The word “terrorism” has been used with such disregard for meaning for such a long time now, it’s become more amusing than annoying.[rssbreak]
Why, just the other night, I called a movie usher a terrorist for confiscating my bottle of Riesling during G.I. Joe.
Another outrageous use of the word came after last Friday’s attacks on Twitter.
Facebook, LiveJournal, and Twitter were all targets of so-called online terrorism (Twerrorism?) – malicious attacks on the sites that caused delays and, in the case of Twitter, complete failure.
According to a blog post from Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, it was an “ongoing, massively coordinated attack” and appears to have been “geopolitical in motivation.”
This hints at the theory that the attacks were the handiwork of a group of Russian hackers targeting one user in neighbouring Georgia.
Websites like TechCrunch were calling it online terrorism, and elsewhere it was referred to as cyberterrorism.
I’m sure that those using the word are aware of the humongous gap between what happened to Twitter and a bona fide terrorist attack.
But even in the context of Internet attacks, hackers are not terrorists, as extremely malicious as they can be. In fact, I’d go so far as to argue that hackers do more good than harm.
“Patriot hacking” (what the Russians were apparently engaged in) has value – infinitely more value than brick-and-mortar violence.
In 1998, a group of Portuguese hacktavists infiltrated Indonesian government sites to display the message “Free East Timor.” This could be viewed as morally just. The same can be said of any type of politically motivated hacking. If breaking into a system is for a righteous cause – say, breaking into Israeli military computers and disarming its nuclear capabilities and thus staving off World War III – then it’s called white-hat hacking.
Less ethical is grey-hat hacking – like erasing late fees off Queen Video’s computers.
And then there are black hats, the kind of hacker who attacked the NOW site last Friday, too. Malicious, malicious, malicious.
But, remember, one site’s terrorist is another site’s security check. Last week’s events revealed a number of Twitter’s security flaws. This should be a red flag to users: do not share private information on this site. At least not until it beefs up its operation.
Facebook, hit with the same type of attack, the denial of service (DoS) variety, was able to cope relatively well. It also kept its developers in the loop, informing them of the delays. Twitter left just about everyone in the dark.
Online attacks can be frustrating and harmful to sites and users, but can also be ethical and helpful for overall site security. Either way, terrorism it isn’t.
joshuae@nowtoronto.com
