Editing Hacktivism (section)

===Reality hacking===
''Reality hacking'' is any phenomenon that emerges from the nonviolent use of illegal or legally ambiguous [[Digital data|digital]] tools in pursuit of politically, socially, or [[culture jamming|culturally subversive]] ends. These tools include [[website defacement]]s, [[URL redirection]]s, [[denial-of-service attack]]s, information theft, web-site parodies, [[virtual sit-in]]s, and virtual [[sabotage]].{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}

Art movements such as [[Fluxus]] and [[Happening]]s in the 1970s created a climate of receptibility in regard to loose-knit organizations and group activities where spontaneity, a [[modern primitive|return to primitivist behavior]], and an ethics where activities and [[artivism|socially engaged art]] practices became tantamount to [[aesthetic]] concerns.{{Clarify | date = January 2010}}

The conflation of these two histories in the mid-to-late 1990s {{Citation needed|date=January 2010}} resulted in cross-overs between virtual sit-ins, [[electronic civil disobedience]], denial-of-service attacks, as well as mass protests in relation to groups like the [[International Monetary Fund]] and the [[World Bank]]. The rise of collectives, [[net.art]] groups, and those concerned with the fluid interchange of technology and [[real life (reality)|real life]] (often from an environmental concern) gave birth to the practice of "reality hacking".

Reality hacking relies on [[tweaking]] the everyday communications most easily available to individuals with the purpose of awakening the political and [[social connectedness|community conscience]] of the larger population. The term first came into use among New York and San Francisco artists, but has since been adopted by a [[school of thought|school]] of political activists centered around [[culture jamming]].

====In fiction====
The 1999 science fiction-action film ''[[The Matrix]]'', among others, popularized the [[simulation hypothesis]] — the suggestion that [[reality]] is in fact a [[simulation]] of which those affected by the simulants are generally unaware. In this context, "reality hacking" is reading and understanding the code which represents the activity of the simulated reality environment (such as [[Matrix digital rain]]) and also modifying it in order to bend the [[laws of physics]] or otherwise modify the [[simulated reality]].

Reality hacking as a mystical practice is explored in the [[Goth subculture|Gothic-Punk]] aesthetics-inspired [[White Wolf, Inc.|White Wolf]] [[urban fantasy]] role-playing game ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]''. In this game, the Reality Coders (also known as Reality Hackers or Reality Crackers) are a faction within the [[Virtual Adepts]], a secret society of mages whose [[Magic (fantasy)|magick]] revolves around [[Digital data|digital]] technology. They are dedicated to bringing the benefits of [[cyberspace]] to [[Real life|real space]]. To do this, they had to identify, for lack of a better term, the "[[source code]]" that allows our [[Universe]] to function. And that is what they have been doing ever since. Coders infiltrated a number of levels of society in order to gather the greatest compilation of knowledge ever seen. One of the Coders' more overt agendas is to acclimate the masses to the world that is to come. They spread Virtual Adept ideas through [[video game]]s and a whole spate of "[[reality show]]s" that mimic [[virtual reality]] far more than "real" reality. The Reality Coders consider themselves the future of the Virtual Adepts, creating a world in the image of visionaries like [[Grant Morrison]] or [[Terence McKenna]].{{Citation needed|date=July 2011}}

In a [[location-based game]] (also known as a pervasive game), reality hacking refers to tapping into phenomena that exist in the real world, and tying them into the game story universe.<ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1145/1501750.1501803 |chapter=The art of game-mastering pervasive games |title=Proceedings of the 2008 International Conference in Advances on Computer Entertainment Technology - ACE '08 |pages=224–31 |year=2008 |last1=Jonsson |first1=Staffan |last2=Waern |first2=Annika |isbn=978-1-60558-393-8 |s2cid=14311559 }}</ref>