Taking your GeoHot example, the intention of those attacks might have been simply to get back at Sony for going after GeoHot, but what about collateral damage?

Let’s focus on the DDOS attack, that’s the one with the less collateral damage but it still had some. Who got hurt with the DDOS attack? Sony may have gotten some bad press and maybe lost a few clients over that, but it was really nothing that bad to force them to close or really hurt them. On the other hand, people responsible for keeping the network up and running have potentially lost their job or gotten in a lot of trouble for not doing their job properly. The people most inconvenienced by attack were actually the people who make use of the PSN portal who were not able to play. They may have bought a Sony product but actually had nothing to do with GeoHot.

Then there was the PSN hack with the subsequent dissemination of account details. Again who was the real victim here? I am sure Sony suffered quite a bit and had its reputation trashed as a result, but again the real victims are the customers who most likely used those credentials everywhere which any malicious hacker probably has downloaded and abused now. They’re also in danger of identity theft (depending on the amount of information stored on the PSN network). And once again, Sony employees who had nothing to do with decision to go after GeoHot are likely to have lost their jobs.

Irrespective of Sony’s actions, hacktivism has its own consequences. It is a good thing to stand for what you believe in and I appreciate these were a group of people who wanted to help fight the big scary corporation in defence of the little guy who was possibly being treated unfairly. But there’s a way and another way to do things. It would be good if hacktivists try and make sure they do not get innocent people in the cross fire especially when those actions could potentially ruin lives (like with the identity theft risk and credential compromise).

Just like in the real world you’re more likely to get people to see eye to eye with your cause if you simply raise awareness peacefully then if you start rioting and causing damage. Likewise I believe hacktivism has a great chance of succeeding if their collective know how and abilities are used to raise awareness about issues rather than cause damage.

In a way most hackers hack simply because they enjoy the challenge – there’s no doubt about that. If their chosen target is based on an ideology I would consider it as hacktivism even if it may be a subconscious justification by the individual.
Whatever the case, Hacktivism is not a justification that can make one’s actions legally correct.

I see Hacktivism as a term which refers to hackers who choose targets based on an ideology.

One great example of this is when Sony sued GeoHot. GeoHot is alone – by himself – against the giant multinational corporation. Sony dominated the game when they pinned down GeoHot. As a retaliation, Anonymous did what it has to do and attack the websites of Sony, which for me, is just fair and square.

We should also remember that hacktivism involves politically motivated state-sponsored attacks. Take for instance the cases involving China. Officially, China does not tolerate this kind of hacks. But technically speaking, most of these “hacktivists” are “motivated” by their country.

Excellent point about how many of these are going on without us knowing about them because nobody’s standing up and taking credit. Quite the scary thought.