Would Vixie make the same argument if it were Anonymous vs the PRC: both sides are equally guilty of being hypocritical on the issue of "free speech" because DDOS attacks censor speech and so does the Great Firewall. I wouldn't be so daft as to suggest that the PRC values "free speech" and I have no idea why Vixie thinks better of people who call for Assange to be assassinated.
Ok, so let's ignore every Conservative pundit in the country and say that maybe Anonymous is just as hypocritical as Senator Lieberman and Amazon. A US Senator, who has sworn an oath to defend the First Amendment, and a $79 billion bookseller are equivalent in power and responsibility to... a bunch of internet trolls? I don't get it.
I don't know who started this dumb, inaccurate, and insulting "hacktivist" portmanteau.
GoogleBooks found a hit for "hacktivism" in a 1984 publication entitle "Alternative library literature" (Oryx Press), but the term doesn't appear to have taken off until it was coined and promoted by the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) in late 1998.
Wired.com's Michelle Delio wrote a short historical piece entitled "Hacktivism and How It Got Here" (07.14.04) which credited the term to the cDc:
[N]o one called technology-enabled political activism "hacktivism" until 1998, when cDc members Omega, Reid Fleming and Ruffin were chatting online and were, Ruffin said, "bouncing some wacky ideas around about hacking and political liberation, mostly in the context of working with Chinese hackers post-Tiananmen Square." "The next morning Omega sent an e-mail to the cDc listserv and included for the first time the word hacktivism in the post," Ruffin said. "Like most cDc inventions, it was used seriously and ironically at the same time -- and when I saw it my head almost exploded."
http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2004/07/64193
A quick lexus-Nexus search finds that the first use of "hacktivist" in Lexis-Nexus' newspaper database is attributed to 'Buzzing Around Flytrap' by Alex Kozinski (9/24/1998 12:19:00 PM) in Slate Magazine:
Technology of all sorts continues to be a hot item. Wired News reports on a phenomenon called Hacktivism--electronic sabotage as a means of political protest. The story features the Hong Kong Blondes, a near-mythical group of Chinese dissidents that have been infiltrating police and security networks in China in an effort to forewarn political targets of imminent arrests, as well as an organization known only as the Cult of the Dead Cow whose spokesman (a former United Nations consultant) goes by the moniker Oxblood Ruffian. (I'm not making this up, honest.) In response to this threat, the FBI is establishing a cyberwarfare center called the National Infrastructure Protection Center which will involve the intelligence community and the military. Sounds like more tightrope walking for you and the ACLU.
The Wired.com article referenced is 'The Golden Age of Hacktivism' (09.22.98) by Niall McKay
The phenomenon is becoming common enough that next month, the longtime computer-security group, the Cult of the Dead Cow will launch the resource site hacktivism.org. The site will host online workshops, demonstrations, and software tools for digital activists. "We want to provide resources to empower people who want to take part in activism on the Internet," said Oxblood Ruffian, a former United Nations consultant who belongs to the Cult of the Dead Cow. Oxblood Ruffian's group is no newcomer to hacktivism. They have been working with the Hong Kong Blondes, a near-mythical group of Chinese dissidents that have been infiltrating police and security networks in China in an effort to forewarn political targets of imminent arrests.
[http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1998/09/15129]
The term was repeated in the title of U.S. News & World Report's article on the story - "Chinese 'hacktivists' spin a Web of trouble" - by Bay Fang (Sept 28 1998):
From the moment in 1995 that a commercial Internet provider first gave Chinese citizens access to the Web, the government has tried to maintain what some cyber surfers derisively call "the Great Firewall of China." This elaborate control system is supposed to block sites that the Communist Party considers morally or politically degenerate, from Penthouse to Amnesty International and CNN. But with a few simple tricks, ordinary Internet users are now making a mockery of the Great Firewall, tapping easily into forbidden foreign sites. Sabotage. Sophisticated hackers, meanwhile, are breaking into sensitive Chinese computers. Members of the Hong Ko
Slashdot Mirror
Would Vixie make the same argument if it were Anonymous vs the PRC: both sides are equally guilty of being hypocritical on the issue of "free speech" because DDOS attacks censor speech and so does the Great Firewall. I wouldn't be so daft as to suggest that the PRC values "free speech" and I have no idea why Vixie thinks better of people who call for Assange to be assassinated.
Ok, so let's ignore every Conservative pundit in the country and say that maybe Anonymous is just as hypocritical as Senator Lieberman and Amazon. A US Senator, who has sworn an oath to defend the First Amendment, and a $79 billion bookseller are equivalent in power and responsibility to... a bunch of internet trolls? I don't get it.
I don't know who started this dumb, inaccurate, and insulting "hacktivist" portmanteau.
GoogleBooks found a hit for "hacktivism" in a 1984 publication entitle "Alternative library literature" (Oryx Press), but the term doesn't appear to have taken off until it was coined and promoted by the Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) in late 1998. Wired.com's Michelle Delio wrote a short historical piece entitled "Hacktivism and How It Got Here" (07.14.04) which credited the term to the cDc:
[N]o one called technology-enabled political activism "hacktivism" until 1998, when cDc members Omega, Reid Fleming and Ruffin were chatting online and were, Ruffin said, "bouncing some wacky ideas around about hacking and political liberation, mostly in the context of working with Chinese hackers post-Tiananmen Square." "The next morning Omega sent an e-mail to the cDc listserv and included for the first time the word hacktivism in the post," Ruffin said. "Like most cDc inventions, it was used seriously and ironically at the same time -- and when I saw it my head almost exploded." http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/news/2004/07/64193
A quick lexus-Nexus search finds that the first use of "hacktivist" in Lexis-Nexus' newspaper database is attributed to 'Buzzing Around Flytrap' by Alex Kozinski (9/24/1998 12:19:00 PM) in Slate Magazine:
Technology of all sorts continues to be a hot item. Wired News reports on a phenomenon called Hacktivism--electronic sabotage as a means of political protest. The story features the Hong Kong Blondes, a near-mythical group of Chinese dissidents that have been infiltrating police and security networks in China in an effort to forewarn political targets of imminent arrests, as well as an organization known only as the Cult of the Dead Cow whose spokesman (a former United Nations consultant) goes by the moniker Oxblood Ruffian. (I'm not making this up, honest.) In response to this threat, the FBI is establishing a cyberwarfare center called the National Infrastructure Protection Center which will involve the intelligence community and the military. Sounds like more tightrope walking for you and the ACLU.
The Wired.com article referenced is 'The Golden Age of Hacktivism' (09.22.98) by Niall McKay
The phenomenon is becoming common enough that next month, the longtime computer-security group, the Cult of the Dead Cow will launch the resource site hacktivism.org. The site will host online workshops, demonstrations, and software tools for digital activists. "We want to provide resources to empower people who want to take part in activism on the Internet," said Oxblood Ruffian, a former United Nations consultant who belongs to the Cult of the Dead Cow. Oxblood Ruffian's group is no newcomer to hacktivism. They have been working with the Hong Kong Blondes, a near-mythical group of Chinese dissidents that have been infiltrating police and security networks in China in an effort to forewarn political targets of imminent arrests. [http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/1998/09/15129]
The term was repeated in the title of U.S. News & World Report's article on the story - "Chinese 'hacktivists' spin a Web of trouble" - by Bay Fang (Sept 28 1998):
From the moment in 1995 that a commercial Internet provider first gave Chinese citizens access to the Web, the government has tried to maintain what some cyber surfers derisively call "the Great Firewall of China." This elaborate control system is supposed to block sites that the Communist Party considers morally or politically degenerate, from Penthouse to Amnesty International and CNN. But with a few simple tricks, ordinary Internet users are now making a mockery of the Great Firewall, tapping easily into forbidden foreign sites. Sabotage. Sophisticated hackers, meanwhile, are breaking into sensitive Chinese computers. Members of the Hong Ko