Non-cooperation in Cyber age

Almost a century ago, Mahatma Gandhi preached the idea of non-cooperation and civil disobedience. Indians picketed British establishments, factories and shops. They created a lot of problems by hindering their day to day activities, impacting business and their profits.

Even today, political parties regularly organize road/ rail blocking, picketing and agitations in the name of social cause.

In the cyber age, people launch denial of service (DoS) attacks on businesses. These are several simultaneous requests to a website. As the number of requests increase, the website response is slow. After some time, the website will be unable to service actual customers.

I feel that this is in a way akin to the social activism preached by Gandhiji. As we not really a capitalist society, people should have the option to picket against institutions they feel are bad for the society.

Its time we start treating cyber-activism on par with similar acts in the real world. This should be be treated as a cyber-crime. Maybe after 70 years of independence, we are behaving similar to the British in 19th century.