I am not entirely sure why so many people oppose hacktivism to the work of Gandhi, MLK, etc. It isn't the same, but it is much more in the vein of passive resistance than violent protest. First off, lets scope out the acts of civil disobedience here:
The incumbent powers (gov't, companies working for them, etc), have defined a set of rules stating "this stuff is not for you to know, besides we are only doing good, so trust us", but there are acts by them that sure look a lot like abuse of their power, but they don't bother to justify them. They keep stuff secret and carry on despite concerns. So a group of people comes along and decides not to honor the rules about secrecy and instead makes effort to bring information about the questionable actions to light. The civil disobedience here is simply not honoring the rules about secrecy. There is no violence, no one is harmed physically by these acts. There may be financial harm done (almost certainly actually), I am going to agree with that, however defer discussion for a bit.
Let's look at classic passive resistance movements for a moment. They work largely by gatherings of people in demonstration of solidarity, combined with acts of civil disobedience. The rules in place are ignored intentionally, with no physical harm brought by the demonstrators. However, financial harm is a frequent result of this. Sometimes it is just a side effect, such as disruptions of business via protests, or less productivity due to people not working. Other times however, this is an intentional consequence. Yes, MLK, Gandhi, and Mandela all caused intentional financial harm to their opponents. They organized general strikes - preventing business from producing goods and making money. They organized boycotts (denying business revenue). They intentionally arranged demonstrations to cause mass disruption.
So is the financial harm caused by hacktivism terribly different from that caused by other passive resistance? Probably not for the most part. There is the fact that hacking can also be looked at as a form of sabotage - hence my comments on similarity rather than congruence. However sabotage is not black and white... other forms of sabotage which are considered OK in passive resistance movements include work slowdowns, poor quality control, and so on. This is a bit I need to think on more, but I don't feel it throws a wrench into my argument ( :) ).
Finally a big component of many passive resistance movements is publicly outing those who work against them. This may not be organized by the central organizers, but it happens, and is considered a big driving force of the movements. Think about the anti-Vietnam protests and the investigative journalism which fueled them (e.g. the pentagon papers). These information leakages are always protested by the incumbents with the same cries of "harm" and "danger" and "secret violation".
All that said, I must disclaim here: I am not taking a stance on the actions or politics of Anonymous or Lulzsec. Just pointing out that on a "passive resistance - terrorism" scale, hacktivism is still pretty left of the middle ground.
Thanks for pointing out the passive resistance actions of pacifists that I overlooked. You are right.
Regarding Anonymous and Lulzsec one could add that we should avoid the mistake to consider them as an homogeneous group of people in term of ideology, motives and actions. As you say, things are not black and white. My use of "black force" concept is misleading.
The incumbent powers (gov't, companies working for them, etc), have defined a set of rules stating "this stuff is not for you to know, besides we are only doing good, so trust us", but there are acts by them that sure look a lot like abuse of their power, but they don't bother to justify them. They keep stuff secret and carry on despite concerns. So a group of people comes along and decides not to honor the rules about secrecy and instead makes effort to bring information about the questionable actions to light. The civil disobedience here is simply not honoring the rules about secrecy. There is no violence, no one is harmed physically by these acts. There may be financial harm done (almost certainly actually), I am going to agree with that, however defer discussion for a bit.
Let's look at classic passive resistance movements for a moment. They work largely by gatherings of people in demonstration of solidarity, combined with acts of civil disobedience. The rules in place are ignored intentionally, with no physical harm brought by the demonstrators. However, financial harm is a frequent result of this. Sometimes it is just a side effect, such as disruptions of business via protests, or less productivity due to people not working. Other times however, this is an intentional consequence. Yes, MLK, Gandhi, and Mandela all caused intentional financial harm to their opponents. They organized general strikes - preventing business from producing goods and making money. They organized boycotts (denying business revenue). They intentionally arranged demonstrations to cause mass disruption.
So is the financial harm caused by hacktivism terribly different from that caused by other passive resistance? Probably not for the most part. There is the fact that hacking can also be looked at as a form of sabotage - hence my comments on similarity rather than congruence. However sabotage is not black and white... other forms of sabotage which are considered OK in passive resistance movements include work slowdowns, poor quality control, and so on. This is a bit I need to think on more, but I don't feel it throws a wrench into my argument ( :) ).
Finally a big component of many passive resistance movements is publicly outing those who work against them. This may not be organized by the central organizers, but it happens, and is considered a big driving force of the movements. Think about the anti-Vietnam protests and the investigative journalism which fueled them (e.g. the pentagon papers). These information leakages are always protested by the incumbents with the same cries of "harm" and "danger" and "secret violation".
All that said, I must disclaim here: I am not taking a stance on the actions or politics of Anonymous or Lulzsec. Just pointing out that on a "passive resistance - terrorism" scale, hacktivism is still pretty left of the middle ground.