Never Thought ‘Hacker’ Could Be A Good Word

Apparently, if there is “friendly” fire as opposed to enemy fire, we could also say that there are good hackers and bad hackers.

Over at ynetnews.com today, Dudi Goldman posts a story titled ‘Haredi sex commando’ targets porn sites:

A group of ultra-orthodox hackers, shocked by the obscenity of some porn sites, has launched an internet campaign in a bid to cause such sites to crash. The hackers, already named at some internet forums the "ultra-orthodox sex commando," or the "ultra-orthodox electronic underground," focus their efforts at this point on Hebrew sites.

I could already hear the “freedom of speech” purists crying ‘foul’. Hey, no one’s infringing on anyone’s freedom to express what they want, even if it is offensive to some. All the “ultra-orthodox electronic underground” is doing is also exercising their own freedom to oppose what their conscience also deems as foul. Now if governments and enforcement agencies are too shy to do it for them, I say they’ve been left with not too many options.

We can’t be free to go one way and then not free to go the other. If our actions reap a storm of backlashes, part of freedom is the responsibility to own up to the consequences. If you offend, there will be consequences. Hiding behind self-serving extensions of well-intentioned concepts like “freedom of speech” notwithstanding.

Hackers may have been monsters lurking in the shadows of cyberspace bent on lunging at every opportunity to do damage. But if such skills can be put to at least exerting some “push back” at destructive content in what is otherwise a very useful tool as the internet, I say more power to them.