Martha Root, a pseudonymous hacker known for her activism, made headlines during the annual Chaos Communication Congress held in Hamburg, Germany. As she took the stage, dressed as the Pink Ranger from the Power Rangers, she executed a live demonstration of her hacking skills by deleting the servers of three white supremacist websites: WhiteDate, WhiteChild, and WhiteDeal.
Throughout her discussion, Root exemplified her dedication to fighting hate on the internet. Fischer Our journalists Eva Hoffmann and Christian Fuchs were at the event. So she deleted those sites in short order. Later, she made public data that she claims to have scraped from WhiteDate, revealing what was probably the most dangerous dating site’s horrifying gender ratio between its users. “A gender ratio that makes the Smurf village look like a feminist utopia,” she remarked, highlighting the absurdity of the platform’s claims.
The event played out online as Root used her wit to draw in her audience, then hit them with some sobering facts about the ugly world of online hate. She invited an AI chatbot to assist in collecting information from users of the white supremacist dating site. In doing so, she brilliantly turned their most pernicious tools back against them.
Root’s actions were not without controversy. The administrator of the sites she targeted reacted strongly, calling her actions “cyberterrorism.” This instance brings to light the nuance and complexity surrounding hacktivism, and the cognitive dissonance of state-sponsored hacks versus hacktivism.
“Imagine calling yourselves the ‘master race’ but forgetting to secure your own website — maybe try mastering to host WordPress before world domination.” – Martha Root
During the weeks leading up to her performance, Root and her new media compatriots found out who controlled the sites’ administrator’s identity. They were able to pinpoint that she was a woman from Germany. This heartbreaking discovery increases Root’s activism. She’s leading the fight to shame the people who create these platforms and tear them down.
Root went ahead and swatted the X account run by the administrator of the three websites. While this account was promptly restored a day later, the effects of her actions were felt throughout the conference. During the Kelley Forum, attendees voiced their appreciation and some alarm at the portent for both good and ill of such high-profile hacking.
The recording of Martha Root’s presentation is now available online, allowing a wider audience to engage with her message and methods. You can contact her by email, Twitter, or Instagram. She hasn’t provided any specific contact details, allowing her to continue her pseudonymous career in the hacktivist underground.