Doing a Number on Violators

A 'Hacktivist' Who Thinks in Code



Ball, 36, is a "hacktivist," employing his programming skills in the service of human rights. A sociologist by training, he has been writing computer software since high school.



"I think in code," he said.



He worked his way through graduate school at the University of Michigan by writing computer databases. His passion for dBase, Fox and Paradox code was more than matched by a sense of political outrage. He wrote his dissertation on human rights movements in Ethiopia, Pakistan and El Salvador.



When Ball found himself in El Salvador as that country's civil war was ending in 1991, he heard that a local human rights group "needed someone who could hack a database."



He volunteered.