Online
civil disobedience is a reality and has been used effectively for such
things as the people power / brute force methods of the electrohippies’
virtual sit-ins on company websites (the controversial method of restricting
access to a website by clogging up its bandwidth) to web defacements
and site hijackings (such as the defacement of mexican govt webpages
with pro- zapatista slogans, and the redirection of nike.com traffic
to s11.org) and the more sophisticated methods of ‘elite’ hackers (such
as ‘broncbuster’ -- who for a while managed to undermine the filter
software which the chinese government uses to censor certain webpages
from its citizens.)
You
can meet some hackers by going to the informal 2600 meetings on first
friday of the month in your capital city. See the 2600 link below for
details. Don’t go expecting to talk someone into performing some illegal
task you think is for the public good though. If you want something
hacked you will pretty much have to learn how to do it yourself. There
are lots of toys out there which automate certain processes, but a good
deal of obsessive compulsiveness and technical affinity on your behalf
would probably help. Remember there are plenty of forms of online activism
that don’t involve much technical prowess or disregard for the law,
such as simply using newsgroups and discussion lists to inform shareholders
of a company’s misdeeds or creating or contributing to webpages and
online journals. Any hacking you do could have large personal consequences
as hacking is being increasing treated as a form of terrorism by law
enforcement bodies worldwide. (From DATA: Dorks Advocating Total Anarchy)
Links
electrohippies
http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/ehippies
online protest group. great links section to other online activists
/ hactivists.
church
of the swimming elephant http://www.cotse.com/
hacking / security resources, anonymous web browsing.
2600
australia http://www.2600.org.au
local branch of international group. meeting times, security exploits,
reverse phone directory.
wiretapped http://www.wiretapped.net
open source software, cryptography, privacy, more.
attrition
mirror http://www.attrition.org/mirror/attrition
archived copies of hacked websites.
also
check out http://www.netstrike.it
(there are english translations)