Climate Change E-mail Leak Indicates ‘Hacktivism' Trend
Stefanie Hoffman Nov. 24, 2009
An e-mail hack that exposed thousands of private e-mails and documents about global warming from a University of East Anglia climate change research center indicates a shifting paradigm for e-mail as a means of “private” communication, and a continuation of political “hacktivism” to further political agendas, experts say.
Phi Beta Iota: Channel Web explores the horros of hacking into the private files of the climate change scientists without once mentioning the substantive proof of fraud that the hacked emails provide to the public. We opened the first Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference in 1994, and we are very proud to support and respect hackers for what they are–like astronauts, pushing the edge of the envelope, full of the “right stuff.” “Rule by Secrecy” is over. Get used to it. Wikipedia does not have it completely right–Hacktivism these days is much less about digital grafitti and much more about liberating information that needs to be free. We know the Cult of the Dead Cow dudes and dudettes, the sticker is around here someplace. Hackers *do* have ethics, almost invariably better ethics than the people whose mis-deeds they strive to expose.
