Hacktivists take revolution to cyberspace

By PETER GRIFFIN

For the new generation of activists, the campaign no longer means driving inflatable boats in front of whaling ships or chaining themselves to logging trucks.

Cyberspace is the new frontier, and crippling eBay's web servers is likely to draw more attention to a cause than torching fields of genetically modified wheat.

Online attacks, including electronic espionage, defacing web pages, "denial-of-service" attacks and virus infections, are becoming more common as the activists move online.

Disruptive use of the internet has been increasing since about 1994, when Zapatista rebels in southern Mexico began sabotaging Government sites.

The Chinese and Indonesian Governments, in particular, have suffered from cyber attacks highlighting human rights abuses.

More recently, however, the websites of major corporations have become the targets of "hacktivism."

The infamous group PrimeSuspectz captured headlines this year by scrawling cryptic taunts across the web pages of global corporates like Ford and Nike. Their declared motive was to expose weaknesses in IT security among the world's richest companies. New Zealand victims included microsoft.co.nz and epson.co.nz.

Obviously, hacktivism has grown hand in hand with the importance of the web as a means of communication. As more people go online, websites become high-profile targets.

Denial-of-service attacks against the Amazons, Hotmails and Yahoos of this world can affect millions.

As hacktivism and its extreme cousin "cyber terrorism" envelop the net, attention has focused on the ease with which the groups can operate.

As the world prepared to bring in 2001, the FBI was scrambling to track down a group of teenagers who spoke in web chatrooms of their plans to "take down the internet." The US authorities swooped, seizing computers, floppy disks and CD-Roms.

February saw hacktivists break into the computer systems of the World Economic Forum, stealing confidential details on 1400 politicians, businesspeople and celebrities. The operation, codenamed "Virtual Monkeywrench," was as easy as "walking into an open court," said the hackers.

But Governments have not sat by and watched the hacktivists go to work. The Pentagon is paying much closer attention to cyber terrorists.

In 1998 the FBI spent $US64 million setting up the National Institute Protection Centre to monitor e-crime.

And most countries, including New Zealand, are hurriedly beefing-up laws against computer misuse.

Links:


The Zapatista Tactical FloodNet

World Economic Forum

National Institute Protection Centre


Keeping up with the hackers:


The Hacktivist

2600.com

Attrition

InfoWar