- "Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond sentenced to 10 years in prison."
hacktivist (3)
noun; blending Blend from hacker and activist.
This is a person who advocates for a specific political beliefs and agendas. Hacker is not in reference to illegal actions online, but instead of the original sense of the word hacker which meant to tinker and build to make a certain task easier. The hacktivist uses the internet as a means to get an idea across. To get the idea across, an illegal act can be committed for the greater goal of promoting some belief. Websites that have large audiences can be overrun, or hacked into, because they do not comply with the hacktivist's beliefs. Hacker can be used to refer to a person or group that is trying to tinker to make something that makes tasks easier or more efficient, and hacktivist generally does not refer to them.
Etymology : Hacker comes from the early 13th century meaning a chopper, cutter. More recently, in the 1970s it came from hack which meant one who gains unauthorized access to computer records. It was also used in the non-criminal sense meaning one who works like a hack at writing and experimenting with software, one who enjoys computer programming for its own sake. Activist comes from active and -ist which is a derivational affix. In 1915 it was used with the meaning one who advocates a doctrine of direct action, coined during World War 1.
Source : OpEdNews, November 19, 2013.
Last modified: 27 November 2013