By: Robert Labossiere

  Somebody stormed e-commerce giants Yahoo!, ETrade, ZDNet, CCN, Buy.com, Amazon.com this week. It looks increasingly like it was not done by hackers.
 

  And amid all the media buzz of anti-corporate conspiracies, it presents lessons we need to heed. It warns of the dangerous potential of stupid or vicious people on the Internet. It also speaks of voice and potential for democratic action and cooperation.
 

The media call the perpetrators "hackers". There is mounting evidence this is wrong.

  The attacks certainly demonstrated the enormous power of computer networks. Somebody planted programs in many remote computers and then activated each computer to send thousands of e-mails to a specific targeted Web site. Researchers have harnessed computing power before by linking computers but never before on this scale or so anonymously. The attacks illustrate the position and power of individuals in the increasingly networked electronic world. The media call the perpetrators "hackers". There is mounting evidence this is wrong.
  It has been reported widely that the software programs that were used to create the e-mail storm are freeware easily available on the Web, which raises a question about the cost and availability of software. Many people, including software developers, believe that software should be designed openly so that it can be used and adapted by users. The result would be users who will become more and more literate and able to use computers. Instead what we have are increasing prices of an ever increasing variety of software products purporting to help business or consumers accomplish specific tasks but actually costing them hundreds if not thousands of dollars for questionable increased functionality.

Hackers speak - openly
  The hacker community is somewhat more open than people generally believe. Surfing the Web you can easily find a lot of information about hacking, including homepages for individual hackers. Hackers form one of type of community on the Web. Below are some of their responses to the e-mail storm and the way the media has handled it so far:
  A hacker named SpaceRogue posted this comment on Hackernews.com: "What is surprising is that some companies are not admitting that they were hit by this attack. Microsoft has admitted that a partner was hit but they would not identify which one. A Lycos statement said that they already take 'extensive precautions' and declined further details. Companies need to realize that clamming up and closing the doors will not prevent this sort of thing from happening again. Only through communication and the sharing and pooling of information will a solution, and the attacker(s), be found."
  This from a site called 2600.com: "We feel sorry for the major Internet commerce sites that have been inconvenienced by the Denial of Service attacks. Really, we do. But we cannot permit them or anyone else to lay the blame on hackers. So far, the corporate media has done a very bad job covering this story, blaming hackers and in the next sentence admitting they have no idea who's behind it. Since the ability to run a program (which is all this is) does not require any hacking skills, claiming that hackers are behind it indicates some sort of knowledge of the motives and people involved."
  A more researched report comes from a site called thesynthesis.com.
 

The Internet still has a radicalizing effect today, despite all the banner ads and promotional hype

  A hacker with Condemned.Org, who goes by the name b|ueberry, said she thought the attacks were done using a program called "Trinoo," which allows one person to set up several systems (thousands possibly) across the Internet and use them in a coordinated attack. This type of program allows the attackers to easily utilize a large network of boxes they have control of across the Internet, and use them to strike at once against their desired targets. As to why these attacks were taking place, she speculated that they "were a bunch of idiots with nothing better to do..."
  Chris Tucker, a member of perhaps the best known hacker self-identified group Cult of the Dead Cow described the people behind the e-mail storm as vandals, intent on getting press attention.

Software business in denial
  Another issue that the mainstream media is making much of is the lack of security on the Web. According to Marquis Grove, owner/operator of an Ottawa-based security resources directory site called infosyssec.com, there is no effective protection against these kind of attacks because they do not invade the target computer, they simply send it too much e-mail. "They can build more capacity to handle incoming mail or they can shut down for a while, that's about it," he said candidly.
  But business response has been quite the contrary. Some say the e-mail storm usefully alerted the Web e-commerce world that it needs to beef up security. Whether the crisis turns into a windfall for security software developers remains to be seen. Programs that send e-mail are simple DOS programs, they are not viruses or trojans, and as Grove said, there is no real defense from them. The only part of the e-mail storm that involved hacking was getting the programs into remote computers.

The Internet and democratic voice
  No one but those with advanced computer skills have the ability to do this kind of networking now. But it raises a question whether someone will soon develop tools that will allow average Netizens to network their computers together to achieve common goals. Networks could be used to problem solve and store data, to give access to more powerful software to more people at lower cost, or perhaps even to create purchasing cooperatives and lobby groups on scales never seen before.
 

The Internet is about "voice" - being able to relay information instantaneously between hundreds or thousands or millions of people who never talked to each other before

  Doc Searls, recently in Toronto launching his book The Cluetrain Manifesto, believes that the unprecedented communication that worldwide networks enable is profoundly changing things. He thinks the Internet still has a radicalizing effect today, despite all the banner ads and promotional hype and you-may-already-be-a-winner sweepstakes.
  He calls this special effect "voice." It is about being able to relay information instantaneously between hundreds or thousands or millions of people who never talked to each other before because they didn't have tools that would allow them to. Those tools are now within reach and they may be getting even better.
  Security programs can guard against unwanted intruders but none can be completely secure; they are barriers developed by people and other people will always find ways through them. Maybe it didn't involve high-level hacking and maybe the effect on actual business was minimal, but there is much more behind this assault on e-commerce than attention getting. It has taught us that there are many lessons yet to be learned about our emerging virtual reality. One of the most important is that it is more than imaginary, or virtual. Real people with real concerns make it work. We will prove the value of our networked world.

Copyright 2000 Robert Labossiere. Reproduction of this article in electronic or other media is strictly prohibited without express permission of the author.

Robert Labossiere has been involved in alternative publishing and independent presses since 1982 when he helped co-found the Winnipeg culture-crit magazine Midcontinental. He has also written for Fuse and others. In the mid-eighties he succumbed to an uncontrollable urge to impale himself on the status quo and went to law school. His law practice since 1992 has focussed in part on the creative community. He is presently the Executive Director of The Electronic Rights Licensing Agency (TERLA) a copyright collective that represents Canadian freelance writers, photographers and illustrators.

The meaning of hack

From: www.mcs.kent.edu/docs/general/hackersdict/03Appendices