Hacking, Hackers, and Hacktivism

April 9

Spend five minutes with anyone who studies “hackers” and you will quickly learn that the term is used to define a wide array of discrete subcultures, from homebrew computer programmers all the way through to military-industrial network vulnerability experts. If there is one unifying characteristic amongst all of these cultures (and there may not be), it is most likely the acknowledgement between these groups that the limitations imposed by code as a mode of regulating behavior can, and should, be subverted. Today we look to hackers, who they are, what they do, and what rules and norms govern those who do not recognize code as a governing influence.

Our guest speaker this week will be Molly Sauter, a student at MIT's Comparative Media Studies program and researcher at MIT's Center for Civic Media, who has written and spoken extensively about cultural perception of hackers.

Readings

• Gabriella Coleman, Phreaks, Hackers, and Trolls: The Politics of Transgression and Spectacle (from The Social Media Reader)

• Wikipedia, Operation Payback

• Molly Sauter, Activist DDOS Campaigns: When Similes and Metaphors Fail (video, watch from to 1:56 to 21:44)

• Sauter uses the term "DDoS" throughout. This is an abbreviation for "distributed denial of service," a specific form of attack to a web server described in more detail here.

• United States Department of Justice, Prosecuting Computer Crimes (read pages 1-11: Introduction to the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and Key Definitions)

• Wikipedia, Operation Sundevil

• James Ball, Secrecy Surrounding “Zero-Day Exploits” Industry Spurs Calls for Government Oversight

Optional Readings

• Intelligence Squared Debate: "The Cyberwar Threat Has Been Grossly Exaggerated" (an Oxford-style debate with Marc Rotenberg, Bruce Schneier, Mike McConnell, and Jonathan Zittrain; watch the video of the debate)

• TorrentFreak, Pirate Parties Use Influence to Halt Anonymous’ Operation Payback

• Benjamen Walker, Doing it for the LULZ (from Too Much Information) (11:00 to 22:45 only, language at times is NSFW)

• Christopher Soghoian, The Growing Trade in Software Security Exploits

• Nicole Perlroth, Hackers in China Attacked The Times for Last 4 Months (New York Times)

Class Discussion

Please remember to sign your postings by adding four tildes (~~~~) to the end of your contribution. This will automatically add your username and the date/time of your post, like so: Asellars 15:29, 21 January 2013 (EST)

I was particularly interested in this week's reading: United States Department of Justice, Prosecuting Computer Crimes it was interesting to see the amount of amendments as the years went by that the federal government attempted to control the internet behaviors of the public. This reading relates closely with my topic for my final paper of the governments control on a macro level in contrast to my paper which exams a small micro community that the federal government is attempting to control. In the readings it appears as if the government reacts in the way of a bell shape curve. Initially they are reactive in nature to something that they are late in response to, then they build up the momentum with legislation, then they continue to amend this legislation to be more and more restrictive until overregulation takes place. The federal government should look into addressing this method of over regulation for it does not protect the public from hackers or those that intend to do wrong, as much as it hurts the freedoms of the public citizens. Interestingcomments 10:49, 9 April 2013 (EDT)