But sometimes there are unintended consequences, which can lead to complaints and much more. For example, consider the trend called "Stacking the Waymos" to fight the noise generated when cars are charged at night. Here's an excerpt from that story:
“It’s nearing midnight as the young man scurries through a dark alley. He wears a mask and overalls and is armed with a roll of duct tape. As he nears his target — a driverless robot taxi — he tears off some tape to disable the futuristic car’s sensors.
“'We just want the Waymos to stop beeping at night,' he says. 'They’re really disturbing us. They’re disturbing our neighbors.'
“The man and others call themselves 'stackers,' and most nights you’ll find them, faces masked from security cameras, on a mission. They stand in the way of robotaxis, so the cars are forced to line up in a stack in an alley and can’t access two charging lots near downtown Santa Monica that Waymo opened in January, with little fanfare and apparently zero prior public awareness. 'We’ll try lasering the next one,' one stacker says to another. 'We’re just running some routine experiments to see what it takes to properly stack a Waymo.'"
ARE COUNTER-TRENDS INEVITABLE?
Ever since the 19th-century Luddites in England opposed the increasing use of machinery in factories, particularly power looms, which they feared would displace them from their jobs, there have been groups who oppose technological advances for various reasons. Modern-day Luddites, hacktivists and a wide variety of protesters with different names, are not excited about generative AI, autonomous vehicles, robots in factories and more.
The reasons for these protests vary widely and can range from power consumption related to AI, to privacy fears, to people who claim they just want a good night of sleep. Nevertheless, just as hacktivists have a wide range of reasons for doing what they do to cause online trouble, these groups often seem to find each other to get attention and worse.
Trend Micro explains it this way: “Hacktivist groups are driven by a political or ideological agenda. In the past, their actions were likened to symbolic, digital graffiti. Nowadays, hacktivist groups resemble urban gangs. Previously composed of low-skilled individuals, these groups have evolved into medium- to high-skill teams, often smaller in size but far more capable. The escalation in skill has directly increased the risks posed to organizations. …
“Hacktivist groups are defined by distinct political beliefs reflected in both the nature of their attacks and their targets. Unlike cybercriminals, hacktivists typically do not seek financial gain, though we have observed overlaps with cybercrime. For the most part, these groups focus on advancing their political agendas, which vary in transparency. Broadly, their motivations can be classified into four distinct groups: ideological, political, nationalistic, and opportunistic. While some groups strictly align with one category, others pursue multiple agendas, often with a primary focus supplemented by secondary causes.”
When I first wrote about “hacking for a cause” for TechCrunch a decade ago, I received pushback from numerous online sources claiming that I was “stirring the pot” and overstating the problem.
I wrote: “In summary, the future of hacking into the Internet of Things won’t just be about dollars or identity theft. A new world of hacking motives is starting to emerge — along with convenient, easy to use tools for computer novices to do many dangerous things online.”
In 2016, I added more about hacktivist activity in this blog:
“As our offline and online worlds merge together as never before, hacktivism has become a weapon that brings global media attention and offers protestors a cyber 'march on Washington' without large numbers of people. No doubt, the hacktivism topic moved onto center stage this past week with the release of hacked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails by WikiLeaks.
"Some call it cyberespionage, while others call it radical transparency, but more and more people are starting to make the case for digital disobedience.
"Anonymous and WikiLeaks are two of the most well-known hacktivist organizations, but the list of known hacktivist organizations is much longer.
"Global anti-establishment causes have turned to hacktivism to release information that furthers their cause(s) in various ways. And these causes can be very diverse and range from national elections to offshore financial accounts to the Flint water emergency. What complicates matters is that many hackers do not fit neatly into legal and illegal categories, and the same people may hack for a variety of financial reasons or societal causes.”
By 2022, I wrote a blog titled "Hacktivism and DDOS Attacks Rise Dramatically":
- “Both established and newly formed pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian cyber legions aimed to disrupt and create chaos by stealing and leaking information, defacements, and denial-of-service attacks.
- DragonForce Malaysia, a hacktivist operation targeting Middle Eastern organizations in 2021, made a return in 2022. Its recent campaigns were political responses to national events. OpsBedil Reloaded occurred following events in Israel, and OpsPatuk was launched in reaction to public comments made by a high-profile political figure in India.
- Major information and communication networks in the Philippines, including CNN, news network ABS-CBN, Rappler, and VERA Files, were the target of DDoS attacks in connection with the country’s 2022 general elections.”
And earlier this year, another new term emerged as a result of GenAI growth, although not necessarily in the hacktivism category. I wrote about it in "'Slopsquatting' and Other New GenAI Cybersecurity Threats."
FINAL THOUGHTS
No doubt, I am mixing various motivations and actions in this blog, and Waymo "stackers" are not the same as hackers or hacktivists. I just found the linkage to be compelling, since what is being done currently in the streets of California to change the ways autonomous cars work is akin to what hackers do online.
Indeed, our society has "hacks" for more and more areas of life — for better and worse. And I can’t help but think that more and more examples of 21st-century Luddites are coming in the years ahead as we role out new tech into society.
My point: Governments and private companies must be ready for the inevitable pushback on these rollouts for myriad reasons, with much more to come.
