[00:00.720 --> 00:01.560]  Good afternoon.
[00:01.900 --> 00:02.620]  Ooh, very loud.
[00:03.380 --> 00:05.900]  We have Biella Coleman here.
[00:06.060 --> 00:07.300]  She prefers to be called Biella.
[00:07.740 --> 00:10.440]  And this is going to be a really fascinating talk.
[00:10.620 --> 00:24.020]  We've seen Anonymous and how did it not get named by the Feds as a, like under the RICO statutes as, you know, conspiracists to commit terrorism.
[00:24.100 --> 00:27.800]  And I've wondered this myself for a while, like, why didn't the Feds just do that?
[00:27.800 --> 00:33.380]  So, Biella is going to explain how Anonymous narrowly evaded being vilified as terrorists.
[00:33.780 --> 00:34.000]  Biella?
[00:34.220 --> 00:35.260]  Thanks so much.
[00:35.460 --> 00:36.660]  Can people hear me and see me?
[00:37.760 --> 00:38.240]  Okay.
[00:40.120 --> 00:44.780]  So, the title is pretty self-explanatory, so I'm going to just jump in.
[00:45.180 --> 00:48.880]  For those that may not know me, I'm an anthropologist.
[00:48.880 --> 00:57.980]  And what's interesting, when I tell people, let's just say a doctor or an accountant, that I'm an anthropologist, they think one of two things.
[00:58.380 --> 01:01.020]  Indiana Jones or dinosaur bones.
[01:01.280 --> 01:02.140]  Like, no joke.
[01:03.100 --> 01:04.360]  Ooh, where are my slides?
[01:06.300 --> 01:07.240]  There they are.
[01:07.400 --> 01:07.760]  Okay.
[01:08.560 --> 01:11.860]  So, actually, I don't dig bones.
[01:12.080 --> 01:13.600]  I don't dig the past.
[01:13.820 --> 01:14.920]  I dig the present.
[01:15.100 --> 01:18.300]  And the majority of my work has been on computer hackers.
[01:18.300 --> 01:23.960]  Now, my first project was on free software and free software addicts.
[01:25.640 --> 01:30.100]  They're the only addicts that lead to a kind of improvement in your life.
[01:31.580 --> 01:38.540]  And then, I ended up doing a multi-year study on Anonymous.
[01:38.820 --> 01:40.900]  And it was a really interesting project.
[01:41.080 --> 01:42.580]  I mean, it really consumed my life.
[01:42.580 --> 01:44.300]  They were fascinating.
[01:44.300 --> 01:45.920]  They were frustrating.
[01:46.380 --> 01:53.940]  And actually, what I'm going to show you right now are a handful of words that I've used over the years to describe them.
[01:54.160 --> 02:06.920]  And it's included things like hydra and trickster, confusing, enchanting, controversial, irreverent, interesting, unpredictable, frustrating, stupid, and really stupid.
[02:08.260 --> 02:26.220]  But one of the fascinating things was I was almost sure, especially in 2011, when there was, like, a shitload of non-stop hacking, even sabotage, I was almost sure that when I was talking to a lot of journalists and media, I was going to have to do one thing.
[02:26.220 --> 02:33.540]  I thought I was going to have to convince people that they were not terrorists, that they were just b-tards.
[02:35.000 --> 02:38.460]  And, weirdly enough, it really did not happen.
[02:38.540 --> 02:41.320]  And I actually think that's a puzzle to be solved.
[02:41.440 --> 02:43.100]  And that's what I'm going to be talking about today.
[02:43.700 --> 02:46.620]  And the talk is divided into three parts.
[02:46.620 --> 02:48.700]  I'm going to start with some proof.
[02:48.820 --> 02:53.220]  Some of you may be thinking, well, in fact, I think they have been vilified as terrorists.
[02:53.220 --> 02:58.680]  And, unfortunately, this is the shortest part of the talk, just because there's so much to say.
[02:59.180 --> 03:06.420]  And then I'm going to talk about why I think it was very conceivable that they could have been painted with a brush of terrorism.
[03:07.080 --> 03:20.260]  And this may be the most obvious part of the talk, but actually I've collected so much material over the years, it's pretty shocking when you put it all together to see how many political groups get tagged as terrorists.
[03:20.260 --> 03:23.620]  Some of them successfully, and some of them not successfully.
[03:24.020 --> 03:28.900]  And then the kind of heart and soul of the talk, which is why they evaded it.
[03:29.440 --> 03:33.580]  Alright, very briefly, signs that they were not associated with terrorists or terrorism.
[03:33.720 --> 03:46.980]  I think the most important one is that if you look at most media articles, whether it's the Wall Street Journal, or niche publications like Ars Technica, they are not referred to as terrorists.
[03:47.720 --> 03:52.860]  They're, you know, for the most part referred to as hacktivists, as activists.
[03:53.480 --> 04:02.320]  And if there's a kind of negative cast that's put on them, it's usually vigilante.
[04:02.320 --> 04:04.100]  There are some exceptions.
[04:04.100 --> 04:09.000]  You probably won't be surprised to hear that Fox News has labeled them terrorists, right?
[04:09.320 --> 04:16.340]  But really, there have been studies done, and this is not the word that's used.
[04:16.480 --> 04:18.400]  In fact, hacktivists or activists is.
[04:18.900 --> 04:24.500]  Now, the most important one reason is also one of the reasons why they evaded it.
[04:24.640 --> 04:27.080]  And it has to do with pop culture.
[04:27.080 --> 04:38.560]  It is pretty unbelievable how much Anonymous has been taken up by different segments of the domains of culture and the arts.
[04:38.700 --> 04:45.260]  And later on, I'm going to be giving you many more examples aside from the most obvious ones, like Mr. Robot.
[04:45.440 --> 04:55.460]  And this was really important, because in many ways they're being cast as kind of heroes, maybe a little bit of anti-heroes, but certainly not terrorists.
[04:55.620 --> 04:58.660]  And this is an incredibly important part of my story.
[04:58.820 --> 05:03.800]  So it's both a sign that they weren't tagged that way, and it also helped kind of inoculate them.
[05:04.660 --> 05:09.660]  Now, let's talk about, you know, why they were kind of well-positioned to become vilified.
[05:10.440 --> 05:19.740]  To this audience, you know, when I say that terrorism label has been used for political ends in really problematic ways, this is not going to be a surprise in any way.
[05:20.040 --> 05:22.840]  But I hope, again, some of the examples may be interesting.
[05:23.140 --> 05:35.720]  Because while that terrorism label, in some ways, has been painted with way more frequency since 9-11, it is not a story that's either American or post-9-11.
[05:36.060 --> 05:38.980]  This is something that has been used for quite a while.
[05:38.980 --> 05:51.820]  I think the historical example that's most salient is Nelson Mandela was on a terrorist watch list in the UK and the United States until 2008, for example.
[05:53.240 --> 05:56.100]  And there's many other kind of historical examples.
[05:57.340 --> 06:04.320]  Let's shift away from the U.S., although we're going to have to, of course, go back to the United States because they're always special in this regard.
[06:04.320 --> 06:19.580]  But if you look at Europe as well, there's really some troubling trends where the government is... where governments are using terrorism laws and statutes to kind of smack down political activists.
[06:19.740 --> 06:23.760]  The most famous one in France concerns a group called the Tarnac 9.
[06:24.180 --> 06:26.820]  They're a kind of anti-capitalist collective.
[06:27.180 --> 06:33.300]  And they did engage in an act of sabotage where they stopped the trains in France.
[06:33.300 --> 06:34.660]  It was pretty dramatic.
[06:34.820 --> 06:37.120]  There was no loss of life or anything like that.
[06:37.460 --> 06:38.960]  And they were arrested.
[06:39.940 --> 06:50.340]  And initially, they were arrested under a statute where they were charged with a conspiracy in the service of a criminal enterprise for the purpose of terrorism, a terrorism act.
[06:50.560 --> 06:58.420]  Now, this was dropped, but in fact, actually, the prosecution is once again seeking to reassert this statute.
[06:59.040 --> 07:04.180]  The next example is also an interesting one because it has to do with puppets.
[07:04.380 --> 07:07.000]  And actually, the talk is going to end with a puppet as well.
[07:07.280 --> 07:19.460]  But in Spain, at a children's show, there were some puppeteers who were actually being satirical about the Basques, rebels, terrorists in Spain.
[07:19.980 --> 07:26.480]  But some folks at the show and then the government felt that they were inciting terrorism.
[07:27.020 --> 07:31.240]  And if you kind of encourage terrorism in Spain, you could be arrested.
[07:31.420 --> 07:33.220]  Well, the puppeteers were arrested.
[07:33.580 --> 07:35.640]  They were put in jail for five days.
[07:36.780 --> 07:37.940]  It was very shocking.
[07:38.360 --> 07:41.320]  In the end, the judge, thankfully, threw out the case.
[07:41.540 --> 07:46.000]  But nevertheless, it's still kind of surprising that they were arrested in the first place.
[07:46.760 --> 07:49.880]  All right, let's now shift to some technological examples.
[07:50.360 --> 07:54.160]  The next one is probably really well known to everyone here.
[07:54.380 --> 07:56.340]  Who here has used Tor before?
[07:56.980 --> 07:58.040]  A lot of people.
[07:58.780 --> 08:00.900]  You're all tourists, right?
[08:01.140 --> 08:12.200]  General Keith Alexander has said that all those communicating with encryption will be regarded as terror suspects and will be monitored and stored as a method of prevention.
[08:12.580 --> 08:14.660]  Now, we can laugh at this example.
[08:14.660 --> 08:24.420]  I don't actually know of anyone who has been arrested for using Tor and then kind of being a suspect for terrorism.
[08:24.460 --> 08:28.860]  But for some reason, again, in Spain, I'm not sure why it comes up so much in the story.
[08:29.220 --> 08:38.080]  Actually, there were activists who were suspected of terrorism because they were using Rise Up email accounts, right?
[08:38.400 --> 08:43.820]  So Rise Up is a privacy enhancing ISP.
[08:44.400 --> 08:49.200]  And a bunch of activists were rounded up by the police.
[08:50.780 --> 09:02.580]  And this also kind of caused outrage, especially because the judge explicitly said, oh, we suspected you of terrorism because you were using Rise Up email accounts.
[09:02.760 --> 09:05.860]  And again, there were big protests and so on and so forth.
[09:06.400 --> 09:08.260]  All right, back to the United States.
[09:09.420 --> 09:14.320]  This example is a depressing example concerning Black Lives Matters.
[09:14.840 --> 09:20.180]  Certain police have sort of tagged the movement as being a terrorist movement.
[09:20.900 --> 09:32.340]  And, you know, that's maybe not too surprising, what maybe was a little bit more surprising was that there was a petition to formally recognize Black Lives Matters as a terrorist organization.
[09:32.560 --> 09:39.320]  And they did get 100,000 signatures needed for the White House to respond.
[09:39.520 --> 09:45.520]  Thankfully, you know, they did not designate Black Lives Matter as a terrorist organization.
[09:45.520 --> 09:49.280]  So a lot of these examples are unsuccessful.
[09:49.660 --> 09:50.280]  They haven't stuck.
[09:50.420 --> 09:51.700]  They're being used, right?
[09:51.860 --> 09:52.840]  But they don't stick.
[09:53.060 --> 09:54.980]  They're like jello thrown against the wall.
[09:55.180 --> 09:57.660]  But now I'm going to give you an example that did stick.
[09:57.760 --> 10:02.480]  And I think it's an important one because it's kind of in some ways the cautionary tale that made me think about this.
[10:02.720 --> 10:06.880]  And it has to do with animal rights activists and environmental activists.
[10:06.880 --> 10:10.800]  And there's a really great book called Green is the New Red by Will Potter.
[10:11.660 --> 10:24.020]  And in there, he makes the argument, again, not a surprise here, that since September 11th, the word terrorism has been stretched and pulled and hemmed and cuffed and torn and mended to fit a growing body of political whims.
[10:24.020 --> 10:36.580]  And there's no other group in the United States that has suffered most from this hemming and cutting and application than the environmental rights movement, the radical movement.
[10:36.860 --> 10:52.700]  And in specific, in 2004, John Lewis, who was involved with the FBI, basically designated eco-terrorism as the number one domestic terrorist threat in the United States.
[10:52.700 --> 11:00.640]  And this was no joke because two years after this was declared, what happened next was particularly important.
[11:01.000 --> 11:09.020]  A law called the Animal Enterprise Protection Act became the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act.
[11:09.240 --> 11:18.140]  And this applies to anyone who intentionally damages or causes the loss of any real or personal property used by an animal enterprise.
[11:18.140 --> 11:28.400]  And so, for example, recently, not too long ago, some animal rights activists have released some minks from a farm, and they are charged as terrorists.
[11:28.860 --> 11:35.940]  Now, some of you may be wondering, has there been loss of life because of animal rights activists, right, here around the world?
[11:35.940 --> 11:45.700]  Well, here's a little chart, which shows that actually there hasn't been any loss of life, no murders.
[11:46.320 --> 11:48.500]  Yes, some arson, which is pretty hardcore.
[11:49.060 --> 11:52.720]  The great majority of action has been vandalism.
[11:52.920 --> 12:02.760]  But precisely because the law was changed, precisely because there was a really concerted campaign, monkey-wrenching saboteur is the same as terrorists.
[12:03.400 --> 12:10.820]  And, you know, some of anonymous' actions definitely fit under monkey-wrenching and sabotage, right?
[12:10.920 --> 12:17.740]  So it's not too far-fetched to conceive that anonymous could have been tagged as terrorists.
[12:18.180 --> 12:23.500]  Now, I'm going to finish my animal rights story with a kind of very shocking example.
[12:23.500 --> 12:33.480]  And it's a shocking example because there was a handful of people called the Shack 7, who were initially convicted under the Animal Enterprise Act.
[12:33.780 --> 12:37.480]  Some of the sentencing happened under the Terrorism Act.
[12:38.080 --> 12:44.500]  And they wanted to shut down the notorious animal testing lab, Huntington Life Sciences.
[12:45.000 --> 12:54.580]  And as you can read in this quote, I'm not going to read it full, but what's interesting about the Shack 7, was that none of them were involved in sabotage or monkey-wrenching.
[12:54.780 --> 12:59.240]  They ran the website, which advocated for animal liberation.
[12:59.600 --> 13:05.480]  And in fact, there was a strict division where if you ran the website, you didn't engage in those acts, right?
[13:05.480 --> 13:07.020]  To kind of protect yourself.
[13:07.280 --> 13:16.020]  Well, many of these folks went to jail for many years simply for running the website and advocating for animal liberation.
[13:16.360 --> 13:19.840]  In part because they couldn't get the actual salvageurs, right?
[13:20.300 --> 13:23.640]  So to me, this is really like as bad as it can get.
[13:24.060 --> 13:26.940]  So that's the kind of general set of reasons.
[13:27.160 --> 13:30.460]  But now I want to like dive into the technological reasons.
[13:30.460 --> 13:35.360]  I want to dive into Anonymous to talk about why they were well positioned to earn the title.
[13:36.100 --> 13:40.540]  Well, again, no one here is going to see this as a surprise.
[13:40.580 --> 13:51.080]  Everyone has heard of the great tale of Cyber Pearl Harbor, where one day there will be a catastrophic attack against infrastructure.
[13:52.360 --> 13:54.640]  And it has not yet happened.
[13:54.640 --> 14:01.600]  And most people here know that since 9-11, the rhetoric around Cyber Pearl Harbor has intensified.
[14:01.840 --> 14:05.300]  But it's existed actually for a pretty long time.
[14:05.560 --> 14:09.440]  And by this, I mean the association between cyber attacks and terrorism.
[14:10.000 --> 14:13.980]  One of the first associations between the two came in 1991.
[14:14.420 --> 14:22.780]  Again, well before 9-11 in this report, which was a government report about computers at risk.
[14:22.780 --> 14:26.800]  And it's the last sentence here that's relevant.
[14:26.940 --> 14:31.660]  Tomorrow's terrorists may be able to do more damage with a keyboard than with a bomb.
[14:31.840 --> 14:32.300]  Right?
[14:32.500 --> 14:36.180]  And again, leading to Cyber Pearl Harbor.
[14:36.940 --> 14:48.240]  Now, another factor I think has to do with the fact that Anonymous was engaged, especially in 2011 and parts of 2012, in high risk hacking.
[14:48.240 --> 14:55.340]  You know, they were doing many different things, but they were certainly hacking into companies, taking emails, deleting files.
[14:55.740 --> 15:05.400]  And Cory Doctorow, who is our keynote at HOPE, has described the hacking in these terms, which I think are pretty accurate.
[15:05.400 --> 15:16.280]  He says, and the kind of hacking that Anonymous does, by means of the fluid, structureless norms of the group, half macho posturing, half uber savvy media prankstership, is doubly exciting.
[15:16.480 --> 15:17.520]  Or exciting squared.
[15:17.720 --> 15:25.460]  It's filled with drama, betrayals, police informants, intimidation, brinkmanship, insane risk taking, and impassioned speeches from the battlements.
[15:25.600 --> 15:25.700]  Right?
[15:25.700 --> 15:26.800]  No joke.
[15:27.040 --> 15:32.000]  Groups like LulzSec and AntiSec were hacking into NATO.
[15:32.880 --> 15:36.740]  They were telling the FBI every week to f*ck off.
[15:38.800 --> 15:39.440]  Exactly.
[15:40.520 --> 15:48.640]  And, you know, I actually, during this period, was having nightmares that the FBI was going to visit me as someone who studied them.
[15:48.800 --> 15:48.920]  Right?
[15:48.920 --> 15:51.460]  This was no child's play.
[15:51.860 --> 15:58.900]  And, in fact, you know, attempts were made to tag Anonymous as terrorists.
[15:59.040 --> 16:01.660]  And this is what I'm going to now talk about.
[16:02.200 --> 16:08.720]  So, for those that may not remember, Anonymous attacked a security firm called H.B.
[16:08.840 --> 16:17.160]  Gary after one of its employees, Aaron Barr, had boasted that he had infiltrated Anonymous and was going to give up the names to the FBI.
[16:17.680 --> 16:21.080]  And, well, Anonymous, in one evening, entered into H.B.
[16:21.160 --> 16:25.160]  Gary, took all their emails, put them online, deleted everything else.
[16:25.420 --> 16:25.820]  Right?
[16:25.940 --> 16:28.180]  It caused, like, major embarrassment to the company.
[16:28.260 --> 16:29.580]  In fact, the company shut down.
[16:30.160 --> 16:35.580]  And the president, Greg Hoogland, this is what he had to say to a reporter.
[16:35.640 --> 16:40.220]  He said, they're causing me a great deal of pain right now.
[16:40.220 --> 16:43.600]  What they're doing right now is not hacktivism.
[16:43.740 --> 16:44.640]  It was before.
[16:44.920 --> 16:46.320]  Now it's terrorism.
[16:46.720 --> 16:46.800]  Right?
[16:47.400 --> 16:50.320]  So this word was actually thrown out in this period.
[16:51.040 --> 17:00.320]  Now, another kind of interesting labeling of terrorism with a member of Anonymous relates to Jeremy Hammond.
[17:00.420 --> 17:03.420]  Jeremy Hammond also was quite the monkey-wrencher.
[17:03.420 --> 17:10.900]  He hacked into an intelligence firm called Stratfor, and he also took their emails and deleted everything.
[17:11.700 --> 17:16.080]  And due to a leak, we found out that he was on a terrorist watch list, actually.
[17:16.380 --> 17:17.120]  But guess what?
[17:17.420 --> 17:20.440]  He was not on the watch list because he was a hacker.
[17:21.060 --> 17:23.460]  He was on the watch list because he was an environmental anarchist.
[17:24.120 --> 17:24.360]  Right?
[17:24.360 --> 17:26.160]  And that's kind of interesting.
[17:28.180 --> 17:33.700]  Initially, I thought he was going to be like the uber-terrorist for being like the hacker environmental anarchist.
[17:33.820 --> 17:33.940]  Right?
[17:34.180 --> 17:34.760]  But no.
[17:35.600 --> 17:35.860]  All right.
[17:36.220 --> 17:37.460]  Now, the government.
[17:37.600 --> 17:41.880]  The government were no fans of Anonymous.
[17:42.180 --> 17:42.320]  Right?
[17:42.480 --> 17:45.600]  They really thought that they were terrible, evil people.
[17:45.900 --> 17:50.820]  And we have some really nice nuggets of information that help substantiate this.
[17:50.820 --> 17:55.180]  One comes from the Snowden leaks, and it concerns GCHQ.
[17:55.460 --> 18:02.580]  There was this slide where Anonymous and LulzSec are right up there with pedophiles and state-sponsored hackers.
[18:02.920 --> 18:03.040]  Right?
[18:03.240 --> 18:09.660]  So, they recognize that there's some good uses of Tor on top, but there's some terrible uses of Tor.
[18:10.240 --> 18:12.060]  Pedophiles, Anonymous, LulzSec.
[18:12.180 --> 18:12.320]  Right?
[18:12.520 --> 18:13.440]  Not fans.
[18:14.540 --> 18:17.340]  The second slide is a very interesting one.
[18:18.640 --> 18:21.960]  And it comes from an article in the New Yorker.
[18:22.920 --> 18:32.600]  And I'm going to, again, not read the whole slide, but basically it had to do with a briefing related to cyber security with members of Congress.
[18:32.900 --> 18:33.020]  Right?
[18:34.600 --> 18:37.620]  And basically, I'm going to read the last part now.
[18:37.780 --> 18:44.960]  As we're dealing with the ever-increasing presence on the net and ever-increasing risk, the government nuts and bolts were still being worked out.
[18:44.960 --> 18:52.940]  Napolitano told me, when discussing potential cyber security threats, she added, we often used Anonymous as exhibit A.
[18:53.100 --> 18:56.600]  They were the example that was always rolled out.
[18:56.860 --> 19:01.440]  And this, again, was related to attacks against infrastructure.
[19:01.440 --> 19:16.620]  And actually, related to this, this meeting occurred soon after this article, which, again, I think was a really potent attempt to tag Anonymous as evil cyber terrorists.
[19:16.620 --> 19:21.580]  This was an article that appeared in February 2012 in the Wall Street Journal.
[19:21.840 --> 19:24.100]  And it was filled with a bunch of FUD.
[19:25.920 --> 19:27.840]  Fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
[19:28.280 --> 19:35.200]  And basically, even though there was no credible data whatsoever, this was written.
[19:35.200 --> 19:47.660]  So, the director of the National Security Agency has warned that the hacking group, Anonymous, could have the ability within the next year or two to bring about a limited power outage through a cyber attack.
[19:48.200 --> 19:56.100]  Now, again, this isn't like, oh, they're going to take down the entire electricity grid of the eastern seaboard.
[19:56.240 --> 19:59.040]  But nevertheless, it's pretty potent stuff.
[19:59.040 --> 20:01.340]  And this story didn't stick.
[20:01.860 --> 20:03.380]  And I'm going to tell you why later.
[20:03.640 --> 20:07.320]  But I really saw this as the most potent attempt.
[20:07.520 --> 20:10.180]  The Wall Street Journal's extremely respected paper.
[20:10.560 --> 20:15.840]  If this had stuck, this could have been the moment where that association was made.
[20:16.220 --> 20:18.200]  So, why did these attempts fail?
[20:18.560 --> 20:18.880]  All right.
[20:19.340 --> 20:21.620]  So, let's get to it.
[20:21.760 --> 20:28.400]  So, part of it has to do with the timing and who and what Anonymous supported in its early activist history, right?
[20:28.400 --> 20:31.420]  Anonymous, at one period, had been hardcore trolls.
[20:31.720 --> 20:33.900]  Then they engaged in hacktivism.
[20:34.060 --> 20:41.420]  And I think one of their most important interventions came in November, December, 2010.
[20:42.020 --> 20:42.980]  Let's travel back.
[20:43.340 --> 20:52.980]  We know that in that time period, WikiLeaks, thanks to Chelsea Manning, was able to release diplomatic cables that embarrassed the United States.
[20:52.980 --> 21:01.420]  The government was very unhappy and asked all sorts of companies to stop processing services for WikiLeaks.
[21:01.620 --> 21:15.100]  This was an interesting moment because a lot of people who weren't even necessarily supporters of WikiLeaks were really pissed off that the government was able to censor WikiLeaks in this fashion.
[21:15.100 --> 21:25.780]  So, this reporter here asks, what have either Assange or WikiLeaks actually been convicted that allows Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Amazon to withdraw their services this week, right?
[21:26.100 --> 21:35.820]  And to give you a taste of just how pissed off the government was, I'd like to offer a little quote from Sarah Palin, who had this to say.
[21:35.820 --> 21:42.280]  Assange should be hunted down with the same urgency were pursued Al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
[21:42.640 --> 21:47.320]  She actually wasn't saying it with that image, but I thought it fit really well.
[21:49.180 --> 21:50.940]  So, people were pissed, right?
[21:51.200 --> 22:00.860]  And this was a period then that Anonymous decided to support WikiLeaks and engage in a very large distributed denial of service attack.
[22:00.860 --> 22:07.480]  And this was fascinating because DDoS is really kind of unpopular in the hacker community.
[22:08.320 --> 22:21.300]  And yet, you had people like Richard Stallman, who will also be giving a talk here, writing an op-ed for The Guardian, who, of course, reminded his audience, it's not hacking DDoS, but it was a mass demo against control.
[22:21.920 --> 22:24.860]  And I followed the news very closely at this time.
[22:24.860 --> 22:32.300]  And what was fascinating was that it wasn't just the niche media that was kind of portraying things in more or less accurate ways.
[22:32.720 --> 22:36.020]  It was also being televised in the mainstream media.
[22:36.200 --> 22:43.420]  And I want to show you now a clip from CNN, where there was a tech expert who came on to comment about what happened.
[22:43.740 --> 22:51.820]  And he framed it in a certain way that I think helped Anonymous quite a bit, because CNN still reaches more Americans than any other news network.
[22:51.820 --> 22:53.880]  So now, let's take a listen.
[22:54.520 --> 22:56.160]  The new 8 o'clock on CNN.
[22:56.380 --> 22:57.040]  Parker Spitzer.
[22:57.340 --> 22:58.680]  Week Nights on CNN.
[22:59.100 --> 23:01.720]  Here's the real meaning of WikiLeaks' story.
[23:01.840 --> 23:05.500]  The powerlessness of world government and institutions in the Internet era.
[23:05.740 --> 23:14.540]  In the last few days, supporters of WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange have launched Operation Payback, shutting down major websites like Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal.
[23:15.000 --> 23:18.500]  One of the alleged perpetrators is all of 16 years old.
[23:18.980 --> 23:22.640]  Nick O'Meally is the perfect person to speak to this new wild, wild net.
[23:22.840 --> 23:25.620]  He's been on the cutting edge of social media and politics.
[23:25.940 --> 23:32.640]  He ran Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential Internet Campaign and teaches about technology and government at Harvard's Kennedy School.
[23:32.860 --> 23:38.020]  It seems a little bit scary to me that anybody can organize an attack on an institution and shut them down.
[23:38.100 --> 23:38.640]  What does that mean?
[23:38.740 --> 23:40.260]  It's almost like a sit-in, right?
[23:40.560 --> 23:44.300]  I mean, anybody could go sit in the lobby of a bank and shut the bank down for an hour.
[23:44.300 --> 23:48.240]  That's a fascinating metaphor, and I've never even thought about it this way, but it really isn't.
[23:48.340 --> 23:50.480]  I mean, this is a few people.
[23:50.580 --> 23:52.100]  First of all, sit-in requires many people.
[23:52.260 --> 23:54.200]  Second of all, it only shuts down that one little branch.
[23:54.400 --> 24:03.280]  This was right at the heart of the Internet's infrastructure for major global institutions, and they went kaput.
[24:03.480 --> 24:05.460]  And how many people did it take to organize this?
[24:05.460 --> 24:09.460]  Well, it took a few people to organize it, but hundreds of thousands to participate.
[24:09.660 --> 24:10.900]  It's a denial-of-service attack.
[24:11.160 --> 24:19.180]  What they do is they get lots of people to all request the website at the same time, and they figure out ways of automating it, but it's still a broad, coordinated activity.
[24:19.380 --> 24:24.060]  PayPal shuts down WikiLeaks' account, but you can still give money through PayPal to the Ku Klux Klan.
[24:24.460 --> 24:29.420]  I mean, this was a political action these hackers took, an act of civil disobedience.
[24:29.520 --> 24:30.680]  So is this something we should admire?
[24:31.320 --> 24:33.260]  I absolutely think it's something we should admire.
[24:33.520 --> 24:39.840]  You know, they're standing up for a political value they believe in, which is a radical free speech on the Internet.
[24:40.020 --> 24:42.680]  I'd argue maybe it's the only value the Internet actually has.
[24:42.800 --> 24:43.700]  You say you admire them.
[24:43.800 --> 24:44.520]  How far does that go?
[24:44.620 --> 24:46.660]  I mean, cyber war is the new frontier.
[24:47.280 --> 24:48.320]  China is hacking in.
[24:48.420 --> 24:49.620]  China could shut down our grid.
[24:50.080 --> 24:52.100]  Where do you draw the line of what's permissible?
[24:52.280 --> 24:54.100]  I mean, I wouldn't equate this with cyber war.
[24:54.260 --> 24:55.500]  I don't want, you know...
[24:55.500 --> 24:55.840]  Why not?
[24:56.120 --> 24:59.160]  Well, because I don't know that they broke any laws, right?
[24:59.160 --> 24:59.680]  Well...
[24:59.680 --> 25:00.680]  All they did was show up.
[25:00.780 --> 25:01.820]  All they did was show up.
[25:01.940 --> 25:03.060]  All they did was request the website.
[25:03.200 --> 25:05.120]  A lot of people requested the website at once.
[25:05.320 --> 25:08.000]  If China were to do that and were to try to overwhelm...
[25:08.000 --> 25:08.400]  Okay.
[25:10.240 --> 25:11.300]  It's a great clip.
[25:11.460 --> 25:13.300]  First of all, there's just like so much misinformation.
[25:13.360 --> 25:16.560]  They did not strike at the heart of the financial institutions.
[25:16.780 --> 25:19.420]  It was the PayPal blog, for Christ's sakes.
[25:19.820 --> 25:23.080]  And there wasn't actually hundreds of thousands of people that contributed.
[25:23.080 --> 25:24.620]  I mean, there was a lot.
[25:24.820 --> 25:25.860]  But I love this.
[25:26.040 --> 25:30.640]  You know, I love that there was a tech expert that put especially Spitzer in his place.
[25:31.980 --> 25:36.100]  And I think that this initial framing and this initial event was really important.
[25:36.340 --> 25:38.460]  This was not portrayed negatively.
[25:38.460 --> 25:41.600]  But what happened next was as important.
[25:41.860 --> 25:47.260]  Because a month later, Anonymous contributes to the social revolutions in the Middle East.
[25:47.800 --> 25:49.840]  And then in May, in Spain.
[25:50.360 --> 25:53.880]  And then in September, in Occupy.
[25:53.980 --> 25:55.220]  And this was incredibly important.
[25:55.460 --> 26:00.700]  Because Anonymous had been, up to that point, really identified with Internet politics.
[26:00.700 --> 26:02.300]  And they still are.
[26:02.440 --> 26:07.920]  But nevertheless, they got involved in social revolutions that had widespread support.
[26:08.400 --> 26:12.320]  And in the case of Occupy, they almost became the propaganda face of it.
[26:12.480 --> 26:14.180]  And this is really important.
[26:14.400 --> 26:20.040]  Because Anonymous has rightly been criticized for being incredibly incoherent.
[26:20.040 --> 26:23.680]  Because they arrive and show up with everything and anything.
[26:23.680 --> 26:34.300]  But in some ways, their incoherence, or you might call it their flexibility, has actually also inoculated them against the charge of being cyber terrorists.
[26:34.500 --> 26:36.940]  Because they get involved in so many different things.
[26:37.100 --> 26:37.500]  Right?
[26:37.620 --> 26:41.920]  Whereas ALF, Animal Liberation Front, they're just like freeing the animals.
[26:42.200 --> 26:42.320]  Right?
[26:42.820 --> 26:46.820]  And so in some weird way, the fact that they got involved in the social revolutions.
[26:46.940 --> 26:48.240]  The fact that they hacked.
[26:48.420 --> 26:50.100]  The fact that they call out rape culture.
[26:50.100 --> 26:53.700]  The fact that they kind of exist in every corner of the globe.
[26:53.720 --> 26:56.560]  From Peru to the Philippines.
[26:57.480 --> 26:58.840]  Has really helped them.
[26:59.100 --> 27:02.000]  And actually, there's a name for what this phenomenon is.
[27:02.040 --> 27:03.800]  It's a multiple use name.
[27:04.320 --> 27:08.240]  It's the fact that they're an alias that can be used for very different purposes.
[27:08.500 --> 27:10.240]  And Anonymous is the best example.
[27:10.380 --> 27:14.640]  Probably the best example that we've ever seen of this phenomenon at play.
[27:14.840 --> 27:17.520]  But it's by no means the only one.
[27:17.520 --> 27:24.020]  Luther Blissett was a fictional name created by a bunch of Italian activists in the 1990s.
[27:24.180 --> 27:28.700]  That then was picked up by activists across the European continent.
[27:29.060 --> 27:31.240]  To lay claim to a bunch of pranks.
[27:31.620 --> 27:34.060]  Another good example of a multiple use name.
[27:34.660 --> 27:39.800]  Captain Swing was the name of a character that a bunch of farmers who were really upset.
[27:39.800 --> 27:45.600]  At the fact that new machinery was being introduced into farming that was threatening their livelihood.
[27:46.040 --> 27:47.380]  They came up with this name.
[27:47.540 --> 27:49.840]  It spread all across England.
[27:49.840 --> 27:55.180]  And it was a name that they used to both commit acts of sabotage and lay claim to them.
[27:55.460 --> 27:57.040]  And so this has really helped.
[27:57.040 --> 28:08.400]  And this fellow Marco Desires has written a very good book looking at what unique characteristics a multiple use name has politically.
[28:09.060 --> 28:10.720]  So I think that's another reason.
[28:11.120 --> 28:15.520]  Now my favorite reason has to do with the adoption of the Guy Fawkes icon.
[28:15.940 --> 28:18.220]  Now I'm not going to tell you why they adopted it.
[28:18.340 --> 28:19.260]  It's a bit of a long story.
[28:19.440 --> 28:20.580]  I've written about it in my book.
[28:21.320 --> 28:22.180]  Check it out.
[28:22.180 --> 28:25.320]  It's a bit of an accident actually why they adopted it.
[28:25.500 --> 28:32.400]  But what's interesting is that today the mask really has a positive aura to it.
[28:32.680 --> 28:36.120]  It tends to have more positive than negative associations.
[28:36.120 --> 28:39.960]  It's associated with revolutionary action, with dissent.
[28:40.960 --> 28:47.460]  And again, still a controversial figure, but nevertheless one that I think a lot of people admire.
[28:47.460 --> 28:55.460]  But what's interesting is that Guy Fawkes was a historical figure who tried to blow up the English parliament in 1605.
[28:55.460 --> 28:57.020]  Everyone here probably knows this.
[28:57.180 --> 28:58.680]  You've watched V for Vendetta.
[28:59.160 --> 29:12.020]  But what's fascinating was in many respects for most of history, the 1700s and half of the 1800s, he was kind of like Britain's Osama bin Laden.
[29:12.600 --> 29:14.120]  People did not like him.
[29:14.340 --> 29:15.700]  He was a nasty figure.
[29:16.960 --> 29:24.820]  People were celebrating the 5th of November because they were celebrating the English state, right?
[29:26.340 --> 29:45.680]  And what's interesting to this story is that you may think that it's V for Vendetta, first the graphic novel by Moore, Alan Moore, and then the movie that helped transform a bad, evil, dark, menacing figure into an interesting antihero that we kind of admire.
[29:46.020 --> 29:58.560]  And it is certainly true that probably more than any other film and novel, these two were extremely important, but actually started a little bit earlier.
[29:58.940 --> 30:05.580]  In 1850, there was a historical novel published called Guy Fawkes or the Gunpowder Treason.
[30:05.820 --> 30:06.860]  I've actually read it.
[30:07.040 --> 30:08.520]  It's a pretty boring book.
[30:09.980 --> 30:11.560]  Ooh, lots of description.
[30:12.080 --> 30:19.600]  And basically, this was the first book where Guy Fawkes started to take on positive as opposed to negative associations.
[30:20.340 --> 30:25.020]  And so basically, it was the work of a writer who did that.
[30:25.200 --> 30:32.540]  And soon after, people in Britain started to write children's books with Guy Fawkes as a character.
[30:32.540 --> 30:37.940]  And this was particularly important because we know that the youth are so impressionable.
[30:38.260 --> 30:45.660]  And so by the time, you know, you get to this last century, you have that transformation complete, right?
[30:45.660 --> 30:48.320]  And so Anonymous adopts this.
[30:48.640 --> 30:51.780]  Now, I think there's another kind of layer to this story.
[30:52.000 --> 30:57.360]  It's not simply that Anonymous takes on an icon that was once negative, now is positive.
[30:57.640 --> 31:07.240]  But I think in a post-Snowden world, the story in the movie strikes more like reality than fiction.
[31:07.980 --> 31:16.960]  And I think that's also very interesting where you have this fictional realm that in some ways portrays lying totalitarian states.
[31:17.260 --> 31:18.300]  And guess what?
[31:18.480 --> 31:18.700]  Whoa!
[31:19.160 --> 31:21.320]  That's actually the state that we're in.
[31:22.020 --> 31:30.280]  And so what is represented first in film now starts to be represented in the real world.
[31:30.280 --> 31:35.840]  And we have this amazing kind of circle where you have reality, fiction, reality.
[31:36.280 --> 31:37.500]  And guess what?
[31:37.720 --> 31:39.540]  Now we have more fiction as well.
[31:39.840 --> 31:54.200]  And what's interesting about this current moment, and this is my next reason, is that the number of cultural works being created today around hackers and Anonymous in specific is astounding, actually.
[31:54.200 --> 31:56.040]  I've collected everything.
[31:56.300 --> 32:01.320]  I'm not going to show you every single bit, otherwise we'd be here for a very, very long time.
[32:01.560 --> 32:09.760]  But it represents high culture, low culture, whatever low culture is, esoteric culture, it's appeared everywhere.
[32:10.220 --> 32:16.100]  Again, Mr. Robot is great, but that's really the tip of the iceberg.
[32:16.500 --> 32:19.520]  And now I'm going to just show you some things maybe you haven't seen.
[32:19.520 --> 32:24.320]  So one of my favorite films about hackers, and I really recommend it, is called Who Am I?
[32:24.820 --> 32:26.040]  No System is Safe.
[32:26.840 --> 32:30.140]  And it's about, I think, both hackers and Anonymous.
[32:30.280 --> 32:32.020]  There's really many things going on.
[32:32.780 --> 32:36.380]  And it's explicitly inspired partly on Anonymous.
[32:36.600 --> 32:39.560]  And I'm going to show you a short clip now where they refer to Anonymous.
[32:39.680 --> 32:44.720]  I actually think this is one of the least interesting parts of the movie, but it relates to my talk, so I have to show you.
[32:45.240 --> 32:46.840]  We needed a headquarter.
[32:47.540 --> 32:49.260]  That house of my mother was the perfect place for it.
[32:49.840 --> 32:51.340]  That reminds me of the old times.
[32:51.780 --> 32:52.960]  Chaos Computer Club and so.
[32:53.440 --> 32:53.920]  Herrlich.
[32:57.080 --> 32:58.000]  One million clicks.
[32:58.780 --> 32:59.260]  Yes!
[33:01.400 --> 33:02.460]  We needed a name.
[33:03.480 --> 33:06.140]  We need to be a big, we need to be a big.
[33:06.820 --> 33:07.300]  We need to be a big.
[33:07.300 --> 33:09.660]  All that's what's on, is counterproductive.
[33:09.960 --> 33:11.180]  We're still under the radar.
[33:11.380 --> 33:12.000]  Scheiße, radar.
[33:12.680 --> 33:13.580]  Fette Marke is great.
[33:13.700 --> 33:15.000]  So, Anonymous or Lalsäck.
[33:15.640 --> 33:16.720]  Wilhelm Axe?
[33:17.740 --> 33:19.160]  Spinnt die jetzt alle komplett?
[33:22.450 --> 33:23.790]  Max hatte eine Idee.
[33:24.390 --> 33:27.790]  Und wenn Max eine Idee hatte, dann war er nicht mehr zu stoppen.
[33:28.190 --> 33:28.790]  Bingo.
[33:30.890 --> 33:33.770]  Clays nächste Aktion war ein kleiner Gruß an die Finanzwelt.
[33:48.480 --> 33:53.920]  Die Finanzpolitische Entwicklung in Asien hat vor allem an der Wall Street für einen eher zurückhaltenden Wochenstart besorgt.
[33:54.180 --> 33:56.560]  Wesentlich geringer fällt der Einfluss auf die deutsche Börse aus.
[33:56.820 --> 33:59.900]  Deutsche Anleger und Firmen profitieren von der bewussten Konjunktur.
[34:01.680 --> 34:06.800]  Und so setzt der Dachs auch heute seinen Kickfischsturm fort.
[34:09.650 --> 34:12.190]  So, if you haven't seen it, go download it.
[34:12.310 --> 34:14.270]  It's actually a really clever movie.
[34:14.390 --> 34:16.850]  Whoever consulted did an amazing, amazing job.
[34:17.030 --> 34:23.270]  There's actually all these, like, references to hackers based on historical facts and everything.
[34:23.270 --> 34:29.330]  It showed up in this movie, Dope, which is also a pretty dope movie.
[34:29.550 --> 34:35.830]  Which is about a bunch of, like, geeky kids from Los Angeles.
[34:37.370 --> 34:40.010]  And it's really about Dope, the drugs.
[34:40.250 --> 34:43.430]  But there's all sorts of references to Bitcoin and Aaron Schwartz.
[34:43.610 --> 34:47.430]  And here there's a reference to LulzSec, LulzSec-level Shady.
[34:47.590 --> 34:48.930]  That was a great surprise.
[34:49.870 --> 34:52.650]  Anonymous has been referred to in House of Cards.
[34:52.650 --> 34:54.250]  In The Good Wife.
[34:54.730 --> 34:57.170]  And so it's really, you know, in Hollywood.
[34:57.390 --> 35:03.230]  But you may be surprised to learn that it's also showed up in what is often referred to as, like, high arts.
[35:03.490 --> 35:07.150]  And so there was, if you can frickin' believe it, a ballet.
[35:08.830 --> 35:10.370]  Based on Anonymous.
[35:10.770 --> 35:10.950]  Yeah.
[35:11.510 --> 35:11.950]  Awesome.
[35:12.950 --> 35:14.250]  I haven't seen it.
[35:14.330 --> 35:16.650]  If anyone has a video, please give it to me.
[35:16.750 --> 35:18.230]  Because I really want to see this.
[35:18.430 --> 35:20.930]  But it was very much based on the story.
[35:20.930 --> 35:22.810]  There's The Betrayal of Sabu.
[35:24.630 --> 35:25.310]  Yeah.
[35:25.790 --> 35:28.130]  That was in Boston in 2013.
[35:28.950 --> 35:35.730]  Another piece of high arts was at the Royal Court Theatre in London, which is one of the oldest theatres in London.
[35:35.730 --> 35:40.170]  And they did a fabulous play called The Internet is Serious Business.
[35:41.750 --> 35:43.370]  And there's Pedo Bear.
[35:46.890 --> 35:48.070]  It was fantastic.
[35:48.070 --> 35:55.030]  And literally, the director of the play, the screenwriter, you know, a lot of the LulzSec guys were from Britain.
[35:55.030 --> 35:57.690]  And so they consulted on this play.
[35:57.690 --> 35:58.430]  And it was fantastic.
[35:58.730 --> 35:59.130]  And guess what?
[35:59.190 --> 36:01.050]  It's playing in Korea right now, too.
[36:01.050 --> 36:03.910]  So if you go to Korea, you can watch this play.
[36:04.990 --> 36:07.130]  And now I'm going to show you one more clip.
[36:07.250 --> 36:13.200]  And it was actually after I saw this clip where I was like, wow, it really has reached a saturation point.
[36:13.200 --> 36:19.020]  Because the next clip, not everyone here may know who RuPaul or John Waters are.
[36:19.440 --> 36:22.560]  But RuPaul is a drag queen, really fantastic.
[36:22.780 --> 36:25.700]  John Waters is a director, a filmmaker.
[36:26.240 --> 36:36.640]  And RuPaul has this great little show he does on YouTube where he, she drives around with someone and they have a conversation.
[36:36.960 --> 36:39.740]  And here is the conversation they're having.
[36:40.220 --> 36:45.940]  And this was the moment I was like, wow, hackers and hacktivists have become, you know, heroes.
[36:46.240 --> 36:47.220]  So let me play this.
[36:49.340 --> 36:55.900]  Do you meet kids, young people today who have that same irreverent sense of humor?
[36:56.080 --> 36:57.680]  And how have they changed?
[36:58.000 --> 37:02.380]  I think they're having just as much fun being bad as I did in the 60s.
[37:02.440 --> 37:04.300]  I don't think we had more fun than they do.
[37:04.400 --> 37:04.700]  It's new.
[37:04.840 --> 37:14.380]  If you're a rebel today, you're sitting, you live with your parents, they haven't seen you in six months, they put food outside your bedroom door, and you're shutting down the governments of different countries on your computer.
[37:14.680 --> 37:14.780]  Right.
[37:14.880 --> 37:16.200]  That's how you'd rebel today.
[37:16.300 --> 37:17.020]  You'd be a hacker.
[37:17.340 --> 37:17.460]  Yeah.
[37:17.600 --> 37:20.820]  And I always say, I want a hacker boyfriend, except they have bad posture.
[37:24.770 --> 37:28.360]  So if you want to go out with John Waters, start doing Pilates.
[37:29.690 --> 37:32.630]  But anyways, I was really jazzed when I saw that.
[37:32.940 --> 37:43.480]  Now, just to finish off my argument, can you tell me of any popular Hollywood film where animal rights activists are portrayed in a positive manner?
[37:44.980 --> 37:45.710]  Charlotte's Web.
[37:47.090 --> 37:47.880]  Charlotte's Web.
[37:48.040 --> 37:48.750]  I mean...
[37:49.780 --> 37:51.900]  It takes a little imagination there.
[37:51.900 --> 37:55.050]  I mean, I love that, that comic and movie.
[37:55.360 --> 37:56.000]  What?
[37:57.380 --> 37:58.880]  Is it really popular?
[37:59.400 --> 38:00.550]  Star Trek IV.
[38:00.920 --> 38:01.520]  Okay.
[38:02.960 --> 38:03.770]  All right.
[38:04.230 --> 38:05.940]  Maybe I shouldn't have asked that here.
[38:06.340 --> 38:13.090]  But let me show you two examples of popular film where animal rights activists come off horribly.
[38:13.460 --> 38:16.880]  So the first example is 28 Days Later.
[38:17.360 --> 38:19.900]  And so this is the description of the plot.
[38:20.070 --> 38:21.590]  This is not mine, but I like it.
[38:21.730 --> 38:22.460]  So I'm just going to read it.
[38:22.550 --> 38:23.150]  Don't think it's me.
[38:23.550 --> 38:31.630]  A group of misguided animal rights activists free a caged chimp infected with the rage virus from a medical research lab.
[38:31.770 --> 38:38.730]  When London bike courier Jim wakes up from a coma a month later, he finds the city all but deserted because they've been ravaged by this virus.
[38:39.090 --> 38:43.980]  So animal rights activists come off as like these evil people who've just killed off all of London.
[38:44.250 --> 38:44.770]  Oh, wonderful.
[38:45.400 --> 38:48.630]  Now the second example is Point Break, the remake.
[38:50.020 --> 38:52.980]  And I watched it on a plane ride home recently.
[38:53.230 --> 38:59.550]  And I was so excited because it's about a group of like these extreme sports enthusiasts who are really hunky.
[38:59.940 --> 39:02.230]  And they do all this like direct action.
[39:02.520 --> 39:05.790]  And the first half like they're portrayed in a pretty positive way.
[39:06.090 --> 39:09.480]  And they're talking about how like you can't get far enough with ideas.
[39:09.520 --> 39:11.380]  You actually have to act in the world.
[39:11.610 --> 39:12.900]  And I was like, whoa, whoa.
[39:12.900 --> 39:15.980]  Here they are being portrayed in this positive way.
[39:16.110 --> 39:18.460]  And there's an FBI informant among them, of course.
[39:18.670 --> 39:19.690]  And guess what?
[39:19.920 --> 39:25.130]  They decide to start blowing up mines and killing people and they could care less, right?
[39:25.500 --> 39:28.020]  So the FBI agent looks really good.
[39:28.210 --> 39:29.020]  They look really bad.
[39:29.710 --> 39:39.290]  And it just comes to show that, you know, when you compare something like animal rights activists and popular media versus hackers, anonymous hackers are really winning out.
[39:40.000 --> 39:41.670]  So let me go on.
[39:41.790 --> 39:45.570]  I have two more reasons why they were able to escape this vilification.
[39:46.090 --> 39:47.570]  The next one has to do with terrorists.
[39:48.090 --> 39:48.480]  ISIS.
[39:49.150 --> 39:55.590]  One of the interesting things about ISIS in comparison to Al Qaeda is that they took social media by storm.
[39:55.590 --> 40:02.110]  And in many ways, they were very similar to anonymous insofar as they love to publish videos and they love to tweet.
[40:03.350 --> 40:04.540]  But guess what?
[40:04.730 --> 40:06.960]  Their videos were a little bit more gruesome.
[40:07.110 --> 40:08.960]  And I'm not going to show you the gruesome stuff.
[40:10.520 --> 40:12.210]  But I love this GIF.
[40:20.080 --> 40:24.460]  Because I think, like, some people, when they think of anonymous, they think that.
[40:24.690 --> 40:29.890]  It's like, oh yeah, it's like this white nerdy guy at home and his mom is feeding him food.
[40:30.710 --> 40:35.120]  And then when people think of ISIS, they think of beheadings, blowing stuff up.
[40:35.120 --> 40:44.930]  And in some weird way, even before anonymous declared war against ISIS, I think the appearance of ISIS online actually benefited anonymous.
[40:45.390 --> 40:52.580]  And I was actually interviewed by some journalists who were just like, do you think that ISIS and anonymous are similar?
[40:53.020 --> 40:55.270]  You know, they did ask that question.
[40:55.410 --> 41:00.670]  And I would just go back and say, you know, since when has anonymous beheaded anyone, you know?
[41:00.670 --> 41:04.770]  And I think, yeah, in some weird way, it helped.
[41:04.960 --> 41:12.080]  And then when anonymous declared war against ISIS, I mean, all of a sudden anonymous was fighting the terrorists.
[41:12.210 --> 41:13.450]  They were not the terrorists, right?
[41:13.710 --> 41:18.350]  And I actually had this argument before op-ISIS existed.
[41:18.770 --> 41:21.210]  But nevertheless, I think it certainly helped.
[41:21.450 --> 41:32.980]  And it's a very controversial operation in anonymous, in part because it's clear that some participants in these operations are actually like military-oriented geeks and stuff like that.
[41:33.750 --> 41:37.310]  But nevertheless, if you're fighting the terrorists, you're not the terrorists.
[41:37.480 --> 41:43.640]  And the mainstream media absolutely loved to report on this operation even when nothing had been done.
[41:44.350 --> 41:53.870]  And so then again, millions of, you know, mainstream Americans, whatever that might mean, were like, oh, honey, did you hear the anonymous are fighting the terrorists, you know?
[41:53.870 --> 41:55.640]  So that certainly helped.
[41:56.020 --> 41:56.540]  All right.
[41:56.670 --> 41:59.330]  Now I'm going to finish off with one last example.
[41:59.480 --> 42:00.460]  And it's one of my favorite ones.
[42:00.560 --> 42:05.810]  And it's really actually this event, a single event, which got me thinking about this a little bit.
[42:06.370 --> 42:08.480]  It was January 2012.
[42:08.580 --> 42:14.710]  And all over the world, governments were considering the ratification of the anti-counterfeit trade agreements.
[42:14.710 --> 42:24.270]  And it was very unpopular among netizens and Internet enthusiasts because it was going to bring censorship to the Internet.
[42:24.750 --> 42:31.190]  And in particular, for some reason, in Poland, the population was really against ACTA.
[42:31.410 --> 42:34.140]  And so there was major protests on the streets.
[42:34.350 --> 42:39.460]  In Krakow, there was up to 10,000 people in one demonstration protesting against ACTA.
[42:40.150 --> 42:45.480]  Anonymous got involved, and they started Operation Anti-ACTA.
[42:45.770 --> 42:48.600]  And this is an announcement from their video.
[42:48.750 --> 42:51.730]  They said, welcome to Operation Anti-ACTA.
[42:51.810 --> 42:55.190]  We encourage you to spread the word of anti-ACTA far and wide.
[42:55.330 --> 43:01.100]  The top priority is to steal and leak classified government information, including emails and documentation.
[43:01.750 --> 43:07.520]  Prime targets are Polish government websites and other high-ranking establishments.
[43:07.520 --> 43:11.750]  So they're going after the government because they were supporting the citizens of Poland.
[43:12.120 --> 43:15.230]  Now, what happened next was truly shocking and awesome.
[43:15.810 --> 43:16.770]  This is what happened.
[43:17.040 --> 43:30.060]  A bunch of Polish parliamentarians who were against ACTA took on the mask in the quarters of parliament to register their dissent of ACTA.
[43:30.060 --> 43:44.520]  And so this was really interesting because at the very same time that Anonymous was DDoSing the Polish government websites, some Polish government officials took on the mask.
[43:44.860 --> 43:48.250]  And this blog post reflects that.
[43:48.460 --> 43:54.880]  This was written by some participants in Anonymous who really said, okay, you know, DDoS is very unpopular.
[43:54.880 --> 43:55.980]  It's very controversial.
[43:56.360 --> 44:06.060]  But this is really a game changer for DDoS because as we're DDoSing the government websites, you have these elected government officials taking on the mask.
[44:06.340 --> 44:16.670]  And indeed, it was really a game changer, not simply for legitimating DDoS, I think for legitimating Anonymous.
[44:16.670 --> 44:22.880]  Because government chambers, you know, you're not going to put... I don't know what the ISIS symbol is.
[44:22.880 --> 44:24.440]  It's like a weird dildo or something.
[44:25.540 --> 44:29.270]  Like, you're not going to... if you wave that flag in parliament, you're going to get in big trouble.
[44:29.820 --> 44:31.300]  And so this was a big deal.
[44:31.520 --> 44:38.770]  So what I'm going to tell you next, this is like, you know, the apex of this talk, will hopefully come as a surprise.
[44:38.770 --> 44:47.300]  But remember that Wall Street Journal article I told you about where Keith Alexander is sort of saying they have this capability to take down critical infrastructure?
[44:47.500 --> 44:51.290]  Well, it came just a few weeks after this image circulated.
[44:52.730 --> 44:58.300]  And I have no way of proving this, but I just felt like the timing was not accidental.
[44:58.600 --> 45:03.120]  I felt like this was the moment they lost the propaganda battle.
[45:03.120 --> 45:05.500]  They've lost control over the symbol.
[45:06.000 --> 45:11.770]  And this was their last attempt to regain control over the message.
[45:12.020 --> 45:13.340]  Again, I can't prove it.
[45:13.460 --> 45:15.000]  Someone's going to have to hack NASA.
[45:15.290 --> 45:16.100]  I mean, NSA.
[45:16.880 --> 45:18.040]  Don't hack NASA.
[45:18.880 --> 45:20.620]  Don't listen to me, anyways.
[45:20.900 --> 45:22.320]  But whatever.
[45:22.580 --> 45:23.640]  I can't prove this.
[45:23.790 --> 45:36.460]  But what was interesting about this moment was that security, kind of researchers, hackers, some of, you know, some of whom really can't stand anonymous, were really instrumental at this point.
[45:36.800 --> 45:41.860]  Because after that Wall Street Journal article came out, many of them are like, look, that's just not credible.
[45:42.100 --> 45:46.270]  Yes, is critical infrastructure susceptible to attack?
[45:46.980 --> 45:47.360]  Yes.
[45:47.960 --> 45:49.750]  Does anonymous want to do it?
[45:49.860 --> 45:50.880]  Do they have the capability?
[45:51.300 --> 45:51.670]  No.
[45:51.900 --> 45:54.520]  You know, so it really fell flat on its feet.
[45:54.520 --> 46:01.540]  People reminded the media that squirrels currently are responsible for more power outages, right?
[46:02.150 --> 46:16.600]  And this is what's also interesting, is, you know, like something like the animal rights world or other activists don't necessarily have, like, luminaries that are paid attention to in law and policy, whereas in the hacker world that is the case, right?
[46:16.600 --> 46:23.020]  And that really kind of helps, you know, basically strip away the bullshit.
[46:23.600 --> 46:26.790]  So, just to really finish, so what?
[46:26.920 --> 46:28.730]  Why does this story matter, right?
[46:29.520 --> 46:35.640]  Well, first of all, it's important to point out that you don't need the terrorism label for unfair treatment, right?
[46:35.690 --> 46:39.000]  You can really have extreme treatment without that label.
[46:39.000 --> 46:52.000]  And in some ways, the Barrett Brown case, he was a journalist who cavorted with anonymous, who really, you know, coordinated with them because he wanted to disclose wrongdoing, get emails.
[46:52.500 --> 46:55.880]  And he was put into jail for five years for that.
[46:56.190 --> 47:02.940]  In some ways, his state is similar to the Shack 7, except he wasn't tried under a terrorism law.
[47:03.060 --> 47:06.540]  But five years is a really long time.
[47:06.540 --> 47:11.270]  I think the other thing, too, is that the tides can change very quickly.
[47:12.800 --> 47:23.420]  And I don't think in two years when I'm back in HOPE, I'll be giving a talk about how they were successfully tagged as terrorists, but maybe HOPE 13 would be a year, right?
[47:23.500 --> 47:24.120]  In four years.
[47:24.300 --> 47:25.360]  The tides can change.
[47:25.560 --> 47:38.230]  And I think one of the most important things that can happen is that because critical infrastructure is weak, if there's an attack that seems legitimately tied to hacktivists, then all of a sudden that tide will shift.
[47:38.440 --> 47:39.750]  And that's very concerning.
[47:40.230 --> 47:42.140]  So I just want to put that out there.
[47:42.420 --> 47:47.120]  But then my final point is that art and culture, it really matters.
[47:48.460 --> 47:54.120]  And I also kind of contribute some to the world of policy and law.
[47:54.400 --> 48:00.440]  And I sometimes get the sense from some people in that world, not everyone, that culture and arts is soft power.
[48:00.960 --> 48:04.710]  And law and policy is where it's at, what really matters.
[48:05.020 --> 48:07.250]  And I think that's a false dichotomy.
[48:07.420 --> 48:12.190]  You know, if you don't have people's hearts and minds, you're not going to ever change law and policy.
[48:12.190 --> 48:13.580]  These things really work together.
[48:14.290 --> 48:21.000]  And in some weird way, I think actually Hollywood has been a huge boon in the last few years.
[48:21.190 --> 48:24.920]  And it's been a boon because it's been a good story to tell.
[48:25.230 --> 48:26.920]  There's also this weird thing.
[48:27.060 --> 48:33.300]  For example, there was a great article in The New Yorker about Silicon Valley, the show and how accurate it is.
[48:33.460 --> 48:37.860]  And a lot of new shows are accurate because people call out the bullshit on social media.
[48:37.860 --> 48:41.460]  So we're in this weird age where people have to be somewhat accurate.
[48:43.270 --> 48:49.600]  And so I just kind of want to appeal to people who work in the arts to continue doing so.
[48:49.790 --> 48:53.940]  Perhaps writing children's books about hackers is the next step.
[48:55.750 --> 48:58.730]  I don't know of any yet.
[48:58.750 --> 49:01.190]  But if you know of any, do let me know.
[49:01.190 --> 49:11.920]  But really to finish, I want to actually finish with a hacker, Phineas Fisher, who has hacked into various places including the security company hacking team.
[49:13.330 --> 49:22.440]  And he or the group of people behind Phineas Fisher have been following in the footsteps of Anonymous but executing hacks with more care and security.
[49:22.440 --> 49:32.710]  And what's interesting was that Phineas Fisher gave one of the first kind of TV interviews ever to Vice News.
[49:33.080 --> 49:42.100]  And I was able to see this early because I was consulting for the episode and it was seriously the most brilliant media hack I've ever seen.
[49:43.190 --> 49:58.940]  And so I want to finish with this because I think it's these types of interventions that are going to continue to win people's hearts and minds and make people like RuPaul and John Waters go, oh, those hacktivists are so sexy and great.
[49:59.420 --> 50:06.040]  So let me just finish with this clip and then I'll say my goodbye.
[50:06.040 --> 50:06.520]  Alright.
[50:07.710 --> 50:10.250]  And you can watch the full clip online.
[50:10.250 --> 50:12.080]  I'm just showing a very short segment.
[50:17.170 --> 50:22.610]  A black hat hacker had hacked hacking team servers, stealing hundreds of gigabytes of data.
[50:23.350 --> 50:26.630]  After leaking it online, Phineas Fisher all but disappeared.
[50:27.150 --> 50:33.490]  But with an assist from my colleague at Vice's tech and science site, Motherboard, we finally negotiated interview terms.
[50:34.090 --> 50:37.650]  Since we wouldn't be able to show his face, the hacker had a strange request.
[50:38.390 --> 50:41.570]  He would only do the interview if he was represented by a puppet.
[50:48.650 --> 50:49.550]  Let's do this.
[50:50.390 --> 50:54.790]  These are the exact words from our live text exchange, voiced by one of my colleagues.
[50:55.630 --> 50:57.670]  So why did you hack the hacking team?
[50:58.690 --> 51:05.130]  Well, I just read the Citizen Lab reports on Phineas Fisher and hacking team and thought, that's f*cked up.
[51:05.430 --> 51:06.370]  And I hacked him.
[51:06.370 --> 51:08.830]  What was the goal in hacking the hacking team data?
[51:08.990 --> 51:09.730]  Were you trying to stop them?
[51:10.370 --> 51:11.790]  Well, for the lulz.
[51:11.950 --> 51:14.810]  I don't really expect leaking data to stop a company.
[51:15.030 --> 51:20.690]  But hopefully it can at least set them back a bit and give some breathing room to the people being targeted with their software.
[51:21.470 --> 51:24.470]  Is this at all about anti-surveillance for you?
[51:25.150 --> 51:25.830]  Of course.
[51:25.850 --> 51:28.050]  Or I wouldn't be hacking surveillance companies.
[51:29.150 --> 51:33.790]  What do you think of surveillance companies and hacking team specifically?
[51:36.090 --> 51:36.790]  All right.
[51:37.030 --> 51:37.510]  That's it.
[51:37.710 --> 51:39.110]  Go watch the clip.
[51:39.430 --> 51:40.670]  And thank you so much.
[51:46.440 --> 51:47.560]  Thank you, Biella.
[51:47.760 --> 51:48.300]  Great talk.
[51:48.440 --> 51:48.800]  Great talk.
[51:48.800 --> 51:49.040]  Thank you.
[51:49.080 --> 51:49.860]  Thank you, but this is true.