Fuel protestors to strike again in 60 days Due to the recent announcement by the British government that it will not, under any circumstances, bow to public opinion and alter tax policy, it looks increasingly likely that the protests will be re-started again in two months time. This foolhardy statement, issued with great sincerity by our leaders, means they have backed themselves into a very tight corner. It would appear that they want please all the people all the time: on one hand saying that they are willing to listen to any grievances, on the other hand saying they will take no action on the matter. How can they explain the apparent hypocrisy of such contradictory statements? The short answer would appear to be "they can't". In other words, nothing will be resolved and we are certain to be facing an even bigger and better organised protest next time around. Protests, hacktivism and YOU If it comes to pass that the government does indeed take no action on the fuel tax issue, it is intended that the protestors will again take to the roads on slow-drives and barricade the oil depots. Further to this, in a seperately organised campaign, high-profile websites are going to be targetted by hackers in a "hacktivist" protest. By targeting financial, stock-market, e-commerce and government internet installations, the online hacktivist protest aims to disrupt the UK's big-money companies and hit politicians and fat-cats where it hurts: the wallet. These protests will run simultaneously with the lorry blockades and will be ongoing throughout the protest. So far, most website intrusions have been kept low-key by both hackers and big-business. This will change with the start of the fuel protest hacktivism, as there has never before been a concerted effort by the hacker community to systematically take out large corporate money-making machines. As everyone knows, the internet is an inherantly insecure place but remains fairly stable due to the slap-dash methods of hacking. Now, however, there is enough brain-power and technological sophistication available to plan and execute a devastating attack on internet enabled business; this is what is happening now, as you read this. Companies are being scanned, backdoors put in place, weaknesses noted and vulnerable networks recorded for future hacktivist penetration. Hacker groups and lone-hackers alike are encouranged to take up this challenge; to work together; to organise their own protests in an effort to add redundancy to the hacktivist effort. A distributed hacker network can be put in place very easily in two months, and if conducted properly, can greatly enhance to the effectiveness of the fuel tax protest as a whole. Things to keep in mind Having stated all of the above, lets keep our heads about the issue. Some things should be kept in mind: Don't hack charity or small-business websites. You should know why not. Don't delete data. This is not the spirit of hacktivism, and is tantamount to destruction of property. Try to target widely used or very profitable sites. Things like the stock exchange are ideal. Try to make sure it is very easy to see why the hacked sites have been hacked. Try (without doing any permanent damage) to make the hack "stick" as long as possible. Don't steal confidential information for any purposes. This is a protest, not espionage. Check your hacks for spelling and grammar. Dum speeling missstakes stewpid look. Thankyou for reading. herbless AT hushmail DOT com Note to the administrator: You should really enforce stronger passwords. I cracked 75% of your NT accounts in 16 seconds on my SMP Linux box. Please note the only thing changed on this server is your index page, which has been backed up. Nothing else has been altered.