Mainstream may be a little bit over reaching. Until CBC spends some time down at DEFCON meeting (and drinking) with the people they are attempting to describe, I'm not sure if a label of "Mainstream" by them is credible. The group Anonymous and the philosophy of Hactivism are two totally different things. If I were the CBC, I would be careful on labelling the group Anonymous as a Hactivist group.... Anonymous, The PoisionCrew, LuzSec and others are unpredictable in behaviour and still of unknown capability, let's pray the CBC's web servers are well protected. Attempting to assert that Hactivism is affiliated with Hacking Crews is the equivalent of sticking your penis into a hornets nest. The hornets may decide that they don't like labels, or the assertion that they are now "mainstream". To suggest that all Hactivist activities are somehow related to Anonymous (like this article does) is a misreading of the current Hactivist activities going on. These activites include items such as global hunger, open media, the green movment, human rights etc. Many hactivist groups leverage the Internet, Social networking and online petitions - they don't destory servers and dump thousands of records into Pastebin. Do some research CBC, so you don't look like morons and find out just how angry the hornets can be. Apologies to Stephen Colbert

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/02/06/hacktivism-.html?cmp=rss