The recent events in including wikileaks and events around the Arab world has shown a new side of hackers. Mostly classified as "hacktivism" confined to the corners of the virtual world has entered the main stream.
The case of Julian Assange is interesting, he is a "convicted" hacker. He has the driving force behind Wikileaks. He showed that the days when large organisation or organisations could prevent anyone from sharing information or airing their views.
When Egyptian government turned off the internet, the hackers who worked for large organisations to get work around. Allowing people to communicate from within the barrier that government have created. Now that we have moved on from Egypt to Yemen. I happen to know a "hacker" if I may call him so, someone who understood the power of technology and what it could do help democracy in middle east. His name is Walid Al Saqqaf he was given the TED fellowship last year. I do admit he is among the new breed of hackers who have come in from other domains, in this case journalism who understood the power that technology could provide to folks in countries where there are oppressive regimes. Walid runs Yemen Portal, in addition he understood the power of social media/ internet. The power which allows users to read and air their opinion or organise movements without being prevented by doing so by authorities, this case he created Alkasir. This piece of software like Tor would allow users to circumvent firewalls and proxies ( and other controls that are put in place) to prevent users from accessing sites which authorities dont want them to access.
For democracy to flourish in middle east we would need more of Walid's, the ones who understand technology and go a greater extend understand social implication of it.
The case of Julian Assange is interesting, he is a "convicted" hacker. He has the driving force behind Wikileaks. He showed that the days when large organisation or organisations could prevent anyone from sharing information or airing their views.
When Egyptian government turned off the internet, the hackers who worked for large organisations to get work around. Allowing people to communicate from within the barrier that government have created. Now that we have moved on from Egypt to Yemen. I happen to know a "hacker" if I may call him so, someone who understood the power of technology and what it could do help democracy in middle east. His name is Walid Al Saqqaf he was given the TED fellowship last year. I do admit he is among the new breed of hackers who have come in from other domains, in this case journalism who understood the power that technology could provide to folks in countries where there are oppressive regimes. Walid runs Yemen Portal, in addition he understood the power of social media/ internet. The power which allows users to read and air their opinion or organise movements without being prevented by doing so by authorities, this case he created Alkasir. This piece of software like Tor would allow users to circumvent firewalls and proxies ( and other controls that are put in place) to prevent users from accessing sites which authorities dont want them to access.
For democracy to flourish in middle east we would need more of Walid's, the ones who understand technology and go a greater extend understand social implication of it.
