Hacktivists

[Secret Squirrel <secret_squirrel@nym.alias.net>]

"HACKTIVISTS" SAY: "THE REVOLUTION WILL BE DIGITIZED"

Two political activists in New York, of cofounders of the 
Electronic Disturbance Theater, are organizing "virtual sit-ins"
and recruiting programmers to attack the Web sites of persons or
organizations they believe responsible for oppression.  "We see 
this as a form of electronic civil obedience," says Stefan Wray,
one of the two leaders of this effort. National Information 
Protection Agency chief Michael Vatis says, "I wouldn't
characterize vandalizing Web sites as cyber-terrorism, but the 
only responsible assumption we can make is that there's more 
going on that we don't know about."  Some activists agree with 
that assessment, but for different reasons;  they think such 
methods are unproductive because they will antagonize the 
general public.  (New York Times 31 Oct 98)