Hacktivists Are Morally Correct

Hacktivists Are Morally Correct

HUM 101 – Critical Reasoning

Colorado State University – Global Campus

January 3rd, 2016

Hacktivists Are Morally Correct

Over the past several years hacktivist groups such as Anonymous have gained significant media attention. Anonymous, along with many other groups routinely practice illegal activities, yet hacktivist groups follow a specific ethical code. The end result of the Hacktivism is the promotion of a specific political agenda that is divisive. If caught, any hacktivist is subject to the full force of the law, and may face years of imprisonment. However, while the actions of Anonymous are illegal, contrastingly these actions are morally and ethically correct.

History

The first concept of a hacker has an origination in cryptography during World War II. The Allies termed these individuals as code breakers; the code breakers were responsible for deciphering the codes of the Japanese and German armies. The first true hackers started during the 1960’s, and hailed from Stanford, Berkeley, and MIT. These groups of individuals were motivated by curiosity in the new development of computer systems. The code breakers utilized the computer science education, and tested their skills on various systems (Rezazadehsaber, 2015).

The original computer hackers formed communities where knowledge and information was shared, as the code breakers believed in the freedom of information. The code breaker’s motivation was not of maliciousness, rather exploratory. Furthermore, the code breakers wished to develop ways to make computers safer, and the best way to develop this was through testing, and occasionally breaking the systems (Levy, 2001). This group benefited the communities, and society as a whole, network vulnerabilities were exposed, and eventually secured. The future would eventually separate hackers into many groups, yet all groups trace their roots to these original hackers, and attempt to compare themselves to...