Hacktivism involves hacking into a computer system and making changes that affect a person or organization.
Targets range from religious organizations to drug dealers and pedophiles.
Some activists such as Occupy Wall Street and Church of Scientology protesters use hacktivism in addition to personal protests.
Hacktivists use a wide range of methods to achieve their goals, including doxing, denial of service (DoS) attacks, anonymous blogging, information leaks, and website copying.
The goals of hacktivism include circumventing government censorship by helping citizens bypass national firewalls (or helping protesters organize) and using social media platforms to defend human rights.
Some of the more widely known hacktivist groups include Anonymous, Legion of Doom (LOD), Masters of Deception (MOD) and Chaos Computer Club.
The 2,000 investor limit or rule is a key threshold for private businesses that are unwilling to disclose financial information for public consumption.
The 500 shareholder threshold was a rule set by the SEC that required companies to publicly disclose financial statements and other information if they reached 500 or more individual shareholders.
The Basel Accords are part of a series of three international banking regulatory meetings that established capital requirements and risk measurements for global banks.
Basel III is an international regulatory agreement that introduced a series of reforms aimed at improving regulation, supervision and risk management in the banking sector.