A Comparative Linguistic Analysis Between Hacktivists and Patriotic Hackers

• In Event: Exploring Cyber Offending Pathways: Motivations, Traits, and Tactics

Abstract

Today’s political landscape is becoming increasingly polarised. Polarisation promotes an us versus them mindset, where one group sees itself as right and the other as wrong. In this context, it might seem implausible to compare the far-right to the far-left. But are they as different as we often assume? In light of the potential threat and the under-examined nature of politically motivated cyber-attackers, we test the horseshoe theory in the context of politically motivated hackers. To achieve this goal, we conducted a linguistic analysis of hackers motivated by opposing ideologies using LIWC, a transparent text analysis tool that categorises and counts words based on psychological significance. We examined a sample of documents published by hacktivists representing the far-left spectrum and a sample of documents from patriotic hacker groups on the far-right. We found interesting similarities between the two samples. Understanding that far-right and far-left hackers adopt similar language might be a sign that these actors share more similarities than we might think. This might suggest that we can implement the same detection and prevention measures for both groups.

Author

• Sara Rubini, University College London