[00:38.500 --> 00:40.880]  All right, it's time for the Hacktivism panel.
[00:42.920 --> 00:46.180]  I'll let these guys introduce themselves because they're not everybody who was supposed to be here.
[00:46.260 --> 00:46.740]  Some of them are.
[00:46.960 --> 00:48.600]  So we're all back on schedule.
[00:48.600 --> 00:50.120]  Let's have a big hand for the Hacktivism guys.
[00:55.230 --> 00:58.510]  I think there's actually one of us here who is scheduled to be here.
[01:01.710 --> 01:03.110]  I'm Reid Fleming from the CDC.
[01:04.610 --> 01:05.870]  This is Oxblood.
[01:08.110 --> 01:08.950]  We're from the CDC.
[01:11.030 --> 01:12.290]  Veggie was supposed to be here.
[01:12.490 --> 01:13.210]  He's on a plane.
[01:13.450 --> 01:14.310]  That's why we're here.
[01:15.190 --> 01:18.110]  I think, added together, we match him in total pounds.
[01:18.750 --> 01:19.050]  Close.
[01:19.330 --> 01:20.470]  Not well approaching.
[01:22.050 --> 01:24.190]  Also, I think Bronc Buster was supposed to be here.
[01:24.270 --> 01:29.030]  I'm not quite sure why he's not, but goddammit, we're going to carry on.
[01:30.150 --> 01:31.510]  And over here...
[01:31.510 --> 01:32.810]  I'm ShapeShifter.
[01:33.430 --> 01:35.290]  I'm a social justice activist.
[01:35.550 --> 01:37.750]  I'm an organizer for the RNC protests.
[01:39.190 --> 01:39.610]  Thanks.
[01:42.830 --> 01:43.250]  So...
[01:43.250 --> 01:43.870]  That's it.
[01:45.450 --> 01:47.670]  I'm afraid this sounds really disorganized.
[01:47.830 --> 01:50.490]  I think we're really going to shine on the Q&A though.
[01:53.330 --> 01:56.750]  Veggie told me last night that he couldn't make it, so here we are.
[01:58.470 --> 02:06.650]  So, I think the interesting thing about hacktivism is we have yet to arrive at a formal definition.
[02:08.510 --> 02:15.210]  No one's really quite sure what it is, although it's something that gets you in the newspaper when you pull it off.
[02:16.150 --> 02:19.310]  And it usually involves doing something illegal, apparently.
[02:20.190 --> 02:21.910]  Beyond that, no one's really sure.
[02:23.110 --> 02:36.270]  Either it's defacing websites or opening up firewalls for citizens of foreign governments to be able to peruse the internet and see whatever sites they want.
[02:37.430 --> 02:46.790]  Or it's a massive distributed denial of service attack against parts of the internet that house information that you don't like.
[02:48.990 --> 02:54.050]  For our part, I don't think we've actually proposed any definitions.
[02:56.370 --> 03:07.710]  Like Reid was saying before, depending on what side of the social justice or hacking community divide you sit on, different people even spell it different ways.
[03:07.930 --> 03:15.150]  If you go to AltaVista or Google or something, you spell hacktivism with activism with an H in front of it, you'll get a ton of stuff.
[03:15.990 --> 03:22.450]  If you get the CDC proposed spelling, which is hacking with tivism on the bend of it, you get one entry.
[03:22.450 --> 03:24.810]  So I'm not really sure what that means.
[03:25.050 --> 03:28.470]  But it's interesting that different people take it different ways.
[03:28.770 --> 03:38.630]  I think there's been a certain amount of activity in the last six months, I believe, with the electro-hippies in the UK and a few other groups who are essentially social activists.
[03:39.030 --> 03:46.270]  And they add technology on to traditional forms of organization and social protest.
[03:46.790 --> 03:51.550]  Then you've got a number of people in the hacking community who are interested in this area.
[03:52.910 --> 03:57.410]  who need very few people to help them participate in anything.
[03:57.610 --> 04:01.450]  One person could probably do something and call it hacktivism.
[04:01.790 --> 04:09.790]  So it would suggest that on one hand it requires large numbers and on the other hand possibly very few.
[04:10.030 --> 04:12.330]  Or many depending on who you want to involve.
[04:12.330 --> 04:16.890]  But it's just very interesting that it means a number of things to different groups.
[04:18.050 --> 04:28.090]  One of the things that I've personally been trying to work on over the last year or so is forging links between the hacking community and the social justice community.
[04:28.090 --> 04:33.010]  They're two very distinct groups that often don't talk or occasionally talk past one another.
[04:34.650 --> 04:43.130]  They have very different ways of operating and of perceiving problems or issues and then executing against those.
[04:44.850 --> 04:48.270]  There's a project that the CDC is undertaking.
[04:50.390 --> 04:57.650]  We'll be starting or in fact we have started a hacktivist application development group.
[04:58.210 --> 05:05.690]  We have in that group six people, two of whom I know I can name now.
[05:05.690 --> 05:11.210]  The others I just haven't been able to nail down and find out if they want their names publicly associated with this.
[05:11.390 --> 05:16.050]  But one of the technical members is Bronc Buster who is supposed to be here today.
[05:16.950 --> 05:28.910]  And another name some of you might know, the mixture, a German hacker who wrote an explosive distributed denial of service application, which we do not endorse by the way.
[05:29.730 --> 05:35.050]  But he's a very gifted technical expert and will be helping us out under our direction.
[05:35.990 --> 05:40.310]  We also have a couple of international human rights lawyers.
[05:40.810 --> 05:44.430]  I'm not sure that I can mention their names, but a lot of people would know who they are.
[05:45.450 --> 05:48.610]  And one or two members of the social justice community.
[05:48.930 --> 05:55.590]  So we will try to develop applications, have them spread throughout the hacker world.
[05:55.670 --> 06:06.890]  And on the other hand, or on the other side of the street, we're going to try to get a lot of social justice groups involved who share our interest in many of the same issues.
[06:07.230 --> 06:14.850]  So it's going to be an interesting project trying to unite or to forge some kind of coalition working towards something positive.
[06:19.770 --> 06:25.410]  I'm going to talk a little bit about direct action, and I think hacktivism fits into what direct action is.
[06:26.210 --> 06:41.830]  Direct action is when you take action against, let's say, a corporate entity like the MPAA or Microsoft, or maybe a pharmaceutical company who is denying access to essential medications for people who live in third world nations who can't afford them.
[06:43.250 --> 06:46.650]  Basically, what direct action is, is you take action against them.
[06:46.830 --> 06:48.250]  And it can be a range of things.
[06:48.430 --> 06:50.690]  It can be civil disobedience in the street.
[06:50.850 --> 06:52.110]  Personally, I'm a street activist.
[06:53.650 --> 07:08.470]  I do a protest in the streets, and I'm organizing for the RNC, which is the Republican National Convention, and we're organizing protests against them, and all their corporate sponsors, and how they don't represent people, but they represent corporations.
[07:08.470 --> 07:16.970]  So, basically, hacktivism is, like, sort of, you know, it's in that spectrum of what direct action is.
[07:17.770 --> 07:19.730]  Hacktivism is sort of taking a different approach.
[07:20.910 --> 07:36.950]  Most people think about activism, and they think, you know, people in the streets chained to something like a giant pig that says, you know, IMF World Bank on the side of it, or, you know, who are dropping a banner off of a building that has their message on it,
[07:36.950 --> 07:42.530]  or, like, a Greenpeace action where they take over a ship that does whaling or something like that.
[07:42.830 --> 07:51.990]  So, hacktivism is sort of a new approach, and it can be a pretty effective tool, I think, in getting your message across.
[07:52.170 --> 08:00.150]  Because part of what all the civil disobedience stuff is, is, you know, we get attention to bring to our issues that we're bringing up.
[08:01.590 --> 08:07.370]  So, if there is, like, direct action against the RNC, you know, there's people on the streets who are protesting it.
[08:07.550 --> 08:11.270]  There could also be very well be people on the web who are protesting it as well.
[08:14.150 --> 08:15.670]  So, you guys want to talk to me?
[08:18.840 --> 08:26.740]  I've got a suggestion, because this seems to be a little bit more a workshop than a lecture, and I think that's okay.
[08:28.500 --> 08:38.060]  So, in the beginning, when defining hacktivism, it might be a good idea to say at least what hacktivism is not.
[08:38.260 --> 08:41.740]  Because I think the hacking community has to be very carefully...
[08:42.300 --> 08:47.400]  We live in the year 2000, if someone robs out of banks, he doesn't take the machine gun, he takes a computer.
[08:47.860 --> 08:56.720]  And if a political group having lots of bullshit in brain, protesting against anything, there might be forms where we can say there's hacktivism.
[08:57.400 --> 09:04.420]  But if it comes to denial of service of infrastructures, we had that story with a legion of underground.
[09:05.020 --> 09:06.200]  I remember, maybe.
[09:06.260 --> 09:07.900]  Maybe you can say some words to that.
[09:08.560 --> 09:10.820]  So, I don't want to be involved in terrorism.
[09:11.000 --> 09:23.400]  And I think it's very important for hackers to say we are driven by curiosity and not by denial of service, which is vandalism, or by, you know, financial interest in robbing banks or whatever.
[09:23.760 --> 09:31.200]  So, I think it might be a good idea to make a list of what is hacktivism at least from the motivation and what's it not.
[09:31.840 --> 09:37.020]  So, to get also in the media a little bit more sharpened picture on this.
[09:37.020 --> 09:37.560]  Sure.
[09:39.000 --> 09:41.900]  Although, I don't know if you were here for the last panel.
[09:42.440 --> 09:46.140]  The prospects of educating the media are kind of poor, I guess.
[09:47.340 --> 09:48.240]  Yes, I was.
[09:48.400 --> 09:50.240]  And that's the reason why I'm standing up.
[09:50.360 --> 09:52.560]  Because I think it's a sad picture.
[09:52.820 --> 09:58.640]  If there's a hacker conference and then we talk about what is hacking, and someone says, oh, it might be this, it might be this.
[09:58.980 --> 10:00.640]  So, I mean, read the hacker ethics.
[10:00.800 --> 10:01.580]  It's written down.
[10:01.880 --> 10:05.740]  Hackers want information to be free, so it has to do with learning by doing.
[10:05.900 --> 10:07.480]  It has to do with curiosity.
[10:08.280 --> 10:12.000]  And it has not to do, maybe not even to do with computers.
[10:12.600 --> 10:13.200]  For me.
[10:13.500 --> 10:13.640]  Okay.
[10:14.380 --> 10:16.060]  I mean, computers is just a tool.
[10:16.660 --> 10:21.060]  And tools might change, but the motivation should not change.
[10:21.340 --> 10:24.720]  Because otherwise, it might be like getting a hammer in your hand.
[10:24.720 --> 10:26.800]  And then the whole world looks like nails.
[10:27.020 --> 10:28.540]  And that's a dangerous situation.
[10:28.960 --> 10:29.500]  Right.
[10:30.380 --> 10:32.040]  Those are good comments and questions.
[10:33.620 --> 10:39.220]  I'm a little afraid to step forward and say what is hacktivism and what it is not.
[10:39.400 --> 10:45.280]  Because I think intelligent people can have serious disagreements over this.
[10:47.200 --> 11:00.540]  Myself, and I think for the rest of the CDC, we agree that we should not be denying access to the internet or to particular websites just because you disagree with the content on it.
[11:01.360 --> 11:06.200]  Whether that's a corporate site or, you know, political site that you happen to disagree with greatly.
[11:07.220 --> 11:10.200]  I think we believe that more speech is better speech.
[11:10.660 --> 11:27.480]  That, you know, if you're serious about the marketplace of ideas that the internet is supposed to be, that you're not going to go try to damage infrastructure on a country level, on a website level, on a, you know, whatever backbone level.
[11:28.900 --> 11:39.860]  I think one of the issues that will be evolving over time and we'll have to figure out how to deal with it is part of the whole activist perspective is the issue of civil disobedience.
[11:40.400 --> 11:42.980]  It's something we saw through the civil rights movement.
[11:43.160 --> 11:51.200]  It's probably the easiest example in the United States where groups, certain groups broke the law of the land because in their view it was immoral.
[11:51.200 --> 11:59.100]  So there's always been sort of this idea of occasionally breaking the law to further social justice.
[11:59.460 --> 12:03.260]  Now, in certain instances it's extremely clear.
[12:03.860 --> 12:10.040]  You know, apartheid, issues of civil rights issues in the United States and other things.
[12:10.740 --> 12:12.820]  And over time these things have been addressed.
[12:13.040 --> 12:16.860]  But a lot of people were arrested and they sought to be arrested.
[12:16.860 --> 12:28.360]  And this is one of the things that I'm almost worried about with hacktivism, that people may make excuses to do something rather extreme.
[12:30.470 --> 12:34.180]  And who's going to decide, well, is this a good idea or is it not?
[12:34.300 --> 12:35.260]  Is this moral or not?
[12:35.420 --> 12:39.400]  I mean, at the end of the day the public is going to decide whether they agree with something or not.
[12:40.460 --> 12:43.460]  But this is going to be something that's definitely going to be coming up.
[12:43.460 --> 12:52.860]  And I don't know, like, if you're like me, occasionally you read Wired News and you find out that somebody has defaced a certain website and they're saying that it's hacktivism.
[12:54.420 --> 12:55.820]  I'm often very confused.
[12:55.940 --> 13:02.740]  I can't tell often the difference between somebody defacing a webpage and somebody saying they're doing it for political reasons.
[13:02.740 --> 13:08.320]  And so I think it's become somewhat convenient to saying, you know, one is doing this for hacktivist reasons.
[13:08.600 --> 13:15.220]  And there are quite a few gray areas as there are all throughout hacking in general.
[13:18.990 --> 13:20.020]  I don't know.
[13:22.760 --> 13:25.260]  One small comment, then, on your question.
[13:26.360 --> 13:27.160]  Real brief.
[13:27.440 --> 13:31.580]  Tweety Fish, I think, actually laid out a pretty good ground rule for whether or not it's hacktivism.
[13:31.740 --> 13:35.880]  That is, did you pick your cause before you picked the site?
[13:36.160 --> 13:36.380]  You know?
[13:36.640 --> 13:39.260]  I think that's a pretty logical thing.
[13:40.680 --> 13:41.740]  That's all I wanted to add.
[13:44.300 --> 13:50.240]  First of all, I want to say, Mr. Biafra, I remember getting wounded at your shows 15, 16 years ago and enjoying it.
[13:50.700 --> 13:52.960]  I'm a little younger than Mr. Jello Biafra.
[13:53.060 --> 13:53.540]  Oh, I'm sorry.
[13:53.700 --> 13:55.740]  I put the hat louder.
[13:56.040 --> 13:57.760]  Okay, well, good thing I didn't say that very loud.
[13:58.740 --> 14:00.040]  My question is this.
[14:00.240 --> 14:01.140]  I had an experience.
[14:01.280 --> 14:03.900]  I read a Bruce Sterling book recently called Distraction.
[14:04.160 --> 14:20.800]  And in Distraction, and I believe this was written before the WTO demonstrations, there were some very interesting things that he talked about in terms of people organizing and in very interesting ways in doing things to provoke change using old school technology,
[14:20.920 --> 14:29.060]  new school technology, using identity changing things, using economic systems that were not part of the mainstream economic system.
[14:29.760 --> 14:30.760]  I read that.
[14:30.880 --> 14:36.460]  I got very interested in hacktivism, I suppose, because it was a science fiction book.
[14:37.380 --> 14:49.720]  And I went through a bunch of East Village bookstores and activist bookstores in New York, and I found nothing except a lot of leftist rhetoric that was mostly anti-technological.
[14:49.960 --> 14:59.740]  And my question is, I think it's important for the activist community, and I'm not, whether it's leftist or some other term applies better, I don't care.
[14:59.740 --> 15:13.060]  I think it's important for people that are pro-technology and see their uses, the positive uses of technology, to communicate with theorists who I think are very used to seeing technology as a negative thing.
[15:13.460 --> 15:19.960]  And I'm wondering, is there a way, how can we get together and communicate with, quote unquote, the other side?
[15:20.540 --> 15:22.340]  I have been in parts of both.
[15:22.520 --> 15:27.960]  I've been an activist and I'm also kind of pro-technology for certain reasons.
[15:27.960 --> 15:30.260]  And what can be done to unite these two people?
[15:30.460 --> 15:44.260]  I think if leftists or activists can see the uses of technology in a certain light, there will be a lot less rhetoric against it, and there will be a lot more movement in certain directions that may be hacktivist oriented.
[15:45.620 --> 15:50.520]  But I have no idea how these type of negotiations would take place.
[15:51.140 --> 15:52.640]  I can sort of answer that.
[15:52.960 --> 15:57.720]  I think technology, it's bad in some aspects and it's good in others.
[15:57.940 --> 16:03.360]  It's bad when an oil company has the technology and they're drilling on somebody's native land.
[16:03.520 --> 16:09.300]  I think that's a bad application of technology or when it's used for things like nuclear weapons.
[16:09.460 --> 16:10.820]  I mean, what the fuck?
[16:10.960 --> 16:12.360]  That doesn't make any sense at all.
[16:12.360 --> 16:21.680]  I mean, you're gonna blow up half the world so they can show how big your guns are or how big your technology is or how tough you are.
[16:22.060 --> 16:27.520]  I think some applications of technology are just completely useless and bad.
[16:27.660 --> 16:44.500]  But then there's other things like in demonstrations and most of the WTO demonstrations and the A16 demonstrations in DC, we used... we had a whole communications network set up where we could tell what was going on across the entire city.
[16:44.700 --> 16:47.320]  Like what the police were doing, what the delegates were doing.
[16:47.440 --> 16:49.960]  And we were able to coordinate using that technology.
[16:50.240 --> 16:56.060]  So I think communications technology can be good when it's in the hands of activists and social justice activists.
[16:56.340 --> 16:59.400]  And also there's the issue of the independent media.
[17:00.100 --> 17:07.210]  The independent media was maybe by using... like they had a high speed connection to the internet.
[17:07.660 --> 17:15.700]  And that helped the social justice activists in that we got our story unedited to masses amounts of people.
[17:16.140 --> 17:23.970]  There was... we had satellite up links and people in cable access TV stations around the country were able to download that.
[17:23.970 --> 17:31.780]  So I think if the hands of... if we sort of democratize the use of technology then we can... like it's totally useful.
[17:32.080 --> 17:41.020]  But as far as Microsoft and you name it what corporation, I don't think they should have the control of technology.
[17:42.080 --> 17:42.640]  So...
[17:42.640 --> 17:43.840]  Not to disagree.
[17:45.020 --> 17:47.820]  You raise a lot of points that I totally agree with.
[17:49.160 --> 17:50.540]  I'm really setting this up wrong.
[17:52.480 --> 18:01.880]  I think if... if you're my kind of hacktivist, your particular political opinions don't really enter into it.
[18:02.040 --> 18:07.740]  I don't particularly care if you happen to be very liberal in most political issues or conservative.
[18:07.980 --> 18:09.180]  It's really not my thing.
[18:09.340 --> 18:14.440]  But the thing I'm most interested in is what do you think about global internet liberties?
[18:14.440 --> 18:20.420]  You know, what do you think about, you know, citizens of the world being able to access the internet?
[18:20.640 --> 18:27.080]  Being able to browse the web and send mail to whoever they want without interference from their government or tracking?
[18:27.380 --> 18:33.880]  You know, they need to be able to have free speech, privacy, access, and encryption.
[18:33.880 --> 18:39.940]  And if you're for those things, I think you are, by default, a hacktivist.
[18:41.200 --> 18:43.120]  Or you're a hacktivist sympathizer.
[18:44.860 --> 18:46.320]  The only thing that...
[18:46.780 --> 18:50.220]  One thing you said that sort of, like, makes a question to me is a lot...
[18:50.220 --> 18:52.200]  Most people don't have access to the internet.
[18:52.480 --> 18:52.580]  Right.
[18:52.860 --> 18:55.840]  The majority of the people on this planet don't have access to the internet.
[18:56.060 --> 18:56.320]  Exactly.
[18:56.320 --> 18:57.900]  That's a big gap.
[18:58.160 --> 19:02.780]  And right now, the way it is, most people don't have enough resources to get a computer.
[19:04.020 --> 19:17.900]  And that's sort of a mark of the economic system we're currently in is capitalism sort of makes sure that some people get a whole lot of money and then most of the rest of the world has to support those few people and their habits.
[19:18.340 --> 19:19.780]  Well, I agree entirely.
[19:20.020 --> 19:26.680]  Although, I don't know if you've noticed, it was a very small blurb in the San Jose Mercury News last month.
[19:26.840 --> 19:42.740]  But I think it was three paragraphs stating that the United Nations had released a report predicting that by the end of 2004, every single human being on the planet will be within half a day's walk of an internet terminal.
[19:44.140 --> 19:50.400]  Whether or not they will have money to pay for it is a different story.
[19:52.100 --> 20:02.740]  And whether or not their government will allow them to access the news sites they want to actually read or publish information for that matter, that's a different story.
[20:02.920 --> 20:07.620]  But the raw hardware will be there in a very short order, I think.
[20:08.880 --> 20:17.780]  So I think it's interesting that there's sort of two sides of this issue, but two different perspectives, you from the direct action side and us from the hacking community.
[20:18.080 --> 20:23.080]  I think it's very valuable that as many people as possible get a hold of computers and do have access.
[20:23.300 --> 20:30.240]  I think that's one particular challenge and it's very noble work to really initiate and get that going.
[20:30.240 --> 20:39.420]  My particular take on this is I want to make sure that when those people do get onto the internet that it's still essentially free.
[20:40.120 --> 20:50.800]  The things that I'm looking at really have to do specifically with internet freedoms and I have all kinds of respect and compassion for what's going down on the earth.
[20:50.800 --> 21:14.700]  But what I can actually do is happening a little closer to technology and I think that that in itself, I mean that kind of work has been going on for a long time of people trying to keep the internet free and scientifically pure and open to as many people as possible and as uncontrolled as possible and as close to its original intent as possible.
[21:16.520 --> 21:17.340]  Hello.
[21:18.460 --> 21:19.280]  Sorry.
[21:19.660 --> 21:21.760]  My name is Ricardo Dominguez.
[21:21.940 --> 21:27.440]  I'm from the Electronic Disturbance Theatre and also a former member of the Critical Art Ensemble.
[21:28.220 --> 21:38.760]  Two books that might be useful, The Electronic Disturbance and Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas published by Autonomedia.
[21:38.760 --> 21:58.500]  Also, the Electronic Disturbance Theatre initiated a series of weak denial of service systems or powerful symbolic presence or virtual sit-ins on President Cedillo's website all through 1998 in response to the Octial massacre against the Zapatista communities.
[21:58.500 --> 22:07.720]  But I've had a brief dialogue with both CDC and some other communities, not directly but indirectly.
[22:08.500 --> 22:15.380]  And the critique of direct action versus free speech, I think, is very important.
[22:16.100 --> 22:18.900]  Both of them, I think, as you said, are valid issues.
[22:18.900 --> 22:29.940]  But, again, as Tweedy, I think, has pointed out, if one has been grounded in long-term activism, that is, I was working with the Zapatista since the beginning.
[22:30.200 --> 22:43.360]  I was already thinking about electronic civil disobedience since the 80s in terms of its relationship to ACT UP and AIDS activism and what we could do in terms of force multiplying the voice of a community.
[22:44.260 --> 23:05.540]  And I agree that if we were to do radical denial of service against any part of the internet in a long-term way, it would be something that would go against, I think, a technologically optimistic community that should look to network as much of the world as possible.
[23:05.540 --> 23:13.200]  But I also believe that there are times and spaces where a direct action is necessary.
[23:13.920 --> 23:18.700]  And how that direct action is played out, I think, is up to specific cells.
[23:19.000 --> 23:25.420]  And I think those cells should be aware of the dynamics that will take place.
[23:25.660 --> 23:43.120]  When the Electronic Disturbance Theatre did its gestures of the Zapatista flood net, that we knew that an element of bandwidth would be taken up, that it wasn't the most technologically adept use of the technology.
[23:43.400 --> 23:51.580]  But we did see it as a way to promote in the mass media the issue of Zapatismo and what was going on in Chiapas.
[23:51.700 --> 23:52.980]  And that was our main focus.
[23:52.980 --> 24:06.420]  And the way we measured the strength of an action was if in the media, in the first paragraph, they mentioned the Zapatistas, then that was a victory for us.
[24:06.580 --> 24:13.120]  And I would say about 75% of the time it was indeed mentioned in the first paragraph.
[24:13.120 --> 24:22.620]  When we lost something was when they mentioned cyber terrorism or cyber crime, which is what they tried to put electronic civil disobedience into.
[24:23.060 --> 24:28.520]  But one of the agendas that we have been trying to put forth is nonviolent direct action.
[24:28.760 --> 24:30.900]  How does that happen online?
[24:31.180 --> 24:34.760]  And how can it also help people on the streets?
[24:35.480 --> 24:55.600]  And one way that it can help in implementing more nonviolent direct action is to make sure that the information war ecologies, be they right or left, such as  Winn Schwartau or Dorothy Dennings, is that they try to understand the difference between electronic civil disobedience,
[24:55.880 --> 24:58.020]  cyber terrorism, and cyber crime.
[24:58.020 --> 25:04.720]  And I think, to a certain extent, the hacktivist communities has been rather victorious.
[25:04.940 --> 25:10.540]  Just recently, on May 23rd, Dorothy Dennings presented to the U.S.
[25:11.280 --> 25:17.500]  Arms Appropriation Committee on Cyber Terrorism her dialogue on cyber terrorism.
[25:17.560 --> 25:25.520]  And she specifically mentions the electronic hippies, the electronic disturbance theater, I believe Cult of the Dead Cow and a few others.
[25:25.520 --> 25:28.940]  And she specifically states that this is not cyber terrorism.
[25:29.240 --> 25:30.660]  It is not cyber crime.
[25:31.700 --> 25:45.060]  And I think, to a certain extent, that does allow and give us a certain amount of leverage, especially when we're dealing with the media, which is ultimately the kind of process, whether we want it or not, the way it spreads itself out.
[25:45.760 --> 25:47.720]  Anyway, it was more of a statement than a question.
[25:47.780 --> 25:53.180]  But I also wanted to thank all of you for the fine, fine work that you have done and continue to do.
[25:53.560 --> 25:53.980]  Thank you.
[25:53.980 --> 25:54.880]  Thank you.
[26:02.210 --> 26:02.930]  Chief?
[26:05.430 --> 26:20.370]  I had a question that I haven't seen addressed specifically yet, that really makes a difference between hacktivism and cyber action, as opposed to traditional forms of direct action.
[26:20.810 --> 26:39.190]  In traditional forms of direct action, although this is not always true, but in what you usually see as mainstream civil disobedience, like the WTO protest or the civil rights protests or whatnot, part of the whole thing is that you go into it knowing that you may be arrested,
[26:39.710 --> 26:41.150]  tried, taken, whatever.
[26:41.150 --> 26:46.170]  And that's very much an accepted part of it and that's, in fact, with things like the civil rights movement.
[26:46.510 --> 26:51.110]  And sometimes you establish that, in fact, as a goal to gain coverage.
[26:51.110 --> 26:54.510]  You have people arrested and then you say, look, these people didn't break the law and they got arrested.
[26:54.510 --> 26:55.270]  What's wrong here?
[26:56.090 --> 27:00.990]  But in hacktivism and in cyber action, the reverse seems to be true.
[27:01.230 --> 27:08.810]  It seems to be very, I won't say very easy, but it seems to be often a goal that you can do direct action but not get your hands dirty.
[27:09.230 --> 27:15.110]  You know, you can deny service or you can hack a web page or you can even just put up your own web page that's like, I think this is bad.
[27:15.490 --> 27:23.730]  But then you can say, this was done by the cool haxers of the apocalypse or whatever, rather than this was done by Joe Smith, here's my address when you want to arrest me, etc.
[27:24.110 --> 27:24.270]  Right.
[27:25.230 --> 27:30.890]  And I think that's good in the sense that it makes it, you have to be that much less courageous to do something.
[27:30.890 --> 27:34.030]  It makes it much easier to get a lot more people active on something.
[27:34.330 --> 27:45.370]  But I think it's bad in the sense that in some ways you only want people that are really willing to get arrested to actually raise their voices because if you're not willing to pay the price, you may not really understand what's going on.
[27:45.510 --> 27:46.670]  Does that make any sense?
[27:46.830 --> 27:55.150]  And I just was curious what thoughts you all would have about that, the fact that it's now an anonymous form of standing in the streets.
[27:55.370 --> 27:55.710]  Exactly.
[27:55.710 --> 27:56.950]  It's not essentially anonymous.
[27:57.170 --> 28:07.530]  I know that I have some issues with the electro hippies, although I respect them because at least they're consistent and they believe in what they're doing, but they have deliberately made a point of letting people know who they are.
[28:07.710 --> 28:15.370]  And if there are any issues, any legal issues related to that or any recourse, then they've set themselves up to be targeted.
[28:15.630 --> 28:17.230]  So I respect them for that.
[28:17.850 --> 28:23.350]  A lot of other groups, I mean, I just don't know who they are, like the hacks or types.
[28:24.610 --> 28:31.510]  And you never know what they're actually trying to achieve half the time, other than facing a web page.
[28:31.630 --> 28:33.730]  And there doesn't seem to be any strategy set up.
[28:33.850 --> 28:38.490]  There doesn't seem to be any communication with the media or the target.
[28:38.990 --> 28:42.210]  Or you're always left guessing and scratching your head what's going on.
[28:42.210 --> 28:58.710]  And in some ways, could you not use that to an...not always true again, but to some extent, one of the defining things about cyber terrorism versus cyber action would be that if you are willing to say, here is my name if you want to contact me, or here is a place you can find more information or whatnot,
[28:58.870 --> 29:08.490]  or here I am ready to be made a martyr of, that would usually define you as someone who believes strongly enough in a cause, wrong or right, that you were doing activism.
[29:08.490 --> 29:17.770]  Whereas if you are only willing to anonymously damage something, then you probably don't really believe in anything beyond, gee, this would be fun if we took this site down.
[29:18.010 --> 29:26.590]  Well, I think that would certainly clarify things for people who wouldn't necessarily be already in the know on those kinds of actions.
[29:27.510 --> 29:39.230]  You know, when something happens on the internet in terms of, you know, security compromises, cases, a lot of people in this room know about it pretty quickly.
[29:39.610 --> 29:42.290]  You know, it's a quick rubber mill.
[29:43.430 --> 29:47.670]  But the people at large, the general public, they have no idea what's going on.
[29:47.930 --> 29:59.410]  And as long as it's completely anonymous, and if the case isn't stated very well in the HTML source code, people don't really have any way of knowing why this site went down.
[30:00.630 --> 30:09.270]  Particularly if it's an anonymous, distributed denial of service attack, there can be a myriad of conclusions drawn.
[30:10.230 --> 30:16.570]  So yeah, it's important that people at least explain what they're doing, even if they don't necessarily identify themselves.
[30:17.010 --> 30:22.150]  Yeah, I think anonymous action, hacktivism can be good.
[30:22.390 --> 30:26.130]  And I think there's lots of tools in the activist toolbox.
[30:27.090 --> 30:28.930]  Hacktivism and technology can be one of them.
[30:29.030 --> 30:31.510]  Direct action in the streets, civil disobedience is another one.
[30:32.070 --> 30:37.390]  And there's plenty of other actions that people can take that are both public and not public.
[30:37.810 --> 30:40.330]  And it's, you know, we can use all of them.
[30:40.470 --> 30:43.610]  I mean, there's... Has anybody heard of ad busters?
[30:43.950 --> 30:49.650]  And there's a whole property enhancement thing that they do as far as billboards.
[30:49.650 --> 30:53.630]  They alter them to say different messages and stuff like that.
[30:53.850 --> 30:55.790]  So I think, you know, that's...
[30:55.790 --> 31:00.050]  That gets... That reaches a different kind of people than, you know, out in the street.
[31:00.290 --> 31:04.390]  And you're sort of at the whim of the corporate media who is videotaping you.
[31:04.950 --> 31:07.970]  And, you know, maybe you're lucky that you have a few IMC people there.
[31:08.150 --> 31:14.230]  But, you know, I have no problem with people who do anonymous back actions as long as, you know, you sort of...
[31:14.230 --> 31:17.410]  You know, you have a target and you have an issue and you explain it.
[31:17.890 --> 31:21.770]  As long as you do that, I mean, you can do anonymous actions all you want.
[31:21.950 --> 31:23.950]  I think they're just as... They're both very valid.
[31:24.490 --> 31:29.450]  On that note, anonymous action in places like China and Russia is very important.
[31:29.650 --> 31:34.190]  Because in places like China, even putting up a webpage, your freedom of speech is totally repressed.
[31:34.530 --> 31:37.390]  You risk execution just for your words.
[31:37.950 --> 31:40.770]  So anonymous action is very important.
[31:40.770 --> 31:48.750]  Places like Russia also, the police are infiltrating the ISPs with black boxes that can track you and record what you do.
[31:49.470 --> 31:54.410]  So making a martyr of yourself is an important thing or setting yourself up for that.
[31:54.630 --> 31:58.390]  Taking responsibility for your actions is important, but not necessary in some countries.
[31:58.630 --> 32:07.930]  Although, one thing you should point out is it's not just the currently totalitarian and formerly totalitarian regimes that are installing black boxes and all the switches.
[32:08.710 --> 32:10.070]  It's happening all over.
[32:10.630 --> 32:13.630]  And, you know, just take a look at ECHELON.
[32:14.910 --> 32:20.010]  Even if you think your country isn't spying on you, you know, the U.S. is.
[32:22.870 --> 32:24.790]  I just wanted to say one thing about martyrdom.
[32:25.130 --> 32:28.770]  I do direct action on the streets and I in no way want to be a martyr.
[32:30.070 --> 32:31.630]  I am totally against that.
[32:32.150 --> 32:34.910]  If I can, you know, if what happens, happens.
[32:35.190 --> 32:41.270]  But I don't want to get my head cracked in and be all happy about it if, you know, I don't accomplish anything.
[32:41.550 --> 32:45.250]  So I'd rather not get my head cracked in, you know, if I can.
[32:46.430 --> 32:48.950]  So I try to avoid that whole...
[32:48.950 --> 32:49.690]  The head cracking thing.
[32:49.690 --> 32:50.210]  Yeah.
[32:50.510 --> 32:52.410]  Head cracking thing in the martyrdom, you know.
[32:52.750 --> 32:56.950]  If I can, you know, change the world without getting my head cracked open, I'll do it.
[32:59.070 --> 32:59.790]  Who's first?
[33:02.090 --> 33:04.970]  I would like to get both of your opinions on this.
[33:05.750 --> 33:12.830]  As far as the internet far, you know, you said that within a couple of years they'll be within a half a day's walking distance or something.
[33:13.010 --> 33:13.970]  That's what the UN says.
[33:13.970 --> 33:18.690]  And you can't argue that that's a good thing as far as free speech goes and things like that.
[33:18.870 --> 33:26.070]  But I have the overwhelming feeling that the people that are furthering the internet want to further it for the reasons that they want to further TV.
[33:26.070 --> 33:39.730]  To promote consumerism and have you go to, you know, Coca-Cola's webpage so that, you know, people in countries that don't have the internet now can learn they can order Coca-Cola over the internet or some other product and not to demean Coca-Cola or anything.
[33:40.110 --> 33:59.810]  And I've also felt for a while that the hacker community, the problem with the hacker community, you know, not against anybody here, but a generalization is a lot of times, I don't feel like a lot of... they are very active or they're involved in any issues.
[34:00.050 --> 34:07.870]  And I feel like it takes a hacker-related specific issue for any hackers to say, we have to go to the streets and protest, like with the Kevin Mitnick issue.
[34:08.170 --> 34:25.510]  And I'd like to know what you think we could do or try to do to, A, keep the internet about free speech and about communicating and not about corporate consumerism, and to get hackers involved in social issues, regardless of right-wing, left-wing or anything like that,
[34:25.690 --> 34:30.190]  that aren't just related to selfish hacker ideals.
[34:30.730 --> 34:35.750]  I want to address the first point and then we can all take turns on the second point.
[34:36.830 --> 34:41.910]  There are lots of vested interests that want very high internet penetration.
[34:42.530 --> 34:53.470]  I think, you know, big business has a very good reason for wanting everybody on the face of the planet able to view banner ads or buy stuff off eBay.
[34:54.930 --> 34:56.150]  But that's fine.
[34:56.290 --> 34:57.210]  I don't care about that.
[34:57.370 --> 35:03.590]  As far as I'm concerned, 90% of the traffic on the internet can be purely commercial, as far as I'm concerned.
[35:03.590 --> 35:07.290]  But that last 10% is two-way communication.
[35:07.610 --> 35:12.450]  It's me being able to put up information for people who are interested in it.
[35:12.710 --> 35:20.630]  And it's unlike any other medium that we have, except maybe if you have a printing press or, you know, a shortwave radio.
[35:21.150 --> 35:28.590]  You know, it's two-way and, you know, it's fundamentally different from television.
[35:30.130 --> 35:32.110]  So, I don't care why they do it.
[35:32.350 --> 35:36.890]  I'm just... I'm voting for total internet domination.
[35:38.510 --> 35:41.150]  I wasn't saying that I thought it was like television.
[35:41.350 --> 35:45.610]  I said... I'm under the impression that they would like to make it like television.
[35:45.710 --> 35:46.730]  Oh, they can try all they want.
[35:47.010 --> 35:53.170]  Well, what I want to know is what you think should be done to try to prevent things like that and to try to get people more active.
[35:53.170 --> 35:54.590]  Well, I don't think we have to do anything.
[35:54.810 --> 35:59.090]  I think, you know, the simple two-way nature of the net is going to be a...
[36:00.050 --> 36:06.210]  It's a huge, unsurmountable problem for somebody who wants to completely dominate it.
[36:06.270 --> 36:13.470]  Unless they, at a governmental level, decide to block access to everything but specific sites.
[36:13.470 --> 36:20.170]  Then it becomes a problem of selection, which we already have.
[36:21.290 --> 36:27.770]  But in terms of getting hackers politically conscious, does anyone have any ideas on that?
[36:27.890 --> 36:29.830]  I would like to respond to the first part.
[36:30.010 --> 36:30.050]  Okay.
[36:30.950 --> 36:35.810]  I think that the internet is mostly... I mean, look at who owns the phone lines.
[36:36.010 --> 36:40.350]  I mean, it's not, you know, people in this room probably don't own the phone lines.
[36:40.350 --> 36:41.270]  It's Bell Atlantic.
[36:41.530 --> 36:42.050]  It's Sprint.
[36:42.170 --> 36:48.970]  You know, it's these big conglomerates that own the phone lines and the systems that it's run on.
[36:49.870 --> 36:55.470]  And they don't do that to, you know, be nice to hackers or be nice to people who want to communicate.
[36:55.650 --> 36:56.950]  They do that so they can make money.
[36:57.090 --> 36:58.090]  And that's what they're about.
[36:58.270 --> 36:59.650]  They don't care about free speech.
[36:59.990 --> 37:09.890]  And if things like the MPAA, like 2600, distributing, you know, reporting on an issue, and they're being attacked for that, they're not about free speech.
[37:10.610 --> 37:16.790]  They're like, they own what the medium that is being, you know, the medium that the information is going on.
[37:17.350 --> 37:19.230]  And they can control it.
[37:19.470 --> 37:22.550]  And they will try to control it as much as possible.
[37:22.730 --> 37:24.630]  Maybe they won't come up with every way to control.
[37:24.770 --> 37:26.690]  But that's in their interest too.
[37:26.910 --> 37:31.610]  If there's something that challenges their authority, then, you know, they own their phone lines.
[37:31.610 --> 37:38.250]  They can... it's pretty much their governments and their system to play with.
[37:38.750 --> 37:39.870]  I don't see it that way.
[37:39.990 --> 37:43.690]  Only because I think we would have been shut down a long time ago if that was true.
[37:46.110 --> 37:46.510]  But...
[37:47.490 --> 37:47.890]  But...
[37:47.890 --> 37:49.190]  Do you have more on that?
[37:49.410 --> 37:51.050]  It's difficult to silence everybody.
[37:51.270 --> 38:01.050]  But I think one of the reasons that, you know, that they're trying to make it like TV and trying to use it is because it's a money-making enterprise for them.
[38:01.050 --> 38:05.510]  And I would rather see the internet be about communication and just about communication.
[38:05.950 --> 38:10.190]  Personally, if I think we got rid of things like capitalism, the internet would be great.
[38:15.790 --> 38:18.110]  Freedom of the press is limited to those who own one.
[38:18.270 --> 38:18.450]  A.J. Liebling.
[38:20.150 --> 38:24.170]  Well, now we could all own one for $9.95 a month, I guess.
[38:26.990 --> 38:32.950]  But back to getting hackers into social issues.
[38:33.190 --> 38:33.930]  Does anyone have any ideas?
[38:35.570 --> 38:37.890]  You know, you guys want to come to the RNC protest?
[38:38.470 --> 38:39.930]  It's in about two weeks.
[38:40.190 --> 38:41.490]  You're more than welcome to come.
[38:41.690 --> 38:42.470]  In Philadelphia?
[38:42.670 --> 38:43.270]  In Philadelphia.
[38:43.610 --> 38:43.650]  In Philadelphia.
[38:43.730 --> 38:45.350]  You can visit our website.
[38:45.950 --> 38:47.270]  Yes, we do have a website.
[38:49.450 --> 38:51.550]  It's thepartysover.org.
[38:52.130 --> 38:53.910]  No punctuation in that.
[38:54.350 --> 38:55.430]  So you can check us out.
[38:55.590 --> 39:01.450]  And we're offering trainings from everything, how to lock yourself to a giant pig with a box of donuts inside.
[39:02.110 --> 39:06.430]  Or to... That actually happened, anyway.
[39:08.090 --> 39:17.810]  Or to, like, you know, doing communications work on the street and how to better communicate amongst people who are, like, across the city and try to figure out, you know, what they should do.
[39:17.830 --> 39:20.970]  Because the police are tear gassing and pepper spraying over here.
[39:21.170 --> 39:24.190]  And then there's all these Republicans and press over here.
[39:24.330 --> 39:29.710]  And they're all trying to, you know, get to the fuck center.
[39:30.430 --> 39:31.930]  You know, that's where they're having their convention.
[39:34.450 --> 39:34.930]  Anyway.
[39:35.370 --> 39:37.470]  One point I thought was kind of important here.
[39:37.590 --> 39:41.490]  Notice we have this thing as, you know, hacktivism, terrorism, or New Hope or something.
[39:42.250 --> 39:43.070]  A New Hope.
[39:43.670 --> 39:44.530]  Episode 4.
[39:44.850 --> 39:45.090]  Yeah.
[39:46.850 --> 39:51.070]  Anyway, you can go on trishn.org, view all the hacked web pages for hacktivism.
[39:51.730 --> 39:54.850]  They look very, very similar to regular hacked pages.
[39:55.170 --> 40:00.610]  They still say, you know, hacked by some elite dude, greets to Bob, Joe, and some other guy.
[40:00.890 --> 40:04.930]  I mean, and they all have black backgrounds and they're usually made in front page.
[40:05.630 --> 40:08.790]  But, I mean, just the point is that they look very, very similar.
[40:09.150 --> 40:11.430]  And I don't blame the media for them associating them together.
[40:11.690 --> 40:14.210]  I mean, they both look very, very similar.
[40:14.690 --> 40:21.870]  I mean, I see, I mean, every now and then you'll see one that just has the message that won't be signed, but that's like one out of a hundred.
[40:22.210 --> 40:24.130]  I think that's probably a problem with tactics.
[40:24.530 --> 40:36.650]  If you're really trying to get your point across, and you choose to do that by, you know, defacing a web page, you're sort of throwing yourself in with all the people who have defaced web pages before.
[40:37.330 --> 40:38.930]  Unless it's very clever.
[40:41.590 --> 40:43.110]  I think that's inevitable.
[40:44.010 --> 40:47.890]  But then again, there's a lot of room on a web page for all kinds of text.
[40:47.890 --> 40:52.530]  So, if you really wanted to explain what you were doing, you certainly could do it.
[40:54.310 --> 41:04.690]  I'd like to come back for a second to the difference between anonym action and direct or own action, when you name it.
[41:04.770 --> 41:12.530]  Because I said in the beginning that I don't want to be in the same part of a group, or people who do terrorism or whatever.
[41:13.850 --> 41:30.190]  And when we have political issues, we have in the internet the ability, and that's that 10% you were talking about, and I hope it's getting more, to have our own organization and to use this network as a structural amplifier for our activism.
[41:30.490 --> 41:34.490]  But this freedom we have will be...
[41:35.610 --> 41:39.450]  is more under control, is more shit happens.
[41:39.810 --> 41:52.650]  In the meaning, if more people deface web pages or make disability null of service attack, the more the government has reason to say, hey, we need this ECHELON system, we need this police everywhere, and so on.
[41:53.190 --> 41:54.350]  And this...
[41:54.350 --> 42:02.830]  What I mean is, we risk the freedom we have by saying, by having too much tolerance to people just doing bullshit.
[42:02.830 --> 42:11.630]  Because defacing web pages is... I mean, we are here under our own a little bit, and we can face it, 95% is teenagers doing bullshit.
[42:11.910 --> 42:17.190]  I mean, it's web graffiti, okay, it's nice, but it's not real political issue.
[42:17.370 --> 42:24.710]  It's fun, yes, but, excuse me, it's teenagers fun, so... And it's not real political issue.
[42:24.830 --> 42:32.250]  And also, it's there for about a few minutes, then it's away, and then you have that police investigation, and then we have that Kevin Mitnick shit.
[42:32.850 --> 42:41.230]  And, I mean, as a computer freak, I'm sorry, I'm maybe a little bit too convenient, but running around on the street is so unconvenient.
[42:41.310 --> 42:56.270]  You have that rain outside, you have the policeman, and if you are in that anonymously group protesting, then you have these, again, provocateurs doing exact the same thing, throwing the first stones, and giving the police a reason to hit you.
[42:56.530 --> 43:03.370]  And I don't want to get into exact that situation on the internet, because I have been on the street, and it's... For me, it's too inconvenient.
[43:03.610 --> 43:17.390]  Everyone can make his own experience, and I'm... I appreciate you do still think that I'm too convenient, I'm sorry, but... So I'd like to keep the freedom of the net up, and I think we really got to be careful on where we say that's okay, that's hacktivism,
[43:17.510 --> 43:19.930]  and where we say, hey, excuse me, that's bullshit.
[43:21.630 --> 43:23.710]  I think it's a good point.
[43:27.230 --> 43:51.110]  It's a good point, especially in regard to the idea that you don't want to give the government more excuses for more restrictive laws, more funding for probably overzealous investigations and prosecutions, for what amounts to, you know, somebody renaming a text file and putting in some other content.
[43:52.770 --> 43:59.290]  But on the other hand, I think that's inevitable, at least in the westernized countries.
[43:59.670 --> 44:08.870]  They're looking for any excuse, whether it's the result of hacktivism or just downright malicious attack, and they have plenty of examples.
[44:09.150 --> 44:18.050]  I don't think... I think if all the hacktivism died out tomorrow, they would still find enough justification for, you know, an increased internet police state.
[44:19.310 --> 44:33.210]  So I think the only real effective organization against that is, you know, trying to contribute to things like cryptography, trying to contribute to things like, you know...
[44:33.210 --> 44:36.550]  Well, I don't want to endorse FreedomNet, but I think that's a good idea.
[44:36.590 --> 44:42.110]  I want to try to swap, yet smaller, as faster the movement goes.
[44:50.080 --> 44:53.940]  Yet smaller, the government has more reasons to forbid that.
[44:54.160 --> 44:55.940]  And it's not the way they're not trying.
[44:56.340 --> 44:56.900]  Right.
[44:57.440 --> 45:05.160]  So the comment was, as time goes on, the government is encroaching more and more on our rights.
[45:05.160 --> 45:07.040]  I think that's what you're saying.
[45:07.380 --> 45:12.280]  And eliminating the possibility that someday we're going to have a very good solution for most of the people.
[45:12.500 --> 45:13.820]  And I think that's true.
[45:14.860 --> 45:20.480]  But I think that's true regardless of what happens with all the hacktivism.
[45:20.560 --> 45:26.720]  I think we have to work hard to help reinforce those people who are trying to do those things.
[45:27.840 --> 45:32.820]  I say, you know, go renew your EFF membership tomorrow.
[45:35.320 --> 45:39.940]  As far as activism goes and saying, like, you know, some people you think are terrorists and stuff.
[45:40.800 --> 45:47.080]  When I think about activism, I think that a lot of anti-choice people, I don't consider them activists.
[45:47.080 --> 45:48.140]  I consider them.
[45:48.960 --> 45:53.560]  For me, an activist, a social justice activist, you have to be against all forms of oppression.
[45:53.880 --> 46:02.780]  Not just, you know, not just, you know, one issue or, like, be against, you know, the denial of, like, free speech.
[46:02.860 --> 46:07.160]  You have to be against all forms of oppression, sexism, homophobia, racism, classism.
[46:07.720 --> 46:10.760]  So I think, you know, we can sort of define ourselves that way.
[46:11.380 --> 46:13.640]  And sort of being, like, there's a...
[46:13.640 --> 46:18.820]  And against the anti-globalization movement in Europe, their movement was actually co-opted by the...
[46:18.820 --> 46:21.840]  The left-wing movement was co-opted by the right-wing movement.
[46:22.300 --> 46:26.540]  Because the right-wing movement, they're basically fascists and they're nationalists.
[46:26.600 --> 46:30.800]  So they're against the globalization economic system because they're all about nationalism.
[46:30.800 --> 46:35.700]  But they're also, you know, they're also racist and, you know, sexist.
[46:35.700 --> 46:40.140]  And they're also, you know, classist as well, but just in a different way.
[46:43.420 --> 46:43.940]  Hi.
[46:44.400 --> 46:50.620]  I'd just like to make a comment about one of the dangers of hacktivism as a concept.
[46:51.340 --> 47:01.440]  And that's, because it's such a new word for this kind of activism, we shouldn't let the word stray too far from its root.
[47:04.460 --> 47:13.640]  Activism generally implies not only tactical protests, but a strategic approach toward making social change.
[47:14.240 --> 47:19.480]  When people think of hacktivism, they generally think of website hacks and people defacing things.
[47:19.640 --> 47:20.320]  And those are tactics.
[47:20.920 --> 47:22.820]  They're not necessarily strategic.
[47:23.140 --> 47:30.500]  If you want to use hacktivism as a means to change things, you need to take a strategic approach as well as a series of tactics.
[47:31.180 --> 47:40.660]  And, you know, one thing to note would be, like, that the internet is a medium for communication.
[47:41.840 --> 47:46.840]  But it is... when you look at something like hacktivism, there's more to it than just the medium.
[47:46.980 --> 47:48.120]  Most people just see the medium.
[47:48.580 --> 47:51.800]  They don't see that it's also a different audience.
[47:52.460 --> 48:03.160]  You wouldn't go and protest the, you know, have a street protest, a direct action protest about, you know, the injustices against the Falun Gong group in North Dakota.
[48:03.420 --> 48:04.220]  You wouldn't do it.
[48:04.440 --> 48:06.740]  The audience is wrong, and it's the wrong place to do it.
[48:07.880 --> 48:12.580]  However, you know, people seem to make the same mistake on the internet.
[48:13.360 --> 48:15.660]  One thing to remember is that your audience is different.
[48:16.180 --> 48:19.260]  The things that you protest, it's a tool, it's very valuable.
[48:19.780 --> 48:21.780]  You don't want to misuse it for the wrong causes.
[48:24.280 --> 48:30.060]  You know, it's really... it's not... it's pretty hard to make a mistake with something like direct action, because it's a physical thing.
[48:30.400 --> 48:31.880]  Everyone has a physical representation.
[48:32.420 --> 48:38.140]  Every person on this planet that you want to interface, that you want to influence, has a physical manifestation of body.
[48:38.260 --> 48:40.640]  And you can go to that person and talk to them.
[48:41.020 --> 48:46.060]  On the internet, the people that you're talking to, you know, are not the Falun Gong Chinese.
[48:46.420 --> 48:49.500]  They're not the people, you know, dying of AIDS in Africa.
[48:50.320 --> 48:51.420]  They don't have access.
[48:51.600 --> 48:52.040]  They're not there.
[48:52.200 --> 48:53.700]  Those are not... that's not your audience anymore.
[48:54.100 --> 48:57.040]  And that has to be, you know, it has to be taken note.
[48:57.560 --> 49:05.120]  The people you're talking to are the, you know, are the white-bred American families who let, you know, MTV raise their children.
[49:05.740 --> 49:08.260]  The people who don't go outside are not going to see the street protest.
[49:08.500 --> 49:12.560]  And if they do, they're just going to think it's a nuisance because it's making noise and they can't hear the television.
[49:13.720 --> 49:19.360]  So, be aware of also the change in audience, as well as the change in medium, when you apply your tactics.
[49:19.500 --> 49:23.620]  Make sure you have a message that you're aiming at the right place and not just firing blanks off into the sky.
[49:30.590 --> 49:33.410]  One of the problems that I think arises is the...
[49:33.410 --> 49:34.730]  I'll just stand back here.
[49:34.850 --> 49:35.470]  You can hear me fine.
[49:36.030 --> 49:39.850]  It's the confusion... when the confusion between activism and terrorism is...
[49:41.410 --> 49:47.050]  really, when it comes down to terrorism, by definition, is instilling fear through some action.
[49:47.050 --> 49:54.270]  And what we were saying before about, you know, when you see, first of all, how similar they do appear.
[49:54.850 --> 50:17.910]  And a lot of times, an anonymous web defacement or... which seems seemingly unprovoked to the corporation that does it, might be seen as an anonymous unprovoked attack, which will typically instill more fear than knowing who's protesting their purposes and why.
[50:18.130 --> 50:26.730]  And when that's... when it's that perceived unprovoked attack instilling the fear, it's much quicker to call that a terrorist action than a piece of activism.
[50:26.730 --> 50:39.530]  And once the press or the government or the general public or whatever the powers may be have labeled something an act of terrorism, people are less likely to look at the intent and the people who did it.
[50:39.650 --> 50:45.710]  And that's even more important when people don't claim... don't take credit for their actions in doing it.
[50:45.710 --> 50:59.030]  So while I see the anonymity as... the perceived anonymity as a good point because, as was said before, it might allow more people to feel like they can get involved.
[50:59.670 --> 51:17.910]  It's also kind of, in a way, setting oneself up to be in a situation where they're instilling more fear and creating more friction between the company or the group or the idea, the people supporting the idea, and the people who don't support it.
[51:18.370 --> 51:21.970]  I mean, it's a situation of... what is it?
[51:22.410 --> 51:28.610]  You know, fear leads to hate and hate leads to suffering, as Yoda said.
[51:32.290 --> 51:32.930]  Yeah.
[51:33.410 --> 51:37.070]  Somebody else asked about this in a different way.
[51:37.070 --> 51:37.890]  I agree.
[51:38.130 --> 51:44.610]  I think the anonymity is sort of a double-edged sword if there's no explanation for what's happening.
[51:44.870 --> 52:01.770]  If it's just another web page hack or if it's just another, you know, denial of service or whatever the tactic happens to be, if it comes out of the blue and there's no explanation and there's no clear reason for why it would happen, then the speculation always runs wild.
[52:02.270 --> 52:17.650]  I mean, I think you're going to see people, and we may have seen it already, where a group performs some sort of activity and somebody else decides to take credit for it just to further their cause or, you know, for whatever reason.
[52:18.970 --> 52:22.570]  There's nothing to prevent that, and I suspect it's already happened.
[52:24.610 --> 52:25.930]  Any last words?
[52:26.350 --> 52:34.710]  Actually, I wanted to say something about terrorism and as people can sometimes... as far from the activism, street action, direct action.
[52:35.650 --> 52:49.650]  If, you know, a lot of times, like, let's take the police for example, a lot of the police are being trained and their trainers in preparation for the protest happening this summer at the Republican National Convention and in Philadelphia and the Los Angeles,
[52:49.930 --> 52:51.990]  the Democratic National Convention.
[52:52.150 --> 52:56.590]  They're being trained that the activists, they don't care about the... they're not there for any issues.
[52:56.830 --> 53:01.350]  They're only there because they want to confront the police, and that's absolutely not true.
[53:01.450 --> 53:02.150]  That's totally false.
[53:02.150 --> 53:16.610]  But, what it does is, it makes the police think that we're out to get them, and that makes it sort of like, they think that we're terrorists, and it's easier to crack the head open of somebody who think is out to get you than to somebody who's like... says they're not out to get you,
[53:16.750 --> 53:19.410]  but they're here because they don't agree what's going on.
[53:20.150 --> 53:26.570]  So, that's just another example of how people can be... the misinformation can be...
[53:26.570 --> 53:29.110]  turn people into what people call terrorists.
[53:31.730 --> 53:33.130]  Any last words, Laird?
[53:34.990 --> 53:39.650]  Well, other than... I'd just like to thank 2600 and everyone for putting this together.
[53:39.810 --> 53:42.650]  I think we've had a great range of opinion and discussions.
[53:42.650 --> 53:43.250]  It's been great.
[53:43.530 --> 53:44.030]  Thanks a lot.
[53:44.610 --> 53:45.210]  Yeah, me too.
[53:52.860 --> 54:03.220]  Oh yeah, just if anybody's interested in social justice work, the Ruckus Society, they teach activists how to do high-profile actions, how to do banger hangs off buildings.
[54:03.220 --> 54:11.180]  They want to do a cyber camp and teach people who are interested in cyber activism how to do more high-profile actions and how to talk to the media.
[54:11.420 --> 54:17.580]  So if you want to check them out, you can look up ruckus.org on the web and learn how to cause a ruckus.
[54:18.700 --> 54:19.300]  All right.
[54:19.700 --> 54:21.040]  Thanks for having me on the panel.