The announcement that hacktivist collective Anonymous has declared war on the Islamic State has been received positively by the public. After the Paris attack some may think governments are not doing enough to protect civilians, so at least it seems someone is doing something about the terrorist threat. So far Read more
Depiction of computing and hacking in Hollywood has long been the subject of amusement for techies around the world. From the preposterous idea that you can hack into an alien computer, to increasingly unbelievable graphic user interfaces, film has been poisoning our perception of computing for years (and don’t get Read more
“Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn’t there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as Read more
The Cold War is long over. Or is it? Slowly, a new conflict is brewing in the frontiers of cyberspace between armies of hackers deployed to inject viruses in enemy systems and disrupt a country’s economy before a shot has ever been fired. Or so the reports go. Is there Read more
The rise of individualism One of my favourite documentaries of all time is The Century of the Self (2002) by Adam Curtis (you can view it on YouTube in its glorious four hour entirety here). I’ll concede that Curtis is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I believe that in Read more
After the (at least for now) defeat of SOPA and PIPA, the copyfight has been moving towards a more international setting with the arrest of the Megaupload owners in New Zealand, and now with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In fact, ACTA is not new, but it has been making Read more
May you live in interesting times, the Chinese say. Oh my, aren’t we blessed? The file-sharing site Megaupload has been the subject of an international law enforcement operation by U.S. authorities, who have arrested six men charged with running an international criminal operation engaged in copyright infringement. A fact that Read more
Remember, remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder treason and plot. We see no reason Why gunpowder treason Should ever be forgot! It is a heartening example of our age (or a sad indictment, depending on your world view) that one of the most famous hacktivist collectives in the world takes Read more
Scotland Yard has caught LulzSec’s Topiary, their biggest scalp to date. Topiary has been identified as Jake Davis, an 18 year-old from the Shetland Islands (pictured here looking like a poster child for teenage hackers, including Neo-wannabe shades). He appeared in court earlier today and was released on bail, under Read more
After the spectacular hacking of The Sun newspaper and News International websites that took place earlier this week, hacking collectives like Anonymous, LulzSec and AntiSec seem unstoppable. This air of invulnerability was part of LulzSec’s gloating the night the attack on The Sun’s web services took place. [blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/LulzSec/status/93093868379193344″] However, Read more