Secrets and Lies: Hacking Data for Social Good

After watching "WikiLeaks" and reading The Guardian's version of events Links to an external site.in the Ashley Madison hack, this discussion board post will give you a moment to reflect on the efficacy, veracity, and morality of both sides in the case of Julian Assange and the hackers who released the Ashley Madison data.

In the documentary, "WikiLeaks," the narrators propose that "Julian Assange stunned the world when he leaked more than 90,000 war files." Assange claims that his hacking and revelations were committed to demonstrate to U.S. citizens the level of deceit that the U.S. government participates in to create world conflict. By releasing the data, Assange endangered himself for a social justice cause.

In the case of the Ashley Madison hack and data release, it's not clear if there was a social justice cause, or even who did the hacking (as of 8/24, no single person or entity has come forward to claim the hack). The fallout from this data release is revelatory in terms of who accessed and paid for memberships to a site that has an advertising moniker, "Life is short. Have an affair."

Both hacks and data releases insist on moral imperatives that these were both necessarily breaches of data security in order to reveal the most heinous of crimes and immorality in modern society. However, there are issues to consider on a multitude of issues surrounding the hacking, data breach, and publication of such a massive amount of data. Was it necessary to the advancement of society? Are they both social justice causes? What is the result of both data breaches and publication? How is technology implicated in both of these matters? Has it created the original situation and questionable morality or is the questionable morality being performed on the part of the hackers?

Using the article and the documentary, consider some of these questions in a 500-word response. (Avoid simply answering the questions one-by-one; the questions should start you thinking about these ideas.) Use references to both the article and the documentary (quotes and links, too) to support your ideas. Feel free to link to relevant outside content for your discussion.

For this post, avoid first person (no use of I, me, our, we, my, us -- avoiding simply replacing first person with "one").

For your quotes, use in-text citation in MLA style. (Since Writer's Help is still not functioning, check out OWL Purdue Links to an external site. for help with in-text citations.)

Worth 7 points. See Grading & Assignments - General Description