Hacktivism - Forms of Hacktivism

Forms of Hacktivism

In order to carry out their operations, hacktivists use a variety of software tools readily available on the Internet. In many cases the software can be downloaded from a popular website, or launched from a website with click of a button. Some of the more well-known hacktivist tools are below:

1. Defacing Web Pages: Between 1995 and 1999 Attrition.org reported 5,000 website defacements. In such a scenario, the hacktivist will significantly alter the front page of a company's or governmental agency's website.
2. Web Sit-ins: In this form of hacktivism, hackers attempt to send so much traffic to the site that the overwhelmed site becomes inaccessible to other users in a variation on a denial of service.
3. E-mail Bombing: Hacktivists send scores of e-mails with large file attachments to their target's e-mail address.
4. Code: Software and websites can achieve political purposes. For example, the encryption software PGP can be used to secure communications; PGP's author, Phil Zimmermann said he distributed it first to the peace movement. Jim Warren suggests PGP's wide dissemination was in response to Senate Bill 266, authored by Senators Biden and DeConcini, which demanded that "...communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications...". WikiLeaks is an example of a politically motivated website: it seeks to "keep governments open".
5. Website Mirroring: is used as a circumvention tool to bypass censorship blocks on websites. It is a technique that copies the content of a censored website and posts it to other domains and subdomains that are not censored.
6. Geo-bombing: a technique in which netizens add a geo-tag while editing YouTube videos so that the location of the video can be displayed in Google Earth.
7. Anonymous blogging: a method of speaking out to a wide audience about human rights issues, government oppression, etc. that utilizes various web tools such as free email accounts, IP masking, and blogging software to preserve a high level of anonymity.
8. Doxing is the practice of outing of private information about individuals, but the term is sometimes used more broadly to refer to exposing embarrassing information about organizations (such as Project Chanology). Doxing is sometimes used to deter collaboration with law enforcement, or for more self-proclaimed revolutionary purposes. For example in the 2011 Stratfor hacking incident, the password lists and credit card information were published allegedly in order "to wreak unholy havoc upon the systems and personal e-mail accounts of these rich and powerful oppressors"; later the rooted email spools were passed to WikiLeaks for publication.
9. Swatting is the act of triggering a police raid, usually that of an anti-terrorist team SWAT in the United States, typically for retaliation or harassment and based on providing false information to law enforcement. Swatting sometimes involves caller ID spoofing.