The term "hacktivism" often conjures up images of small groups of left-wing hackers defacing Web sites of political parties in an expression of outrage, coupled with demands of truth and justice for the down-trodden. This may have been the case ten years ago, but more recently hacktivism has broken the predefined mold in more ways than one.
The features of the Internet that make it such an invaluable tool for communicating with the global population also provide an avenue for disgruntled groups to voice their options, send messages of unity to the like-minded at great speed, and coordinate electronic attacks. The development of distributed denial-of-service kits, combined with their ease of use and the ability to globally distribute them in minutes, effectively means that an entire country can mobilize a group of dedicated attackers, numbering in the millions, in a relatively short time. Though a vast proportion of these 'net warriors are not security...
