From Vietnam Marches to Cyberdisobedience

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Like any social engineer, Sid exaggerates. Except for the four-year jail terms handed down to Kevin Mitnick and Kevin Poulsen, sentencing for even criminal hacking in the past two years has been relatively light (mostly probation and fines) because of the suspects’ young ages.

But the comparison to the psychedelic hippies of the 1960s who spoke out against the Vietnam War may not be so far off the mark. Only this time, the hackers are Goths and hedonists. And they’re using the Internet to rid the world of tyranny.

The government tries to put electronic activism into the peg of cyberterrorism and crime with its Infowar eulogies. But E-Hippies, cDc, and others aren’t criminals. The Internet just multiplies their voice.

Another group reaching out to hackers and technologists is the EFF. In 1999, the EFF successfully argued in the infamous Bernstein ruling, which stated that software code is protected as a form of speech.

Hackers question conventional models. They don’t just look at technology and say, “This is how it works.” They say, “How can I make it better?” They look at society that way too—their government, their schools, or their social situation. They say, “I know how to make this better,” and they go for it.

In the MPAA case, staffers at 2600 Enterprises Inc., based in Middle Island, New York, were threatened with imprisonment if they didn’t remove a link on the 2600 Web site to the code used to crack DVD encryption. Because the link was editorial content, it sets Sid off on another diatribe.

The Libertarian Party also recruits hackers and technologists. At HOPE, the party’s New York State committee (http://www.cownow.com) handed out fliers, signed up recruits, and took a “sticker” poll of party affiliations. The poll got hacked, but about half the stickers were yellow—for libertarian, anarchist or independent.

Many party members are programmers. They’re trying to rally hackers around encryption, privacy and freedom-of-communication planks. Hackers can offer them freedom, because the Internet routes around tyranny.

But hackers have ways beyond the Internet to electronically spread their message. Take a young dude named Alpha Underflow, for instance, who late one night broke the lock to a lit-up roadside-construction sign and reprogrammed it to read, “Hack Planet Earth” in support of the 2600 Magazine staff. But then again, he also likes to use his reprogrammed garage-door opener to pop open his neighbor’s garage doors.

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