Hacker News Reader

Comment by medymed | Hacker News Reader

The article deems as 'hacktivist' a group that 'changed the levels of chemicals being used to treat tap water.' This doesn't sound much like activism, defined by google as 'the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change' or 'hacktivism' as described on wikipedia which focuses on distribution of information, defacing websites, etc.

There is no mention of what chemical changes were made, but if malicious it sounds more like warfare or terrorism potentially targeting civilians. The subtitle is "Well, that's just a little scary", also quite an understatement.

View on HN

> This doesn't sound much like activism

Yes it does; it's a perfect example of how "activist" (and by extension "hactivist") is being used in modern propaganda. Jacob Appelbaum very recently gave a rather... intense talk[1] that is about[2] this type of propaganda. As he explains:

    Let us address this concept of "activism", and it works like this.
    "Activism" is used as a pejorative term in order to suggest that
    participation in a democratic society is somehow outside of
    normal behavior.

> There is no mention

Stenographers publishing propaganda are not in the business of revealing facts.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJValv4YQcY#t=78 (note: Jacob doesn't pull his punches, so this contains some strong language)

[2] It also has some disturbing new information about how The Guardian treated him, Poitras, Greenwald, and others.

Wow, now that's what I call Scorched Earth.

Personally, I'm one for trying to keep the personal attacks out of a rational discussion, but I recognize that sometimes going with emotion can work as well or better, depending on the audience. I'm also sure he views quite a bit of what he's talking about as personal attacks on himself as well.

I'm sad now that I didn't see it when you posted it a few days ago, and couldn't do my small bit to nudge it to the front page.

That speech was amazing. I had the Guardian in high regard, I'm kinda disappointed.

Awesome speech, very moving.

Arguably since little harm was done the net outcome should be positive, as it draws further attention to the security weaknesses in modern infrastructure. Personally, whether or not I would call it "hacktivism" would be dependent on whether or not that positive outcome was intentional. The article doesn't really seem to have any evidence either way.

Article mentions some Syrian connection to attackers. I don't understand why the writer used the 'hacktivist' word here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com