The Current, Emerging, and Future State of Hacktivism

Zone-H recently reported yet another major hacktivism case in what's stated to be the biggest hacking incident in the web-hosting history-- single hack, multiple targets exposed and their audiences' attention "acquired". The very same type of tension happened several weeks ago due to the Muhammad cartoons. It may seem questionable whether Hacktivism would survive in today's for-profit online crime world, but discussion and execution opens up new boundaries the way the author of this research did.



I feel I went through what's perhaps the most recent and extensive research done on Hacktivism, "Hacktivism and the Future of Political Participation" by Alexandra Samuel -- a perfect moment to mention the daily updated security resources, that I go through instantly, hudreds more will soon be shared as well!



The disertation "looks at the phenomenon of hacktivism: the marriage of political activism and computer hacking. It defines hacktivism as the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends. Those tools include web site defacements, redirects, denial-of-service attacks, information theft, web site parodies, virtual sit-ins, virtual sabotage, and software development. The dissertation uses data from fifty-one interviews in conjunction with additional primary and secondary source material. This data is used to construct a taxonomy of hacktivism, and apply the taxonomy to three core issues in political participation."



The big picture, the details, and everything in between, how fast can you print, bind and read this masterpiece?