Honker is a group known for
hacktivismHacktivism is "the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends...
, mainly present in
Mainland ChinaMainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China , excluding Hong Kong and Macau, which are under the jurisdiction of the PRC but run on different economic and...
. Literally the name means "Red Guest", as compared to the usual Chinese
transliterationTransliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way.-Definitions:From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter...
of hacker (黑客, hēikè, literally
Black Guest as in
black hatA black hat is the villain or bad guy, especially in a western movie in which such a character would wear a black hat in contrast to the hero's white hat...
).
The word "Honker" emerged after May 1999, when the
United States bombed the Chinese embassyOn May 7, 1999 in Operation Allied Force, Six NATO bombs hit the People's Republic of China Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, killing three PRC citizens and outraging the Chinese public. At the time of the bombing, the embassy was located in Novi Beograd – later, a new site was designated for...
in
BelgradeBelgrade Belgrade Belgrade (Serbian Cyrillic: Београд, Serbian Latin: Beograd (meaning "White City" in Serbian) is the capital and largest city of Serbia. The city lies on two international waterways, at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where Central Europe's Pannonian Plain meets...
,
YugoslaviaYugoslavia is a term that describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.The first country to be known by this...
and since then, Honkers formed a
Honker Union, whose members combined hacking skills with
patriotismPatriotism is love of and/or devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland. However, patriotism has had different meanings over time, and its meaning is highly dependent upon context, geography and philosophy....
and
nationalismNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
, and launched a series of attacks on websites in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, mostly government-related sites.
The name also suggests that a hacker in red, the color of the Communist party, is in combat with hackers in the dark.
Honker is a group known for
hacktivismHacktivism is "the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous digital tools in pursuit of political ends...
, mainly present in
Mainland ChinaMainland China, Continental China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China , excluding Hong Kong and Macau, which are under the jurisdiction of the PRC but run on different economic and...
. Literally the name means "Red Guest", as compared to the usual Chinese
transliterationTransliteration is the practice of converting a text from one writing system into another in a systematic way.-Definitions:From an information-theoretical point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word, or ideally letter by letter...
of hacker (黑客, hēikè, literally
Black Guest as in
black hatA black hat is the villain or bad guy, especially in a western movie in which such a character would wear a black hat in contrast to the hero's white hat...
).
The word "Honker" emerged after May 1999, when the
United States bombed the Chinese embassyOn May 7, 1999 in Operation Allied Force, Six NATO bombs hit the People's Republic of China Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, killing three PRC citizens and outraging the Chinese public. At the time of the bombing, the embassy was located in Novi Beograd – later, a new site was designated for...
in
BelgradeBelgrade Belgrade Belgrade (Serbian Cyrillic: Београд, Serbian Latin: Beograd (meaning "White City" in Serbian) is the capital and largest city of Serbia. The city lies on two international waterways, at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where Central Europe's Pannonian Plain meets...
,
YugoslaviaYugoslavia is a term that describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.The first country to be known by this...
and since then, Honkers formed a
Honker Union, whose members combined hacking skills with
patriotismPatriotism is love of and/or devotion to one's country. The word comes from the Greek patris, meaning fatherland. However, patriotism has had different meanings over time, and its meaning is highly dependent upon context, geography and philosophy....
and
nationalismNationalism is an ideology, a sentiment, a form of culture, or a social movement that focuses on the nation. It is a type of collectivism emphasizing the collective of a specific nation...
, and launched a series of attacks on websites in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, mostly government-related sites.
The name also suggests that a hacker in red, the color of the Communist party, is in combat with hackers in the dark. In the following years, Honkers remained active in hactivism supporting the Chinese government against what they view as the
imperialism of the United StatesAmerican Empire is a controversial term referring to the political, economic, military and cultural influence of the United States. The concept of an American Empire was first popularized in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War of 1898...
and the
militarism of Japanrefers to the ideology in the Empire of Japan that militarism should dominate the political and social life of the nation, and that the strength of the military is equal to the strength of a nation.- The rise of militarism :...
.
The group is currently merged with the
Red Hacker AllianceThe Red Hacker Alliance is an informal group of Chinese hackers that at one time had over 80,000 members, making it one of the largest hacking groups in the world. In December 2004, the group took down their website and became inactive until March 2005, when it regrouped and relaunched its site...
.
Media coverage
While Honker Union is not directly related to
Hong KongHong Kong , officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, is a highly autonomous territory of the People's Republic of China, facing Guangdong to the north and the South China Sea to the east, west and south...
, the fact that Honker can also mean Hongkongers has caused some confusion in the media. In January 2003, the "worm" SQL Slammer appeared in the Internet. As
proof of conceptProof of concept is a short and/or incomplete realization of a certain method or idea to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle, whose purpose is to verify that some concept or theory is probably capable of exploitation in a useful manner...
exploit code for the
SQL ServerMicrosoft SQL Server is a relational model database server produced by Microsoft. Its primary query languages are T-SQL and ANSI SQL.-Genesis:...
bug utilised by SQL Slammer, written by
David LitchfieldDavid Litchfield is a renowned security expert from the United Kingdom, who focuses on the discovery and publication of computer security vulnerabilities with a special focus on database server software...
, was found in the Honker Union website, it was speculated that the worm was spread by Honker Union. The
Associated PressThe Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
misstated that Honker might be a Hong Kong hacking group, possibly due to aforementioned naming confusion. Though it was a mistake, Honker Union since then has been falsely connected to Hong Kong in many other documents.
Relationship with Chinese government
Although there is no evidence of Chinese government oversights of the group, with the official government stance against cyber crime of any kind, the Honker Union and other freelance Chinese hackers have a complex relationship with the Chinese government. Greg Walton noted in his studies that Chinese government has been able to use the Honker Union as a "proxy force" when Beijing's political goals converge with the group's nationalist sentiment. he also noted instances of members profited off the Chinese government for their skills and the Chinese government recruited members into security and military forces. Finally, Greg Walton pointed out that there are some calls within the group to be officially recognized and integrated into the Chinese government.
Tsering Woeser
In May 2008, the
TibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north of the Himalayas. It is home to the indigenous Tibetan people, and to some other ethnic groups such as Monpas and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han Chinese people. Tibet is the highest region on earth, with an average...
an writer/blogger and political dissident Tsering Woeser, was reported to be under cyber-attack through her
SkypeSkype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet. Calls to other users of the service and, in some countries, to free-of-charge numbers, are free, while calls to other landlines and mobile phones can be made for a fee...
and email accounts being impersonated, also her website was hacked. This attack was claimed by Honker Union.