Who Is The Hacker In The Masked Avengers

In Himma’s terms, “hacktivism will be understood as involving unauthorized digital intrusions for the purpose of protesting some injustice or advancing some political agenda.” (Himma 14) An unauthorized digital intrusion is the manipulation of computers and networks belonging to someone else who in turn has their property rights violated. (Himma 1) Himma argues hacktivism is morally impermissible if and only if it harms innocent people or if the hacktivist stays anonymous in relation to the act, through three premises in Hacking as Politically Motivated Digital Civil Disobedience: Is Hacktivism Morally Justified? In this paper I am going to explore Himma’s argument and object to his premise that the amount of harm that is produced by an act of hacktivism depends on the moral nature of the attack and the moral standing of the victims.

The word hacking, usually associated with information technology, is a term used for the development of creative solutions for a problem by someone in a non-professional environment. With the introduction of personal computers and the internet, anyone could create solutions to problems in computer science. This led to the emergence of “hacker culture”, leading to the decentralization of computer industry (Hicks, 2014).

Schrock attempts to disprove common misconceptions about civic hackers, by suggesting that civic hacking is a form of data activism and advocacy. Early definitions of civic hackers were froth with white hat imagery of tech-savvy geeks that worked with information technology tools to solve or challenge social and civic issues. This notion was met with both hype and cynicism, but ultimately through the modes of requesting, digesting, contributing, modeling, and contesting, civic hackers act as mediators between the government and its citizens. Early vilifying narratives of hackers helped support the idea of government secrecy, but the distinction that “the civic hacker’s institutionally collaborative nature is a primary difference from hackers being defined as antagonistic or subversive,” (Schrock) allowed an eventual collaboration between the government and civic hackers. Despite the friendliness extended by the government towards civic hackers, certain initiatives such as the National Day of Civic Hacking have received critique from the technical community in a time “when the government continues to persecute hacktivists and open-data activists,” (Lennard, salon.com) under the “dangerously broad” (Lennard, salon.com) Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, as stated in Natasha Lennard’s article, When the

Anonymous, an infamous hacktivist group. Their slogan “We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.” Now, one can come to think that they kind of sound like an underground rebel group. Which is what they are, but they do it all via the internet. Once must also think, “well how do they do it all via internet and not get caught?” They tunnel all their nodes and logs through private networks and encrypted chats. You may ask, what do they fight for? Well it’s obvious, they all fight for one thing: Freedom and a proper Government. You can come to this conclusion just by taking a peek at their tweets, videos, speeches, and etc. It’s obvious that Anonymous’s intended audience is anyone they can reach out to, not only does this hacktivist group focus on American problems, but they also take third world countries problems into consideration. So, with all this information, you’re probably thinking, “well how do they solve America’s problems?” Anonymous isn’t only a group that just tweets hashtags, and what not. Anonymous is loosely organized group of hackers that attempt to use their skills to make a change. But, not all Anonymous members are hackers, some join just to promote what the cause. For example: @YouAnonNews on twitter, tweets operations that are going on, and daily news that has grabbed the attention of Anonymous.

The hacktivist group Anonymous has recently terrified many corporations and operations with its ability to hack, publically humiliate and to release confidential information in the name of freedom of speech. Although participation is widely dissipated throughout the world and its current power is quite possibly uncontrollable, Anonymous had humble beginnings and hasn’t always possessed such a violently noble cause. The evolvement of Anonymous from its not-so-respectable intentions to its worldwide movement for uncensored speech has effectively thrust the nation into a new era of cyber hackers and indignant hacktivists.

Hacktivism, according to the Reference Dictionary, is “the practice of gaining unauthorized access to a computer system and carrying out various disruptive actions as a means of achieving political or social goals” (Hacktivism). However, they are even more well known for the Guy Fawkes mask that the members where when, on a rare occasion, perform a stunt in public. By doing this they are protecting their identity and, in a sense, disrespecting what activism was in the first place. This is because, in the beginning, activism of any kind was done in public without masks. So, by Anonymous wearing masks in public and using code names on the internet, they embody the exact group Gladwell argues is not considered social activists. In short, Gladwell argues activism cannot be done through mainly social media as Anonymous

The social learning theory views hackers as individuals who are socialized into breaking rules through peer-association. A majority of hackers are young and learn from their friends in a type of communal environment. Studies show that this behavior takes place in a distinctive socio-cultural context and “communal” structure. Just like social learning takes place in the terrestrial world, it also takes place in the virtual world. Peer association and social learning in the hacking subculture takes place in both the terrestrial and virtual worlds. In the “terrestrial” world, hackers participate in organized conferenes, such as the annual DEFCON hacker gathering, at which knowledge, tools and tales are exchanged. Chapters of the 2600 hackers organization meet weekly in towns and cities across the US. In “virtual” or online settings, peer groups are formed and

Interconnected computer information systems have become essential aspects of today’s society. All forms of communication, from education, personal brand identity, to commerce and finance, use these systems creating a permanent personal presence for all of us within this digital world. Individuals, who reveal or threaten to reveal these personal identities for various reasons, are sometimes referred to as hackers who can also form hacker activist groups; also known as hacktivists. One of the most recent and visible of these groups calls itself Anonymous. Anonymous has evolved into a worldwide meticulously calculated social and political movement concerned with the freedom and access of information. It uses a variety of means to promote free information, sometimes legal protest, sometimes illegal hacking. There are any numbers of splinter groups that claim affiliation with Anonymous but its decentralized structure makes it difficult to know who is working with or for the goals of the collective. Anonymous has transformed from a physical entity to that of an idea and persona that can be claimed by anyone at any time and that idea is what will ensure its continued presence for years to come.

One would think that what happens online has little to no impact on the physical world and people’s daily lives. On the other hand, people you don’t know can’t harm you as well over the Internet, right? These questions are answered in, Expect Us where I talk about and elaborate upon the well-known online hacktivist collective, Anonymous. I wanted to have this paper really show the reader the impact that they have on the real world and what they stand for through various forms of imagery and explanation with all of the corruption going on right now, I thought this would be a good thing to talk about. I chose to show you the collective through the eyes of a current member who’s had an idea of what they do ever since he was a child. I find this important as the story goes on as the reader will see how even as he evolves from a child to adulthood, the idea sticks with him the entire

However, there is a significant portion of culprits aiming for secretive intellectual properties, much more than their Eastern European counterparts, whose goal is profit from toxic malwares (Kshetri 2013). Interestingly, Chinese intrinsic hackers hack for some noble causes such as patriotism, political and communal obligations (Kshetri 2013). Typical Chinese perpetrators are overwhelmingly males working individually. They are young amateurs, mostly 17 to 45 years old, with some still in junior high-school. They use toolkits, botnets predisposed online for petty crimes. Contrast to common belief, most don’t receive good education, usually high-school students, unemployed individuals, low-rank employees or manual workers. Group based cyber crimes, on the other hand, are more complicated. These groups are highly specialized, diversely scattered and horizontally organized. They are tailored to specific task-for-hire such as creating botnets or releasing Trojan malwares. Their members are located across China and work as equal with little to none hierarchical order. The interconnectedness and space-time boundlessness of cyber-world help them expand greatly, even passing through sovereign borders with one incident when Chinese hackers attacked the US conglomerate DuPont somewhere between 2009 and 2010. Due to the wild success of online frauds, many traditional criminal organizations have switched to Internet based operations. Some online groups go further and get backed up by legitimate corporates seeking extra profit under the table (Chan & Wang

A perfect example is the hacker group "Anonymous" because even though they are breaking the laws yet they are doing a greater good. Most people tend to support there actions. All of these hackers are doing something bad, but it depends on the hacker and how they are using there hacking skills for.

As a loosely organized hacktivist group , Clay Shirky frequently says that hacktivist groups have immense power due to their strength in numbers. Due to technology, loosely organized groups can act on motives with minimal managerial oversight required making these groups highly effective . Indeed, Anonymous’ only leadership comes in the form of Operators who gain their status through previous hacking work, helping new users become part of the movement , and demonstrating leadership within the group. This organizational structure is the exact opposite of formal corporations like MasterCard and Visa, and it is the source of Anonymous’

The ethical issues surrounding hacking, stem from several sources mainly dealing with order and control, and information ownership. What is difficult to decipher from all the media hoopla surrounding the terms, "hacker" and "hacking" is both the simultaneous sensationalism and the condemnation of said activities. Of course just recently, even a movie was made and was appropriately called Hackers. The term and all that it implies has truly entered our popular consciousness when Hollywood has made a box office movie on it. As the advancement of computer technologies and systems of information become increasingly more and more complex in today's fast paced modern world and said technologies become an integral

One such group of hackers is known as Hacking Team. As their name suggests, Hacking Team is a company that specializes in hacking into other people 's computer devices and obtaining information. According to an article from The Guardian, Hacking Team provides "Remote Control System (RCS) software" that can "hack into targets’ computers and mobile devices, install backdoors, and monitor them with ease." Such surveillance tools raise ethical concerns, such as the invasion of privacy of the people being surveilled. These concerns should not be taken lightly, as these issues are directly related to the violation of basic human rights. Such issues have been raised, and according to the lecture, "information technology has already been used to abuse people," which is what Hacking Team 's software is designed to do.

There are vigilante activist groups that hack certain targets whether it be the government or other companies usually to expose corruption