Blog entry number 2 hackivism Timothy Zielinski

The idea of hackivism and hacking in general was an extremely interesting part to weeks 5-8. Tavani talks in chapter 7 in depth about his thoughts. Hackers deprive for different reasons are though in some cases they are doing it to show off or just because, there also is times that are more meaningful. On page 204 he talks about how traditional hackers feel it is their ethical duty to share software. He calls this the hacker’s ethic. The idea of hackers feeling they need to do something for people is an idea that makes me think of them as less bad. It is almost the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor, obviously not all poor. Overall I see these individuals as meaning well and trying to do what they think is ethically right. He continues to say that the media then started applying the word hackers to criminal. This idea shows the pretense that no hacking can be good. Because of the media, the term hacking will be seen as bad. This is unless it was something to do with the government. If our government were to hack another county and found information about a bomb threat, that person would be seen as no criminal. To me this is a double standard. The media should not express the idea of a hacker as a criminal, instead what they are doing. If a hacker is stealing and sharing music and gets caught, you could say he stole. My main point to this is a criminal is only a criminal if they are convicted of a crime, hacking is a criminal act only in the eyes of the law, so not always. Hackivism to me is an idea that stands behind this. Groups like Anonymous and others go around the internet acting for what they believe in. These are non-violent protest that really doesn’t harm people. Standing outside with signs and other forms of protesting from activist who would like to see a change are pretty close to the same. Admitting to this I will say that what they do are criminal acts. Things they have done like the Sony hack and hack against MasterCard and Visa all lost that company money. But once again they felt like they had to make people aware. They had the hacker’s ethic. They weren’t doing this just to show off what they can do, but to show people what they think is not right, what is corrupt.