From hacktivism to cyberwar

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From hacktivism to cyberwar

• PSI2007
• Kaido Kikkas

This document uses the GNU Free Documentation
License (v1.2 or newer).
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Early pranksters

• 1876 - Alexander Graham Bell invents telephone
• 1878 - First teenage males flung off phone system
  by enraged authorities
• 1927 the US Radio Act against 'hackers' of the
  day
• 1938 Halloween panic in New York Orson Welles
  reading the War of the Worlds

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The U-turn of Internet

• History of the Internet (Moschovitis Co)
• "Little did the Congress know that it was funding
  the backbone of a system that would link the
  nation's young people, faclitating communication
  between the hotbeds of social unrest in the midst
  of anti-Vietnam War protests - that a system
  designed as a strategic military tool would
  ultimately help hippies to find each other."

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Thin line

• ... between free speech and breaking the law
• the video of the assassination of the U.S.
  president Kennedy taken by Abraham Zapruder, an
  amateur home movie enthusiast
• Someday September 11, 2001 ....? What about
  Echelon?

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Communication as a tool for protest

• During the Vietnam War, the US government placed
  an extra tax on phone system
• Members of the Youth International Party
  ('yippies') promoted phreaking as a way of
  conscious protest

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Bruce Sterling's Law and Disorder on Electronic
Frontier

• aka Hacker Crackdown
• Hackers proper (whitehats)
• Crackers (blackhats)
• Grey hats (samurai)
• Debatable definitions, but an interesting account

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Hacktivism

• Jason Sack's article about media artist Shu Lea
  Cheang, published in InfoNation in 1995
• fight the 'establishment' - both separa-tely and
  with other kinds of direct action
• under debate whether it should include directly
  malicious methods like systems cracking, website
  defacement and DDoS attacks

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W.A.N.K. worm 1989
W O R M S A G A I N S T N U C L E A R
K I L L E R S _________________________________
______________________________ \__
____________ _____ ________ ____ ____
__ _____/ \ \ \ /\ / / / /\ \
\ \ / / / \ \ \ / \ / /
/ /__\ \ \ \ / / / \
\ \/ /\ \/ / / ______ \ \ \ \
\ / \_\ /__\ /____/ /______\ \____
__\ ____ _\ \_/ \___________________
________________________________/ \
/
\ Your System Has Been Officically WANKed
/ \_________________________________
____________/ You talk of times of peace for
all, and then prepare for war.
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Electronic civil disobedience

• Electronic Disturbance Theater
• Virtual sit-in
• Only legal measures
• Hand-made DDoS!

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Cult of the Dead Cow

• 80s cooperation with Chinese dissidents
• Back Orifice
• 1999 war on China and Iraq
• 2006 the Goolag campaign
• Later branched to Hacktivismo a more
  legally-operating free speech organisation
• Hacktivismo declaration
• HESSLA license
• software tools

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File sharing as ECD

• Many people, mostly otherwise law-abiding
• Conscious obstruction of absurd IP laws
• Metallica vs Napster
• public burning of records
• Napster Bad!
• Blender's Biggest Wusses of Rock, 17

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Cyber-warfare

• At first, only information gathering (ct planes)
• Not direct attack but much more frequently a
  disruption of infrastructure (ct Axis submarine
  campaign in WWII)
• Special forces
• Titan Rain and Moonlight Maze
• Taiwan, Kashmir, Korea, US

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Cyberterror?

• Not yet widespread, but
• ubiquitous computing
• growing importance of cyber-warfare
• no large resources needed (terror is the weapon
  of the weak!)
• The cyber-racket is already here
• Better be careful

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Cyber-Jihad

• http//www.infowar-monitor.net/modules.php?opmodl
  oadnameNewsfilearticlesid1372modethreador
  der0thold0
• Various groups
• Hackboy, Ansar Al-Jihad Lil-Jihad Al-Electroni,
  Munazamat Fursan Al-Jihad Al-Electroni, Majmu'at
  Al-Jihad Al-Electroni, Majma' Al-Haker Al-Muslim,
  and Inhiyar Al-Dolar
• Strict Islamic standards
• attack those who offend Islam
• no material gain, but economic damage is OK

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Conclusions

• The development seems to be towards both
  centralised use by governments as well as a
  guerilla tool
• The dark side of ubiquitous computing