Hacktivism: who is saving whom, and from what?

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The FBI's National Infrastructure Protection Center or NIPC recently warned of more attacks on Web sites in the U.S. and around the world, especially those making political or social statements. This FBI office, responsible for computer threat and vulnerability assessments, said the attacks will likely take the form of defacing Web sites and denial of service attacks.

Some these 'hacktivists' as they call themselves justify their acts as a form of civil disobedience. But other Web activists warn about over-reacting to the threats, and spoiling the freedom and power of the Web in the process. They point to the more serious threat of state-sanctioned censorship that shuts off Web users from important sources of information. The real hacktivists, they say, want to keep the Internet free for all, and not a tool of government and big business.

FBI says more cyber-protests are in the works

The FBI/NIPC's warning report, issued in October 2001, says government, educational, commercial, and cultural institutions will probably be the most likely targets, but any site that hackers can detect with vulnerabilities will be susceptible. The report says cyber-protests have up to now caused limited damage, but "future attacks could bring about large economic losses as well as potentially severe damage to the national infrastructure, affecting global markets as well as public safety."

The report notes that the Web provides a global stage for groups that otherwise would have gone unnoticed. With the Internet at its disposal, groups can organize more quickly and carry out their attacks in a more coordinated way than before. The paper acknowledges that not all Web attacks are politically motivated or the work of organized groups; sometimes the lone hacker can cause the damage and at other times kids may be out having causing juvenile mischief.

The threat posed by this new round of hacktivism, according to the report, is to the infrastructure itself, not just individual sites. The integrity of the network and the ability to conduct business or carry out routine messaging could severely affect thousands or millions of companies and organizations more and more dependent on the Web.

The paper cites incidents beginning with the Chinese hackers protesting U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999, that targeted U.S. government Web sites, and further attacks after Taiwan's presidential elections later that year that closed down hundreds of Taiwanese Web sites. In May 2001, Chinese protesters defaced or closed over 100 sites in the U.S., after a Chinese fighter jet collided with a U.S. spy plane off the Chinese coast.

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