Online 'hacktivism' protest against Ariel Sharon/Israeli military action

[Paul Mobbs]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1


   the electrohippie collective - http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/

O N L I N E    P R O T E S T   A C T I O N    N O T I F I C A T I O N

        15th April 2002  -- 00.00GMT, no embargo


            "ARIEL SHARON IS TAKING THE PEACE" -
  An online protest again Israeli military action in the West Bank

L          ocation - http://www.fraw.org.uk/peace.html

                                  Target systems - 
        Any information or messaging service used by the core of 
          the Israeli government that is attached to the Internet.


In response to requests for an action to respond to the recent Israeli 
military incursions into the major settlements of the West Bank, the 
electrohippie collective are mounting an online 'electronic civil 
disobedience action' against the information systems of the Israeli 
government. This action begins at 00.00GMT 15-4-02, and as yet has no end 
date.

The action is specifically aimed at the role of Ariel Sharon in the current 
conflict. Not only in his current role as Israeli Prime Minister. But also 
for his role in provoking violence as a means of weakening the previous 
Israeli government, and earlier still his alleged implication in war crimes 
as part of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camp massacres in 1982. It does not 
seek to apportion blame for the current problems in the area, but highlights 
the need to remove the Israeli military from the West Bank as an essential 
precursor to any progress on peace talks.

There are three elements to the action:

# Participants will be able to use online tools to jam the electronic 
Internet services of the Israeli government in a symbolic "occupation" of the 
Israeli government's cyberspace;

# There is an extensive directory of email contacts within the Israeli 
government and diplomatic service to allow the public to send comments on the 
recent Israeli action to the Israeli state; and

# There are links to local/independent news services to enable the public to 
access first hand accounts of the Israeli Defence Force's devastation of town 
in the West Bank.

For the first time, as well as web-based action tools, this action includes 
tools specifically developed for use with the GNU/Linux operating system. 
This provides a higher level of flexibility for the development of simple, 
computer amateur-friendly software tools for use as part of computer-based 
actions by civil society. In addition to the other activities of the 
electrohippies, we hope that this action will help promote the role of Linux 
in meeting the computing needs of civil society groups.

Unlike the more well know 'computer hacker' actions against Internet sites, 
the tools developed by the electrohippie collective have 'democratic 
accountability' built into them. Unless significant numbers of people take 
part in the online actions - many thousands simultaneously across the world - 
then there will be no effect on the Israeli's information systems. However, 
if significant numbers do take part then the target systems will collapse 
under the weight of traffic.

In most countries, this action is not unlawful. This is because it does not 
involve 'computer abuse'. Instead thousands of people across many countries 
use the computer systems precisely as they are intended to be used - but 
co-ordinated in a way that causes significant disruption or closure of the 
services.

To ensure that there is no collateral disruption, the electrohippies have 
carried out research into the organisation if the Israeli government's 
Internet services. The systems that our action will target are restricted to 
the specific network subnets wholly controlled and used by the Israeli 
government. Currently the action only targets a small number of web servers. 
But as the action evolves, and the numbers of participants grow, the 
distribution of the action will hopefully grow to also include email and 
domain name services for all the key Israeli government departments.


For more information on the action see:

# The main action page - http://www.fraw.org.uk/peace.html

# The action justification - 
http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/peace/peace_justification.html

# the electrohippie collective web site - http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/

# 'About the electrohippie collective' - 
http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/about.shtml

# 'Past actions' - http://www.fraw.org.uk/ehippies/past.shtml

# electrohippies occasional paper 1 - "Distributed Denial of Service" - 
http://www.fraw.org.uk/archive/ehippies/papers/op1.html

# electrohippies occasional paper 2 - "I've Seen the Future and There's a 
Penguin On It" - http://www.fraw.org.uk/archive/ehippies/papers/op2.html


END


- - -- 
- - -------------------

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey.html
public key - http://www.fraw.org.uk/keylist.html

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org

iD8DBQE8ukmUtEaNwM05jx0RAtJFAKCOj+wbn7XpkHe6J1r7ZXQujToLrQCdGLe1
upflfRyyd9L/airw29v1/rk=
=hDUi
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----