Table Of ContentLIVING WITH
HACKTIVISM
From Confict to Symbiosis
VASILEIOS KARAGIANNOPOULOS
Palgrave Studies in Cybercrime and Cybersecurity
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John Jay College of Criminal Justice CUN
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Michigan State University
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Vasileios Karagiannopoulos
Living With
Hacktivism
From Confict to Symbiosis
Vasileios Karagiannopoulos
Institute of Criminal Justice Studies
University of Portsmouth
Portsmouth, UK
Palgrave Studies in Cybercrime and Cybersecurity
ISBN 978-3-319-71757-9 ISBN 978-3-319-71758-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71758-6
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To my parents
Preface
Tis book discusses one of the most ambiguous aspects of online political
activity: the practice of transgressing, or at least challenging, cybercrime
laws with the purpose of symbolically expressing dissent or facilitating
political expression in cyberspace. Such activities have been dubbed hack-
tivism due to the use of software tools and computer modifcation and
impairment techniques for realising their political symbolic expression
online, usually through virtual sit-ins impairing the use of websites and
unauthorised grafti on web pages or the exposure of software weak-
nesses. Te illegal nature of hacktivism has given rise to extensive discus-
sions in relation to its moral and political usefulness as a form of online
civil disobedience in conjunction with its potential for harmful efects on
information networks and the interests of the networks’ operators and
users. Tis area of study is contested as will be seen throughout the book
and both sides of the argument have their merits.
In recent years, these activities have proliferated, refuelling ongoing
discussions regarding how they should be perceived and dealt with.
Despite the existence of sociopolitical assessments of hacktivism, there
has not been an extensive, more in-depth legal and regulatory analysis in
relation to these political activities. Consequently, a motivating force for
this book has been to provide such an analysis with a particular focus on
the US and the UK, which have been two jurisdictions where there has
been rich hacktivist activity and also legal developments in relation to
vii
viii Preface
the phenomenon of hacktivism. My aim will be to identify and highlight
the potential problems of the existing approach that is followed when
dealing with hacktivism and its impact on user rights, protesters, and
overall cybersecurity. Having done that, I will eventually suggest an alter-
native rationale for responding to hacktivism, taking into account the
potential sociopolitical importance of such practices, but also the risks
that they can entail, shifting from confict-based approaches to more
symbiotic ones.
Tis work does not suggest a uniform and fail-proof way of dealing
with hacktivism and does not aim to justify the existence and practices of
particular groups, such as Anonymous. In fact, it defes the possibility of
generalised solutions, since it acknowledges primarily that hacktivism by
itself, as a movement and practice, defes uniformity and should not be
defned through the groups that it is primarily associated with. On the
contrary, it is a practice that is open to expressing political dissent in gen-
eral and has been used by various groups that would not be characterised
as hacktivist per se. It is exactly such generalisations that I would like to
dispel. However, I also aim to show that the cases of hacktivism that have
been dealt with have been done so in a manner that further reinforces all
those conficts, injustices, and power imbalances that give rise to hacktiv-
ism in the frst place and try to deal with hacktivism in a very generalised
manner.
Moreover, my aim is not to identify ways of eliminating hacktivism, as
I do not believe that it would be feasible or positive to completely elimi-
nate a phenomenon that has organically developed in our society as an
expression of citizens’ needs for political reaction. But I also do not gener-
ally glorify hacktivist actions as the reinvention of online politics and
democratic deliberation, because its realisation can be far from the ideal
portrayal of modern politics that proponents might think it is.
A core part of the following discussion is the understanding that hacktivism
is a diverse political practice and can be and has been abused, much like
any other political practice, from parliamentary decision-making to legal
striking and activist direct action.
Finding mitigating responses to the risks of hacktivism and nurturing
any positive elements it might entail are all about admitting that these
activities are part of the everyday life of cyberspace—which itself is part
Prefac e ix
of our everyday lives. Dealing with hacktivism in ways that are educated,
informed, and inclusive rather than reactionary and demonising and
instead aiming at reducing its harms and reinforcing its positive aspects
can be challenging, especially in the context of modern societies with the
legal and practical tools at our disposal. After all, it needs to be under-
stood that hacktivism is an activity that fows from confict and expresses
confict. It is a response to perceived social problems and injustices.
Consequently, trying to deal with it using more confict-generating
responses, as is the tendency today, can intensify the problems that caused
hacktivism as well as the considerations hacktivist actions themselves
entail, rather than abate them. How this happens will become more obvi-
ous throughout the analysis.
Essentially, hacktivism, as a novel form of politically motivated law-
breaking, reframes the question of morality versus legality and the con-
cept of social justice, democratic deliberation, and contestation in a new
and challenging context in an era where preventing risk and achieving
maximum security is a dominating rationale. Yet hacktivist practice with
its novel reconfguration of traditional protest methods induces, if not
forces, us to rearticulate older discussions about justice and legitimate
law-breaking as political expression as well as free expression and privacy
in discussing how these are applied in the new cyberspace era. Our per-
ceptions ought to be broadened and reconfgured in order to take into
account diferent societal dimensions, reinvented communicational and
behavioural norms, and tools created by novel communities supporting
old and new sociopolitical causes. Tis will be a necessary step in our
attempt to compromise the interpretation and enforcement processes of
nascent criminal laws with activities that are purposefully designed to
challenge them.
Essentially, this enquiry becomes an interesting example in the wider
discussion regarding whether we, as a connected, networked society ben-
eft from intensifying conficts or by building on more understanding,
symbiotic interplay; whether fragmentation and tension are better or
whether learning from each other, even if we disagree, can be of more
beneft from both a theoretical and a practical perspective. In social situ-
ations where confict is default and is often the cause of the problem
and also the problem itself, as in the case of hacktivists, perhaps a
x Preface
r econsideration of our established positions is needed. Tere will always
be confict-i nducing situations, but it is how we understand these power
conficts and learn from the power and counterpower interactions that
allows us to come up with ways that alleviate these tensions and lead to
better, more just, and productive results.
Tis book and its rationale of symbiosis are not based on the naive
premise that perceptions can so radically change from one day to the next.
Instead, it works on the presumption that we will eventually realise that we
want to mitigate the negative consequences of confict-based approaches,
rather than exacerbate them, and that, in principle, there are democratic
values that should be safeguarded to an extent and that would essentially
suggest these more symbiotic approaches. Terefore, it is better to actually
try to understand how we can achieve our goals, from the perspective of
state authorities, online corporations, political organisation, or user collec-
tive, without leading to situations that further negate the aims we are try-
ing to achieve. Contrary to pure criminality, which generally derives from
malign and personalised motivations, hacktivism also challenges the dipole
between the socially considerate public authorities and socially inconsider-
ate criminals by putting forth motivations that also appear to promote
socially considerate goals and even question the benign motivations on
behalf of the authorities. Tat is why symbiosis is about confguring how
power and counterpower can co-function, how their goals can best be
achieved and compromised in situations where strong power tensions exist
in order to ultimately facilitate these socially positive aims.
Some might fnd the discussion moot, arguing that there will always be
confict, which I do not deny. Eliminating confict is not part of what this
book is about. It is about learning where to use confict and where and
when it might be better to mitigate or promote tolerance and even col-
laboration in order to achieve the same or better results, depending on the
balancing of diferent aims. Others might fnd it inspiring. Whatever the
case, I would like this discussion to be viewed as something that has its
roots in a reconfguration of action and reaction based on a more holistic
assessment of the diferent perspectives clashing and infuencing each
other. My goal is to generate more debate, and hopefully this book will
attract the full spectrum of views. I do not plan to achieve an u ltimate
truth about how hacktivism should be viewed and treated and I accept
