Hacktivismo is an offshoot of

CULT OF THE DEAD COW Cult of the Dead Cow, also known as cDc or cDc Communications, is a computer hacker and DIY media organization founded in 1984 in Lubbock, Texas. The group maintains a weblog on its site, also titled "Cult of the Dead Cow". New media are rele ...

(cDc), whose beliefs include

access to information Access may refer to: Companies and organizations * ACCESS (Australia), an Australian youth network * Access (credit card), a former credit card in the United Kingdom * Access Co., a Japanese software company * Access Healthcare, an Indian BPO s ...

as a basic

human right Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hum ...

. It was founded in 1999. The group's beliefs are described fully in The Hacktivismo Declaration, which seeks to apply the

Universal Declaration of Human Rights The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...

and the

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) is a multilateral treaty that commits nations to respect the civil and political rights of individuals, including the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, fr ...

to the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

Oxblood Ruffin Oxblood Ruffin is a Canadian hacker. He is a member of the hacker group Cult of the Dead Cow (cDc), for which he serves as "Foreign Minister." He is also the founder and executive director of Hacktivismo, an offshoot of cDc. Ruffin is active ...

, the director of Hacktivismo, has argued forcefully against definitions of

hacktivism In Internet activism, hacktivism, or hactivism (a portmanteau of ''hack'' and ''activism''), is the use of computer-based techniques such as hacking as a form of civil disobedience to promote a political agenda or social change. With roots in hac ...

that include web defacements or

denial-of-service attack In computing, a denial-of-service attack (DoS attack) is a cyber-attack in which the perpetrator seeks to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host conn ...

s. Hacktivismo has also authored its own

software license A software license is a legal instrument (usually by way of contract law, with or without printed material) governing the use or redistribution of software. Under United States copyright law, all software is copyright protected, in both source ...

agreement, the

Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement The Hacktivismo Enhanced-Source Software License Agreement (HESSLA) is a software license proposed by Hacktivismo that attempts to put ethical restrictions on use and modification of software released under it. The license was written by Oxbloo ...

(HESSLA). The HESSLA prohibits use or modification that would violate human rights or introduce features that spy on the user.

Connection to cDc

In 1999

(cDc), a loose network of individuals, announced the formation of Hacktivismo. The group set to explore ways of preventing censorship of the Internet. In particular Hacktivismo focused on firewalls or censoring mechanisms of national governments. Press releases made it clear that cDc and Hacktivismo were different groups; however Hacktivismo was also described as "special operations group" of cDc. A press release in early 2002 described Hacktivismo as "an international cadre of hackers founded by the cDc's

The Hacktivismo Declaration

The group's beliefs are described fully in the "Hacktivismo Declaration" which is a list of "assertions of liberty in support of an uncensored internet" and seeks to apply the

and the

(ICCPR) to the

. The Declaration recalls the duty of member states to the ICCPR to protect the right to

freedom of expression Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recog ...

with regards to the internet and in this context what is called the "freedom of information". The Hacktivismo Declaration states: *"...such member states continue to willfully suppress wide-ranging access to lawfully published information on the Internet, despite the clear language of the ICCPR that freedom of expression exists in all media," *"...that transnational corporations continue to sell information technologies to the world's most repressive regimes knowing full well that they will be used to track and control an already harried citizenry," *"...that the Internet is fast becoming a method of repression rather than an instrument of liberation," *"...that in some countries it is a crime to demand the right to access lawfully published information, and of other basic human rights," *"...that denying access to information could lead to spiritual, intellectual, and economic decline, the promotion of xenophobia and destabilization of international order." The Hacktivismo Declaration recognizes "the importance to fight against human rights abuses with respect to reasonable access to information on the Internet" and calls upon the

hacker A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

community to "study ways and means of circumventing state sponsored censorship of the internet" and "implement technologies to challenge information rights violations". The Hacktivismo Declaration does however recognize that the right to

is subject to limitations, stating "we recognized the right of governments to forbid the publication of properly categorized state secrets, child pornography, and matters related to personal privacy and privilege, among other accepted restrictions." However, the Hacktivismo Declaration states "but we oppose the use of state power to control access to the works of critics, intellectuals, artists, or religious figures."

Projects

Camera/Shy

Camera/Shy was the first Hacktivismo project released. It debuted in 2002 at the H.O.P.E. 2k2 convention in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

. Written by The Pull, Camera/Shy is a

steganographic Steganography ( ) is the practice of representing information within another message or physical object, in such a manner that the presence of the information is not evident to human inspection. In computing/electronic contexts, a computer file, ...

tool that scans for and delivers decrypted content directly from the

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web ...

. It is a stand-alone,

Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems ( ...

-based

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used o ...

. It interprets and displays hidden information stored in the junk bits in GIF files.Einhorn, Bruce.
Hackers to Beijing: Have a Cow!
" '' Business Week'' online edition, August 5, 2002. Retrieved July 19, 2006.

The Six/Four System

The Six/Four System was written by

Mixter Mixter is a computer security specialist. Mixter first made the transition out of the computer underground into large-scale public awareness, in 2000, at which time newspapers and magazines worldwide mentioned a link to massively destructive and e ...

. The software is a

censorship Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments ...

resistant

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

proxy Proxy may refer to: * Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act * Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate ...

. It works by using "trusted peers" to relay network connections over SSL encrypted links. As an example, the distribution includes a program which will act as a web proxy, but where all of the connections will be hidden until they reach the far end trusted peer. Hacktivismo and the cDc further gained notoriety in 2003 when the Six/Four System became the first product of a

hacker group Hacker groups are informal communities that began to flourish in the early 1980s, with the advent of the home computer. Overview Prior to that time, the term ''hacker'' was simply a referral to any computer hobbyist. The hacker groups were out ...

to receive approval from the

United States Department of Commerce The United States Department of Commerce is an executive department of the U.S. federal government concerned with creating the conditions for economic growth and opportunity. Among its tasks are gathering economic and demographic data for bus ...

for export of strong

encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can de ...

ScatterChat

ScatterChat is an encrypted

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

client based on Gaim. It was written by J. Salvatore Testa II and released at the H.O.P.E. Number Six conference in New York City on July 22, 2006. The source code is available, licensed under the HESSLA. It provides

as well as integrated

onion routing Onion routing is a technique for anonymous communication over a computer network. In an onion network, messages are encapsulated in layers of encryption, analogous to layers of an onion. The encrypted data is transmitted through a series of net ...

with

Tor Tor, TOR or ToR may refer to: Places * Tor, Pallars, a village in Spain * Tor, former name of Sloviansk, Ukraine, a city * Mount Tor, Tasmania, Australia, an extinct volcano * Tor Bay, Devon, England * Tor River, Western New Guinea, Indonesia Sc ...

, and secure file transfers. Scatterchat's security features include immunity from

replay attack A replay attack (also known as a repeat attack or playback attack) is a form of network attack in which valid data transmission is maliciously or fraudulently repeated or delayed. This is carried out either by the originator or by an adversary wh ...

s and limited resistance to

traffic analysis Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication, it can be performed even when the messages are encrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observe ...

. Various flaws in the software have been elaborated by researchers.

Torpark

XeroBank Browser (formerly known as Torpark) is a variant of the

Portable Firefox Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (formerly known as Portable Firefox and commonly known as Firefox Portable) is a repackaged version of Mozilla Firefox created by John T. Haller. The application allows Firefox to be run from a USB flash drive ...

with

built into it. XeroBank is intended for use on portable media such as a

USB flash drive Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply ( interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A bro ...

but it can also be used on any

hard disk drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magne ...

. cDc/Hacktivismo co-released v.1.5.0.7 along with Steve Topletz on September 19, 2006.Broersma, Matthew.
Activists unveil stealth browser
." ''

ZDNet ZDNET is a business technology news website owned and operated by Red Ventures. The brand was founded on April 1, 1991, as a general interest technology portal from Ziff Davis and evolved into an enterprise IT-focused online publication. His ...

'', September 22, 2006. Retrieved September 22, 2006.

Notable members

* AnonymousPEF * bronc buster

References

External links

Hacktivismo homepageHacktivismo's Projects Page
{{Cult of the Dead Cow Advocacy groups in the United States Cult of the Dead Cow Hacker groups Politics and technology Human rights organizations based in the United States