The Rise of Hacktivism, and the Release of "Submerged"
Welcome to the May issue of Hacker Chronicles!
Today marks the official release of my new hacker thriller Submerged. 🍾 Links under Writing Update.
This month's feature is two pieces that we need to before my review of V For Vendetta, namely the legend of Guy Fawkes and the rise of hacktivism in modern times.
Enjoy!
/John
Writing Update
Can you believe it, Submerged has been released! The last stretch took much longer than I thought. But after three years of writing, you don't want to take shortcuts in copyedit, formatting, or cover design.
Tonight I will have a cheese platter and champagne with the family. I'm so happy I got it done and that it's now available to you.
Please consider rating it and writing a review on Goodreads and Amazon once you've read it. It helps immensely in finding new readers. Thank you!
May Feature: Guy Fawkes and the Rise of Hacktivism
Who Is This Guy, Fawkes?
Guy Fawkes was a member of a group of English Catholics involved in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot to assassinate King James I and restore a Catholic monarch.
The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, 1605, by unknown artist.
Wikipedia:
The plotters leased an undercroft beneath the House of Lords; Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder that they stockpiled there. The authorities were prompted by an anonymous letter to search Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and they found Fawkes guarding the explosives. He was questioned and tortured over the next few days and confessed to wanting to blow up the House of Lords.
Now, a failed plot and an attempt on the king's life don't sound like cause for celebration. But Guy Fawkes Night is an annual commemoration on November 5th with bonfires and fireworks.
It's more understandable when you fill in that it was originally Gunpowder Treason Day celebrated by Protestants and with anti-Catholic sentiment. It kept being observed as part of the conflict between those two religious groups, but morphed into attacks on "sobriety and good order" by the late 1600s. That's the original connection to pranksters and chaos.
The Rise of Hacktivism
Moving on to modern times and the rise of hacktivism.
There's a great documentary available for free on archive.org, titled We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists.
Caution: The F word is common in the documentary, so it's not your average piece of non-fiction.
One of the most fascinating things in the documentary is how hacktivism is linked to online phenomena that have become mainstream, such as memes and trolling. It all comes from hacking's original relation to pranks.
Hacks as Pranks
Students at MIT have a strong history of hacks as pranks. You can read about it on the Wikipedia page Hacks at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or their own site hacks.mit.edu which launched in 1997.
Probably most famous is when they put a car on the university's Great Dome:
But the smiley face on the student dorm complex Simmons Hall is pretty well-known too:
Hacker Collective L0pht and the Cult of the Dead Cow
In the same 90s decade as MIT students put cars on buildings, hacking and its criminal branch became mainstream. It really got on the agenda in 1998 when the non-criminal hacker group L0pht dressed up in suits and testified to the US Congress on the topic of "Weak Computer Security in Government."
The L0pht member Weld Pond during the congressional hearings. Side note: Weld Pond, or Chris Wysopal, is one of my book readers!
L0pht had a few members who had more of a political agenda, but it was organized in the separate Cult of the Dead Cow. They are often referred to as the original hacktivists based on their war on the Church of Scientology in 1995.
Pranks Influencing Internet Culture
In the early 2000s, nerdy pranks transcended to the internet as memes. The memes most of us see today have been filtered heavily. The raw feed of such things was created on the online forum 4chan in 2003. Especially it's "Random" board, known as /b/.
The /b/ board was not just about laughs and mockery but content that skirts the lines of what's legal. Some of it very upsetting or disturbing. Everyone posts there anonymously and all content is ephemeral, which means it quickly goes away unless it's constantly up-voted. That voting became a human filter that found gold nuggets such as Rickrolling, LOLcats, and Wojak the Feels Guy.
Original, generic appearance of Wojak.
The drive to post on /b/ was a lot about getting fellow forum members to laugh. You did it for the LOLs, or for the lulz.
Anonymous as in Anonymous
Those 4chan posts were all attributed to the account called "Anonymous." A joke emerged where people said it was all one person who called themselves Anonymous posting all of it. That was the origin of the hacker collective Anonymous in 2003. Many people acting under one identity-free moniker.
Now you had the mix of hackers, pranks for the lulz, and the freedom of speech under online anonymity.
2005 the movie V for Vendetta comes out. In it, the protagonist 'V' is inspired by Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot.
2008 it comes together. Anonymous goes to war against the Church of Scientology under Project Chanology and wears the same mask as 'V' in V for Vendetta to stay anonymous in the streets.
Photo from the Anonymous protests, by David Shankbone.
Coming Up: A Review of the Movie V for Vendetta
We now have enough backstory and forward story to indulge in the movie V for Vendetta in a coming newsletter issue. You should go (re)watch it!
Currently Reading
I finished reading Thunderball. Old Bond novels are such a joy to read.
Now I'm reading Silas Marner: The Weaver of Raveloe(1861) by George Eliot, the pen name of Mary Ann Evans. I read most of her Wikipedia page. A fascinating author.