PROJECT ON

Hacktivism

Name:Abhishek chatterjee
: Dr Vikas Gandhi
Reg No:11A006
IHL & Human Rights

Submitted To
Faculty of

Batch :2011-16

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Abstract
Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong.
Mahatma Gandhi
Satyagraha was most powerful weapon which was used by the Mahatma Gandhi
and many of other revolutionary used this weapon against the British rulers. In
modern world internet is became most powerful forum for people to protest against
the actions of Government or corruption and against injustice.In November 2012,
Central Government amended the section 66(a) of Information Technology Act 2001
for internet censorship. After reacting on action Telecom Minister KapilSibals
personal website has been hacked and defaced allegedly by Anonymous India
group for the minister's stand on Information Technology Act. Hacker hacked the
website of KapilSibal and sent a message that "KapilSibal is the world's biggest
retard. Born with a below 60 IQ he thought he could mess with the Internet and let
the elite of his party suppress freedom of speech."This research paper analyze the
legal various question like whether online protest is similar like other civil
disobedience or fall in category of cyber-crime.

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Introduction
The foundations of political protest online (what is traditionally understood by the
term hacktivism) were laid down by the founding parents of the internet based upon
their philosophical and ethical commitment to freedom of speech and their mastery
of their technological sphere.1 But the question arise here what is hacktivism?
Hacktivism is the fusion of hacking and activism; politics and technology. More
specifically, hacktivism is described as hacking for a political cause. In this context,
the term hacker is used in reference to its original meaning. As defined in the New
Hacker's Dictionary, a hacker is "a person who enjoys exploring the details of
programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities" and one who is capable
of "creatively overcoming or circumventing limitations". 2 Activism is defined as "a
policy of taking direct and militant action to achieve a political or social goal". 3
Therefore, a clinical definition of hacktivism is: a policy of hacking, phreaking or
creating technology to achieve a political or social goal. 4
The Evolution of Hacktivism
Hacktivism is a recombinant initiative comprised of two divergent communities
(hackers and activists). According to Oxford Dictionary hacker is a person who uses
computers to gain unauthorized access to data or informal an enthusiastic and skilful
computer programmer or user.5The hacker ethic formulated by Steven Levy in his
book "Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution" outlines the hacker dogmas: 6

1An overview of the early hacker movement Raymond, E.S. (2002), 'A Brief History of
Hackerdom' http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/hackerhistory/ar01s07.htmlThe later hackermovement up to the present growth of the Free
Libre and Open Source movement can be found at
Raymond, E.S. (2000), 'The Revenge of the Hackers'
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-revenge.html The
ethical hacker ethos is also fully explored at Raymond, E.S., 'How to be a Hacker'
(2001)http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html

2http://www.hack.gr/jargon/html/H/hacker.html
3http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=activism
4This definition appeared on the CULT OF THE DEAD COWs now defunct website
http://www.hacktivism.org which is archived here:
http://web.archive.org/web/19981203083935/
5http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/hacker
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i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.

Access to computers should be unlimited and total.

All information should be free.
Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking not bogus criteria such as
degrees, age, race, or position.
You create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.

Generally censorship is seen as a human rights violation, especially when it is

combined with a repressive, governing regime. In 1975, the Indira Gandhi
government imposed censorship of Press. China government also impose
censorship on print media, electronic media and internet. Hacktivists, campaigning
against censorship and human rights abuses, primarily used tactics designed only to
embarrass or exploit an organization or government agency.7Hackers mistrust
restrictive legislation that encroaches on free access to information and cherished
electronic privacy. Last year the Indian government amended the Information and
Technology
Act
2000
to
impose
censorship
of
internet.
According to Dr. Crush that computer technology misused not by hackers but by
governments and its corporation: The wonderful device meant to enrich life has
become a weapon which dehumanizes people. To the government and large
businesses, people are no more than disk space, and the government doesn't use
computers to arrange aid for the poor, but to control nuclear death weapons. 8
A Hacker is not always about information and computer technology but sometimes
his actions would be based on the political aspect. In the "Hacker's Manifesto" the
mentor explains: We make use of a service already existing without paying for what
could be dirt-cheap if it wasn't run by profiteering gluttons, and you call us criminals.
We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us
criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and
you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat,
and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the
criminals.9

6http://mosaic.echonyc.com/~steven/hackers.html
7http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-57406793-245/old-time-hacktivistsanonymous-youve-crossed-the-line/
8http://www.phrack.org/phrack/6/P06-03
9http://www.phrack.org/phrack/14/P14-03
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Hacktivism is the technology worlds approach to political activism. Unlike

conventional hacking, cyber-attacks against businesses or government agencies are
not for financial gain, but rather are intended to cause embarrassment and
reputational damage.10 Utilizing the skills of computer experts to protest for or
against a specific cause, hacktivism in its milder forms can blur the line between
illegal hacking and the right to protest, which is an essential element of freedom of
speech.11For example, in 1998 a U.S. hacker group called Legions of the
Underground declared cyberwar on Iraq and China. The organization was prepared
to execute cyber-attacks in an attempt to disrupt Internet access in protest of human
rights abuses. Shortly after the declaration, a world coalition of hackers condemned
the move and issued the following statement.12
We the undersigned strongly oppose any attempt to use the power of hacking to
threaten to destroy the information infrastructure of a country for any reason. One
cannot legitimately hope to improve a nations free access to information by working
to disable its data networks.13
Types of Hacktivism
Understanding the threat of hacktivism and the types of hacktivist activities can aid in
combating the attacks, but it can also be important to understand the types of
hacktivism that can occur to understand the origin of the attacks and the motivating
behaviour behind them. There are three distinct types of hacktivism: political
cracking, performativehacktivism, and political coding. The difference between the
different types lies within four characteristics: tolerance for legal risk, name practices,
scale of collective action and propensity for multinational cooperation. 14
1. Political Cracking
This type of hacktivism involves activities that are illegal and are performed by
hacker programmers. A Samuel state that this type involves the largest number of
10http://corner.advisen.com/pdf_files/Zurich_2012SocialHacktivism_Whitepaper.p
df
11Ibid
12Elinor Mills, CNET News, Old-time hacktivists: Anonyomous, youve crossed
the line, (March 2012), http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-57406793-245/oldtime-hacktivists-anonymous-youvecrossed-the-line/
13http://www.cultdeadcow.com/news/statement19990107.html
14http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/dissertation/pdfs/Samuel-Hacktivismentire.pdf p. 25
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hacktivist incidents to date, but this does not involve the largest number of
participants. The types of tactics used by political cracking include site defacements,
redirects, denial of service attacks, information theft, and sabotage. 15
Political crackers also tend to work alone or in very small groups when carrying out
their attacks.16 Despite working with limited support, the impact of the attacks is not
jeopardized in any manner. A political cracker can still experience a high degree of
political efficacy from their attacks such as defacing a website and attracting
significant media attention.17
The first political cracking focused on hacker-specific issues like the regulation of the
Internet and the prosecution of individual crackers. 18 Today, the focus of political
cracking activities involves international cyber wars between Israelis and
Palestinians, Indians and Pakistanis, and Chinese and American.
One of the more public known political crackers is a group called the Worlds
Fantabulous Defacers (WFD). This group emerged in November 2000 and was
responsible for a significant number of anti-Indian and anti-Israeli defacements over
the next two years (Samuel, 2004). Internet security experts estimated in September
2002 that the number of attacks during November 2001-September 2002 exceeded
400. Many of these attacks were used to attract media attention and promote
awareness of human rights abuses of Muslim populations in either Palestine or
Kashmir.19
2. Performativehacktivism
Performativehacktivism differs from political cracking since its actions consist of
legally ambitious activities from hacktivists with artist-activist backgrounds. 20 Their
hacking activities for political purposes are in the context of a political theatre. This is
15Ibid. p.58
16Ibid. p.63
17Ibid. p 59
18Ibid. p-69
19Science and Technology to Counter Terrorism, Proceedings of an Indo-U.S.
Workshop, National Academy of Sciences, International Strategic and Security
Studies Programme of the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bangalore,
India, p-38
20http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/dissertation/pdfs/Samuel-Hacktivismentire.pdf p. 71
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meant to describe their hacktivism activities as a performance and using political

protest as a speech act. This is evident in the background of the hacktivists in this
group. Unlike political cracking hacktivists, performativehacktivists come from theatre
or art backgrounds and sees performativehacktivism as a new form of political art.
Performativehacktivists generally focus on issues such as globalization, liberation
struggles, and corporate power.21 Many of their actions are performed in groups
unlike many of the individual attacks carried out by political hacktivists. A common
example is that performative activities are often coordinated so that they are carried
out at the same as street protests. Many of their actions involve a transnational
coalition of activists even though their websites are assembled by hacktivists in one
country who then solicit sit-in participation from a broader cross-national
population.22
The attacks mostly take the form of virtual sit-ins or site parodies that are similar to
the traditional forms of street protests and political theatres. These attacks differ from
political crackers since they are considerably less destructive. This area of
hacktivism has also seen progress in software developments to facilitate their use of
sit-ins and site parodies. The latest developments by a group called the Yes Men
automate the creation of website parodies.23
Performativehacktivists are careful with their actions to avoid any legal action.
However, this does not mean that there is no legal risk involved. 24 Their primary
attacks consist of virtual sit-ins, which are essentially less illegal of the political
crackers use of denial of service attacks. This is simply because the actual process
is carried out by actual people loading the webpage to overload a server and not a
program.
Performance hacktivists carry out their activities in efforts to challenge corporate and
media domination of public discourse. 25Their primary approach is to be as widely
viewed in the public as possible. By reaching out to the public, performance
hacktivists attempt to raise awareness and create public pressure and not to directly
affect outcomes.
21Ibid. p.73
22Ibid. p.79
23www.cinemapolitica.org/film/yes-men-fix-world
24http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/dissertation/pdfs/Samuel-Hacktivismentire.pdf p. 75
25Ibid. p.76
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The Electronic Disturbance Theater26

The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) was the first performance hacktivist group
and remains an influential group in todays time. This group acted in full force in 1997
when the Mexican government returned to Chiapas leaving forty-five unarmed
peasants dead in the village of Acteal. 27 The EDT was contacted by the Anonymous
Digital Coalition, a group of activists based in Italy, to encourage people to
simultaneously visit a specific Mexican government website. Their strategy was to
constantly reload the website until the server eventually slowed or crashed.
The effect of such technique is different from that of a political cracker where one
individual can create a devastating attack. Performance hacktivism relies on a
substantial number of users to create a similar effect through their protests. The
measure of success for EDT was the amount of press coverage they received from
their attacks rather than the impact of their attacks.
3. Political coding
Political coders are very much the political crackers described earlier. As Samuel
describes, these individuals turn their technical skills into transgressive politics. 28
These hackers are, metaphorically at least, the older brothers of political crackers.
Such individuals began their hacking careers in non-political hackers, programmers
or crackers. Political coding focuses on Internet censorship affecting democracy
activists in authoritarian regimes. The Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc) is a main sponsor
behind hacktivism involving Internet censorship. 29 These hacktivists intend to
influence policy circumvention and not at influence as performativehacktivists seek to
do. Political hacktivists are always actively seeking ways to increase media coverage
of their activities and the censorship issues.
Their approach to circumventing policy relies on the time commitment of political
coders in developing the software. This software is always open source, which
allows other coders to freely distribute, modify, or improve the code. Their approach
to using open source code has its advantage since it can significantly reduce the
time commitment of a single coder. This is clearly different from political crackers
since it is less time-intensive to deface a website.

26http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html
27Ibid. p. 82
28http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/dissertation/pdfs/Samuel-Hacktivismentire.pdf p. 96
29Ibid.
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The legal risks for political coders vary depending on the type of attacks, but are
generally less serious than those of political crackers and nearly the same as
performativehacktivists. A Norwegian teenager who created the DeCSS software
was indicted in Norway and cannot travel to the United States due to fears of being
prosecuted there. Hacktivismo is an Internet censorship project sponsored by the
cDc that has received tremendous media attention. To mitigate legal risk,
Hacktivismos Board of Directors includes Cindy Cohn, the lawyer for the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.30 The founder of Hacktivismo, Oxblood Ruffin, also has his own
problems to deal with. He states that traveling to China is not an option due to his
past activities.

Peekabooty
Ruffins plan was to develop software that countered the Internet restrictions found in
some countries. Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Tunisia, and China all have state-sponsored
firewalls that limit access to the Internet. 31Peekabooty is software that was
developed to enable users within countries where the web is censored to bypass
those censorship measures.32 The idea behind this software is that users in countries
where websites may be banned will be able to view all websites by accessing the
sites through a different intermediary. Users across the Internet connect to the ad
hoc network of computers running Peekabooty that retrieves the websites and relays
them back to the user. This allows users to bypass firewalls, both national and
corporate, and access any website from their own computers.
Types of attacks used by hacktivists
The different types of hacktivists all have unique tools and type of attacks that they
use to convey their messages or to cause harm. Samuel notes that there are at least
nine distinct forms that include: site defacements, site redirects, denial of service
attacks, information theft, information theft and distribution, site parodies, virtual
sabotage and software development.33 The different types reflect the different
30https://www.eff.org/
31http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/dissertation/pdfs/Samuel-Hacktivismentire.pdf p. 101
32http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/05/18/censorware_outfit_targets_cdcs_anon
ymity/
33http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/dissertation/pdfs/Samuel-Hacktivismentire.pdf p. 17
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political cultures between each form of hacktivism. Denning also notes the use of
email bombs by some hacktivists.34
Site defacements are those acts of hacking websites and replacing the original
content with new content that bears a new message. These attacks carried out by
hacktivists often contain a political message such as criticism of the organization that
is being hacked or some other cause or organization in which the websites
organization is associated with. Site defacements remain the most common form of
hacktivism. One well-known example is in August 1999 where Chinese hackers
defaced several Taiwanese and government websites with pro-Chinese messages.
Denning notes that one message read, Only one China exists and only one China is
needed. 35
Site redirects are similar to site defacements in the sense that users are shown a
website displaying a political message. However, the difference is that the web
server is hacked, changing its addressing so visitors are redirected to an alternative
website that usually contains the political message.
Denial of service attacks (DoS) are powerful in causing harm but are rarely used by
hacktivists. These attacks are designed to prevent users from gaining access to the
systems. This is done through three basic types of attacks: consumption of
computational resources such as bandwidth, disruption of configuration information
such as routing information and disruption of physical network components. A prime
example is in 2001 when Chinese hackers attacked US websites due to a collision
between Chinese and US military planes. Chinese hackers launched DoS attacks on
hundreds of US websites but the impact the minimal.
Information theft involves hacking into websites and stealing information. The goal of
this attack is to publicly embarrass an organization by showing a lack of information
security and sometimes go as far as publicly displaying the stolen information. One
example occurred in 2001 when the World Economic Forums computer system was
infiltrated and conference participants email addresses and travel itineraries were
stolen and sent to a Swiss newspaper.36

34Denning, D. E. (2002). Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism: The Internet as a

toolinfluencing foreign policy. Retrieved July 18, 2008, from
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/MR1382.ch8.pdf

35Denning, D. E. (2008).Hacktivism: An Emerging Threat to Diplomacy. Retrieved July 18,

2008, fromhttp://www.afsa.org/fsj/sept00/Denning.cfm

36McDonald, Tim. 2001. "Hackers Invade World Economic Forum." NewsFactor

Network, February 5.
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Virtual sabotage includes online activities that are designed to manipulate or damage
the information technology of the target. Such sabotage can occur in the form of
viruses and worms that can cause harm by destroying data in the computer system
when infiltrated. The first protest to use a worm occurred when antinuclear hackers
released a worm into the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administrations
SPAN network in 1989 (Metac0m, 2003). Scientists that were logging into their
computer systems were greeted with a banner from the WANK worm. John
McMahon, protocol manager with NASAs SPAN office estimated that the worm cost
them up to half a million dollars of wasted time and resources.
Virtual sit-ins involves gathering hundreds to thousands of protesters to
simultaneously reload web pages continually to overload the servers causing them to
crash or slow down.37 This technique depends on the number of participants in order
to succeed with a meaningful impact.
Site parodies involve replicating a target websites appearance or by using a web
address that is confusingly similar to the target website (Samuel, 2004). An example
occurred in 1999 when a group called ark (pronounced art mark) created an
anti-globalization website using the web address http://www.gatt.org. This was meant
to cause confusing between the WTO and GAAT, its predecessor organization. The
result was that the website replicated the appearance of the WTO website except the
content was produced to be highly critical of the WTO. 38
Software development involves creating open source code and distributing it to
hackers in carry out specific political purposes. This type of code is free and allows
users to modify the code and improve upon it in order to maximize the effectiveness
of potential attacks.
Email bombs involve sending thousands of email messages at once, usually
targeted to government policymakers, with the use of automated software. 39 The
result is that the mailbox will overflow, making it impossible for the user to accept or
perhaps locate legitimate email.
Impact of hacktivism on businesses
37Denning, D. E. (2002). Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism: The Internet as a
toolinfluencing foreign policy. Retrieved July 18, 2008, from
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/MR1382.ch8.pdf

38http://www.alexandrasamuel.com/dissertation/pdfs/Samuel-Hacktivismentire.pdf p. 23
39Denning, D. E. (2002). Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism: The Internet as a
toolinfluencing foreign policy. Retrieved July 18, 2008, from
http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1382/MR1382.ch8.pdf

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The growing number of hacktivist acts is causing a concern for many organizations.
The importance is even greater for professional accountants and IT professionals in
assessing the effectiveness of a clients information systems and controls. This
requires an understanding of the impact various attacks can have and the steps to
minimize any damages such as downtime, theft of data and loss of reputation.
Manion and Goodrum states that hacktivism poses a threat at two levels: the private
industry/intellectual property level and the national/government security level. 40 The
authors note that the only entities that truly benefit from the Internet are large
transnational business corporations. Hacktivists often do not wish to cave in or agree
with corporate manipulation, thus, prompting attacks on such targets. Many of these
corporations are clients of the Big 4 accounting firms. Therefore, auditors will need to
be aware of such attacks and ensuring that clients have effective controls in place to
allow them to continuously operate.
For many businesses, the most significant impact from hacktivism is not the potential
downtime from the attacks, but the impact such attacks may have on their reputation
(Anderson, 2008). The attacks can quickly gain media attention so that when attacks
have minimal impact on the organization, the media coverage creates a more
significant problem for the target. Anderson believes that as technology continues to
develop, disruption will increase both in volume and impact. 41 Also, hacktivists will
continue to use public relations as a major weapon in targeting organizations.
While site defacement can severely impact an organizations reputation, it is
responsible for the least amount of damages. 42 Since site defacement is not very
costly, many organizations act economically and do not spend very much to prevent
such attacks. This approach may make financial sense, but many organizations
should still develop a contingency plan to outline the steps necessary to quickly
reverse such attacks.
One of the more devastating attacks is caused by denial of service kits. This poses a
major concern for businesses because it can be difficult to counter such attacks. The
problem is due to the fact that it is difficult to identify whether the increase in traffic is
40Manion, M. &Goodrum, A. (2000). Terrorism or civil disobedience: toward a hacktivist
ethic. ACMDigital Library, 30(2), 14-19.

41Anderson, K. (2008). Hacktivism and Politically Motivated Computer Crime. Retrieved

July 19,2008, from
http://www.aracnet.com/~kea/Papers/Politically%20Motivated%20Computer
%20Crime.pdf

42McAlearney, S. (2008). CSI Survey: Financial impact of some security breaches

skyrockets. RetrievedJuly 18, 2008, from
http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/news/article/0,289142,sid14_gci1108577,00.html

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from hackers or whether they are legitimate. 43 A prime example can be a new
product launch by Microsoft that is made available on their website. There are many
users that are against the monopolistic behaviour of the company and so, may time
their attacks during times of increased traffic such as product launches.

Case studies Related to Hecktivism

Cyber Activist use the internet to promote the Democracy in Burma
The case of Burma raises intriguing questions about the effect of modern computer
communications on the balance of power between citizens and elected officials, and
among local, national, and international power structures and, ultimately, their effect
on the conduct of diplomacy in the 21st century.44 Geographically dispersed but
knitted together by the Internet, Burmese and non-Burmese activists from the United
States as well as from Europe and Australia joined a longstanding effort to bring
democracy to Burma (a small, and to many, obscure Southeast Asian nation). 45
Burma remains in the grip of a powerful military junta, known until recently as the
State Law and Order Restoration Council.

In the early 1990s, a few Burmese exiles opposed to the regime in Rangoon began
communicating on the Internet via electronic mail. Among the first was CobanTun, an
exile living in California who redistributed newspaper reports from Bangkok,
Thailand, and other information about Burma on the Usenet system, using an
electronic mailing list called seasia-l.46 The first regular and consistent source of
information on Burma available on the Internet was BurmaNet. It took shape in
Thailand in late 1993, the brainchild of student Douglas Steele. In October 1993, at
the Internet Center at Bangkoks Chulalongkorn University, he perused an online
Usenet newsgroup called soc.culture.thai and Thai newspapers that carried the only
in-depth English-language accounts of events in neighboring Burma. 47 Steele
realized that the Internet could be used to provide information about human rights
43Barnes, S. (2008). The Changing Face of Hacktivism. Retrieved July 18, 2008,
fromhttps://forums.symantec.com/syment/blog/article?message.uid=323368

44http://ncfm.org/libraryfiles/Children/NetworkNetWar/MR1382.ch5.pdf
45Ibid.
46Various interviews and electronic correspondence with Coban Tun.
47http://ncfm.org/libraryfiles/Children/NetworkNetWar/MR1382.ch5.pdf
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abuses and the usurpation of democracy in Burma. 48BurmaNetmaintained on a

computer server run by the Institute for Global Communications (IGC), a computer
network serving peace and human rights activists. 49 The number of electronic
subscribers went from a handful, to 30, to 100, to 400 in its second year, until it was
impossible to keep track of the real readership, because BurmaNets reports were
posted on the Usenet system and reprinted in paper newsletters. 50 At about the
same time BurmaNet was ending the international drought on news about Burma
and helping both form and inform an international network whose members were
dedicated to ending SLORCs rule, related efforts got under way to challenge the
regimes choke-hold on information within Burma. 51
.

Egyptian Revolution and online ActivismWe use Facebook to schedule the protests, Twitter to coordinate, and YouTube to
tell the world.52The 6 April Youth Movement (Arabic: 6 )is an Egyptian
Facebook group started in Spring 2008 to support the workers in El-Mahalla ElKubra, an industrial town, who were planning to strike on 6 April. Activists called on
participants to wear black and stay home on the day of the strike. Bloggers and
citizen journalists used Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs and other new media tools to
report on the strike, alert their networks about police activity, organize legal
protection and draw attention to their efforts. The New York Times has identified the
movement as the political Facebook group in Egypt with the most dynamic debates.
As of March 2012, it had 325,000 53 predominantly young and educated members,
most of whom had not been politically active before; their core concerns include free
48 Interview with Douglas Steele, Washington, D.C., February 2, 1997; A. Lin
Neumann, The Resistance Network, Wired, January 1996, Vol. 4.01, p. 108.
49 Neumann, The Resistance Network, 1996; Martha FitzSimmon, ed.,
Communicators of Conscience: Humanitarian and Human Rights Organizations
Use of the Internet (New York: The Freedom Forum Media Studies Center, 1994),
p. 25
50 The BurmaNet News, No. 603, January 3, 1997. The full text of BurmaNets daily
newsreports are archived at ftp://Sunsite.unc.edu/pub/academic/politicalscience/freeburma/bnn/.

51http://ncfm.org/libraryfiles/Children/NetworkNetWar/MR1382.ch5.pdf
52 Anonymous Cairo activist, quoted in Nadine
KassemChebib&RabiaMinatullahSohail, The Reasons Social Media Contributed to
the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, International Journal of Business Research and
Management 3 (2011): 139.
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speech, nepotism in government and the country's stagnant economy. Their

discussion forum on Facebook features intense and heated discussions, and is
constantly updated with new postings. 54 The Internet has been heralded as an
effective weapon of the weak and disenfranchised against their authoritarian
leaders, resulting in what New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoflabeled the
quintessential 21st-century conflict, in which on one side are government thugs
firing bullets[and] on the other side are young protesters firing tweets. 55 Much
attention has been paid to the role that the Internet has played in generating
awareness of the Arab Spring in both the Middle East and internationally. 56 A poll by
The Arab Social Media Report indicated that in Egypt, the majority of Facebook
users polled agreed that Facebook was used most effectively to raise awareness of
the causes of the movements within the country.57
Legal Aspect of Hacktivism
Hacking-specific legislation: UK, US and India
In the present age, the legal machinery is geared up to tie the noose around the hackers as
they started using their skill for illegal purpose.
In UK, Computer Misuse Act, 1990 became law on 29 August 1990. The direct origins of the
Act are found in the Law Commissions Report on Computer misuse.58 The Act was
formulated with the sole purpose of securing the computer system from the unfounded
ambitious intention of the hacker which was showing the criminals the path to misbehave
and make money by breaking into the systems of orders and at the same time remaining
unnoticed and uncaught by law enforcement agencies. Under the 1990 Act, the offence of
hacking is crystallized into different sections starting from Section I which contain the basic
hacking offence and regards causing a computer to perform any function59

53https://www.facebook.com/shabab6april
54http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12400319
55 Nicholas D. Kristof, Tear Down This Cyberwall! The New York Times, 17 June, 2009.
Accessed 30 October, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/18/opinion/18kristof.html.

56http://www.culturaldiplomacy.org/academy/content/pdf/participantpapers/2012-02-bifef/The_Role_of_Social_Media_in_Political_Mobilisation__Madeline_Storck.pdf
57Arab Social Media Report 2011, 6www.arabsocialmediareport.com/
58Law Commission Report No. 186, Computer Misuse (Cm 819) (HMSO, 1989)
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Section 2 Intent to commit a further offence- This section pre requires commission of an
offence under section 1 along with the intent to commit, or facilitate the commission of
further offence. Such further offence is any other offence for which punishment is fixed by
law and which may be an offence under any other Act.

R v. Strickland and R v. Woods 60, where the defendants were given six-month jail
sentence for conspiracy to commit offence under Section 1 and 3 of the Computer
Misuse Act , 1990. The defendants activities were said to have caused damage,
valued at 1,23,000 pound to computer system ranging from those of the Polytechnic
of Central London to NASA. The opinion of the Judge was expressed in following
words:
There may be people out there who consider hacking to be harmless but hacking is
not harmless. Computer now, from a central role in our lives containing personal
details..it is essential that the integrity of those system should be protected and
hacking puts that integrity in jeopardy. 61
Thus, such a judicial pronouncement lays stress on the facts that with the increasing
involvement of computer in our lives, hacking can no longer be regarded as a skill or
art; in fact; it is the emerging criminal misconduct. 62
In US too complacency prevailed regarding hacker activities but In 1990, there
came nationwide crackdown on illicit computer hackers, with arrests, criminal
charge, one show trial, several guilty pleas, and huge confiscations of data and
equipment all over the United States.63
The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 1986 regulates several criminal activities on the
Net apart from unauthorised access in order to obtain sensitive information such as
defence-related information and financial and consumer credit records, among other
things. Trafficking in passwords for computers used by or for the US government is
also barred.64 The Act in Section 1030 (a)(5)(A) also prohibits the transmission of a
program, information, code or command to a computer system with intent to
59Section 17(1) of the same Act defines function to include alteration or
erasure, copying or moving data, using it or producing output from the computer.
60Southwark Crown Court, March 1993
61 Supra n. 22, 305
62Talat Fatima, Cybercrimes, Eastern Book Company, p. 146.
63B. Sterling, The Hackers Crackdown (1992) xii.
6418 USC S. 1030(a)(6)
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damage, or cause damage to, or to withhold or deny the use of, a computer,
computer service and network, information, data, or program. Such transmission is
also prohibited if done with reckless disregard of a substantial and unjustifiable risk
of
the
same
effect.65
In India, Information and Technology Act, 2000, the offence is defined separately
defined under Section 66. Section 66 is replaced by a new section by IT
(Amendment) Act, 2008 (10 of 2009). Instead Section (i) and (j) have been inserted
in Section 43 of the Act which reads as follows:

43. Penalty for damage to computer, computer system, etc. 66 - If any person without
permission of the owner or any other person who is incharge of a computer,
computer system or computer network,(a) accesses or secures access to such computer, computer system or computer
network;
(b) downloads, copies or extracts any data, computer data base or information from
such computer, computer system or computer network including information or data
held or stored in any removable storage medium;
(c) introduces or causes to be introduced any computer contaminant or computer
virus into any computer, computer system or computer network;
(d) damages or causes to be damaged any computer, computer system or computer
network, data, computer data base or any other programmes residing in such
computer, computer system or computer network;
(e) disrupts or causes disruption of any computer, computer system or computer
network;
(f) denies or causes the denial of access to any person authorised to access any
computer, computer system or computer network by any means;
(g) provides any assistance to any person to facilitate access to a computer,
computer system or computer network in contravention of the provisions of this Act,
rules or regulations made thereunder;
(h) charges the services availed of by a person to the account of another person by
tampering with or manipulating any computer, computer system, or computer
network, he shall be liable to pay damages by way of compensation not exceeding
65Ibid, S. 1030 (a)(5)(b)
66 The Information Technology Act 2000
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one crore rupees to the person so affected. Explanation.- For the purposes of this
section,(i) '' computer contaminant'' means any set of computer instructions that are
designed(a) to modify, destroy, record, transmit data or programme residing within a
computer, computer system or computer network; or
(b) by any means to usurp the normal operation of the computer, computer system,
or computer network;
(ii) '' computer data base'' means a representation of information, knowledge, facts,
concepts or instructions in text, image, audio, video that are being prepared or have
been prepared in a formalised manner or have been produced by a computer,
computer ystem or computer network and are intended for use in a computer,
computer system or computer network;
(iii) '' computer virus'' means any computer instruction, information, data or
programme that destroys, damages, degrades or adversely affects the performance
of a computer resource or attaches itself to another computer resource and operates
wh n a programme, data or instruction is executed or some other event takes place
in that computer resource;
(iv) '' damage'' means to destroy, alter, delete, add, modify or rearrange any
computer resource by any means.
66. Hacking with computer system.-67
(1) Whoever with the intent to cause or knowing that he is likely to cause wrongful
loss or damage to the public or any person destroys or deletes or alters any
information residing in a computer resource or diminishes is value or utility or affects
it injuriously by any means, commits hacking.
(2) Whoever commits hacking shall be punished with imprisonment up to three
years, or with fine which may extend up to two lakh rupees, or with both.

Thus the offence of hacking is, through by name, not there in the statement book but
it has been qualified with the necessary mental elements. Section 66 and 43 read
along with Section 24 and 25 of Indian Penal Code.

67The Information Technology Act 2000

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Section 24- Dishonestly- Whoever does anything with the intention of causing
wrongful gain to one person or wrongful loss to another person, is said to do that
thing "dishonestly". 68

Section 25- " Fraudulently"- A person is said to do a thing fraudulently if he does that
thing with intent to defraud but not otherwise. 69
Basically reason behind read these sections with IT Act that offence is committed
mensrea and actusreaus important element of crime. The offence is constituted
when you are causing wrongful loss or damage to the public or any person .
Online protest and Defamation
A defamatory statement is one which tends to lower the reputation of a person in the
view of right minded people, or leads the claimant to be shunned or avoided. 70 It is a
tort and therefore a civil wrong. There are main two types of defamation: slander
(non-permanent and generally spoken) and libel (permanent and in written form).
First of all, the statement needs to be defamatory in nature, secondly the statement
needs to identify the claimant and thirdly the statement needs to be made (or
published) to at least one person other than the claimant. 71
The question has arisen here that whether the online protest is civil wrong or not?
In Loutchansky v.The Times Newspaper Ltd. 72The Times Newspaper alleged that Mr
Loutchansky was linked to international criminal activities. Mr.Loutchansky
commenced an action based on the publication in hardcopy print, the subsequently
started a second action once the article was placed in the online archive system
operated by the newspaper. The court held that that the making online archives
subject to defamation principles had only a negligible effect on the right of freedom of
expression and that an action could indeed be brought for the second publication
found within the archives.73

68Indian Penal Code 1860

69Indian Penal Code 1860
70Sim v. Stretch (1936) 52 TLR 669
71Section 17 of the Defamation Act 1996 states that the statement can be in
words, pictures, visual images, gesture or any other method signifying meaning.
72 (2002) 1 All ER 652
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The courts in the United Kingdom are aware of this potential and have historically
handed down judgements rejecting the right of an individual to bring an action for
defamation in order to protect free speech in the public interest litigation. 74

There have been many defamation actions brought due to comments placed on the
internet- on media such as message boards, blogs, emails 75 and social networking
sites, including Facebook and Twitter.

In Smith v. ADVFN Plc76 Court decides the question that Whether an individual is
record his voice and then publish on internet. Mr Justice Eadyconsidered that these
types of posting were similar to heated debate in bar; people add their comments
moment. Based on this, his view was this type of posting should be the subject of an
action in slander, rather than libel.77
One of the core facets of the Internet is that to a very large degree people can be
anonymous, either by hiding behind pseudonyms or using a false name. This is an
obvious problem when considering defamation as it seems to allow an individual to
post a defamatory comment on a blog or a message board, without the law being
able to reach them as their identity is hidden. The rights of individual to retain
anonymity while writing offensive or defamatory comments and the action potentially
defamed people may take to rectify the situation was considered by the High Court
decision in Sheffield Wednesday Football Club Limited et al v. Neil Hargreves. 78 The
73This cases follows a long history of the common law allowing actions to be
brought for each libelous publication. See: Duke of Brunswick v. Harmer (1849)
14 QB 185 and Berezovsky v. Michaels (2000) WLR 2004
74See, for instance Derbyshire County Council v. Times Newspapers [1993] AC
534 and R ( on the application of the ProLife Alliance v. BBC [2002] 2 All ER 756.
75The use of an email in defamation action is an interesting consideration. A
person may not commence an action if an email containing a defamatory
statement about him is only sent to him. If that email is sent to elsewhere then a
defamatory action may arise.
76 [2008] EWHC 1797 (QB)
77Ibid. Although curiously in paragraph 108, part of Mr. Justice Eadys conclusion
was that blogging could form the legitimate basis of libel claim. Equally, the case
of Godfrey v. Demon Internet Ltd. (2001) QB 201 (considered below in more
detail) suggested that web content should be the basis of a libel claim.
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Court follows the principal which was established in the case of Norwich Pharmacal
v. Custom & Exercise Commissioner79 and was explained by Lord Reid as:
..if through no fault of his own a person gets mixed up in the tortuous acts of other
so as to facilitate their wrongdoing, he may incur no personal liability but he comes
under a duty to assist the person who has been wronged by giving him information
and disclosing the identity of the wrongdoersjustice requires that he should
operate co-operate in righting the wrong if he unwittingly facilitated its perpetration. 80
This principal developed in the decision of Mitsui Limited v. Nexen Petroleum UK
Limited81 in which Mr Justice Lightmen introduced three conditions that must be
satisfied prior to the court granting a Norwich Pharmacal Order. Specifically:
1. A wrong must have been carried out or arguably carried out by an ultimate
wrongdoer;
2. There must be need for an order to enable action to be brought against the
ultimate wrongdoer; and
3. The person against whom the order is sought must (a) be mixed up in the
wrongdoing so as to have facilitated it; and (b) be able or likely to be able to
provide the information necessary to enable the ultimate wrongdoer to be
sued.
The judge in the Sheffield case, Richard Parks QC, was of the view that the three
requirements for a Norwich Pharmacal order had been fulfilled in some of the entries
posted on website.
The issue of identity was also considered by the High Court in Author of a Blog v.
Times Newspapers Limited.82 This case concerned a serving police man who was
the author of an anonymous blog. Under the pseudonym Night Jack, the police
officer commented on his experience at work, including details on criminals and the
struggles he faced with police bureaucracy. The court held that there is was no right
to privacy in the publishing of a blog which is available to the public.

The role of the Internet Service Provider

78[2007] EWHC 2375 (QB)

79[1974] AC 133.
80ibid. Page 175
81[2005] EWHC 625 (Ch).
82[2009] EWHC 1358
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The position of an Internet Service Providers (ISP) in defamation actions is of great

interest.83 In Godfrey v. Demon Internet Limited 84 Court held that the Internet Service
Provider defence is quite limited once an ISP has been published contains
potentially defamatory material. After that ISP will be liable.
In Bunt v. Tiley and others85 in which the ISP was held to have no actual knowledge
of the posting and had merely passive role in facilitating the posting (they were
accused only of providing the required connection to the internet), therefore they
could avail themselves of this defence. The key issue is whether the ISP had any
knowing involvement in the alleged defamatory posting. 86
Damage and abuse of process
The principal was evolved in the case of John v. MGN Ltd. 87 where the court
unambiguously stated that the level of damages will not be higher simply because an
article placed online. A key factor will be the number of hits the article has, which in
many cases will be technically easier to ascertain than a traditional newspaper.
Equally, in Michael Keith-Smith v. Tracy Williams 88the court awarded damages for
defamatory and offensive posting made by Ms Williams against Mr Keith on an
internet discussion group called In the Hole. Court awarded the damages to Mr
Keith.

Sopa & Piracy

SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act was a controversial piece of proposed legislation
that would allow the US government to censor the internet. Hacktivists
And major sites like Wikipedia,google,yahoo etc collaborated and were instrumental
in
preventing
this
bill
to
be
passed. 89
83An ISP is defined in Article 2(b) of the E-Commerce Directive 2000/31/EC as
any natural or legal person providing an information society service.
84(2007) 1 WLR 1243
85 [2007] 1 WLR 1243
86Ibid. See paragraph 9 and 36.
87[1996] 2 All ER 35.
88[2006] EWHC 860 (QB)
89 http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/18/sopa-what-it-is-and-why-its-bad/
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Many experts have argued that privacy is actually beneficial for both consumers and
promotes competition in the market. Most Music cds,dvds,games etc are extremely
expensive for people in developing countries or third world countries, also for poorer
people everywhere. Dont they also have a right to leisure and entertainment?
Experts have also argued that piracy doesnt lead to loss in profit, they (corporations)
still make a lot of profit.90

Conclusion
How then to people the limitations to free speech online? It would seem that the
current rights regime cannot do it unless the notion of how and when the human is
the subject of rights is radically rethought or perhaps more accurately the nature of
online person-hood is reconsidered. The ontological vulnerability of the user online
needs to be foregrounded and emphasised as does the increasingly corporate
nature of the Internet. Judicial guidelines need to redefine the boundary between
speech and direct action for the digital age old ideas based on trespass and physical
harm are not suited to the Internet for the reasons we have discussed namely the
lack of public space and a tendency to minimise protest rights.
The La Rue report (A/HRC/17/27) has emphasised that ISPs should adopt terms of
use which promote human rights. This kind of requirement could be used to
invigorate the Internet as a zone of expression.
46. The Special Rapporteur notes that multi-stakeholder initiatives are essential to
deal effectively with issues related to the Internet, and the Global Network Initiative
serves as a helpful example to encourage good practice by corporations. Although
only three corporations, namely Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo!, have participated in
this initiative so far, the Special Rapporteur welcomes their commitment to undertake
a human rights impact assessment of their decisions, including before entering a
foreign market, and to ensure transparency and accountability when confronted with
situations that may undermine the rights to freedom of expression and privacy...
48. More generally, the Special Rapporteur encourages corporations to establish
clear and unambiguous terms of service in line with international human rights norms
and principles, increase transparency of and accountability for their activities, and
continuously review the impact of their services and technologies on the right to
freedom of expression of their users, as well as on the potential pitfalls involved
when they are misused.91

90 http://www.webpronews.com/new-study-finds-that-music-piracy-doesnt-negativelyaffect-sales-2013-03

91La Rue report (A/HRC/17/27) para 46 and 48

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Users can be educated to enhance their understanding of the right to free speech
afforded to them and how to use it in a legally acceptable manner. Spaces can also
be created where users can set the agenda for protest and information
dissemination, for this to be functional and draw impetus away from other forms of
protest these would need to be truly open spaces where all forms of protest speech
which could fall within the scope of political expression even if they are against the
current government or could if untrue be construed as defamation (one of the
reasons ISPs are cautious about hosting protest cites is the fear of defamation
actions the Rapporteur has already commented on the importance of not using ISPS
as censorship tools or holding them for failing to prevent illegal content.)

Until something is done however, it does seem somewhat anomalous that a sphere
of human activity created entirely by speech acts, has a greatly impaired protection
for free speech.

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