently, a French student named Antonin
followed his personal convictions and stood
in the way of the White House Chief
Strategist’s project – to export the Breitbart
news site to France. The executive
chairman, Steve Bannon considered helping
the French far-right candidate’s presidential
campaign by launching a version of this
anti-immigration and conservative website
in French. To prevent this from happening,
the young man bought the domain names
that could have been used: breitbart.fr,
breitbartnews.fr,
and
breitbartnewsnetwork.fr. Explaining that he
knows his action would not stop them, he
plans to redirect these internet addresses
to websites opposing xenophobia.
Xenophobic,
sexist,
homophobic,
et
cetera...are terms that have been used to
talk about Trump’s personality and policy. If
many hackers seek to attack his
technological devices and dedicated
websites,
others
have
taken
the
opportunity to reach the audience of small
radio stations in numerous U.S. states
including Tennessee, Texas and Indiana. In
hacking their transmitter sites, the
unnamed hacktivist made them play again
an anti-Trump song entitled “Fuck Donald
Trump” repeatedly. How could the message
be clearer?
Although hacktivists try to convey their political ideals by educating the public, some
hackers manipulated information in order to influence the outcome of the Presidential
election. The scandal began in last June, when computer systems of the Democratic
National Committee were hacked, enabling the data theft. A month later, Wikileaks
disclosed about 20,000 compromising e-mails generated by seven politicians of the party.
Only assumptions can be made about this “interference” - Russian hackers employed by
the government are suspected to be at the root of this leak.
The example of this scandal that had arisen in a wide range of media unveils the impact it
had on the presidential campaign. We would not question the final outcome if this
controversy had not occurred. The manipulation of public opinion has certainly worked in
favour of Trump, allowing anti-Trump supporters to raise objections regarding his success.
At the same time, political hacktivism has grown stronger in the past decades and begins
to have a notorious place as a particular form of activism, but what is the real impact that
hackers have on politics and society?
Could hackers influence the political
world?
We have to understand that hacktivism
is a way to develop an influential
network of collective actions that take
part in some of the most important
political and social matters. The
anonymous hackers who participated in
defending political ideals embody this
idea. These actions built the reputation
of the Anonymous group and they have
become a threat for nations and
multinational corporations.
The hackers have been impactful, and have
succeeded by becoming a means of
pressure. The most prominent example
that illustrates this idea is Wikileaks, the
site that publishes secret information and
has acquired international notoriety with
the publication of a video showing two
photographers killed in US army air strike.
In 2010, approximately 90.000 military and
diplomatic reports concerning the war in
Afghanistan were available on the site - It
aroused reactions from government bodies
including Pakistan, Afghanistan and Great
Britain; also, American senators harshly
condemned these revelations. Moreover,
Wikileaks has been supported by worldrenowned organizations like Amnesty
International which praised its fight for
freedom of information. Wikileaks has
contributed to the construction of the
image of hacktivism, largely recounted in
the media.
The weight of this influence is also due to
the fact that hacktivism is widely popular
thanks to the development of the internet;
anyone can learn to use it. In this way it
creates a massive movement in which
hackers can give a voice to those who
cannot express themselves freely.
Obviously,
governments
and,
more
generally,
nations
are
affected
by
hacktivism which could be a powerful
weapon at the root of political crises and
debates. We see it particularly in the
manner that governments have reacted to
it: they take considerable actions such as
trying to track and infiltrate hacktivist
groups.
What are the
limits of hacktivism?
Even if hacktivism can be a powerful
weapon, its weaknesses can be found in
the way it is used. The problem is that
hacking groups are not really homogeneous
as often thought; for instance, Anonymous
has a messy construction without a clear
organization that prevent them to be an
effective force. Inside the group, we find
debates that could divide its members they are not necessarily sharing a unique
point of view which can be a real stumbling
block to their actions.
What is the future for hacktivism?
As technology develops, hacktivism will
certainly progress by the increased
recruitment of people in hacking groups;
perhaps groups that exist today will change
their approach of hacking by using a solid
political structure and in this way, they
could have a persuasive and revolutionary
impact on political and social life. However,
we have to consider that nations and
governments could focus deeply on the
question of hacktivism more than today,
and they could manage to find solutions
and shields to cyber attacks.