Not In Our Name

This is the kind of thing that nobody should be surprised by.  Whenever there are times of national crisis, particularly those involving intense bouts of nationalism, we can expect to have the image of hackers twisted and manipulated to suit various parties' aims.  Once again we find ourselves in a position of having to stand up against ignorant claims from a variety of sources.

Obviously, when there's a war going on (or invasion, which is probably a more accurate description at this point), there's going to be a lot of saber-rattling on all fronts.  That's what it's all about, after all.  Inevitably, though, this leads to distortions and misconceptions that desperately need correction.

Hackers as a group tend not to identify themselves with specific political parties or nationalities.  As individuals, hackers are much the same as anyone else, although we've noticed that due to our thoughtful nature and unending battle with the authorities for basic rights, hackers tend to be more cynical than most.  You will also find that, true to hacker form, we will ask more questions and tend to doubt the answers we're given until there is absolute proof of some sort.  All that said, it would be extremely presumptuous for anyone to claim that hackers as a group support the war, oppose the war, are Bush loyalists, or Bush haters.  Yet this is exactly what's happening and once again, we have the (((mass media))) to thank.

Unlike the Gulf War of 1991, there are now numerous voices and perspectives that the average person can get their hands on.  The Internet has expanded greatly in the past decade and there has been a growing demand for foreign news coverage on television, a demand which is slowly (almost grudgingly) being met by the satellite companies and digital cable.  And, while it would be rather arrogant to say how hackers view particular policies or countries, one thing we feel pretty comfortable concluding is that most in the hacker world see such diversity of opinion and perspective as a good thing.  We tend to have enough faith in the individual to believe that they are capable of making up their own mind on an issue, rather than being spoon-fed the answers via the media or any government.

But there are those who see such diversity as a threat because, for the first time, some alternative ideas may be creeping into the heads of people who may not have even known there was another side to a story.  These are the people who want control and who see individual thought as an annoyance at best, a real danger at worst.  We also believe it is safe to say that most people in the hacker world find that sort of thing repugnant, for the simple reason that this mindset by nature would see the very concept of hackers as one of the biggest threats of all.

So it was a bit ironic when we saw in our favorite (((mass media))) source that "hackers" were busy attacking Al Jazeera.  Al Jazzera is a news channel from Qatar that has been broadcasting since 1996.  Despite being in the Middle East, it has a distinctly Western style of broadcasting.  This has been the source of much criticism in the region; their willingness to point out corruption has caused them problems in such places as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.  And naturally, the fact that they are willing to give any time at all to stories and people that wouldn't be seen in the States has earned them all kinds of condemnations here.

Recently, their stock market reporter (yes, Al Jazeera actually has a stock market update on the bottom of their screen) was banned from the New York Stock Exchange because of "security precautions" by authorities there.  And the Bush administration has been highly critical of the network for not following the same guidelines as our own (((mass media))), which refused to air gruesome pictures of war victims that Al Jazeera was able to obtain.

There's no doubt that this kind of broadcast would get some people upset.  But then, there are lots of things about this conflict that are getting people upset.  What the presence of Al Jazeera accomplished was the inclusion of a different, previously hard to see, perspective.

Since the network had been broadcast only in Arabic, we looked forward to having an English version of both the channel and their website so people here would be better able to judge the content for themselves.  That day arrived on March 24, 2003 when the English version of the website was finally launched.  But the site never made it to our screens.  A massive denial of service attack took the entire Al Jazeera domain off the net, making it impossible for anyone (at least in our part of the world) to see what was on their pages.  A couple of days later, when their main page was finally back online, it was almost immediately defaced with an American flag and various words of pro-United States propaganda.

This was bad enough but when it started to be reported as something the hacker community was responsible for, it became a nightmare.  Mail was pouring into our site from people thanking us for "taking care of the Arab scum" among other things.  In yet another twisted way, the media was defiling the image of hackers, turning us into the Thought Police who had the gall to judge what people should see and eliminate anything that they didn't approve of.

Needless to say, this image didn't go over too well in the hacker community.  It's well known and heavily documented that such actions as denial-of-service attacks and web page "hacking" have become so trivial that virtually anyone with the right script, sufficient bandwidth, or simply a strong agenda of some sort is capable of wreaking havoc on an intended target.  The only hacker connection most likely occurred at the beginning, when whatever bug was exploited was discovered and revealed to the world.

It's equivalent to a hacker figuring out (through endless experimenting and wasting of time) that holding down three keys at the same moment on an ATM will result in a $20 bill being released without being charged to an account.  If the hacker released this information to the world and someone else comes along with the sole intent of stealing money, that second person is not a hacker in any sense of the word.  They are simply a thief who heard of an exploit and decided to use it for their own purposes.  In the same way, the people who took Al Jazeera off the net have got nothing to do with the hacker world.  They simply exploited some well known security holes in order to achieve their objective - silencing a voice they didn't approve of.

Regardless of how we as individuals feel about what they are broadcasting and putting on their site, as hackers it should be obvious that any kind of authority imposing its beliefs on the rest of society is neither wanted nor needed.  We don't know what the source of this shutdown was - the nature of the exploits tells us it could have been a bored kid or an angry government.  The end result is the same.

Back during the American spy plane incident in China, we received a number of pieces of mail from people who wanted us to "take China off the net."  Each email address resolved to various sites within the United States military.  That told us that hackers are seen by such people as a weapon, to be used when needed and for whatever political and military goals they deem necessary.  In the end, somebody accommodated these people and started all kinds of attacks on anything and everything in the .cn domain.  And, predictably, the same thing happened in reverse.  That told us that it didn't take a whole lot of skill to pull off a destructive act.

We have to be careful not to get drawn into this way of thinking, where hackers are seen as a military resource.  Because there's a flip-side to that definition.  If we are a resource when we do their bidding, then we are a major threat when we don't.  And it's in our nature not to be in a blind allegiance with any authority figure.

We believe hacker ingenuity can be used to create something positive, where resources are found when none appear to exist and creative minds figure out ways of making the impossible happen.  Back in 1996, Yugoslavian radio station B92 was forced off the air by the so-called "dictatorial" Milošević regime for airing material not approved of by the authorities.  Hackers helped them get their signal onto the Internet via The Netherlands which meant that the entire world was now able to hear them.  They moved beyond the power of their government to silence them (since most government officials had little if any knowledge of the Internet).

What better message to send to the world than to ensure that no voice is silenced and that if somebody tries, a hundred others will spring up to undo the damage?  It goes beyond what side of the fence you're on politically or what part of the world you're from.  This kind of thing simply cannot be tolerated, particularly in the environment we find ourselves in now where truth seems particularly elusive.  We may not like the message, we may not agree with it, but if what we allege to stand for is to have any value, we have to do everything possible to ensure it isn't silenced.