...::::::::::::::::::::::::::::...
::::: The Hacktivismo FAQ v1.0 :::::
```::::::::::::::::::::::::::::'''
What is Hacktivismo? What is the cDc? And most importantly, who is a Dwarf
Named Warren? In this inaugural FAQ you'll be treated to the kind of
privileged information that would normally cost you over a thousand dollars
at the Black Hat Briefings. And you don't even have to hang around with a
bunch of lame CTOs to get it. Hacktivismo. It's the biggest thing since John
Holmes' pecker. Love it. Rub it. Share it with your friends.
Q: What is Hacktivismo?
A: Hacktivismo is a special operations group sponsored by the CULT OF THE DEAD
COW (cDc). We view access to information as a basic human right. We are also
interested in keeping the Internet free of state-sponsored censorship and
corporate chicanery so all opinions can be heard.
Q: What is the CULT OF THE DEAD COW?
A: The cDc is the most influential group of hackers in the world. Grandmaster
Ratte' and Franken Gibe spawned the herd in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. We
publish the first and longest running e-zine in the history of the Internet,
are a thorn in Billion Gates's ass, and are the only reason worth getting out
of bed in the morning. We're also very good at card tricks and dancing.
Q: Why is CULT OF THE DEAD COW always capitalized?
A: It's cooler that way.
Q: When was Hacktivismo formed?
A: Oxblood Ruffin, the cDc's Foreign Minister, began developing Hacktivismo at
Defcon [http://defcon.org] in the summer of 1999, based on drunken
conversations with Reid Fleming and AJ Effin Reznor. Our first recruit was
Bronc Buster who started programming in January 2000 with Mr. Pink, who has
since left the group.
Q: Is Hacktivismo the same as the CULT OF THE DEAD COW?
A: No. CULT OF THE DEAD COW is a group where new members are inducted rarely,
and only after rigorous debate, temper tantrums, and a big group hug
afterwards. Hacktivismo is an autonomous group within the cDc where members
are invited to join by Oxblood after they've done a lot of work on Hacktivismo
projects.
Q: How many members does Hacktivismo have?
A: As of July 1, 2001 we had five official members.
Oxblood Ruffin - Baudfather & Founder, Rolodex Expert
Bronc Buster - Network Wrangler, Gravy Maven, Charter Member
The Pull - Research Beast, Lone Star Hellion, Charter Member
The Mixter - Hole Poker, Lederhosen Enthusiast, Charter Member
Drunken Master - Code Sifu, Merlot Soak, Charter Member
We also have twenty-eight people participating in the Peekabooty Project [see
below]. Our numbers include I.T. professionals, lawyers, human rights
workers, and students. We live in the United States, Canada, Europe, Israel,
Taiwan, Korea, and the Peoples Republic of China. Hacktivismo also has
informal layers of support that collect network intelligence and will assist
with application distribution, and document translation. The one thing that
can be said of the Hacktivismo network is that it is truly international.
We're the United Nations of hacking, except without the bickering and
cheapskates who won't pay up.
Q: What do the people in Hacktivismo do when they aren't fighting for
international human rights?
A: Different people do different things to relax. Bronc Buster signed up for
some ballet classes a while back, and The Pull is learning how to play the
French horn. Once the whole Hacktivismo crew rented a Hummer and went to see
_Bridget Jones's Diary_ in Niagara Falls. We loved the movie so much that we
all bought ice cream and control panties right after the show. We're just
plain folks; some plainer than others.
Q: Do you have t-shirts?
A: Right now, only for our members and the people we want to sleep with. But
shortly Hacktivismo will initiate its Cotton for Cadres Campaign wherein we
shall make our revolutionary, 100% cotton undergarment available for purchase.
Our t-shirt is black; a restful, pastel black with a lovely white graphic
symbolizing creativity, youthful exuberance, and hackerly daring-do. It is
guaranteed to find you love and riches. Start saving now.
Q: Why do you use El Dia de los Muertos [Day of the Dead] imagery?
A: For two reasons. 1) It's hella cool; and 2) It's important to remember the
dead. The Day of the Dead festival in Mexico is something like our Halloween,
but it is a religious celebration. Everyone goes to graveyards and has
picnics and fun. It's like a great big party with salsa and skeletons.
It may seem like a bit of a stretch, but we chose this imagery to honor the
victims of human rights abuses. Sometimes it's hard to imagine that people
could be imprisoned, or worse, for things we take for granted. They should
never be forgotten.
Q: What does Hacktivismo mean?
A: Hacktivismo is Spanish for "hacktivism", a neologism formed by combining
the words hacking and activism. We chose Hacktivismo to differentiate us
from other groups who claim to be hacktivists but don't really know their
ass from a brick.
Q: What do you mean by the word "hacktivism," then?
A: The provenance of hacktivism winds back to Omega - a longstanding member of
the cDc - who started using it as a joke to describe on-line protest actions.
Oxblood appropriated the word and began using it with a straight face; then
many journalists, fading stars of the Left, and eventually script kiddies
picked up on it, all claiming to know what hacktivism meant. It has been a
noun in search of a verb for some time now. Oxblood once defined hacktivism
as "an open-source implosion", and now he's added "disruptive compliance" to
its range of description.
Q: What the hell are you talking about? I'm just looking for a simple answer
here.
A: Hold your kimono, cupcake. O.K., hacktivism is the use of technology to
advance human rights through electronic media.
Q: You mean you aren't interested in advancing human rights in the real world,
on the ground?
A: Sure, but that's not where our competence lies. We're hackers, not social
justice activists. Let's put it this way. Some groups and individuals are
well suited to fight for social and economic progress around the world. If as
a result of an initiative in Africa, for instance, economic standards were
raised and more people could obtain computers -- that would be a good thing.
But what kind of Internet would they eventually have access to? One where
censorship or the proliferation of vulnerable software left them at risk?
We're not willing to sit by and watch that happen. We think of hacktivism and
the Internet the same way that homeopathist's think of the body: you have to
introduce a little poison to create health. Code has consciousness and
healing power whether you like it or not.
R: That sounds a little booga-booga.
A: Free your mind, dude. Reach forward and touch your monitor. Can you feel
the love? No? Well maybe if your screen weren't so goddamn dirty you could.
Q: What is Hacktivismo's mission statement?
A: We don't have one as such, but we do believe in Article 19 of the Universal
Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) as one point of departure. It reads,
"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right
includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive
and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers." The entire text of the UDHR can be located at
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html. We also like Article 19 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that can be
located at http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/a_ccpr.htm.
Q: What is the Hacktivismo Declaration?
A: We decided to release a document that condemned state-sponsored censorship
of the Internet. Hopefully people will read it and think it's a good thing,
or a total piece of crap. Getting some sort of discussion going around
information rights is the primary objective. You can read the Hacktivismo
Declaration on the cDc website.
Q: It's pretty legalistic. What gives?
A: You should try writing one of these things. The main purpose was to cite
some internationally recognized documents that equate access to information
with human and political rights; to state unequivocally that reasonable access
to lawfully published material on the Internet is a basic human right; that
we're disgusted with the political hypocrisy and corporate avarice that has
created this situation; and, that we're stepping up to the plate and doing
something about this.
Q: Do you think all information should be accessible?
A: No. That's why we talk about "lawfully published" information in the
Hacktivismo Declaration. Essentially that cuts out things like legitimate
government secrets, kiddie porn, matters of personal privacy, and other
accepted restrictions. But even the term "lawfully published" is full of
landmines. Lawful to whom? What is lawful in the United States can get you a
bullet in the head in China. At the end of the day we recognize that some
information needs to be controlled. But that control falls far short of
censoring material that is critical of governments, intellectual and artistic
opinion, information relating to women's issues or sexual preference, and
religious opinions. That's another way of saying that most information wants
to be free; the rest needs a little privacy, even non-existence in the case of
things like kiddie porn. Everyone will have to sort the parameters of this
one out for themselves.
Q: What's up with that line about "public morals" in the Hacktivismo
Declaration? Are you trying to get a date with Tipper Gore?
A: Cute. You are referring to paragraph 3, Article 19 of the ICCPR that we
quote in the preamble before the actual declaration. All we can say is that
we didn't write this -- a bunch of lawyers at the United Nations did. But in
its defense, this is the kind of general provision that makes it clear that
things like kiddie porn do not qualify as freedom of expression.
Q: What's the relationship between Hacking and Human Rights?
A: We believe that reasonable access to information on the Internet - and
across all media - is a basic human right. We are trying to intervene to
reverse the tide of state-sponsored censorship of the Internet through the
inventive use of code. This is what Oxblood is referring to when he uses the
term "disruptive compliance." It's the opposite of "civil disobedience." We
favor using disruptive technologies that comply with the spirit and original
intent of the Internet. The Internet is a commons with its own field of
operation. It's all about freedom and bringing the world together. The
number of politicians who just don't get this astounds us. They should learn
how to use email and a few other basics before they come up with any more
restrictive/vindictive legislation.
Q: What is Peekabooty?
A: Something that even control panties will not be able to suppress. Firstly,
let us say what it is not: It is not file sharing, it is not Gnutella, and it
is not Napster in a trench coat. Peekabooty is a distributed collaborative
privacy network. It allows clients to evade most forms of DNS filtering and
make Web page requests directly to a distributed server cloud that processes
the requests and trans-serves content back to the requesting client.
Q: Will Peekabooty neutralize state-sponsored censorship of the Internet?
A: It will help some folks, and for a while. But eventually all of the bad
people with horrible breath and ugly clothing will try to shut Peekabooty
down. We know for a fact that the Chinese government - actually, the
geriatric and nepotistic martinets who butcher their own citizens is a more
accurate description - are waiting for Peekabooty to come out so they can
throw all of their evil Commie resources against it. But we have three things
going for us: 1) We have a morally superior position; 2) Peekabooty will be
released open source and will mutate beyond recognition; and, most importantly
3) The International Hacker Community is on our side. Still, we expect some
of this to be tough sledding.
Q: So you're saying it's possible that Peekabooty might eventually get shut
down?
A: It's not impossible, we'll see. The only thing we know is that history
will applaud us if we succeed, and eventually forgive us if we fail. But it
will never forgive us if we fail to even try.
Q: When will it be released?
A: When it's ready.
Q: Will it be open source?
A: Hells yeah.
Q: How will you distribute it?
A: Peekabooty will spread faster than herpes at spring break. There is no
vaccine. There is no cure.
Q: What can I do to help?
A: It's your duty to Peekabooty. This is a revolution you can download, so
get on the stick and run Peekabooty when it's available.
Q: What does the name mean?
A: Oxblood was staying in Harlem at Grandmaster Ratte's, and one day while he
was waiting in front of G. Ratte's apartment, Oxblood saw a little girl on the
sidewalk. She was standing in front of her mother who had her back to him.
The little girl kept popping her head around her mother's hip to play
peek-a-boo, which was kind of funny because the girl was completely hidden by
her Mom's spandex-wearing, fuscia-colored, mile-wide ass, as she stood in
front. And all of a sudden the word Peekabooty flashed into Oxblood's mind,
like an epiphany, or something else really important. And he had a vision of
an innocent smiling into the fat ass of repression, and the possibilities
seemed endless. So he started calling the app Peekabooty.
Q: Why are you doing this?
A: Hacking is a contact sport. We're trying to maintain contact with as many
people as possible. The world is far too small a place to disconnect millions
of people from one another. And governments that attempt to separate and
divide the world rather than bring it together are on a collision course with
the inevitable. There's an arrogant and misguided notion that somehow
dictators will be able to exploit the Internet to improve their economies, yet
put a chokehold on content they don't like. Good luck, nitwits.
Q: Who cares if Iraq or Cuba censors the Internet? It ain't nothin' to me.
A: Substitute the word control for censor. The fact that dictators are
ham-fisted and obvious is only a testament to their arrogance and contempt for
humanity. All governments want to control the Internet in one form or
another. The United States, Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and
Australia - just to name a few - have all enacted legislation governing use of
the Internet, some of it very bad.
Q: How do I become a hacker?
A: Get in touch with Carolyn Meinel at http://www.happyhacker.org. She is the
world's greatest haxor. Granny Meinel will sell you her haxoring book, and
possibly even her incontinence knickers - maintained by backdoor
special_assed, JP Varanisnatch - from which she retrieves the dark secrets of
her trade.
Q: What?
A: That was a joke. Everyone who knows those, um, security experts, is
rolling on the floor right now.
(c) HACKTIVISMO/cDc communications 2000-2001
FAQ compiled by Oxblood Ruffin, A Dwarf Named Warren, and Little Marie.
We will have more to say.