“Hacktivists,” or those who hack into computer systems for politically or socially motivated reasons, make the news all the time. Seemingly every week, self-styled hacktivists penetrate corporate, government and individual networks and accounts for political ends. Some hacktivists seek to stall climate change while others troll and harass climate activists.
In ongoing conflicts today, such as the wars between Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Hamas, hacktivists organize volunteer organizations and are mobilized by militaries on all sides of conflicts. This leads to several questions: Who are hacktivists and what, or who, are they hacking for? Hacktivist politics are contradictory but share certain political values across groups.
The Siegal Lifelong Learning Program invites members of the Case Western Reserve University community to an in-person lecture on hacktivism.
Jacob Bruggeman, PhD candidate at Johns Hopkins University and a fellow at the Center for Economy and Society, will present “Hacktivism: A Brief History” Friday, Aug. 23, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at the Landmark Centre Building (25700 Science Park Dr., Beachwood), Suite 100.
In this talk, Bruggeman will go back to the origins of hacktivism in the 1960s to explain how hacktivism has evolved—and how the rest of us changed in response.