Welcome to the Ethical Hacktivism Board

[don]

Hello EH-Netters,

This is something I've had in the back of my mind for quite some time but avoided it for one reason or another. If you've seen some of the threads in our forums and headlines in the news, it has become apparent that now is the time.

We in the ethical hacking community (and security field in general) have a unique perspective on certain issues in and out of our industry, since we are in the trenches on a day-to-day basis. This gives all of us the ability to foresee some of the unintended consequences that many in power, both in the private and public sectors, just can't. Be that for business reasons, political reasons, or any number of other tangental excuses, if we don't make our voices heard, we must live with the rules put in place by those who may not understand.

Chances are that the powers that be don't care to hear what we have to say, but at least we can say that we spoke up and didn't just sit idly by.

I've decided to use the same formula as we've used for this site and coin a new term - ethical hacktivism. We are all familiar with the definition of hacktivism being a bad thing, because people use the tools and techniques of hackers to unlawfully break into systems to prove a political or philisophical point. Now that our community has grown, maybe we can also use EH-Net as a platform to make a difference and get involved without breaking any laws.

Here are just a few examples of some of the topics that need open and honest discussions:

- Compliance
- Net Neutrality
- Censorship
- Electronic Wiretapping
- Cyber Warfare

EH-Netters have proven over the years to be civil and professional in our discourse. I'm confident we can maintain the same cordial environment when it comes to issues that are more emotional by nature.

Who knows... we might just make some positive change in the world.

Don

[jason]

Interesting idea Don. How would you enumerate the activities of ethical hacktivism vs. blackhatcktvism?

[don]

Same way we do with white hat hacking and black hat hacking. We're all familiar with the media hijacking of the word hacking, so we had to start using ethical hacking. Same thing with ethical hacktivism. Only in this case, I don't think we'll ever get permission or that 'get out of jail free' card from someone we wish to protest. So we'll have to use social engineering and the sheer power of our voices. Maybe even our purchasing power.

Or at least that's my thought. I'm very open to other thoughts.

Hope that makes sense,
Don

[ziggy_567]

I'm sure its out of the realm of EH-Net, but lobbying is probably the most powerful form of "activism" these days....

Sad, but true...

[rabray]

Hi,

Although relatively new to these forums and to be honest at the moment struggling to commit enough time to fully read useful insights into the area I am researching as much as I can at the moment.

I would like to comment.

For one I would not drop the word hacking. I recently found that at a couple of general sec awareness sessions I presented on, doing so in the spirit of educating for the benefit of  all, both events free.  Also as a personal learning tool and I if honest could use more projects.

 We got a high turn out, I believe that part of this reason was using  the term "ethical hacking" people in general most often I feel switch off from any other computing related topic. One group was non technical.

When you have a chance to present, you also have a chance to inform about any issues you feel people should respond to and can combine with technology in an ethical way gain support to persuade government in a democratic way.







Edit: deleted an extra word. Smartphone screens.