Netwar, hacktivism evolution in cyber warfare

Abstract

The availability of communication technologies influences the activities and the very formation of civil society groups and movements. With the mass diffusion of the Internet and the Web, the Internet has become a battlefield for digital activists. Many of the infomration-related practices of information, protest and sabotage typical of social protest movements have been digitized and transferred online. The protagonists in this scenario are the hacktivists, who have used the Internet to self-organize, carry out propaganda activities, counter-information, and conduct direct political action. Their objectives and methods in the beginning were those of the infowar, the “war” of information and propaganda, but today the hacktivists have forcefully entered hybrid conflicts: often recruited on an ideological basis, sometimes used as mercenaries, have come to accompany kinetic conflicts, real wars. This is a gradual and perhaps expected mutation, but little present in the public and academic debate. With this article we would like to help trace of the evolution of this transformation which culminated in the creation of militias of digital hacktivists engaged in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict which is shaking Europe.