The world is full of crazy, crazed and angry people. This much is apparent just from turning on the news, reading a newspaper, sitting in a pub or walking down the street. Some of them have a definite point to make, and are driven to take desperate measures to get their voices heard. However, it perhaps goes without saying that some degrees of extremity are a step too far, and the means never justifies the end. Others, however, simply like stirring things up, getting their kicks by making life difficult and unpleasant for others, and have the sole objective of fucking shit up. There are instances where this can be witty or clever and artistic, and these type of activities I don’t only approve of, but actively enjoy. I’ve even engaged in a spot of mild pranksterism in various forms and guises in my own career of (counter)cultural activity, and it’s this type of thing that the avant-garde thrives upon. But in many instances, it’s just pointless vandalism and mindless destruction. This very much goes against my life motto of ‘don’t be a twat.’
Hacking websites and screwing with them is one of those things that strikes me as being fundamentally twattish, particularly when the victims are completely random and genuinely innocent. Whisperinandhollerin, the music site I review for, was hacked yesterday. On going to upload some reviews, I was deeply perplexed to see the homepage had been replaced by a large graphic (a detourned Israeli flag with a pair of defecating dogs in silhouette), beneath which appeared the legend ‘1923Turk’ and ‘Fuck Israel.’ The tab contained the information ‘hacked by Gamoscu.’
Being the curious sort, I did a spot of research into 1923TURK. Details are scant, but from what I can ascertain, 1923turk grup are the second largest hacking organisation currently active, having risen from position number four in the hacking ranks just under a year ago. Their attacks aren’t so much widely documented, as much as their presence is widely announced, and each member tags their hacks (in the case of W&H is was Gamoscu, but other members seem to be much more prolific, if the edidence a brief Google search yields is to be taken at face value). YouTube videos, a Facebook page with several hundred fans (which features links to the sites they’ve hacked and defaced), and they even report their own hacks on sites such as zone-h (http://www.zone-h.org/). Zone-h doesn’t only record reported hack attacks and rank the notifiers, but gives further details, breaking down the hacks by category of Single def. (defacement) / Mass def. / Total def. / Homepage def. / Subdir def. (1923turk have thus far claimed a total of 70,074 defacements across all categories. Yes, well done).
In some respects, this latter ‘claiming’ or attacks is not entirely dissimilar to the way terrorist organisations claim responsibility for attacks. The concept of on-line terrorism is one that does, to an extent, perplex me, not least of all where ‘organisations’ like 1923 Turk are concerned, because precisely what they hope to achieve is so unclear. I mean, are they opposed to the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians? If so, fair comment, but there are other, more appropriate, places to advertise the fact. One of the things I like about music reviewing is that it’s apolitical, and is purely about the art, the music. I, for one, always make a point of reviewing as objectively as possible, and entirely honestly. This means that some acts who may hope for or even expect a positive review might not get what they’re after, but that’s the way it is. And sure, I’m opinionated, but I’d be a lousy critic if I wasn’t. But I do make it policy to review without prejudice, and not to make any comments that could be perceived as overtly political, defamatory or inflammatory. Of course, it’s not all about me, but I definitely speak for all of the site’s contributors here, who write for the love of music, nothing more and nothing less.
According to a thread on the hackthissite forum from 2009, ‘1923Turk Group has hacked the websites which contains child porns, terror propagandas, and all various attacks for the Turkish Nation and Unitary Turkish Republic.’
This particular post continues, ‘There are a lot of special teams in 1923Turk Group. Some of them hack terror supporter sites, some of them hack porn sites, the others hack enemy state sites and enemy company sites etc… They are at a cyber war via enemy of Turks!’ there’s more: ‘It is used for a lot of harmful sites. In addition, they don’t forget their brothers. Especially, East Turkistan (Uyghuristan) and Azerbaijan are important for them. Also, they rejects so-called Armenian Genocide claims. They don’t want to open the border gates with Armenia, because of Nagorno-Karabakh! They know Nagorno-Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan, but now any Azeris don’t live in Nagorno-Karabakh because of the migration! Armenians killed 613 civilians, of them 106 women and 83 children. It is called The Khojaly Massacre. The Khojaly Massacre was the killing of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 25 February 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War…. Also, 1923Turk Group hacks a lot of states’ sites, universities’ sites, security company sites, organisation sites, big companies’ sites etc. Now, Enemies of Turkia (Turkey) are afraid of 1923Turk Group! Because, 1923Turk Group is cyber army of Turkia(Turkey) and all Turks(Oghuzs, Uzbeks, Azeris, Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs etc.) They are the Turks are the ghost soldiers of the cyber world. They sweared as 1923 Turk Group staffs to protect Turkish flag in this cyber world…They will be nightmare for who recognizes so-called Armenian Genocide claims or who supports the terrorist organizations(especially, pkk) or who publish child porn.’
Fine: so as is so often the case, we have a small extremist collective misrepresenting the majority (and while I for one consider myself apart from any majority going, I’m no extremist) and taking their ‘message’ to the rest of the world who have absolutely nothing to do with the situation. I mean, really, how many people surfing for, say, music reviews, are going to grasp the significance of a statement like ‘Martyrs are immortal our land is indivisible’?
Critics of the tactics employed by the group challenge precisely what their tactics achieve, while supporters claim that they have ‘won fame’ and that ‘Hacked sites’ masters pay attention and see their social messages! 1923Turk Group just warns! It’s a reaction.’ But this again assumes that those who run or visit hacked sites can make out the ‘message’ or give a toss beyond restoring the site to the way it was. Raising awareness to issues is one thing, but there are more useful platforms and channels to do this, and moreover, for any such campaign to be effective, messages must be at least deciperable, if not immediately clear.
So Turkey have condemned Israel over the deaths of nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists killed last week… but then, so has the rest of the world. How this has any kind of connection to child porn, or why child porn particularly offends the Turks (more than it offends / disturbs / distresses any other nation) is unclear. But I digress. The UN haven’t exactly praised the Israeli action either, but I don’t see them hacking the NME’s website. The same is true of Whisperinandhollerin, which is neither pro-Israel or involved in pornography of any sort. Again, linking terrorism and pornography into a coherent political framework isn’t easy, and again raises the question, ‘precisely what are they people trying to communicate?’
Ultimately, I would suggest that it doesn’t matter all that much. The bottom line is that war solves nothing, and in any acts of war, it’s always the innocent who suffer. In the scheme of things, a few defaced websites and the like isn’t much, but it’s simply a part of the bigger picture of people needlessly inflicting harm and damage… and for what? It never solves anything. Man is indeed a bad animal. And I, for one, am tired of it.
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