On a number of occasions ‘Anonymous’ the loosely associated international network of activist and hacktivists, have accessed the membership records of the Ku Klux Klan and threatened to make them public as well as shutting down their website on a number of occasions. Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor, publicly exposed the breadth of the data collection activities of his former employee. Wikileaks, headed by Julian Assange, released over 300,000 United States Army documents regarding the Iraq War.
Were these hacktivist activities right or wrong?
Well, that depends on your moral compass.
One of the threats from cyber security comes from hacktivist groups whose subversive use of computers and computer networks is to promote a political agenda, or a moral agenda. But morals are a very grey area. All of us has an inbuilt moral compass that was formed by many aspects of our life such as our education, out childhood conditioning, our employment history, our religion and many more. It provides us with an inner sense that distinguishes what is right from what is wrong and functions as a guide (like the needle of a compass) for morally appropriate behaviour.
This article was written by Stuart Wilkes on behalf of the National Cyber Skills Centre. To read the whole article, please click this link.
