I was reading a book that has a quote in it that is attributed to historian Charles Austin Beard. The quote is: “You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence.” The quote is used at the beginning of a chapter on Hacktivism. My first thought was how relevant that is to so many other things, and then I had a realization about Hacktivism.
In general I have mixed feelings about Hacktivism. I, like everyone else find the inconvenience of dealing with a website I can’t get to annoying. I don’t like the idea that some website I have done business through has been hacked and now I need to change passwords, and get a new credit card and watch all my accounts even more vigilantly than I do. This is personal inconvenience and just like a lot of other people I can get down right selfish and self centered about it. And the media plays on this.
On the other hand, sites that are that easily hacked, specially those of larger organizations, need to really sit up and pay attention. How lax was their security and policies that it allowed the hack to occur and why wasn’t some one paying attention. In many companies the I.T. (Information Technology) department is considered a necessary evil that adds little or nothing to the bottom line.
And now, a different view of Hacktivism. It is today’s version of the ‘sit in’ or the march on the Capitol. At one point in our history we could stage a protest through a ‘sit in’ or get a group of people to march on some entity be it a government seat, a corporation’s headquarters, or a public meeting. These things would get coverage by the press and the activists could get their message out and then the general public, informed of the issue, would become involved and there was potential for change. Sadly, these forms of protest, while still happening, don’t always get the media coverage they used to and when one does make the news, the issue is often secondary to the disruption it causes. (Note that the recent protest in Egypt is an exception to this trend.) As a result of the nature of the coverage the general public may only be superficially aware of the issue; ‘oh, some workers were protesting about something.’
The truth about Hactivism is that it’s become the best way to get wide spread coverage and get the word out about whatever the issue is. Unfortunately, it is subject to the same foils as traditional protests and it seems that the Hacktivist’s message or messages are being diluted. This may be, because they don’t have a specific issue or target, the media has chosen to bury their message the way they do with traditional protests, or because there have been so many Hacktivist ‘attacks’ that the public has become immune due to over saturation. Add to that the tendency of government and media to make Hacktivists into villains who are only intent on perpetrating evil so no one bothers to ask “why”. Why did they do it, or what was the protest about?
At the time of our “founding fathers” things tended to be bleak for a lot larger percentage of the population and so a lot more people had nothing or little to lose by upsetting the status quo and pushing for change. Today, while just as large a percentage of the population would benefit from change, there is a lot larger a percentage that feel change would threaten their position on the socio-economic scale. A large middle class, ill-informed population is one of the biggest hindrances to progress and change.
As middle class, we don’t want to give up what we have worked so hard to get. We have worked hard for our houses in the suburbs, two car families, more toys, games, electronics and diversions than we know what to do with, and we have very little to fall back on or to help us weather a storm of change. We as a middle class don’t like and fear Activists and Hacktivists because they threaten all that we have worked for, and the media and government know this.
Maybe it’s time we start asking the “why” and “what for” questions of the protesters. Maybe we can find out if they have a reason and if it’s a good one. What if the reason for hacking a company is to protest their use of some chemical or component in an every day product that is making every one sick. What if, hacking a site shows just how undeserving of our trust an entity is because they take their position so lightly and leave our personal or financial information so vulnerable to the misuse of others.
A complacent, compliant, unquestioning public is the darling of government, media, and corporations. A questioning, non-compliant, insistent, and informed public is the bane of government, media and corporation and the only way to effect change. The Activists and Hacktivists know this. Maybe it’s time to ask ‘why’ and consider joining them.
