Abstract
This Chapter deals with hacking activities under several points of view. The first part is dedicated to describe the history of the hacker, then the analysis try to understand hackers’ role in modern technological society, their activities, and their relationship with the world of digital dissidence. The themes that are outlined are the relationship between hacking and cybercrime, the Do-It-Yourself approach, and the evolution of the hacker ethic. The last portion of the Chapter describes the threats to several hackers (especially cease-and-desist letters) during their research activities for the circumventing of security systems. Attention is also dedicated to the action of hacking the electronic electoral system, and to the security issues related to electronic voting machines in the world.
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Notes
- 1.
See the interesting McLure’s essay concerning the ways in which the electronic frontier builds upon the mythology of frontier expansion generally, and the western American frontier in particular (McLure 2000). The author notes that “Like the western frontier, the e-frontier is vitally significant to American economic and strategic interests that were manifested first in continental (and now wired) expansion; yet the cyberfrontier also appeals on a popular level to many romantic, nostalgic western myths about endless horizons, unlimited opportunity, and untrammeled freedom” (McLure 2000: 458). More: “The cowboy/rebel/outlaw of the electronic frontier is, of course, the hacker, already a somewhat mythical figure in the American collective imagination and able to perform technological feats and engage in criminal activities in a digital territory that most Americans will never even see, let alone traverse. Like the real cowboy of the Old West, hackers maybe regarded with both disdain and admiration. They are also usually very young, technically proficient men, and they employ their own specialized jargonor lingo. But they bear much more resemblance to the counterculture antiheroes of Western films of the late 1960s and 1970s than they do to traditional cowboy heroes like the Virginian or Hopalong Cassidy” (McLure 2000: 462).
- 2.
See http://www.isoc.org/oti/articles/1000/barlow.html. Accessed 14 November 2011.
- 3.
See Sect. 1.1.
- 4.
I am referring to the provisions of the Italian Law n. 155 of 31 July 2005 (“Urgent measures to contrast international terrorism”). See the complete text at the address http://www.camera.it/parlam/leggi/05155l.htm. Accessed 24 November 2011.
- 5.
I am referring to the draft bill related to the Law Decree n. 187 of 12 November 2010 (“Urgent measures regarding security issues”). See the complete text at the address http://www.interno.it/mininterno/export/sites/default/it/sezioni/servizi/legislazione/sicurezza/0965_2010_11_12_DL12112010n187.html. Accessed 24 November 2011.
- 6.
Concerning the effects of the Internet on political participation, see the essay by Tolbert and McNeal (Tolbert and McNeal 2003). According to these scholars: “ […] there is also evidence to suggest that changes in communication technology may play an important role in influencing electoral behavior” (Tolbert and McNeal 2003: 175). Conclusions are clear: “While not a panacea for the disenfranchised, the Internet may nevertheless represent an important new venue for political information and communication, and counter declining civic engagement in America. It also raises broader questions about democratic participation” (Tolbert and McNeal 2003: 184). See also the study by Zavestoski, Shulman and Schlosberg regarding democracy and the environment on the Internet, and electronic citizen participation in regulatory rulemaking (Zavestoski et al. 2006). The authors notes that: “Although the Internet has the potential to facilitate deliberative processes that could result in more widespread public involvement, greater transparency in government processes, and a more satisfied citizenry, […] efforts to implement Internet-based public participation have overlaid existing problematic government processes without fully harnessing the transformative power of information technologies”. (Zavestoski et al. 2006: 383). They note, also, that “In theory, the Internet provides novel capacities for reflexive decision making on a national scale. An open, Web-based process has the potential to help move environmental policy making beyond the adversarial distrust, the battles over science, and the state’s predisposition against public values” (Zavestoski et al. 2006: 404).
- 7.
See Sect. 1.3.
- 8.
The New York Civil Liberties Union released, in 2012, a free smartphone application for witnessing an unlawful police stop and recording the moment. The app “allows people to record videos of and report police ‘stop and frisk’ activity, a practice widely denounced by civil rights groups as unjustified stops that they say mostly target minorities and almost never results in an arrest” (Leitsinger 2012). Donna Lieberman, NYCLU Executive Director, stated that “Stop and Frisk Watch is about empowering individuals and community groups to confront abusive, discriminatory policing […]The NYPD’s own data shows that the overwhelming majority of people subjected to stop-and-frisk are black or Latino, and innocent of any wrongdoing. At a time when the Bloomberg administration vigorously defends the status quo, our app will allow people to go beyond the data to document how each unjustified stop further corrodes trust between communities and law enforcement”(Lieberman 2012).
- 9.
See Sect. 3.10.
- 10.
Miard, in an interesting essay (Miard 2009), remarked the importance of mobile phones as a tool for civil resistance and social protest activities in two historical events in Serbia and in Belarus: actions for bringing down Milosevic in Serbia in 2000 and, 8 years later, mobile used by Belarusian activists. In Serbia in 2000, highlights the author, mobile phones and the use of coded short-text messaging to coordinate actions, immediate street action and mobilization were a crucial tactical and operational tool, also because the Internet was slow and not used a lot in Serbia in 2000. In Belarus in 2008 all mobile phone operators were under control, but dissident groups used mobile phones to contact potential new activists and also for operative coordination, for reporting police or crowd movements, to mobilize protesters. The use of mobile phones in Belarus was limited for safety reasons (tapping from the regime and risks of localization).
- 11.
See the interesting notion of virtual resources remarked by Peckham (Peckham 1998). The author outlines that: “While resource mobilization theory normally addresses tangible economic or physical resources (e.g., money, recruits), examining movement/counter-movement interaction on the Internet requires an expansion of the definition of “resources”. The term “virtual resources” as I define it refers to resources that have no intrinsic value and little meaning outside the context of on-line activity, yet are highly valued by Internet users. These are resources whose worth is not measurable in terms of monetary value, but nonetheless have real consequences. Recognizing the existence of virtual resources is important in part because the internal economy of the Internet blurs common notions of production, capital, and goods values […]. In the on-line environment, the ability of a movement to take action does not necessarily require money or elite voices, but rather, as we shall see, it requires a mobilization of resources that primarily have value only to Internet users” (Peckham 1998: 322).
- 12.
See the interesting essay by Juris regarding new digital media and activist networking within anti-corporate globalization movements (Juris 2005). The author outlines how anti-corporate globalization activists have used new digital technologies to coordinate actions, build networks, practice media activism, and physically manifest their emerging political ideals and notes: “ […] activists have used e-mail lists, Web pages, and open editing software to organize actions, share information, collectively produce documents, and coordinate at a distance, reflecting a general growth in digital collaboration. Indymedia has provided an online forum for autonomously posting audio, video, and text files, while activists have also created temporary media hubs to generate alternative information, experiment with new technologies, and exchange ideas and resources. Influenced by anarchism and the logic of peer-to-peer networking, more radical anti-corporate globalization activists have thus not only incorporated new digital technologies as concrete networking tools, they have also used them to express alternative political imaginaries based on an emerging network ideal” (Juris 2005: 192).
- 13.
See the interesting study by Dahlberg regarding the terms pirate an piracy and their evolution in the legal and political world (Dahlberg 2011). The author notes: “Since pirates, as a rule, operate on the open sea, it may seem natural that this liquid form of digital information attracts information pirates of various kinds: cyber criminals, file sharers, hackers, hacktivists, and ordinary media users. Whereas the cyber criminal may be seen as an individual moving from one kind of criminal habitat to another, the term “file sharer” refers to the use of file-sharing technology, regardless of whether the “sharing” is legal or illegal. The aspect of criminal intent (mens rea) is also ambiguous when defining a hacker, who typically finds a way to enter a computer system less to steal information than to prove his (hackers are usually male) computer skills. The hacktivist, by contrast, uses his or her sophisticated knowledge of computer systems to acquire and distribute sensitive economic and political information. Because of the changing nature of contemporary media products and media content, which increasingly consist of digital devices and digital information, the ordinary media user may not only be using pirated copies (knowingly or not), but may also be acting like a pirate (without necessarily being aware of it)” (Dahlberg 2011: 265).
- 14.
See https://www.eff.org/files/eff-unintended-consequences-12-years.pdf. Accessed 21 November 2011.
- 15.
See the full takedown notice at https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/odio_v_apple/Exhibit%20A.pdf. Accessed 23 October 2011.
- 16.
See the announcement by EFF on 22 July 2009: “Apple has retracted its legal threats against public wiki hosting site Bluwiki, and, in response, EFF is dismissing its lawsuit against Apple over those threats. The skirmish involved a set of anonymously authored wiki pages in which hobbyists were discussing how to enable recent-vintage iPods and iPhones to ‘sync’ media with software other than Apple’s own iTunes (e.g., Songbird or Winamp). We’re not talking about any ‘piracy’ here; we’re talking about syncing the media you legitimately own on the iPod or iPhone you own, using software of your choice. In November 2008, Apple sent a series of legal threats to the operator of Bluwiki, alleging that these hobbyist discussions about interoperability violated the DMCA’s anti-circumvention provisions, even though the author(s) of the pages hadn’t yet figured out how to accomplish their goal. So, according to Apple, even talking about reverse engineering for interoperability violates the DMCA! In a later letter, Apple also alleged that short excerpts of decompiled code on the pages infringed its copyrights, despite the fact that the code fragments related to a trivial function and comprised a tiny fraction of the iTunes software overall. […] While we are glad that Apple retracted its baseless legal threats, we are disappointed that it only came after 7 months of censorship and a lawsuit. Moreover, Apple continues to use technical measures to lock iPod Touch and iPhone owners into using Apple’s iTunes software. And just last week, Apple used an update to iTunes as an excuse to lock the new Palm Pre smart phone out of using Apple’s iTunes software. In light of these developments, you can be sure that perfectly legal efforts to reverse engineer Apple products will continue in order to foster interoperability. We hope Apple has learned its lesson here, and will give those online discussions a wide berth in the future”. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/07/apple-backs-down-blu. Accessed 23 October 2011.
- 17.
See the response at the address https://www.eff.org/files/filenode/odio_v_apple/Exhibit%20E.pdf. Accessed 23 October 2011.
- 18.
The authors note: “The systems are surprisingly complex and suffer from a diverse array of flaws that weaken their content protection and expose users to serious security and privacy risks. Their complexity, and their failure, makes them an interesting case study of digital rights management that carries valuable lessons for content companies, DRM vendors, policymakers, end users, and the security community” (Halderman and Felten 2006: 1).
- 19.
See also the concluding statements in the essay by Wu, Craver, Felten and Liu (Wu et al. 2002) describing the attacks on SDMI audio watermarks: “ […] (1) weaknesses in the watermarking design are very likely to be explored by an adversary as effective attacks, prompting the need of thorough testing by watermark designers; (2) a large amount of information regarding the embedding. mechanism, derived from pairs of original and watermarked signals, can be used to build powerful attacks, prompting the need of obscuring distinct traces between original and watermarked signals. The second point, though not having received much attention in the literature, is important for SDMI applications. Due to various limitations of the challenge including the very short time frame, we adopted practical strategies to increase our chance in finding successful attack(s) and in understanding all four watermark challenges. We focused on finding attacks that render misdetection by a watermark detector without significantly degrading perceptual quality. These are crucial start points from which many optimizations, improvement, and fine-tuning can be made” (Wu et al. 2002: 4).
- 20.
See http://seclists.org/fulldisclosure/2003/Jan/306. Accessed 21 November 2011.
- 21.
See http://www.interz0ne.com/events/interz0ne_cease_order.html. Accessed 21 November 2011.
- 22.
See http://www.interz0ne.com/events/interz0ne_cease_order.html. Accessed 21 November 2011.
- 23.
See the ACLU FAQ page on this case at http://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/benjamin-edelmans-lawsuit-faq. Accessed 26 October 2011. “A computer researcher named Benjamin Edelman, represented by the ACLU, has filed this suit to establish his First Amendment and “fair use” right to examine the full list of sites contained in an Internet blocking program and to share his research tools and results with others. […] Blocking programs such as N2H2’s are notoriously inaccurate, often preventing access to sites that should not be blocked while failing to block many that should. And blocking programs are increasingly used in public schools and libraries and by various government agencies. Because of this growing public role, it is especially important that the public be able to check and evaluate how these programs work, and what Web sites are being blocked. However, most blocking program companies, like N2H2, consider their block lists to be proprietary trade secrets, and will only distribute them in an encrypted form that the program itself can understand but people can’t. As a result, current and potential customers, including schools and libraries, cannot effectively evaluate the program’s accuracy, and students, library patrons and other citizens forced to use blocking software are kept in the dark about the extent of Web site censorship. […] Ben Edelman […] would like to continue his research on N2H2, but cannot proceed further without being able to access and examine its full list of blocked sites. To do this he will have to ‘reverse engineer’ N2H2’s program to figure out what security measures are preventing him from reviewing the list. With that information he can create a software tool to ‘circumvent’ those measures and create a readable version of the list for review. He then wants to publish the block list, the circumvention tool that he used to get the list, and the results of his analysis of the list. Given the increasing role of blocking programs as an official means of censoring use of the Internet, the kind of research Ben does is an important means for citizens to monitor the software and its potential for abuse”.
- 24.
Criminal Complaint, United States v. Dmitri Sklyarov, Case No. 4 01 257 (N.D. Cal. July 7, 2001), available at http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/US_v_Elcomsoft/20010707_complaint.html. Accessed 21 November 2011.
- 25.
As Yen correctly notes in an articulated essay regarding federal gun control norms and the DMCA’s anti-trafficking provisions (Yen 2003): “In July of 2001, Russian computer programmer Dmitry Sklyarov traveled to the United States to speak at a conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. While in Las Vegas, Sklyarov was arrested and charged with violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (‘DMCA’). According to the complaint against him, Sklyarov’s offense was the writing and distribution of software that enabled translation of documents written in the Adobe Corporation’s Secure eBook Format to the more common Portable Document Format (PDF). To the surprise of many, Sklyarov found himself facing a fine of up to $500,000 and up to 5 years in prison. The federal government held Sklyarov in custody for 3 weeks before a court released him on $50,000 bail. Sklyarov eventually managed to avoid the charges against him by agreeing to testify against his employer Elcomsoft” (Yen 2003: 2).
- 26.
See, incidentally, an interesting Cory Doctorow’s debate about the arrests of bloggers and activists after net freedom conferences (Doctorow 2012). He quotes (and remarks) the words of James Losey, from the New America Foundation: “I noticed a pattern of people getting arrested, detained, or sentenced following Internet Freedom conferences. The timing is coincidental, but its a poignant reminder of the risks people face when pushing back against unjust authority and fighting for basic rights […] In late October 2011, Alaa Abd El Fattah, a prominent Egyptian blogger, was arrested as he returned from the Silicon Valley Human Rights Conference. The charge: inciting violence toward the military during riots on Oct. 9, 2011. He was released nearly 2 months later. That same month, Jacob Appelbaum, a core member of the Tor Project who has also volunteered with Wikileaks, was detained in Iceland after speaking at the Internet and Democratic Change, an event sponsored by the Swedish government. And just last month, Thai blogger Chiranuch Premchaiporn, aka Jiew, went from a speaking engagement at Google’s Internet at Liberty conference in Washington to a sentencing hearing. She faced up to 20 years in prison because comments posted on her website by readers were deemed insulting to the king. In the end, she was fined the equivalent of $630 and received an eight-month suspended sentence”. (Doctorow 2012).
- 27.
- 28.
See the letter at the address http://aluigi.altervista.org/misc/75395-1.pdf. Accessed 25 October 2011.
- 29.
See http://www.hackingdemocracy.com/. Accessed 5 November 2011.
- 30.
See the complete document at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-110hhrg35805/pdf/CHRG-110hhrg35805.pdf. Accessed 5 November 2011.
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Ziccardi, G. (2013). Hacking and Digital Dissidence Activities. In: Resistance, Liberation Technology and Human Rights in the Digital Age. Law, Governance and Technology Series, vol 7. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5276-4_3
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