Hacktivism

Hacktivist-Activism is immoral and a criminal injustice even when done with the thought of helping someone or something. The Definition of hacktivism is to literally do an act of justice by hacking into or attacking an account. This is however punishable by law seeing as it is a criminal offense and breach of one’s fourth amendment rights.

If we take into account the situation of the Ashley Madison website scandal, it’s an immoral offense. Exposing someone’s private information even when they are committing infidelity is a breach of privacy to that person’s account. We also have situations where someone’s account information is released to the public eye, which can lead to one’s identity being stolen or impersonated. Identity theft is a result of hacking and Hacktivist-Activism.

There is currently a hacktivist group that has declared war on the ISIS terrorist group. They go by the name of Anonymous. They use the Mask of Guy Fawkes to conceal their identities from the public eye. Their slogan is "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us" ( USA Today). That slogan is there to give one fear when this group is at foot. Their actions “frequently include hacking into and disseminating information that purportedly belongs to people in power, in order to discredit or embarrass them” (USA Today). That being said, they have recently started attacking communications in ISIS through media access points. They have currently taken down over 100 websites, 100,000 Twitter accounts, and 6,000 propaganda videos (refer to graph). Granted what they’re doing is a good thing, it is still a criminal offense because it is a breach into private accounts.

Personally Hacktivist-Activism is morally wrong and can cause multiple legal issues if caught. Even if someone is doing something of suspicion, it doesn’t mean that their secrets should be revealed and or hacked illegally.

Picture edited on Pixlr

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