James M.

Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

Civil disobedience is the intentional, proclaimed refusal to obey certain laws, orders, and commands of a government, or of an occupying governmental power. Henry David Thoreaus 1849 essay Resistance to Civil Government which by 1866, four years after his death, was published under the title, Civil Disobedience. Thoreaus essay brought forth the concept of nonviolent resistance, which guided and inspired the leaders of the most important political and social movements of the twentieth century such as Dr. Martin Luther King, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and many other prolific activists of our time. The intentional expression of nonviolent civil disobedience, or activism, may take many forms such as rallies, marches, boycotts, and strikes; while terroristic activism, or terrorism, is a form of activism that incorporates violence and fear as tools to further a specific agenda. Technological advancements since the 1990s have touched almost every part of our lives in both frivolous and substantive ways. Arguably, the Internet has spawned advancements in the way we communicate, connect, and perceive the world around us. While the Internet continues to be used for the benign goal of socializing and updating ones Facebook status, it has also become a force within our society for social change and political activism. No longer are activists relegated to city streets and the halls of Congress with picket signs and bullhorns blasting their unique perspectives, but now social change can be initiated from the comforts of ones living room, office cubicle, or coffee shop. The stereotypical perception of the activist of the 1960s with pedal pushers, burning draft cards, and peace signs no longer applies to the activists of the new millennium. These new activists are

James M. Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

faceless entities engaging in the brave new world of cyber activism in the privacy of their own homes. With the advent of the Internet, cyber activism has become a high stakes game of cat and mouse with anonymity comprising one of its key components. Cyber activism, or online activism, is socio-political action among groups, which not only embrace the traditional framework of social change as illustrated in Thoreaus essay; but also includes the utilization of technological advancements that further the groups collective goals. This essay explores the characteristics of cyber activism within our society and how the concept of activism has evolved from mass gatherings of demonstrators to the virtual protests of the 21st century due to technological advances since the advent of the Internet. There are four broad categories of cyber activism: cyber protest, hactivism, defacing websites, and server attacks. While each of these methods has its own particular goal and use within the larger concept of cyber activism, all cyber activism begins with a coalition of like-minded people who have a common goal. Further, cyber activism is usually marked by a loosely organized structure that attracts varying levels of sophistication and commitment to one anothers ideological stances. First, cyber protest is an organized effort to bring attention to current issues usually related to social and/or political events that are of importance to technology users and providers. A recent example of a successful cyber protest occurred in November 2011 when the online data source, Wikipedia, intentionally went dark for all of its English version pages in protest to anti-piracy legislation under

James M. Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

consideration in the United States Congress. The Protect Intellectual Property Act and the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House of Representatives and Senate, respectively, called for strengthening file-sharing and copyright infringement laws that the movie and music industries see as riddled with loopholes and lack of enforcement of existing laws. 1 While information providers such as Wikipedia do not endorse or encourage the pirating of copyrighted material, keeping the Internet open and accessible without undo litigious and governmental pressures and regulations is a defining characteristic of the internet from its conception. Accounts of the cyber protest were plastered on the network news programs as well as the print media. This particular cyber protest demonstrates the effectiveness of accessing end users as a way to promote and educate the public concerning issues of particular importance to the cyber protestors. Second, hactivism is characterized by the non-violent use of illegal cyberattack tools as a means of protest directed at governmental agencies, corporations, or organizations. Hactivism is not characterized by financial gains, but rather the primary goal is usually political in nature. For example, in 1989 the United States Department of Energy and NASA were targeted with a worm that replaced user login screens with an anti-nuclear proliferation message. While hactivism attacks have evolved in the past decade, the modus operandi are virtually unchanged utilizing website defacement and distributed denial of service attacks. 2 Another example of hactivism in recent years was the Beijing Olympic games. Computer Ollmann, Gunter. The Opt-In Bottnet Generation. http://www.damballa.com/downloads/r_pubs/WP_Opt-In_Botnet.pdf
2

ibid. 3

James M. Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

login processes were disrupted throughout the world. The goal of this particular assault was to bring attention to the human rights record of China toward he Tibetan people. Third, web defacement is a common tool used by cyber activists to satirize companies or organizations with which the activist may not agree. While web defacement can occur in portions of ones webpage, more commonly the entire page is replaced by a dummy page. Short witty information is provided as a way to embarrass the victim. While website defacing is usually marked as a relatively harmless prank to many, website defacement can take on a much more nefarious function by disguising larger, more dangerous problems within the systems effected. For example, while a typical website defacement can include the replacement of ones webpage to a fictitious, often satirical one as well as the intruders pseudonym, some website defacements disguise the insertion of malware which can have devastating effects on ones website. Fourth, server attacks are often perpetrated on large high-profile companies and organizations such as banks and insurance companies. First, denial-of-service disables the user from accessing the end users log -in data form. The denial-ofservice is very similar to the example used earlier when discussing hactivism. Moreover, server attacks can impede the processing time of data throughout the system, also called throughput. Overloading the network with an abundance of communication requests slows the processing time considerably depending upon the type, duration, and quantity of data requests. It is worth noting that while each

James M. Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

characteristic discussed thus far regarding cyber activism is unique in many ways, there is a certain amount of overlap between and among them. Now that the characteristics of cyber activism as the catalyst for social change have been discussed, we now turn to possible uses and functions of cyber activism in society. Due to the ease and the effectiveness of the Internet for gathering and mobilizing support, raising financial backing, and communicating and spreading influence and ideas throughout society, cyber activism is much more practical than traditional activism such as in-person picketing, allies, and marches. First, gathering and mobilizing support is the cornerstone to any successful collective action, whether cyber activism or traditional activism. The advent of the Internet has created the opportunity for the quick mobilization and organization of like-minded people in short periods of time. Just as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hurst set the countrys agenda with their yellow journalism splattered on the pages of the New York World and New York Journal throughout the Gilded Age of the 1890s, todays media giants such as CNN, NBC, and Fox shape how the majority of Americans understand, relate to, and perceive the world around them. While the omnipotent networks gave way to the infiltration of cable broadcasting a hundred years later, the Internet has the potential to become the great equalizer of information. Given the increased accessibility of the Internet in the past decade, the average American has access to thousands of data sources instantaneously. In Politics on the Nets, Wayne Rash points out that like-minded people with non-mainstream ideas would be able to communicate and disseminate information with an equal voice amongst the nations

James M. Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

political/social elite, and an unregulated, uncontrolled discourse would finally be able to take place. Second, the Internet has transformed raising financial backing to support particular social agendas. No longer are non-profits reliant upon large-scale galas and fundraisers, which incur extraordinary upfront and overhead costs. The new fundraising machine allows for small, seemingly inconsequential donations to be collected from anyone who agrees with the particular agenda of an organization. Further, targeting donation requests through the use of social media allows organizations to cast a large net into an expansive group of potential donors that meet predetermined criteria. Messages can now be customized and addressed to the needs of any one particular subgroup within the potential donor pool. Third, the effective dissemination of ideas and information throughout society has been the cornerstone to transitioning activism from the traditional methods to the more targeted and effective mechanics of cyber activism. Not only has the internet allowed for instantaneous and continuous, real-time feedback from other activists with similar interests, the use of social media such as My Space, Facebook, and Twitter have forever altered the way we organize ourselves into groups and cohorts. Similarities can be easily identified and seized upon in the hopes of creating a sustainable movement that changes the way we understand others and ourselves. In conclusion, cyber activism is similar to traditional activism in that both forms of activism seek to create social, political, or economic changes within society. Cyber activism allows for a more targeted approach to disseminate a groups message that had been hampered by many considerations in the past such as

James M. Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

financial, ease of access, and response time. Clearly we are now living in a brave new world, which Thoreau could not have imagined when writing his work on civil disobedience.

James M. Barfield: Cyber activism & Expressions of Digital Disobedience

References:

Illia, Laura. Passage to cyber activism: How dynamics of activism change. Journal of Public Affairs, vol. 3, 4 (November 2002): 326-337. Anderson, Jon. Review of Activism! Direct action, hactivism and the future of society, by Tim Jordan. Area 36.1 (January 2004): 86-87. Sangani, Kris. Sony security laid bare. Engineering & Technology, September 2011, 74-77. Prois, Jessica. Koni 2012: LRA reportedly responds to movement. Huffington Post, April 8, 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/08/lra-kony-invisiblechildren_n_1409306.html (accessed May 30, 2012). McCaughey, Martha and Michael D. Ayers. A review of cyber activism: online activism in theory and practice. (Portsmouth, N.H.) Routledge, 2003. http://www.technorhetoric.net/9.1/reviews/singer/index.htm

(accessed May 30, 2012).