Question

Hacktivism is the use of hacking to promote a political cause. Is there an ethical justification for such hacking?

Should penalties for 'hacktivists' differ from penalties for other hackers?

Answer 1

The general concept of hacktivism isn’t defined by the need to involve “bad behaviour” or outright law breaking, and can be used to make a positive impact on the world in a justified and ethical way. “Ethical use” of hacktivism often depends on the user’s intentions. An example of hacktivism being used for good involved an incident where a notorious hacktivist, The Jester, helped with the identification and incarceration of several ‘script-kiddies’ (Hacking/programming culture slang for a younger, less experienced hacker who rejects the ethical principles often adopted by professionals and hacks maliciously for the fun of it) who disrupted the United Kingdom’s anti-terrorist hotline, possibly putting people in danger (Armstrong, 2014).

Hacktivism simply involves using rights (like the right to free speech) to effectively protest to a larger audience in a more effective way. It just builds on to the original concept of protest in modern ways and should be judged on ethics in a similar way to any other medium of protest.

Hacktivists claim that they are doing no more and no less than following in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., by attempting to bring about social change through non-violent means (Thomas, 2001).