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Moving from Conflict to Symbiosis

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Living With Hacktivism

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Cybercrime and Cybersecurity ((PSCYBER))

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Abstract

This chapter follows and builds on the conclusions drawn from the previous chapters in finding a legitimacy deficit in the current rationales and actual responses to hacktivism. It highlights how responses that are based on conflict often prove counterproductive when applied to hacktivism, as an activity that itself flows from social conflict. The chapter then offers a theoretical and practical framework for responding to hacktivism that is based on more symbiotic rather than conflict-focused rationales and actions and suggests some ways symbiosis can be facilitated and promoted both from within, but also out with the criminal justice system. It attempts to highlight the need for better understanding and interplay between all stakeholders involved and the requirement for everyone to attempt to act in ways that could reduce conflict and backlash effects and thus manage to more fully achieve the goals of crime prevention, proportionality, and promotion of productive democratic deliberation. The chapter discusses responses relating to a reconsideration of the concepts of damage and loss and promoting technology-based, more relevant penalties when dealing with hacktivism. It also elaborates on the need for providing more inclusive processes and spaces for political deliberation and contestation to be realised in and the ways the negative effects of protests could be mitigated through technology. Finally, it discusses the role of hacktivists in promoting symbiotic solutions and their responsibility to provide well-thought-out arguments and strategies and to try to maintain the standards of ethical protesting within their spaces and communities.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Chris Reed, Making Laws for Cyberspace (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012) 17–26.

  2. 2.

    Ibid. 20–26.

  3. 3.

    Robert Baldwin, Rules and Government (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1995) 41–46.

  4. 4.

    Ibid. 52–53.

  5. 5.

    Ibid. 55–56.

  6. 6.

    Ibid. 48–54.

  7. 7.

    Julia Black, ‘Critical Reflections on Regulation’ (2002) 27 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 1, 3–4.

  8. 8.

    Mathias Klang, ‘Disruptive Technology: Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy’ (DPhil, Goeteborg University 2006) 20.

  9. 9.

    Andrew D. Murray, The Regulation of Cyberspace: Control in the Online Environment (Routledge, London 2007) 25, 27–28; Klang (n 8) 29.

  10. 10.

    Julia Black, ‘Constitutionalising Self-Regulation’ (1996) 59 The Modern Law Review 24, 44; Murray (n 9) 244. Much like the legal system produces and reinforces its norms and structures through its legal acts, corporations define their norms and structures through market policies, while online users and hacktivists shape their own norms and ways of communicating and acting, demonstrating their tendency for a prima facie autonomy.

  11. 11.

    Ibid.

  12. 12.

    Gunther Teubner, Law as an Autopoietic System (Blackwell, Oxford 1993) 71.

  13. 13.

    Ibid. 61; Murray (n 9) 245.

  14. 14.

    Julia Black, ‘Constitutionalising Self-Regulation’ (n 10) 44–45.

  15. 15.

    Gunther Teubner, ‘Juridification: Concepts, Aspects, Limits, Solutions’ in Gunther Teubner (ed), Juridification of Social Spheres: A Comparative Analysis in the Areas of Labour, Corporate, Antitrust and Social Welfare Law (De Gruyter, Berlin 1987) 3–48.

  16. 16.

    Murray (n 9) 243–245.

  17. 17.

    Ibid. 243–244.

  18. 18.

    Ibid. 247–248.

  19. 19.

    Teubner, Law as an Autopoietic System (n 12) 65.

  20. 20.

    For the gradual introduction of restorative justice processes into mainstream criminal justice practice, see Andrew von Hirsch et al. (eds), Restorative Justice and Criminal Justice: Competing or Reconcilable Paradigms? (Hart Publishing, Oxford 2003); John Braithwaite, Restorative Justice and Responsive Regulation (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002).

  21. 21.

    Juergen Habermas and Martha Calhoun, ‘Right and Violence: A German Trauma’ (1985) 1 Cultural Critique 125.

  22. 22.

    Brownen Morgan and Karen Yeung, An Introduction to Law and Regulation: Text and Materials (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007) 95.

  23. 23.

    Suart Biegel, Beyond Our Control?: Confronting the Limits of Our Legal System in the Age of Cyberspace (The MIT Press, London 2003) 52.

  24. 24.

    Jack Goldsmith and Tim Wu, Who Controls the Internet? Illusions of a Borderless World (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006) 181.

  25. 25.

    Morgan and Yeung (n 22) 228, 236.

  26. 26.

    Lawrence Lessig, Code v.2.0 (Basic Books, New York 2006) 77–78.

  27. 27.

    Julia Black, ‘Proceduralisation and Polycentric Regulation’ (2005) Especial 1 RevistaDIREITOGV, 99 http://direitogv.fgv.br/sites/direitogv.fgv.br/files/rdgv_esp01_p099_130.pdf, 109.

  28. 28.

    Many critics of the inefficiencies of state regulation have focused on the capacity of private actors and more specialised agencies to better understand and have the know-how for dealing with problems that require specialised knowledge. See Black, ‘Critical Reflections on Regulation’ (n 7).

  29. 29.

    Kenneth J. Melilli, ‘Prosecutorial Discretion in an Adversary System’ (1992) Brigham Youth University Law Review 669.

  30. 30.

    Ales Zavrsnik, ‘Cybercrime Definitional Challenges and Criminological Particularities’ (2008) 2 Masaryk University Journal of Law & Technology 1, 8.

  31. 31.

    Allan R. Stein, ‘Parochialism and Pluralism in Cyberspace Regulation’ (2004) 153 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 2003, 2004.

  32. 32.

    Ibid. 2006.

  33. 33.

    Trevor Thompson, ‘Terrorizing the Technological Neighborhood Watch: The Alienation and Deterrence of the White Hats under the CFAA’ (2008) 36 Florida State University Law Review 537, 559–560.

  34. 34.

    Ibid. 557; both the felony requirements in the US and the Computer Misuse Act 1990 in the UK have a small interest in the extent of damage for establishing liability and focus more on assessing damage and loss for sentencing.

  35. 35.

    Stefan Fafinski, William H. Dutton, and Helen Margetts, ‘Mapping and Measuring Cybercrime’ (2010) OII Forum Discussion Paper No 18, 17.

  36. 36.

    Reid Skibell, ‘Cybercrime and Misdemeanors: A Reevaluation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act’ (2003) 18 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 909, 941–944.

  37. 37.

    Jennifer Granick, ‘Faking It: Calculating Loss in Computer Crime Sentencing’ (2005) 2 A Journal of Law and Policy 207, 208, 228; Pierre Omidyar, ‘WikiLeaks, Press Freedom and Free Expression in the Digital Age’ (Huffington Post, 2 February 2014) http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pierre-omidyar/wikileaks-press-freedom-a_b_4380738.html.

  38. 38.

    Martin Krygier, ‘Ethical Positivism and the Liberalism of Fear’ (1999) 24 Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy 65, 89.

  39. 39.

    Morgan and Yeung (n 9) 82.

  40. 40.

    Hacktivist groups have also often supported crime prevention purposes, such as exposing software vulnerabilities or monitoring and exposing child pornography websites and offenders. Violet Blue, ‘Anonymous Attacks Child Porn Websites and Publish User Names’ (ZDnet Blog, 21 October 2011) http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/anonymous-attacks-child-porn-websites-and-publish-user-names/757.

  41. 41.

    For example, Auernheimer, a self-proclaimed troll, was sentenced to 41 months in prison for having obtained email accounts of users by taking advantage of weak data security practices by AT&T. See US v Auernheimer, Criminal No.: 2:11-cr-470 (SDW) (Dist. Court, New Jersey 2013); he was eventually acquitted, but for reasons unrelated to the aspect of computer misuse.

    Another alleged member of Anonymous, who claims to have helped expose two rapists in the Steubenville, Ohio, rape case by legally obtaining and publishing online information, was threatened with high penalties as well based on charges of hacking into a website to post such materials, an act for which another collaborating hacker has claimed responsibility. See Nancy Goldstein, ‘Steubenville’s Tangled Web of Injustice’ (The Guardian, 12 June 2013) http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/12/steubenville-tangled-web-injustice. This case resulted in a guilty plea on behalf of Eric Lostutter for conspiring to access a computer without authorisation and lying to an FBI agent. Although his efforts helped bring the Steubenville rape to the fore and initiated a discussion regarding the issue on a national level, Lostutter was considered a bully by the court for having targeted and exposed personal data and email information of the football team’s website administrator during the campaign with other Anonymous members. He was sentenced to two years in prison for his actions, which is as high a penalty as one of the rapists got and twice as much as that of the second rapist. See http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/8/deric-lostutter-hacker-sentenced-2-years-prison-cr/.

  42. 42.

    Trevor Thompson, ‘Terrorizing the Technological Neighborhood Watch: The Alienation and Deterrence of the White Hats under the CFAA’ (2008) 36 Florida State University Law Review 537, 574.

  43. 43.

    Mary M. Calkins, ‘They Shoot Trojan Horses, Don’t They-an Economic Analysis of Anti-Hacking Regulatory Models’ (2000) 89 Georgia Law Journal 171, 205–206.

  44. 44.

    Michael Lee et al., ‘Electronic Commerce, Hackers, and the Search for Legitimacy: A Regulatory Proposal’ (1999) 14 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 839, 872; Thompson (n 33) 575.

  45. 45.

    Thompson (n 33) 578–579.

  46. 46.

    Cabinet Office, The UK Cyber Security Strategy: Protecting and Promoting the UK in a Digital World (London 2011) https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/60961/uk-cyber-security-strategy-final.pdf, 29; Cabinet Office, National security and intelligence, HM Treasury, and The Rt Hon Philip Hammond MP, ‘National Cyber Security Strategy 2016 to 2021’ (London 2016) https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-cyber-security-strategy-2016-to-2021.

  47. 47.

    Reid Skibell, ‘Cybercrime and Misdemeanors: A Reevaluation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act’ (2003) 18 Berkeley Technology Law Journal 909, 944; Jessica Habib, ‘Cyber Crime and Punishment: Filtering out Internet Felons’ (2003) 14 Fordham Intellectual Property Media & Entertainment Law Journal 1051, 1054–1055. See, for example, US v Mitnick, 145 F.3d 1342 (9th Cir. 1998); US v Crandon, 173 F.3d 124 (3rd Cir. 1999).

  48. 48.

    Gabriel Gillett, ‘A World without Internet: A New Framework for Analyzing a Supervised Release Condition that Restricts Computer and Internet Access’ (2010) 79 Fordham Law Review 217, 220.

  49. 49.

    Michael A. Wolff, ‘Evidence-Based Judicial Discretion: Promoting Public Safety through State Sentencing Reform’ (2008) 83 New York University Law Review 1389, 1416–1417.

  50. 50.

    Cabinet Office (n 46) 30.

  51. 51.

    See relevant cases in Matthew Fredrickson, ‘Sentencing Court Discretion and the Confused Ban on Internet Bans’ (June 2014) 9 Wash J.L. Tech. & Arts 349 https://digital.lib.washington.edu:443/dspace-law/handle/1773.1/1343.

  52. 52.

    Gillett (n 48) 227–228; examples are US v Sofsky, 287 F.3d 122 (2nd Cir. 2002) (Sofsky); US v White, 244 F.3d 1199 (10th Cir. 2001) (White).

  53. 53.

    The Smoking Gun, ‘Judge Lifts Twitter Ban on “Anonymous” 14’ (The Smoking Gun, 19 March 2012) http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/judge-lifts-anonymous-twitter-ban-145792.

  54. 54.

    Frank La Rue, ‘Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression. VI. Conclusions and Recommendations’ (United Nations General Assembly, 16 May 2011) http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/17session/a.hrc.17.27_en.pdf.

  55. 55.

    United Nations General Assembly, Human Rights Council, ‘Oral Revision Document Regarding the Promotion, Protection and Enjoyment of Human Rights on the Internet’ (30 June 2016) https://www.article19.org/data/files/Internet_Statement_Adopted.pdf.

  56. 56.

    See White (n 52) and also US v Holm, 326 F.3d 872 (7th Cir. 2003) (Holm); US v Heckman, 592 F.3d 400 (3rd Cir. 2010).

  57. 57.

    See, for example, United States v. Paul, 274 F.3d 155 (5th Cir. 2001); United States v Brigham, 569 F.3d 220 (5th Cir. 2009).

  58. 58.

    Gillett (n 48) 246; See US v Walser, 275 F.3d 981 (10th Cir. 2001).

  59. 59.

    Fredrickson (n 51) 355–356.

  60. 60.

    The state should not impose technological use restrictions, if these would render the finding of work impossible. See US v Russell, 600 F.3d 631 (D.C. Cir. 2010) (stressing that McDonald’s and PETCO require computer use to complete job application and duties, respectively); Holm (n 56).

  61. 61.

    Manuel Castells, Communication Power (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009) 72–74.

  62. 62.

    Morgan and Yeung (n 22) 36–37.

  63. 63.

    Similar characteristics are the focus of regulatory assessments in responsive models of regulation articulated by Black and Baldwin, trying to demonstrate the need for a more holistic understanding of the context and the effects of regulatory solutions. Robert Baldwin and Julia Black, ‘Really Responsive Regulation’ (2008) 71 The Modern Law Review 59.

  64. 64.

    Arne Hintz, Deconstructing Multi-Stakeholderism: The Discourses and Realities of Global Governance at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) (Central European University, Budapest 2007) 3–4; Rebecca Mackinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (Basic Books, New York 2012) 208.

  65. 65.

    Geert Lovink and Ned Rossiter, ‘Dawn of the Organised Networks’ (2005) 5 Fibreculture Journal http://five.fibreculturejournal.org/fcj-029-dawn-of-the-organised-networks/.

  66. 66.

    Jeanette Hofmann, ‘Multi-Stakeholderism in Internet Governance: Putting a Fiction into Practice’ (2016) 1 Journal of Cyber Policy 1

    http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23738871.2016.1158303, 33–34.

  67. 67.

    Ibid. 34–35.

  68. 68.

    Dmitry Epstein, ‘The Duality of Information Policy Debates: The Case of the Internet Governance Forum’ (DPhil, Cornell University 2012) 115–116; Milton Mueller, ‘IGF 2015: Running in Place’ (2015) http://www.internetgovernance.org/2015/11/16/igf-2015-running-in-place/.

  69. 69.

    Hofmann (n 66) 37–38.

  70. 70.

    Arne Hintz and Stefania Milan, ‘At the Margins of Internet Governance: Grassroots Tech Groups and Communication Policy’ (2009) 5 International Journal of Media & Cultural Politics 23, 34.

  71. 71.

    Ibid.

  72. 72.

    Losey, James, ‘The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and European Civil Society: A Case Study on Networked Advocacy’ (2014) 4 Journal of Information Policy 205–227. doi:10.5325/jinfopoli.4.2014.0205.

  73. 73.

    Sabine Lang, NGOs, Civil Society, and the Public Sphere (Cambridge University Press, New York 2013). P. 22 cited in Losey (n 72) 220.

  74. 74.

    Losey (n 72) 220.

  75. 75.

    Milton Mueller, John Mathiason, and Hans Klein, ‘The Internet and Global Governance Principles and Norms for a New Regime’ (2007) 13 Global Governance 237.

  76. 76.

    Castells (n 61) 39.

  77. 77.

    Ibid.

  78. 78.

    Epstein (n 68).

  79. 79.

    Castells (n 61) 12.

  80. 80.

    17 U.S.C. Section 512 (g)(3).

  81. 81.

    See Sections 512(g)(2)(B) and 512(g)(2)(C). See also Lydia P. Loren, ‘Deterring Abuse of the Copyright Takedown Regime by Taking Misrepresentation Claims Seriously’ (2011) 46 Wake Forest Law Review 745, 757–758.

  82. 82.

    Ibid.

  83. 83.

    Benoit Frydman and Isabelle Rorive, ‘Regulating Internet Content through Intermediaries in Europe and the USA’ (2002) 23 Zeitschrift für Rechtssoziologie 41, 52 analyses the US approach, which adopts such interactive processes.

  84. 84.

    Xiang Li, ‘Hacktivism and the First Amendment: Drawing the Line between Cyber Protests and Crime’ (2013) 27 Harvard Journal Law & Technology, 301, 327.

  85. 85.

    Ibid.

  86. 86.

    Ibid.

  87. 87.

    Dorothy E. Denning, ‘Activism, Hacktivism, and Cyberterrorism: The Internet as a Tool for Influencing Foreign Policy’ in Jon Arquila and David Ronfeldt (eds), Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy (RAND Corporation 2001) 265.

  88. 88.

    Curtis Karnow, ‘Launch on Warning: Aggressive Defense of Computer Systems’ (2004) 7 Yale Journal of Law & Technology 87, 93; Counterstrike-software companies do not exclude the chance of small, collateral damage to innocent parties. It is, however, suggested that if the exact address of the attacker cannot be verified as not being of such critical nature, less aggressive measures should be preferred, expressing the need to minimise risk. Bruce P. Smith, ‘Hacking, Poaching, and Counterattacking: Digital Counterstrikes and the Contours of Self-Help’ (2005) 1 Journal of Law Economy & Policy 171, 181.

  89. 89.

    Joel R. Reidenberg, ‘Technology and Internet Jurisdiction’ (2004) 153 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 1951, 1964.

  90. 90.

    Susan W. Brenner, Cybercrime: Criminal Threats from Cyberspace (Praeger Publishers, Oxford 2010) 212–214.

  91. 91.

    Jay P. Kesan and Ruperto Majuca, ‘Optimal Hackback’ (2010) 84 Chicago-Kent Law Review 831–833.

  92. 92.

    Reidenberg, ‘Technology and Internet Jurisdiction’ (n 89) 1965; Consideration of proportionality and accountability have also been based on the defences of choice of evils or necessity. Smith (n 88) 191–192.

  93. 93.

    CISCO, for example, compiles lists of domain names and IP addresses related to malign web traffic and spamming email servers, facilitating filtering of such traffic. CISCO, ‘Combating Botnets Using the CISCO Asa Botnet Traffic Filter’ (CISCO White Paper, 2009) http://www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/vpndevc/ps6032/ps6094/ps6120/white_paper_c11-532091.html; see also the relevant project Spamhaus.org, ‘Spamhaus Botnet Controller List,’ https://www.spamhaus.org/bcl/.

  94. 94.

    Malcom Shore, Yi Du, and Sherali Zeadally, ‘A Public-Private Partnership Model for National Cybersecurity’ (2011) 3 Policy & Internet 1, 18.

  95. 95.

    Anonymous has gone beyond symbolic protests by hacking into corporate and police networks and exposing credit card information or personal addresses of policemen involved in protest arrests that have been considered purely retaliatory, with low politically expressive quality. Adam G. Klein, ‘Vigilante Media: Unveiling Anonymous and the Hacktivist Persona in the Global Press’ 82/3 Communication Monographs http://nca.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637751.2015.1030682, 397.

  96. 96.

    Black, ‘Constitutionalising Self-Regulation’ (n 10) 26–27.

  97. 97.

    Ibid.

  98. 98.

    Julia Black, ‘Decentring Regulation: Understanding the Role of Regulation and Self-Regulation in a “Post-Regulatory” World’ (2001) 54 Current Legal Problems 103, 125–126.

  99. 99.

    Examples are the guidelines by the Electrohippies regarding their actions and the use of their virtual sit-in tools, or the user licence created by Hacktivismo regarding the use of their tools for non-criminal purposes.

  100. 100.

    Earlier groups have been more eloquent in suggesting safeguards. In groups with an organising core, such as EDT, the realisation of the various protests entailed specific tactical guidelines in order for the actions to be as harmless as possible and demonstrate their moral motives. Even with less structured collectives like Anonymous, similar guidelines have been often deliberated and even publicised with online videos for online and offline protests: Anonymous, ‘Anonymous – Code of Conduct’ (YouTube, 21 December 2010) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-063clxiB8I.

  101. 101.

    Graham Meikle, ‘Electronic Civil Disobedience and Symbolic Power’ in Athina Karatzogianni (ed), Cyberconflicts and Global Politics (Routledge, London 2009) 182–183.

  102. 102.

    Leah A. Lievrouw, ‘Oppositional and Activist New Media: Remediation, Reconfiguration, Participation’ (Proceedings of the Ninth Participatory Design Conference, Trento 2006) https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1147279 6; Jordan, Activism!: Direct Action, Hacktivism and the Future of Society 103.

  103. 103.

    Gardiner Michael E. Gardiner, ‘Wild Publics and Grotesque Symposiums: Habermas and Bakhtin on Dialogue, Everyday Life and the Public Sphere’ (2004) 52 The Sociological Review 28, 39.

  104. 104.

    Tim Jordan and Paul A. Taylor, Hacktivism and Cyberwars: Rebels with a Cause? (Routledge, London 2004) 158.

  105. 105.

    See examples in DJNZ and The Action Tool Development Group of the Electrohippies Collective, ‘Client-Side Distributed Denial-of-Service: Valid Campaign Tactic or Terrorist Act?’ (2001) 34 Leonardo 269; Ricardo Dominguez, ‘Electronic Disobedience Post-9/11’ (2008) 22 Third Text 661.

  106. 106.

    Jacob van Kokswijk, ‘Social Control in Online Society–Advantages of Self-Regulation on the Internet’ (International Conference on Cyberworlds, Singapore 2010) 240.

  107. 107.

    Robert S. Jansen, ‘Populist Mobilization: A New Theoretical Approach to Populism’ (2011) 29 Sociological Theory 75, 82–83.

  108. 108.

    For example, Moot is the founder of 4chan, and despite the lack of formal authority, he would be acknowledged as someone many in Anonymous would at least listen to: Adrian Crenshaw, ‘Crude, Inconsistent Threat: Understanding Anonymous’ (Irongeek, 2011) http://www.irongeek.com/i.php?page=security/understanding-anonymous.

  109. 109.

    Gabriella Coleman, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (Verso Books, 2014) 76.

  110. 110.

    Hacktivists in Germany resorted to such legitimisation means, such as prior notification and request of permission from the authorities, which played a role in their countering the prosecutor’s charges for coercion: see European Digital Rights, ‘Frankfurt Appellate Court Says Online Demonstration Is Not Coercion’ (European Digital Rights, 7 June 2006) https://edri.org/edrigramnumber4-11demonstration/.

  111. 111.

    Virtual sit-in tools usually do not mask the identity of users, while viruses employed do not cause undue harms to computer systems.

  112. 112.

    Murray (n 9) 128.

  113. 113.

    Ibid. 163–164.

  114. 114.

    The most commonly used sanctions would be banishment from the online collectives and strong censure or shaming mechanisms on behalf of the community through public, online criticism (flaming) or the exposition of personal details of the norm violators, demonstrating the community’s disapproval (doxing).

  115. 115.

    Christian Fuchs, Internet and Society: Social Theory in the Information Age (Routledge, New York 2008) 308, 314–315.

  116. 116.

    Coleman (n 109) 95.

  117. 117.

    Kevin Rawlinson, ‘Activists Warned to Watch What They Say as Social Media Monitoring Becomes “Next Big Thing in Law Enforcement”’ (The Independent, 1 October 2012) http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/activists-warned-to-watch-what-they-say-as-social-media-monitoring-becomes-next-big-thing-in-law-enforcement-8191977.html; Cyrus Farivar, ‘NY Judge Compels Twitter to Reveal User’s Data’ (Ars Technica, 2 July 2012) http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/ny-judge-compels-twitter-to-reveal-user-data/.

  118. 118.

    EDT, for example, was organising its protests through its ECD web page calling protesters to participate and setting the standards beforehand. Ricardo Dominguez, ‘Electronic Civil Disobedience’ (thing.net, undated) http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html.

  119. 119.

    The concept of identity portability, where people can join many networks and websites through their Facebook accounts, for example, is characteristic of this phenomenon and is becoming increasingly popular with many websites offering the opportunity to use one’s established identity from affiliated websites. For the functions and spread of portable identities, see Daniel Kahn, ‘Social Intermediaries: Creating a More Responsible Web through Portable Identity, Cross-Web Reputation, and Code-Backed Norms’ (2010) 11 Columbia Science & Technology Law Review 176.

  120. 120.

    Ibid.

  121. 121.

    Paul A. Taylor, Hackers: Crime in the Digital Sublime (Routledge, London 1999) 6–10; a characteristic example is Mafiaboy, who managed to take large corporate websites offline and was caught after he bragged about it in a hacker forum. Wikipedia, ‘Mafiaboy’ (2011) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MafiaBoy. See a recent example: Mary C. Long, ‘Anonymous’ Hacker Brags on Twitter and Gets Caught’ (Adweek, 17 April 2012) http://www.adweek.com/digital/hacker-brags-on-twitter/.

  122. 122.

    Murray (n 9) 146–147.

  123. 123.

    Indicative of the imposition of sanctions is the extensive censuring of one alleged Anonymous member, who presented himself publicly as a spokesperson, thus violating an important norm of the collective which prides itself upon not having leaders or official spokesmen: Coleman (n 109) 184–186.

  124. 124.

    The Electrohippies stopped their virtual sit-in and other hacktivist actions due to their fear of high penalties. The Electrohippies Collective, ‘Cyberlaw UK: Civil Rights and Protest on the Internet’ (iwar.org, 2000) http://www.iwar.org.uk/hackers/resources/electrohippies-collective/comm-2000-12.pdf.

  125. 125.

    van Kokswijk (n 106) 239.

  126. 126.

    Murray (n 9) 146–147.

  127. 127.

    Ibid. 141–142.

  128. 128.

    Lessig, Code v.2.0 (n 26) 73.

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Karagiannopoulos, V. (2018). Moving from Conflict to Symbiosis. In: Living With Hacktivism. Palgrave Studies in Cybercrime and Cybersecurity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71758-6_6

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