blurry borders (was Re : Defining boundaries?)

[pj lilley <pj@tao.ca>]

[: hacktivism :]


first, i want my comments to be read with the spirit that i am defining
"hacking" as simply manipulation of code, to which i further point out
that code includes speech, and so even 'social engineering' is hacking.
and the scope for social engineering is pretty broad!  and activism, while
i often use it as a catch phrase for people taking action in a progressive
or even radical direction, is simply action, there is no inherent
political perspective in the word 'activism'. 

therein, lies my agreement with whoever said that the whole list was
really just too broad to be useful.  and because of the connotations with
terror and violence (against the people) which the mainstream media has
smeared all over the word "hacktivism", i was very apprehensive to support
the creation of this list here at TAO.  i felt that without some
definition, it would only be used to justify further state and corporate
repression against very good people who were working in the public
interest. 

however, my hope that people could see through the mainstream crap, come
to some basic agreements, and then organize together for a better future,
won out over my cynicism about the ill-defined "hacker" mythology, and so
i supported the list set-up.

well, that, and grugnog's insistence that this list would be a good idea.
;)

ok, that said, i'm going to start with this debate over the LoU vs. China
episode back in the winter....

On Wed, 8 Sep 1999, Bronc Buster wrote:

> I know this isn't the place to be correcting facts, but this needs some
> input. Last year I was in LoU, the group who, according to media outlits,
> declaired a cyber war on China and Iraq. This was totaly FALSE. Thanks to
> Dan Atkin, a reporter in Toronto Canada, who writes for the Toronto
> Star(or national post ?), this story was totaly blown way out of scope.

well, i dunno anybody in LoU, i was just following this story on the
various newswires (corporate, hacker and otherwise) and i was reading
about it primarily because this was right around the time that many people
were asking us here at TAO what we thought of "hacktivism". at the same
time, the Canadian Security Establishment was rooting about for more
funding by calling regular political activists "hackers" and "terrorists"
and attempting to scare the government about impending "cyberwarfare" (a
very scary thing for people who are already scared of computers.) 
 
so anyway, i wrote about what i read back then, and if you are
interested, i've attached that rant for reference below.   now, i dug this
little piece up from months ago, and tho i stand by it, it is really
rough, and full of acronyms and such, since i was just writing it for a
few friends.   i have a lot more background material on the development of
this word "hacktivism", but i'll trickle it out slowly, since this list
seems kind of wacky so far.   (ie. some really right-wing comments have
been made, with no apparent consciousness of the implications of these
positions.)

i also want to say that i'm not really excited to wade into this debate,
simply because it seems like there are a lot of very opiniated people
here, but little real progress in terms of securing infrastructure for
activists who have a common and coherent political perspective.  (like
Ross suggested about "those people who have the technical know-how should
just go and fucking do it."  ;)  i am sympathetic to this just-go-do-it
and-quit-talkin' attitude, because i see a real need for infrastructure
(incl. projects like hardware re-distro and software or interface
development)  that makes vital information more easily and more broadly
available.   that includes longer-term R&D stuff like the european
comrades are working on that would allow us to send IP over shortwave
(thereby avoiding increasing reliance on corporate bandwidth).   it
includes encryption for the masses, but it is also infrastructure
like common standards for news distro, more and better
'international redundancy' mechanisms (d'ya know what i mean by
that? ;( distributed databases, etc.    

but i really think that the emphasis on deep tech skillz has created a
culture of elitism, and most people feel that they don't know enough about
computers to take on that magical mantle of hacker.  unfortunately, this
leads to more barriers in front of people, especially women, to learning
more about how the machines work.  and less feeling of power over their
own lives, daily interactions with computers, etc.  also the monolithic
corporations and governments who would like to have you believe that they
own everything, accumulate more power when there are less hackers, because
us mere mortals can see no way in, not into the computers, not into the
front lobby, nowhere.  that is why the public relations industry was
invented... to interface between the monolith and the mortals.  it's
ridiculous.  hacking ought to be taught in school, right alongside drama
and english.... it's a state of mental approach to tech, not a specific
expertise.  (although there are some admirable experts out there.) 

now, i understand that people feel that the EDT's intervention into
mainstream media with Floodnet has somehow popularized and made 'hacking'
accessible to many more people.  never mind whether or not it 'works', the
inventors themselves have said clearly that is not the point, the play was
the point.  seen as an art project, i admire that part of the hack at
mythology, since it was very widespread, and did manage to get people
talking, but i wonder about whether it has / is doing more damage than it
is helping people.  (but i will save my comments on EDT for another day,
this is getting long already.) 

art, and hacking, for that matter, should be for and by the people, not
done by a few elite on their behalf.  trying to take up political issues
amongst highly skilled technicians is notoriously difficult, but without
it, our best geek force will become isolated, and people who don't
understand what is going on inside the black box, may begin to either be
afraid (causing severe repression, or extreme   or, perhaps worse, they
may see geeks as an elite priesthood, who are 'entrusted' with knowledge
that the rest of us can't possibly ever understand.  of course, i think
this is already happening (just look at the loopiness and fear around Y2K)

 i disagree with Ross that this is all only about individuals.  i think it
should be obvious that this is a much larger social issue, and that it
will require organization, co-operation, and some thought and planning in
order to achieve that kind of infrastructure i was talking about above. 
that 'ability to co-operate' will need to be created, maintained, and
defended by people who see themselves as part of a larger movement, not
just isolated individuals behind the terminal end point.  i mean, after
all, i'm not doing this tao.ca stuff because i think database coding is
real great way to spend a summer day, i'm doing this because i see a
direct co-relation between achieving this infrastructure to communicate,
and achieving enough food and shelter for all. 

but i'm going on.  all i wanted to explain is why this issue is so broad,
and therefore why i was hesitant to even say anything in the first place.
however, i do believe that there are several people on this list who i do
share commonalities with, and it is to you that i'm trying to speak.  i
think that it is not remembered often enough on open net forums, that when
things are so wide open, without even any common courtesy established in
communicating, the most dominant and aggressive (usually male and white
and liberal, given the state of the world) will spew, and they will try to
make defensive positions impossible through insults, useless agitation, or
outright attack.  that is why i think the guy from france is wack, and
in fact, it is usually lack of moderation that is for 'bourgeois sissies'
or has a 'fascistic essence'!  i say this only in memory of my many
friends who have been frustrated into silence by this obliteratingly
nihilistic aspect of net culture. 

i should also point out that i do believe that we need to be able to
discuss our tactics, but also our larger strategy and goals, in an open
fashion.  thorough discussion, critique and dissent will doubtless move
our ideas forward, and certainly i think being able to hear a wide variety
of opinions is crucial to freedom.  alexander berkman (emma goldman's
lover, and a political prisoner in america for many years) once said that
'freedom of speech may tersely be defined as such: no opinion a crime, no
opinion a law."  of course, he was an anarchist, in the finest and most
active sense of the word, and at a time when the US had just murdered
eight anarchists in Chicago simply for speaking their ideas in public. 
now, the amerikkkan repression is much more insidious about its means of
silencing people, and it usually uses economic power to curb 'freedom of
speech'. 

so to me, it is more than just being able to get access to the net, and 
state one's opinion, this is only a most basic freedom at a very
individual level.   we need to be able to weigh and evaluate these
opinions, forming a collective strategy with some consciousness about
what, why, who, how, where and when we take action.


thanks for suffering through the length of this...   i will leave with
this post from back in the winter about LoU vs. China  (and perhaps i will
also forward to you a very interesting interview with Blondie Wong, of
Hong Kong Blondes fame.)

yours in struggle,
   -=pj=-


Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1999 06:43:48 -0500 (EST)
From: pj <pj@tao.ca>
Subject: war is good for business


i've been staying up late and clicking away.  this week, the Legion of the
Underground declared 'war' against China (for human rights abuses) and
Iraq (weapons of mass destruction).  on the latter, i guess they were just
being self-righteous and careful, since the US has more and better.
anyway, a slew of other hacker groups, including L0pht, CDC, 2600, Phrack
and the german Chaos Computer Club all issued a joint statement condemning
LoU.  (after Wired's Niall McKay, and Conrad's own Financial Post reporter
David Akin had already covered the war declaration)  the other hackers
said it was irresponsible to attack infrastructure, said that it didn't
qualify as 'hacktivism' and then made some vague appeals to ethics and
distanced themselves from LoU, hoping that the various states realized
that THEY were not "terrorists".  LoU then issued a statement backing off
the bit about 'war' saying that it was just an independent action by two
of their best against a chinese gov't site (somehow involved with the
jailing of two chinese dissidents who had the gaul to establish
independent e-access.)  they said they sympathized with the motives,
backed the hackers (based in a Cali university, no less!) but did not
intend to attack infrastructure, and did not/would not declare "war"
against a sovereign state.  (to be clear, i don't think they actually used
the word 'sovereign' :)

i bring this all up, because after reading tons of shit on HNN and
Innernews (along with the Wired/FP pieces), i really don't think i saw
anyone with real-world political savvy.  they're fucked.  they want to
inspire fear, but then when shit comes down, they don't want a fight.
they're all willing to roll over for good PR, so i guess its an ego thing,
not a political thing to hack for these boys.  

 CDC, who said they started out the Hong Kong Blondes, is now distancing
itself, and apparently, our friend Oxblood is now working on a netscape
plug-in that will retrieve web pages requested by e-mail via a proxy
server and send them back via e-mail, for folks stuck behind the Great
China FireWall.  neat.  i take it from this that taking out infrastructure
is unethical, but routing around censorship is 'hacktivism', since Oxblood
himself registered hacktivism.org on stefan wray's urging.

if the infrastructure is so sacred, then why bother with a DoS attack...
in fact, why even mess with a web front, it'll be up again in a few hours
time if the target's got decent backups.

i just don't get it, and i'm not the only one.  the Legion themselves (the
bold declarers of war) admitted to only being 20 strong.  not much of a
Legion, not that i'm daring them, i'm sure their weakest link could sauce
me any nite, but WHY????    i just don't understand WHY hackers form these
underground cracking clubs, if not to do damage of some sort, and if you
only want to do stupid titties and dick shit, while backing off from
serious structural attack on the state or corporate intranets, then it's a
most unsexy waste of time.   (ooohhh.... kind of like this lame friday
nite with a sprained ankle i just spent wading thru their manifestos.)

so, anyway, my question, which i guess i ought to put to Emmanuel
Goldstein and Mr. Ruffin, is:  what sort of political organization is the
minimum requirement for 'hacktivism'?   what ARE hacker ethics, and who
defines these?  all is contested.

so far, the front tactic seems to be centralized DoS attacks where the
organizer sets the target, tracks the participants (and no one meets,
talks, or develops further strategy together).  result? with the new DoD
script, attackers get their browsers crashed, instead of the target DoD
server going down, and it's all a big waste of time which generates
enormous hype about cyber-war, and thesis proposals like Stefan Wray's
magnificent Bottom-Up Information Warfare. (which gets my award for Best
Co-optation of Language Without Saying Anything Meaningful).

as a celebration of the 5th anniversary of the zapatista uprising, the EDT
released a public version of Floodnet, so perhaps it will be hacked by
Zero Knowledge Systems to allow for anonymous participants.  although that
might not be ethical.  grrr.  i still don't get it.

the newest doll yoko site which accompanied the release is however
BRILLIANT and stunningly beautiful... it is called 'los dias de la
muertas' ... days and nights of the dead, and like doll's last piece, it
will take your breath away. (http://www.thing.net/~dollyoko/LOSDIAS/INDEX.HTML) 

but back to the hackers of media lore... whether or not these boyz can
whup my ass in root, i remain unconvinced that we're all on the same side
of the struggle. i think for the most part they're irresponsible,
dangerous to real activists, and do more to promote defense budgets and
corporate media stocks than they do to promote the zapatista agenda.  ya
basta!  (enough!)

 let me dance with the poets and revolutionaries, and stand beside jesse
and his drum when Bush comes to town, rather than be dragged into the mire
of cracker silliness.

   meegwetch.
     -=pj=-




On Sat, 9 Jan 1999, jesse hirsh wrote:

> 
> i think that the category 'techniques for political causes' does not
> describe the terms hacktivism or electronic direct action. i make
> this statement based not on the words themselves, or the groups who use
> them, but rather the culture in which they would be interpreted (decoded).
> 
> i'm the type of political activist who likes to explain his actions within
> the context of theory and history. in doing so, and while appropriating
> the internet technologies for anti-authoritarian political purposes, i
> have made the choice not to use such metaphors when describing this
> technological environment, and the artifacts that support it. rather i try
> to contrast my philosophical approach to that of the inventor of this
> seductive disneyland, the american military, which is that of peace and
> essentially anarchy, which i of late articulate as tao ;)
> 
> which is to say, let's stick to the word 'direct action' even if it's
> 'electronic', and let's stick with 'activist', while exploring what it is
> to be a hacker. the argument here is, let's stick with human and body,
> rather than machine and computer. we as humans can use computers, but the
> way the state talks about it, you'd think we were all fused into one mess
> of touchy feely infowar playground. i don't buy that. and engage in a
> political program that works against it.
> 
> personally i still believe i live and breathe and exist in the real world.
> and so when i am moved to direct action, it is my body that expresses it,
> my mouth that may call it while it happens, but it is certainly my lungs 
> that allow it, and my heart that beats wildy as it happens.
> 
> 
> 
> sorry for sleeping on this list for so long. i do intend to participate
> more actively in the near and continuing future.
> 
> jesse
> 
> 
> On Wed, 23 Dec 1998, Chuck0 wrote:
> 
> > I'm wondering what you all think about "hactivism" and other recent
> > attempts to promote electronic direct action techniques for political
> > causes.
> > 
> > Chuck0
> > 
> 


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