Tech | June 06, 2011 | 6 comments

Hackers to the Rescue

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toreyray
“Hacktivism” has been steadily gaining gound in the political arena, especially since the emergence of Anonymous, the online activist group that famously hacked their way into Amazon, eBay and various countries’ government websites in support of Wikileaks.

On Friday, for instance, Anonymous hacked into Iranian government servers and stole more than 10,000 email addresses, and in June the group plans to target the Iranian government again on the anniversary of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s 2005 election.

The problem, though, is that the activities of such groups are more often out-right attacks than constructive activism. This weekend, however, hackers made an exception. Hackers from around the world met at “hackathon” events to tackle climate change and disaster-risk management during the semiannual Random Hacks of Kindness global conference.

Organizers hoped to end the weekend with concrete prototypes and demo applications that would address issues of climate change. If only the Earth’s climate were linked up to a central air system. ...
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