You might have watched the movie “The Imitation Game” which premiered the creation of the first ever hacking device “Enigma”, which was invented by Alan Turning in 1939.
From that day on, hacking has reached a whole new level.
“WikiLeaks is an international non-profit organization that publishes secret information, news leaks, and classified media provided by anonymous sources”, according to The New York Times. WikiLeaks is basically a website hacker to reveal to the world the truth of what is going on in this globe. It is unclear of how this organization gathers their information, but they have been reports on some of the methods they used.
In 2010, WikiLeaks was able to get their hands on detailed information about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, from an Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning. Manning downloaded the secret cables from the army’s servers, and handed the classified information to WikiLeaks.
Hacking is also used for creating social change or promote a political agenda, also known as Hacktivism. “With roots in hacker culture and hacker ethics, its ends are often related to the free speech, human rights, or freedom of information movements.” (NBC News)
In the 90s, a Chinese group named “Hong Kong Blondes” were a group of dissidents that hacked into the People’s Republic of China’s computer networks and released censored content to PRC citizens. Due to China’s strict policy on blocking a vast majority of international content, their action was a statement to the nation that China should not do this.
Online heroes in my opinion.
References
- Editors, The (16 August 2012). “WikiLeaks”. The New York Times.
- “Hackers take down thousands of ‘dark web’ sites, post private data”. NBC News. Archived from the original on 2017-02-27
- Narayana, N (2012, November 27). How does WikiLeaks get hold of secret documents?
The Erryl Classicz 