The Curious Origins of Political Hacktivism
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Real hacktivism is at least as old as October 1989 when the US Deptartment of Energy and NASA machines worldwide were penetrated by the anti-nuclear WANK worm. The worm was the second ever to be unleashed, but its provenance was a curious contrast to its forebear. For you see, worm #1 had been traced to the son of National Security Agency chief cryptographer Robert Morris.
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November 25 / 26, 2006 [print_link]
The Anti-Nuclear WANK Worm
By JULIAN ASSANGE
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That WANK had a bold political intent was immediate. WANK penetrated machines had their login screens altered to:
W O R M S A G A I N S T N U C L E A R K I L L E R S _______________________________________________________________
\__ ____________ _____ ________ ____ ____ __
_____/
\ \ \ /\ / / / /\ \ | \ \ | | | | / / /
\ \ \ / \ / / / /__\ \ | |\ \ | | | |/ / /
\ \ \/ /\ \/ / / ______ \ | | \ \| | | |\ \ /
\_\ /__\ /____/ /______\ \____| |__\ | |____| |_\ \_/
\___________________________________________________/
\ /
\ Your System Has Been Officically WANKed /
\_____________________________________________/
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You talk of times of peace for all, and then prepare for war.
In our book Underground, Suelette Dreyfus and I trace the source of the worm to Melbourne, Australia. At the time there was considerable cold war fueled anti-nuclear sentiment in the country. Australia had (and still has) a number of US spy, early warning and nuclear submarine communications bases, most of which were first and second strike soviet targets. Australia would not otherwise be a nuclear target, a fact charismatic Soviet foreign minister and Gorbachev confidant Edvard Shevardnadze frequently drew to the attention of the Australian people before finding himself a loved and reviled President of Georgia.
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Examination of the worm source code show specific instructions to avoid infecting machines New Zealand.
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Policy always has unpredicted consequences, but it should be remembered that some are blessings!
JULIAN ASSANGE is president of a NGO and Australia’s most infamous former computer hacker. He was convicted of attacks on the US intelligence and publishing a magazine which inspired crimes against the Commonwealth. He is the co-author of Underground and can be reached at http://iq.org/