Cyber Crime Terrorism and Activism-Free-Samples-Myassignmenthelp

Question: What are some possible unintended consequences in the development of Machine learning and AI, and what are possible options to protect against such unintended consequences? Answer: Thesis Statement The popularity of internet protest or Hacktivism is growing significantly; many peoples oppose this form of protest because it is difficult to control and supervise but the popularity of the internet has made it inevitable to stop Hacktivism; Instead, the government should focus on properly regulating the Hacktivism protests. Introduction Hacktivism is a new form of protesting against social change or political agendas which are performed by using computer or internet based devices to hack or access the data of organisations or individuals. There are several hacktivists association which has attacked large corporations and governments for various political and social causes such as Wikileaks and Anonymous. Most notable attacks of Hacktivism include Ashley Madison, Sony, Panama Papers and others. Many peoples debate whether Hacktivism should be justified or not, and should government create laws for regulating hacktivists activities. This report will focus on analysing the meaning of Hacktivism and other related terms and discuss various examples of Hacktivism attacks. Further, the report will evaluate whether the Hacktivism should be justified and if yes than what laws should be applied by the government to regulate its actions properly. Cyber Crime, Cyber Terrorism, and Cyber Activism Cybercrimes define such illegal acts which involve a computer or any other devices that are connected through the internet, it is also called computer crimes. Cyber terrorism referred to illegal actions that are conducted using internet with a motive to threaten, achieve political gain or cause bodily harm through intimidation. Cyberactivism is the process using internet-based services such as social media, podcasts or email as a mode of communication to share information regarding citizen movement and providing specific details or coordination regarding any activism action (McCaughey Ayers, 2013). Hacktivism is defined as the act of breaking into, hacking or using a computer or network-based device to promote a social change or political agenda (Hampson, 2012). The hacktivist groups usually hack organisations or individuals computer for political or social causes rather than personal benefits, the peoples who perform these actions are known as hacktivists. The term hacktivism was first provided by a Cult of Dead Cow member called Omega in 1994; the CDC is a computer hacking organisation and its motto is worldwide domination through media saturation. Hacktivism is a form of activism, and they perform different acts through a network of hacktivists by collaborating on different projects to achieve a common objective (Busch, 2008). Many experts have provided different definitions of hacktivism, therefore, it is difficult to track specific activities that are included in hacktivism. Hacktivism is considered as a controversial term because many of its actions are related to cyber terrorism but the primary difference is that Hacktivism is related to social and political agendas. The hacktivists believe that information should be accessible to each individual and they focus on revealing illegal secrets of governments, organisations or peoples (Kelly, 2012). Many experts argue that Hacktivism shows how technology can be utilised while taking actions for social change, and others describe it a malicious, illegal, and destructive acts that concentrates on undermining the securities of the internet. Primarily, the controversy of Hacktivism is divided into two parts; one side believes that activist movements should be peaceful and they should not be destructive. And other side thinks that malicious cyber-attacks should be acceptable if they are conducted for the welfare of society by revealing illegal activities that affect a large number of peoples. According to Lohrmann (2017), the number of hacktivists acts has proliferated in 2016. The hacktivists started to attack peoples personally instead of corporations since 2015. Hackers mostly target wealthy peoples with high incomes to reveal their illegal sources of income, for example, Panama Papers is considered as historys biggest data leak ever by many experts. The hack reveals 11.5 million files relating to the database of Mossack Fonseca, which is worlds fourth-biggest law firm. The papers reveal offshore tax regimes of many political leaders, celebrities, and businesses men. For example, a 2 billion dollar tax fraud trails led to Vladimir Putin, president of Russia (Harding, 2016). The data breach of Ashley Madison is another example in which a data of 25 gigabytes was revealed by the hackers which included personal information of 30 million users of the website. Anonymous is one of the most notable group of activists that consists of various international hackers and hacktivist entities; it originated in 2003 on popular website 4chan. The group's website describes them as a loose association that operates on new ideas rather than directives. They become popular after using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on various entities including government, corporate websites and religious group and they publicised it for the entire world (Sauter, 2014). The members and supporter of the Anonymous group wear Guy Fawkes Masks however that may not always be the case, and they use other popular masks to hide their identity. Firstly that caught attention in 2008 when they decided to attack and show the world how dangerous Church of Scientology is and how they are violating free speech right of peoples (Vamosi, 2008). Since then, Anonymous has involved in many incidents relating to Wall Street, government and large corporation. One of their biggest attacks was on Sony Corporation during the NBA session. Sony filed a suit against George Hotz for producing and selling software that allows people to install third party software on PlayStation, Anonymous attacked the PlayStation network and shut down the Sonys website during the second half of NBA season (Mansfield-Devine, 2011). Another good example of Hacktivism group is Wikileaks; it is a non-profit organisation that uploads classified media, news leaks and secret information on their website through anonymous sources. The website was first started in 2006 in Iceland, and their biggest ever attack was on CIA documents which revealed information relating to secrets of CIA, their headquarters, and how that uses television and other gadgets to monitor their suspects (MacAskill, Thielman Oltermann, 2017). Hacktivism is a process of using computer hacking collect illegal secrets of corporations and individuals both of them has a different meaning. Hacking is mostly done by people to gain an unfair advantage of other peoples or access their personal data; many peoples do hacking for fun as well. Hacktivism, on the other hand, is completely different; it is a tool for hacktivists to bring a change in social or political conditions. Mostly Hacktivism is used to reveal secret information regarding political figure or organisation. Hacking is dividing into two types, general hacking and ethical hacking (Wazid, Katal, Goudar Rao, 2013). General hacking means normal hacking which is conducted to gain access to personal data of another person or just for fun. Most of the peoples who do general hacking have a motive to blackmail or earn unfair profits. Ethical hacking on the other hand is conducted by government or other organisations to assess their security measures. The government or other corporations hire ethical hackers and provide them access to their networks to access their weakness so they will remove such shortcomings before actual hacking (Losh, 2012). I believe that actions of Hacktivism are justified when it is done to protect the rights of individuals and reveal the illegal activities of large organisations. I think that Hacktivism is a prevalent form of protest and it is growing with the popularity of internet and internet based services (Fuchs, 2014). Many experts believe that the popularity of social media and internet of things has increased the risk of cyber-attacks; hacktivists use these platforms to hack the data of individuals and organisations easily. But other illegal entities also use the popularity of social media and IoT devices to conduct terrorist activities. For example, ISIS has started using professional hackers, and they use social media and other websites to spread their messages and plan their next attacks. The ISIS organisation targets teenagers on social media sites and lures them into their illegal operations by giving them money or other things (Stampler, 2017). Many websites also use independence of int ernet to show child pornography which is a horrific offense. The government throughout the world has failed to regulate the actions of illegal organisations on internet properly. The growth in technology and specifically internet-based services has been substantial in past few decades, corporations provide their services through online websites and mobile applications, and people are dependent on them. Peoples use internet services for various activities such as online shopping, banking services, home security, job application, and communication (Himma, 2008). Along with personal uses, the internet will be used by peoples as a method to protest against political agendas and social causes. Social media debates are a good example; people use websites such as Twitter, Reddit, and Facebook to share their opinion regarding specific actions and protest against the decision of the government. Online protesting or Hacktivism is inevitable, and the government can not stop it without drastically changing peoples' lives. Therefore, the government should create specific rules for the Hacktivism to regulate it properly and to protect the interest of public. Any illegal act done by hacktivists or other peoples using online services should be punishable with punitive action. The government should work with hacktivists to conduct ethical hacking to improve their infrastructure and making it invincible against cyber-attacks (Fitri, 2011). Proper regulations should be created for Hacktivism; the government can create its own hacktivist groups to collect and reveal illegal data from large corporations. Many attacks reveal data that can be utilise by the government to stop illegal activities. For example, Panama paper provides information regarding peoples who were using offshore banking to avoid taxes and government can use such information to levy tax on such individuals and make strict regulations for the future. The process of legalising and regulating Hacktivism will be substantially difficult for the government, but in the long run, it will benefit society. Conclusion To conclude, Hacktivism is a new method of protesting which is used by online groups to attack on political agendas and social causes. In recent years, Hacktivism protests have affected various individuals, organisations and governments such as Sony, Panama Papers, Ashley Madison, and many others. I think that Hacktivism should be properly legalised and regulated by the government to catch illegal acts of individuals and corporations. The government can implement rules of Hacktivism and punish such hackers which act outside the law. The government should also work with hacktivists to implement modern technology in their operations to protect themselves from the hacking attacks. The government can also use data reveal by hacktivists to help individuals and corporations liable for their actions, such as Panama papers. The government will face several difficulties while regulating the Hacktivism actions but it will be beneficial for the public and organisations. 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