New prompt: Cyberwar

Here's an updated word cloud of our class blogs so far!

We continue this week with more on Hacktivism, but now taking it to a much deeper and more political level as we examine it in the context of war. In particular, we look at ways that the internet and it use (or abuse) can have a real impact on the lives of whole societies of people.

This week with your post, we'll do something a little different. First, this will be a bit of an open post in which you should take a reasoned position on an aspect of hacktivism and cyberwar; that is, argue for a particular point of view related to the topic. So, for example, is Wikileaks valuable to democracy? Does Wikileaks undermine democracy? Are distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks a fair way to engage in "war," especially compared to traditional war? Or more dangerous? Etc.

THEN, when you comment on a classmate's blog, play DEVIL'S ADVOCATE to their position. In other words, how can you challenge their points, or come up with reasonable alternatives to their position? Has the poster overlooked an important point?

Let's get some real discussion going this week.

Hacktivism

Welcome back from spring break!

For the next couple weeks, we are focusing on the idea of activism on the web - specifically a kind of activism known as hacktivism. Hacktivism is a way of advancing a cause or staging a protest by hacking into the opponents' computer systems or websites, as opposed to more traditional forms of activism like demonstrations, letter-writing, or even coups.

For this week's post, consider the ethics of this form of activism, especially in reference to the specific articles and case studies you read. Also consider that these examples are international in scope, so American ideals (and laws) of free speech don't necessarily apply.

So: choose one of the examples of hacktivism and discuss its implications. Is it an effective means of protest or achieving justice? Does it seem to violate civil or human rights? Should there be more international regulation of such acts - and is such regulation even possible? What do you think the future might hold in terms of new forms of political protest online, or what might the consequences of such acts be?