Some are trying to make that outlet more accessible. A 26-year-old University of Toronto dropout calling himself Perl Bailey, after a computer language popular among Web developers, said he had earned a living as a software developer and had dabbled in not entirely legal computer exploration for several years. Now, he is writing a tool to arm computer novices with basic hacktivist techniques.

Members of the Hong Kong Blondes, a covert group, claim to have gotten into Chinese military computers and to have temporarily shut down a communications satellite last year in a "hacktivist" protest. "The ultimate aim is to use hacktivism to ameliorate human rights conditions," says Oxblood Ruffin, a member of the Toronto-based Cult of the Dead Cow (www.cultdeadcow.com), one of the oldest hacker groups in North America, who serves as unofficial spokesman for the having-more-fun Blondes.

Ever since 1990, when about 300 queers descended on the park at the behest of a local computer hacktivist unfortunately named Doug Swallow, gays and lesbians have annually stormed the Magic Kingdom — with tacit encouragement from the management.