Abstract
How should the group Anonymous be classified? As defenders of the public good? As cyberterrorists? As trolls? The Internet allows people with moral and political agendas to operate differently than ever before in history. Some claim that the scale and distributed nature of the Internet has forced corporations and governments to be more transparent, empowering people who would have ordinarily been isolated from information they deserve. Others see hacktivist groups as platforms for theft and loss of privacy. There are clear examples supporting each evaluation.
We will attempt to divide historical examples of hactions into two categories. The first encompasses acts of "cosmetic" hactivism intended solely to spread a political or moral message without causing severe collateral. Examples in this category include the relatively harmless anti-proliferation vandalism perpetrated by WANK (Worms Against Nuclear Killers) in 1989 and the defamation of the Kriegsman Fur and Outerwear company by animal rights activists in 1996. The second category, more commonly referred to as "cyberterrorism," will include incidents which have more damaging consequences, such as the Stuxnet worm. We will use such incidents to investigate and detail these categories, and the grey area in between, in an attempt to address the ethical questions surrounding hacktivist behavior and culture. Ultimately we will try to make a judgment about whether or not hacktivism is good for the world, and how it should be addressed by the law.