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[00:15.720 --> 00:16.980]  A night of inspiration.
[00:16.980 --> 00:19.560]  A benefit concert for WBAI.
[00:19.780 --> 00:25.400]  Saturday, December the 13th at Pilgrim Church of Brownsville, 572 Rockaway Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.
[00:25.500 --> 00:26.720]  Doors open at 3 p.m.
[00:26.800 --> 00:28.340]  Showtime at 5 p.m.
[00:28.400 --> 00:29.900]  And I will be your emcee.
[00:32.520 --> 00:37.520]  And you are listening to Radio Station WBAI in New York.
[00:37.720 --> 00:40.260]  The time is 7 o'clock time for Off the Hook.
[00:45.450 --> 00:49.900]  The telephone keeps ringing, so I ripped it off the wall.
[00:50.900 --> 00:55.400]  I cut myself while shaving, now I can't make a call.
[01:01.460 --> 01:03.640]  For the best, expect the worst.
[01:04.260 --> 01:06.160]  I hope that's understood.
[01:06.400 --> 01:07.220]  One little bit more!
[02:12.630 --> 02:14.130]  And a very good evening to everybody.
[02:14.250 --> 02:15.110]  The program is Off the Hook.
[02:15.190 --> 02:17.190]  Emmanuel Goldstein here with you on this Wednesday evening.
[02:17.390 --> 02:19.050]  Joined tonight by Mike.
[02:19.230 --> 02:19.850]  Good evening.
[02:20.330 --> 02:20.730]  Rob T.
[02:20.870 --> 02:21.310]  Firefly.
[02:21.590 --> 02:21.970]  Good evening.
[02:22.430 --> 02:23.170]  Bernie S.
[02:23.550 --> 02:24.910]  Greetings from Pennsylvania.
[02:25.570 --> 02:29.210]  Well, I have to say, you know, this always seems to happen.
[02:29.510 --> 02:34.670]  It always seems to be some major news event that takes place when we're on the radio.
[02:35.350 --> 02:46.390]  I remember we just marked the 15th anniversary of the WTO demonstrations in Seattle, 1999, when we happened to be on the air, just when Amy Goodman was being attacked by the police.
[02:48.610 --> 02:54.830]  And tonight is another one of those... I guess you could only describe it as one of those super rare occasions.
[02:55.130 --> 02:59.070]  I've seen two comets within a year, all right?
[02:59.150 --> 03:01.310]  I've lived through two years at a palindrome.
[03:01.470 --> 03:03.150]  All these amazing things keep happening.
[03:03.390 --> 03:09.130]  And I've experienced something else, which is really, really unusual, and that's grand juries not returning indictments.
[03:09.130 --> 03:11.550]  It's twice now in the space of two weeks.
[03:11.730 --> 03:13.870]  How is such a thing possible?
[03:13.870 --> 03:29.770]  Well, it happened again here in New York, and the streets are getting kind of lively right now because people are a bit upset by the indictment not coming through for a police officer who killed a guy with a chokehold.
[03:30.510 --> 03:32.470]  Undoubtedly, you're seeing this in the mass media.
[03:32.470 --> 03:36.730]  We're going to do our best to keep people updated as to what's going on outside.
[03:36.730 --> 03:40.530]  It does pertain in many ways to things that we talk about week to week.
[03:40.530 --> 03:41.850]  We talk about issues of justice.
[03:42.410 --> 03:44.490]  We talk about evidence, certainly.
[03:45.030 --> 03:51.050]  And we also talk about alternative media and how to get the word out, how to spread information.
[03:51.250 --> 03:53.590]  And that's sort of what we're doing here tonight as well.
[03:53.590 --> 03:59.990]  We have tie-ins to all kinds of people outside in the street who will be updating us as to what's going on.
[03:59.990 --> 04:01.890]  We might have some people come on the air.
[04:01.950 --> 04:02.910]  And we also have a special guest.
[04:03.510 --> 04:05.910]  Gabrielle Coleman joins us from Montreal.
[04:06.310 --> 04:10.310]  And, Gabrielle, you've just written a book on the group Anonymous.
[04:11.230 --> 04:11.870]  I have.
[04:12.090 --> 04:13.290]  Well, we'll be talking about that.
[04:13.650 --> 04:14.090]  I'm sorry?
[04:14.990 --> 04:16.470]  It's a pleasure to be on the show.
[04:16.650 --> 04:17.830]  Well, it's great to have you.
[04:17.870 --> 04:29.550]  And I think this is going to be a very historic occasion because Anonymous is one of these organizations, organizations, I put that in quotes, that is at the forefront of so many things that are going on, including what's going on tonight.
[04:30.250 --> 04:34.610]  But before we get into all that, a couple of...
[04:34.610 --> 04:37.850]  By the way, you're going to hear my phone going off quite a bit as we have all kinds of updates coming in.
[04:39.190 --> 04:40.690]  A couple of interesting stories.
[04:40.930 --> 04:44.790]  First of all, there's a new hacker movie that's coming out.
[04:44.970 --> 04:45.770]  It's called Hacked.
[04:45.950 --> 04:47.010]  It's produced by Sony.
[04:47.010 --> 04:56.650]  Sony, and it has to do with a corporation that is completely owned by a rogue state that has no internet access somehow.
[04:57.030 --> 05:02.290]  Yes, that's the story that we're expected to believe, that the mass media has been pushing on us.
[05:02.770 --> 05:08.910]  Sony apparently was basically taken to its knees.
[05:09.110 --> 05:13.950]  I'm reading here that they were forced to use pens and paper.
[05:13.950 --> 05:16.430]  They couldn't use computers anywhere in Sony.
[05:16.650 --> 05:22.950]  And that movies that aren't supposed to go out for months have been released already, thanks to this cyber attack.
[05:23.430 --> 05:33.270]  And this all has to do with North Korea taking offense at something that Sony was producing, a movie that supposedly made fun of the dear leader.
[05:33.750 --> 05:37.910]  And this is how they took action against that.
[05:38.050 --> 05:40.750]  I would just like to say, welcome to the internet, North Korea.
[05:41.590 --> 05:45.210]  You jumped in with both feet and got right to work.
[05:45.390 --> 05:54.950]  And if you were able to pull this off right away with the hurdles you have to go through just to get online, we can use these kinds of skills, don't you think?
[05:55.170 --> 05:58.690]  I mean, I have no way to evaluate the truth of the claims, but it's...
[05:58.690 --> 06:00.390]  It's in the mass media, Mike.
[06:00.390 --> 06:14.710]  We've heard before this week that North Korea has, you know, certain elite internet people that can do this sort of thing and have been able to do so for some time without, you know, giving access to the general population.
[06:15.290 --> 06:16.730]  Who knows if it's true?
[06:17.010 --> 06:17.370]  Certainly not me.
[06:17.370 --> 06:20.750]  Well, it's just the speed of it I was impressed by and the thoroughness.
[06:20.750 --> 06:33.390]  And apparently, Sony has put all kinds of information in the path of an attacker, including, I understand, criminal background checks on all their employees, all kinds of personal information.
[06:33.530 --> 06:37.130]  If I was a Sony employee, I'd have quite a few questions to ask my boss in the morning.
[06:37.130 --> 06:45.930]  A lot of that data is supposedly compromised, but I think what Sony is really going to care about is the commercial data that's out there.
[06:46.190 --> 06:52.570]  Why would they keep movies online where somebody could actually download them and spread them around before they're even released?
[06:52.890 --> 06:54.030]  It seems...
[06:54.030 --> 06:54.790]  Bernie, go ahead.
[06:54.970 --> 06:58.390]  I think the reports are there's about 10 terabytes.
[06:58.690 --> 07:06.710]  That's 10,000 gigabytes of corporate data from Sony.
[07:06.710 --> 07:08.950]  This is an amazing amount of data.
[07:09.250 --> 07:11.650]  Supposedly, only about half of that is online.
[07:11.690 --> 07:17.930]  But that's a lot more online than is in a lot of these corporate leaks where somebody grabs the stuff and...
[07:17.930 --> 07:20.250]  I have 10 terabytes on my computer, Bernie.
[07:20.350 --> 07:21.650]  It's not that much data anymore.
[07:22.670 --> 07:24.230]  Of course, you can store a lot in there.
[07:24.290 --> 07:24.610]  That's true.
[07:24.710 --> 07:26.210]  It's more than I can read before going to sleep.
[07:26.410 --> 07:29.070]  According to the source I'm looking at, Bernie, it's 100 terabytes.
[07:29.350 --> 07:29.710]  Oh, okay.
[07:29.710 --> 07:31.530]  Oh, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
[07:31.850 --> 07:36.570]  Of which, apparently, 40 gigabytes have been posted online as sort of a tasting menu.
[07:37.770 --> 07:39.130]  To prelude the main course.
[07:39.350 --> 07:39.730]  Well, okay.
[07:39.910 --> 07:41.190]  So, I don't know.
[07:41.270 --> 07:47.110]  This is just another in a long string of attacks on major corporations.
[07:47.110 --> 07:49.010]  But this one seems particularly thorough.
[07:49.010 --> 07:50.490]  And I'd sure like to know more about it.
[07:50.550 --> 07:51.790]  It's pretty fascinating.
[07:52.450 --> 07:55.310]  But, obviously, we have other things to talk about as well.
[07:55.650 --> 08:08.910]  Now, the book, which is over here, that Gabrielle Colon has written is called Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy, The Many Faces of Anonymous.
[08:10.070 --> 08:14.070]  How does somebody get involved in writing a book like this in the first place?
[08:14.770 --> 08:18.810]  Yeah, you know, it was one big, huge accident.
[08:18.870 --> 08:29.610]  And it had to do with the fact that one year in 2007, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Alberta, which happens to have the largest Scientology archives in the world.
[08:30.210 --> 08:35.590]  And as someone who studies geeks and hackers, I thought, well, you know, Xenu must be sending me a message.
[08:35.590 --> 08:46.330]  I'm going to go study, you know, these battles against Scientology from the 1990s that happened, you know, partly on Usenet, where people had leaked secret church documents.
[08:47.050 --> 08:53.730]  And Scientology went after its critics in pretty kind of nefarious legal and extra-legal ways.
[08:53.730 --> 08:56.690]  So, I had this project on Scientology, geeks, and hackers.
[08:56.690 --> 09:02.010]  And it was a secret project, because I was concerned about the Church of Scientology coming after me.
[09:02.490 --> 09:15.490]  And then, in 2008, something by the name Anonymous comes into being to prank and troll the Church of Scientology after Scientology threatened publishers with lawsuits after this Tom Cruise video was leaked on the Internet.
[09:15.910 --> 09:20.770]  And I jumped in, and that's the moment I started to study Anonymous and kind of never left.
[09:21.990 --> 09:22.470]  Wow.
[09:25.350 --> 09:29.010]  So, we've tried to answer this question on this program before and sort of failed.
[09:29.210 --> 09:31.790]  So, in your view, what is Anonymous?
[09:33.110 --> 09:40.950]  So, I guess, you know, first of all, answering that question depends on the period of time under which it's asked, right?
[09:40.950 --> 09:50.950]  So, prior to 2008, the name Anonymous, you know, was a name that was used almost exclusively for Internet pranking and trolling.
[09:51.090 --> 09:56.550]  And it kind of would roll out of the image board 4chan, right?
[09:57.030 --> 09:59.890]  And sometimes it was kind of very humorous, trolling.
[10:00.050 --> 10:01.410]  Other times, it was a bit more vicious.
[10:02.390 --> 10:18.870]  And then, in 2008, when they trolled the Church of Scientology, there was this U-turn towards activism, where some groups and individuals started to use the name to engage in collective action of very different sorts, street protests, DDoSing, hacking.
[10:20.390 --> 10:27.830]  But there was a kind of transition period where, between 2008 and 2010, there was both a lot of trolling and a lot of activism.
[10:27.830 --> 10:39.010]  But then, since 2010, it's been almost exclusive activism with trolling tactics employed during operations.
[10:39.430 --> 10:57.610]  And it's really, you know, tough to say anything much more than, you know, the fact that Anonymous today is a banner used by different groups and individuals to engage in collective action, just because the different operations have been over 300 in the last couple of years have really differed in scope,
[10:57.770 --> 11:12.570]  effectiveness, and they've also just gotten involved in such different cases, from police brutality in Ferguson, to rape cases, to kind of issues around censorship, which is one of their bread-and-butter issues they get involved in.
[11:12.750 --> 11:19.770]  Well, this is definitely something that I want to focus on, because I think this is the primary thrust of what they're all about.
[11:19.770 --> 11:28.650]  But you mentioned the early days, and I kind of like to play back something that you shared at Hope X during your talk this summer.
[11:28.650 --> 11:52.630]  This is a recording of an anonymous video from the year 2007, and I think it's kind of the way the mass media and maybe the public in general views this, I don't know what to call them, an organization that views these people as something kind of mysterious and somewhat threatening and a little scary.
[11:52.850 --> 12:04.390]  There was this one very famous moment in the history of anonymous in 2007 when Fox News had a broadcast and they heralded anonymous as the internet hate machine.
[12:04.690 --> 12:08.930]  And if you guys haven't seen that segment, I really recommended.
[12:09.310 --> 12:14.710]  But right after that segment, anonymous released a video.
[12:15.050 --> 12:23.950]  And I'd like to play a short clip, and hopefully it's audible, because I think it really gets at how immersed anonymous was in the world of trolling.
[12:24.930 --> 12:26.970]  So let me pull that up.
[12:29.670 --> 12:30.790]  Fox News.
[12:31.950 --> 12:43.990]  It has come to our unfortunate attention that both the name and nature of anonymous has been ravaged as if it were a whore in a back alley and then placed on display for the public eye to behold.
[12:44.870 --> 12:51.090]  Allow me to say quite simply, you completely missed the point of who and what we are.
[12:52.090 --> 13:00.110]  Unfortunately for you, this is not some secret club where we gather in the clubhouse, swapping old porn magazines and daddy's Everclear.
[13:00.570 --> 13:06.870]  This is not some internet gang of panel nerds who will spend everything attempting to break into your computer.
[13:07.470 --> 13:15.730]  This is not some group of desperate and depraved individuals who are looking to ruin everyone else's lives because their own are pathetic.
[13:16.690 --> 13:24.050]  Where would you, deep down inside, want to do to your wife when she doesn't make you dinner when you come home?
[13:24.830 --> 13:33.810]  Where would you, deep down inside, want to be when you find your 14 year old daughter sleeping with her 27 year old boyfriend?
[13:34.650 --> 13:40.830]  Where would you, deep down inside, wish you could be when your wife cheats on you?
[13:41.070 --> 13:42.590]  When your son hates you?
[13:43.050 --> 13:44.610]  When your daughter leaves you?
[13:44.910 --> 13:46.910]  When the waiter spills wine on you?
[13:47.270 --> 13:48.970]  When your boss ridicules you?
[13:49.590 --> 13:51.830]  We are what you could never be.
[13:52.490 --> 13:54.970]  We are everyone and we are no one.
[13:55.370 --> 13:56.450]  We are anonymous.
[13:56.970 --> 13:57.830]  We are innocent.
[13:58.150 --> 13:59.290]  We do not forgive.
[13:59.630 --> 14:00.490]  We do not forget.
[14:01.190 --> 14:06.490]  We are the face of chaos and the heartbringers of judgment.
[14:07.470 --> 14:09.390]  We laugh in the face of tragedy.
[14:09.630 --> 14:11.530]  We mock those who are in pain.
[14:11.890 --> 14:14.990]  We ruin the lives of other people simply because we can.
[14:15.510 --> 14:16.970]  That's probably a good place to finish.
[14:17.150 --> 14:20.150]  We ruin the lives of others simply because we can.
[14:20.590 --> 14:23.070]  Well, that was an excerpt from Hope X.
[14:23.290 --> 14:27.090]  And I gotta say, hey, Gabriela, it's night and day.
[14:27.210 --> 14:47.770]  That perception of anonymous from back in 2000 and what we're seeing today where we see basically a very sharp and on target organization, if you want to call them that, that is following everything that's going on and not sounding, I guess, as generally ominous.
[14:47.850 --> 14:49.130]  Is that a good perception?
[14:49.610 --> 14:50.690]  Yeah, absolutely.
[14:50.690 --> 15:05.870]  And again, I think it's one of the reasons why, you know, I was so attracted to study them and stay with them because that kind of transformation was, I mean, it's like almost a miracle at some level, just because, you know, trolling, you know, has a kind of interesting politics to it,
[15:05.930 --> 15:10.110]  but it's, it's one rooted in extreme cynicism, you know?
[15:10.390 --> 15:21.830]  It's almost like, you know, the world is so, we're just gonna, like... Okay, I have to warn you, Gabriela, this is radio and we have to be careful what we say.
[15:23.010 --> 15:23.530]  Okay.
[15:23.790 --> 15:30.630]  And then, you know, slowly but surely, there was kind of this turn towards engaging in politics.
[15:31.330 --> 15:46.230]  And it was one that, again, at first was very geeky and internet-y and hackerish and, and still is, but nevertheless, it's very clear that anonymous is willing to engage in kind of any issue around social justice.
[15:46.230 --> 15:48.290]  And it's a, it's a radical transformation.
[15:48.710 --> 15:58.510]  Now that said, there still is a kind of menacing character to some of their operations, which is interesting for all sorts of reasons.
[15:58.510 --> 16:04.330]  But, but one of them is that, you know, it, it still scares a lot of corporations in a lot of ways.
[16:04.330 --> 16:06.170]  There's still a lot of teeth to anonymous.
[16:06.170 --> 16:07.870]  They're very unpredictable.
[16:08.510 --> 16:16.370]  And they do sometimes engage in tactics such as, um, let's just say they dox a police officer, right?
[16:16.610 --> 16:25.370]  And a lot of people might agree with that if the police officer did something like pepper spray, some protestors, as happened in Occupy near Union Square.
[16:25.830 --> 16:33.510]  But other people within anonymous will then also dox the police officer's family members on top of it, right?
[16:34.470 --> 16:40.350]  Um, and then this seems to be very controversial within anonymous and especially outside.
[16:40.810 --> 16:41.390]  Yes.
[16:41.670 --> 16:43.990]  Uh, can you explain the, the, the concept of doxing?
[16:44.450 --> 17:00.490]  So doxing is basically a term where, um, which refers to the revelation of personal identifying information such as address, social security number, uh, legal identity.
[17:00.930 --> 17:05.130]  Um, and often times the dox is dropped online.
[17:05.130 --> 17:11.270]  So all the information about the person, name, address, social security number is put online.
[17:11.270 --> 17:13.330]  And that person is kind of exposed.
[17:13.890 --> 17:29.070]  And anonymous, some, some individuals are still willing to kind of target individuals who really have nothing to do with the injustice, but are simply willing to do it to show their teeth and get media attention.
[17:29.450 --> 17:41.110]  And so while there's been this total turn towards politics and social justice, uh, some of their kind of aggressive trollish tactics still come into play from time to time.
[17:42.330 --> 17:42.890]  Okay.
[17:43.110 --> 17:49.190]  Well, um, I have some updates actually from, uh, people who are contributing to the anonymous feed right now.
[17:49.290 --> 17:54.110]  They say arrests are happening at 47th street and 6th Avenue in Manhattan.
[17:54.370 --> 17:57.170]  It's a massive standoff between police and protesters.
[17:57.530 --> 18:02.070]  Uh, there are hundreds of students marching in the streets of Denver right now.
[18:02.550 --> 18:10.070]  And, um, and basically, um, there's actions taking place at the university of Alabama and Washington DC.
[18:10.070 --> 18:13.150]  We'll, we'll, we'll bring updates, uh, as much as we can.
[18:13.750 --> 18:19.830]  Um, and, uh, it's kind of interesting Gabriella that we are getting this news from anonymous at this point.
[18:19.830 --> 18:25.710]  So that's just, I think shows how vital such an organization can be in times like this.
[18:25.830 --> 18:26.290]  Emmanuel.
[18:26.930 --> 18:27.870]  Oh, go ahead.
[18:28.070 --> 18:42.150]  I just want to interject that, uh, anonymous anonymous has taken some actions which have seemed to have, uh, uh, if not caused, but, uh, coincidentally resulted in, uh, uh, in, in change of law and social, social things.
[18:42.270 --> 18:53.110]  So last, last spring in May, there was a, uh, a protest in Philadelphia, uh, where I live of, uh, activists protesting the criminalization of, uh, of marijuana.
[18:53.670 --> 18:58.510]  And, uh, Philadelphia police arrested, uh, a bunch of young people during that protest.
[18:58.790 --> 19:17.010]  And that same day, uh, the anonymous team of Vendetta claimed responsibility for taking down the Philadelphia police website, which was documented and, uh, anonymous, uh, posted a website or posted a, uh, a video on, uh, YouTube, uh, with some, uh, uh,
[19:17.290 --> 19:22.290]  spooky sounding message, you know, with the voice synthesizer and the, and the guy in the Guy Fawkes mask.
[19:22.290 --> 19:28.590]  And the people at the, the politicians at city hall and city council totally freaked out about this.
[19:28.730 --> 19:36.830]  It's like the whole city was under attack and they went into, I mean, the, the, the, the, the Homeland Security department in Philadelphia was, was on alert from this thing.
[19:36.930 --> 19:41.670]  It was, it was nuts, but here we have in Philadelphia today, uh, marijuana is now decriminalized.
[19:41.970 --> 19:50.030]  So, you know, whether that was a, uh, a contributing factor, uh, or not, I don't know, but, uh, they do seem to be on the forefront of social change.
[19:50.030 --> 19:51.590]  It's always a contributing factor.
[19:51.590 --> 19:58.950]  I think when you have, uh, thousands upon thousands of people putting the pressure on, uh, whether in person or electronically.
[19:59.430 --> 20:05.250]  And I think once you, once you mix those two worlds together, there's, um, there's really nothing that can't be accomplished.
[20:05.490 --> 20:05.610]  Yep.
[20:06.890 --> 20:07.330]  Absolutely.
[20:07.350 --> 20:12.110]  And you know, it's interesting cause I get this question a lot, like is anonymous effective?
[20:12.430 --> 20:13.090]  Are they effective?
[20:13.310 --> 20:16.750]  And again, in some ways it's a kind of case by case basis.
[20:16.750 --> 20:23.850]  Um, and in some instances, for example, one of my favorite videos is one about, uh, operation Guantanamo.
[20:24.510 --> 20:28.830]  And, you know, if you watch it, like chills will go down your spine.
[20:29.010 --> 20:30.250]  It's just such a powerful video.
[20:30.410 --> 20:32.550]  Now Guantanamo is open, right?
[20:32.750 --> 20:44.930]  They can't close it down, but nevertheless, I'm glad that people are taking action and taking a stand against what is wrong, which is the fact that this prison still exists and has imprisoned people that should not be there.
[20:44.930 --> 21:03.170]  In other instances, like the one that Bernie was just talking about, or for example, here in Canada, there was a, a rape case, uh, concerning a woman, Retea Parsons, who committed suicide after she'd been assaulted and some images of, uh, herself and some,
[21:03.330 --> 21:05.790]  uh, boys and sexual acts were circulated.
[21:06.170 --> 21:10.510]  And the police here felt like they could never move forward with a case.
[21:10.710 --> 21:19.530]  Case closed, uh, anonymous gets involved, case opened, and there's been prosecution since that is a kind of direct connection, right?
[21:20.230 --> 21:28.850]  Um, so 200 operations, there's going to be a number of them where they do have kind of direct effects and consequences in very positive ways.
[21:29.250 --> 21:39.790]  Well, the thing that worries me when there's a large group of people involved in, in any campaign is that they might be of the mentality that gets it completely wrong.
[21:39.790 --> 21:43.850]  And we certainly seen, uh, hordes of people that get it wrong in the past.
[21:43.950 --> 21:45.770]  I haven't seen that in this case.
[21:45.770 --> 21:54.110]  And I was wondering if you might have any theories as to why that hasn't happened, why we haven't seen say a redneck version of anonymous pop up.
[21:55.390 --> 21:59.190]  Well, first of all, anonymous sometimes does get things wrong.
[21:59.570 --> 22:12.130]  Um, and one of the more famous examples was with Op Ferguson, uh, where they got involved early on and they revealed the name of a police officer that was not Darren Wilson, right?
[22:12.830 --> 22:19.770]  Um, but I just like to kind of remind people that, you know, journalists often get it wrong as well.
[22:19.830 --> 22:37.850]  So I often like to joke that the biggest incorrect doxing event of the year, again, trying to identify someone was the, you know, so-called founder of Bitcoin where Newsweek covers, um, or on the cover of Newsweek, there is a story about Satoshi who's been found in California.
[22:38.270 --> 22:41.170]  And so far, it still seems to be the incorrect person.
[22:41.310 --> 22:48.470]  And also, I remember when that did happen in Ferguson, uh, it was in Anon, they call them, um, uh, different organizations, Anons.
[22:48.730 --> 22:52.390]  It was one particular Anon that, uh, reported this.
[22:52.490 --> 22:54.490]  And another one said, this is not proven yet.
[22:54.530 --> 22:55.970]  And, and we're not going with it.
[22:56.030 --> 22:59.410]  It's like, like, uh, actual journalists in mainstream media.
[22:59.650 --> 23:01.210]  Uh, some get it wrong.
[23:01.350 --> 23:01.910]  Some get it right.
[23:02.050 --> 23:06.990]  But, uh, I think to say that all of Anonymous did this is as wrong as saying all of Anonymous did anything.
[23:07.210 --> 23:07.910]  Would you agree with that?
[23:08.050 --> 23:08.370]  Absolutely.
[23:08.490 --> 23:08.790]  Absolutely.
[23:08.850 --> 23:13.470]  And I was actually on the channel that morning when this one individual was moving forward with it.
[23:13.670 --> 23:24.690]  And first of all, it's highly unusual because usually the teams that are doing the work of reconnaissance, as I call it, are usually working, um, in small teams, in private.
[23:24.950 --> 23:26.510]  It's usually pretty carefully done.
[23:26.510 --> 23:28.890]  And this person was doing it very haphazardly.
[23:29.230 --> 23:30.690]  And it's very, very odd.
[23:30.710 --> 23:31.950]  And people were flagging it.
[23:32.050 --> 23:33.110]  And they were trying to stop them.
[23:33.210 --> 23:34.110]  And people got very mad.
[23:34.230 --> 23:35.790]  And I think that is a very important point.
[23:36.030 --> 23:38.330]  There were statements released afterwards, right?
[23:38.950 --> 23:42.950]  Um, in terms of your second question, like, why isn't there a kind of redneck Anonymous?
[23:43.410 --> 23:57.270]  You know, there have been, um, for example, there's this one case of a 16 year old, uh, teenager who hacked into, uh, an abortion clinic in the UK and he was anti-abortion and he used the name Anonymous.
[23:57.470 --> 24:02.250]  But it was pretty clear that he was acting as a lone wolf.
[24:02.470 --> 24:13.930]  And you can take the name and individuals do take the name, but usually if they're, you know, liberal to progressive to leftist causes, then a lot of people jump in to support them.
[24:13.950 --> 24:16.430]  You get a team or you get a horde, right?
[24:16.610 --> 24:24.810]  And it just happens to be that currently the more kind of conservative political issues is just, it's not identified with Anonymous, right?
[24:25.350 --> 24:44.690]  So while there may not be a kind of explicit political ideology or in a manifesto, nevertheless, their operations tend to lean from liberal to progressive to just downright leftist and a kind of more conservative cause does not garner the support and you need kind of teamwork to pull off these operations.
[24:45.150 --> 24:45.670]  Okay.
[24:45.750 --> 24:51.610]  I have an update, uh, from Anonymous that, uh, a large crowd is now marching down 6th Avenue in Manhattan.
[24:51.870 --> 25:01.790]  Uh, that's in protest of, uh, the grand jury, uh, failing to, um, indict the officer accused of killing Eric Garner.
[25:02.050 --> 25:09.170]  Um, and we will hopefully have some reporters calling in as well with, uh, with various details as to, uh, what's going on.
[25:09.730 --> 25:14.970]  Um, Gabriella, um, has there been much of a, of a backlash since this book came out?
[25:16.730 --> 25:23.370]  Uh, well, generally most, uh, individuals anonymous who have read it have liked the book.
[25:23.790 --> 25:31.670]  Um, some who have actually gone darker, you know, vanished, have come back to tell me, you know, how much they enjoyed it.
[25:31.850 --> 25:33.330]  And it made them nostalgic.
[25:33.930 --> 25:37.890]  Um, and a lot of people even who know a lot about anonymous.
[25:38.050 --> 25:43.270]  So Jeremy Hammond, who's, you know, one of the hackers centrally involved, I interviewed him in jail.
[25:43.270 --> 25:44.990]  We correspond all the time.
[25:45.210 --> 25:46.590]  He's read the full book.
[25:46.710 --> 25:59.710]  He knows so much about anonymous, but he still told me that he learned, you know, quite a bit because it's difficult to really have one person from the inside know everything because as an outsider, I could piece a lot together.
[26:00.050 --> 26:09.970]  Now there's an interesting strain in anonymous where it's really frowned upon to seek celebrity or fame or recognition for the work you do in anonymous.
[26:10.330 --> 26:19.810]  And it's, uh, an issue I cover in depth in the book because I think it's one of their more interesting kind of, um, norms in existence.
[26:20.290 --> 26:29.050]  And it is the case that some people anonymous are not thrilled that there's an outsider like myself who is writing about their world.
[26:29.090 --> 26:29.390]  Right.
[26:29.850 --> 26:35.650]  And they will criticize me for kind of the fame and recognition that the book, uh, kind of garners.
[26:35.770 --> 26:39.230]  And I knew that was going to be the case and I totally understand it.
[26:39.310 --> 26:40.650]  And it's a kind of valid critique.
[26:40.810 --> 26:42.010]  So that's a bit of a reaction.
[26:42.570 --> 26:49.910]  And then lastly, from the public at large, um, it's been generally really positive, but anonymous is controversial, you know?
[26:50.070 --> 27:00.990]  So obviously the book is kind of going to garner some amount of controversy as a result, as people debate whether anonymous is, you know, a force for good or a force for menace, you know?
[27:01.270 --> 27:02.490]  Well, definitely a force.
[27:02.790 --> 27:05.290]  It's definitely a force whether you agree it's, it's for good or for menace.
[27:05.470 --> 27:19.930]  Uh, but it's interesting point about, uh, identities because when you think about it, when you, when you, uh, watch what's going on online, then the vast majority of cases, for the most part, there are no names attached unless there are names of people that are being talked about.
[27:20.250 --> 27:27.930]  And those times when names are mentioned, it's usually after somebody has been arrested and held up as a member of this collective.
[27:28.350 --> 27:30.330]  Uh, but there is one exception to that.
[27:30.430 --> 27:39.290]  And that was the case of Sabu, uh, who, uh, was basically had turned into one of the spokespeople actually for low sec, but it was kind of an offshoot of anonymous.
[27:39.890 --> 27:45.490]  And, um, low and behold, he turned out to be an informant and that's in your book too.
[27:45.570 --> 27:55.290]  In fact, uh, one of the chats that I was involved in where I, I, I was on some IRC channel, I think, um, you were actually in that same IRC channel.
[27:55.390 --> 28:03.670]  I was just reading it before the show and I can't believe that you actually, um, uh, witnessed that, but yeah, that was, that was kind of a fiery, um, uh, back and forth that I had.
[28:04.070 --> 28:06.370]  And, um, it was, it was very interesting.
[28:06.510 --> 28:15.570]  I'm happy to have been a part of it, but, um, I, I think it's telling though, that the case where you had a name attached to something, it turned out not to go very well.
[28:15.690 --> 28:19.530]  It turned out not to be as sincere as those people who don't identify themselves.
[28:20.590 --> 28:21.790]  You know, absolutely.
[28:22.210 --> 28:34.890]  Um, it was certainly the case that, um, as anonymous and then low sec, this, uh, breakaway group became more famous, certain, uh, nicknames like topiary and, and Sabu became quite famous.
[28:35.250 --> 28:48.070]  Um, and, and Sabu was interesting because he commanded a lot of authority through his charisma in part because he seemed so revolutionary and so sincere.
[28:48.070 --> 28:56.730]  And he also seemed like he was from the streets, you know, in the language he used, you know, a lot of brothers and sisters and other street language.
[28:57.290 --> 29:06.470]  And a lot of us was he represented a potential, you know, hacker that doesn't fit the stereotype.
[29:06.930 --> 29:11.430]  Um, and he just seemed so, so defiant and angry and revolutionary.
[29:11.930 --> 29:22.730]  Um, and in fact, you know, he was in a perfect position once he was caught to be flipped and have people be kind of blind to the fact that he was an informant.
[29:22.870 --> 29:28.350]  Well, you know, that's, that's the interesting thing about all of this is the, the prevalence of informants in our community.
[29:28.550 --> 29:46.730]  In fact, uh, another thing in your book that you mention is the infamous Adrian Lamo, uh, panel that we had at, uh, the next hope back in 2010, uh, where we basically took the guy who, um, who turned, uh, Bradley Manning into the authorities and we put him up on stage to defend his actions.
[29:46.870 --> 29:53.370]  A lot of people gave us crap for, uh, for daring to do that, saying that, uh, you should not give this guy an audience.
[29:53.370 --> 29:54.830]  You should not give him a voice.
[29:55.670 --> 30:02.650]  And among the people that were, um, were telling me not to do this, Sabah was one of them and he turned out to be an informant himself.
[30:02.790 --> 30:03.550]  What do you think about that?
[30:03.750 --> 30:04.970]  And Jeremy Hammond was as well.
[30:05.650 --> 30:06.010]  Yeah.
[30:06.850 --> 30:07.170]  Was what?
[30:07.610 --> 30:08.710]  I mean, I will never forget that.
[30:08.710 --> 30:12.150]  He criticized, uh, Hope having, uh, having, uh, Adrian Lamo, uh, at the conference.
[30:12.470 --> 30:13.490]  Well, yes, a lot of people did.
[30:13.770 --> 30:22.670]  Many people did, but, uh, you know, it's my feeling and I think a lot of people feel this way that, uh, having the dialogue is more important than just, um, reading things in the papers.
[30:23.630 --> 30:24.110]  Absolutely.
[30:24.110 --> 30:36.910]  I mean, I was at that hope and I was in the audience and that to me is still the most incredible panel I've ever been to at any conference period, hacker, non hacker, for all sorts of reasons.
[30:36.910 --> 30:46.110]  And it was just incredible, first of all, to see, you know, Bernie and fiber optic and Kevin just, and you, Emmanuel, talk about the stories, the real stories.
[30:46.110 --> 30:48.090]  And people need to hear those stories, right?
[30:48.090 --> 31:01.250]  Because a lot of the other kind of young geeks that were arrested for DDoSing for engaging in distributed denial of service attacks were so unprepared when the FBI came knocking on the door and really just talked too much.
[31:01.370 --> 31:05.170]  Even though they didn't become informants, they just talked too much that first interview.
[31:06.010 --> 31:16.790]  And, um, and I think it is really important to kind of, you know, confront the reality of it and what better way to do it than what the person who actually, like, turns in different ways.
[31:16.790 --> 31:19.550]  So I think it was an incredibly important event.
[31:19.570 --> 31:27.790]  And while it caused some controversy, I think for the most part it was very well received and was very, you know, kind of a historic panel in a lot of ways.
[31:28.330 --> 31:33.430]  And it was funny because I was there and at that moment Anonymous wasn't very geopolitically significant then.
[31:33.770 --> 31:38.610]  Uh, there wasn't really a digital direct action wing that had come into being.
[31:38.610 --> 31:41.110]  And I was thinking, Oh, snitches.
[31:41.250 --> 31:46.990]  I know that they're very common in the hacker community, but it's irrelevant to my project on Anonymous.
[31:47.330 --> 31:53.590]  But then once hackers really started to get involved and started to hack, of course it was going to happen.
[31:54.250 --> 31:57.710]  Um, but it, it is always really tough.
[32:01.970 --> 32:02.450]  Okay.
[32:02.770 --> 32:03.170]  All right.
[32:03.350 --> 32:04.430]  I'm sorry about that.
[32:04.670 --> 32:05.370]  Uh, you know what happened?
[32:05.370 --> 32:07.050]  I had a report coming in on the other line.
[32:07.070 --> 32:08.790]  I put them on hold and all the lines disconnected.
[32:09.610 --> 32:12.390]  Folks, we're not doing that again because this phone doesn't work.
[32:12.390 --> 32:12.990]  I'm sorry.
[32:12.990 --> 32:15.910]  I tried, but apparently we're going to lose all the people on the phone.
[32:16.130 --> 32:18.410]  Uh, if I put somebody on hold, that's not right.
[32:18.770 --> 32:20.770]  Um, that's very strange.
[32:20.930 --> 32:23.130]  It's, it's extremely, let me try and get this person on.
[32:23.310 --> 32:23.750]  Uh, okay.
[32:24.010 --> 32:26.590]  Um, uh, who are you and where are you reporting from?
[32:28.250 --> 32:28.650]  Hello.
[32:29.010 --> 32:29.850]  Um, this is my Nina.
[32:30.030 --> 32:34.990]  I'm calling from, from, uh, the radio studio area right now.
[32:35.190 --> 32:35.370]  Okay.
[32:35.990 --> 32:36.810]  And six Avenue.
[32:37.010 --> 32:37.850]  Tell us what's going on.
[32:38.530 --> 32:57.210]  Um, well, right now, um, there's about, say about 100, 200 protestors who are being very loud and active here in the area where the, uh, the tree is, um, where the tree lighting is near radio city music call.
[32:57.210 --> 33:07.110]  But people are now marching over to Times Square because the protest got divided into some people that went over to Times Square and some people that were here.
[33:08.030 --> 33:16.710]  Um, there was a kind of a circle around 46th street earlier in the evening, um, where the police were pushing up against the protesters.
[33:19.950 --> 33:22.090]  And basically threatening arrest.
[33:22.730 --> 33:25.810]  Um, a lot of people linked arms, the whole world was watching.
[33:26.010 --> 33:27.030]  There was a lot of cameras there.
[33:27.270 --> 33:31.590]  Um, and people backed off and then started marching in other directions to come down here.
[33:32.110 --> 33:34.010]  Um, but it's still pretty lively.
[33:35.070 --> 33:45.390]  And, uh, we're marching past all these beautiful statues up here for Christmas, knowing that Eric Garner will not be enjoying Christmas or any of the holidays with us.
[33:45.390 --> 33:47.810]  Um, and yeah, that's my report.
[33:48.210 --> 33:48.590]  Okay.
[33:48.710 --> 33:50.770]  Well, listen, how about how many people would you say are there now?
[33:52.570 --> 34:04.550]  I would say probably about 250 or so that are quite, but there's a lot of people here, so it's really difficult to tell who's a protester and who's just here for the holidays.
[34:05.370 --> 34:11.370]  And, uh, of those people who are just there for the holidays, how, um, how are they reacting to the protestors?
[34:12.710 --> 34:14.290]  There's really mixed reactions.
[34:14.670 --> 34:24.930]  Um, so there are some people that, uh, particularly some of the black families that have taken, uh, some of the signs and are holding them up and having the children hold them up and things like that.
[34:25.050 --> 34:27.150]  So there is this beautiful support.
[34:27.470 --> 34:43.610]  Um, but there's also a lot of folks here who were basically telling the police while we were being blocked off from entering into, um, where the tree lighting was to, you know, figure out a way to take care of us.
[34:43.970 --> 34:49.270]  Um, and telling us things like, if Eric Garner were white, you wouldn't be here.
[34:49.550 --> 35:03.030]  Uh, so there is, there's been a lot of little arguments between the people who are protesting and some of the tourists, um, who are here to see the, the lighting, but I think it's been interesting.
[35:04.190 --> 35:06.230]  And people are definitely affected.
[35:06.410 --> 35:12.070]  A lot of people are seeing what's going on because there's so many people here for the holidays.
[35:12.210 --> 35:14.910]  So I think there's definitely a lot of interesting reactions.
[35:16.210 --> 35:16.610]  Okay.
[35:16.670 --> 35:17.870]  Well, listen, thanks for that report.
[35:18.050 --> 35:19.050]  Again, what is your location?
[35:20.590 --> 35:29.670]  Um, well, right now we are at 6th Avenue and, uh, 47th Street.
[35:31.410 --> 35:31.810]  Okay.
[35:31.810 --> 35:35.270]  We'll be having, uh, updated reports throughout the night here on WBAI.
[35:35.410 --> 35:36.990]  Thanks so much for that, uh, that phone call.
[35:37.110 --> 35:44.430]  We're going to try and return to our guests on the other line who, um, I'm very sorry that we, uh, disconnected you before.
[35:44.550 --> 35:45.890]  Gabriella, are you, are you back with us?
[35:46.110 --> 35:46.690]  I am.
[35:46.950 --> 35:47.210]  Okay.
[35:47.270 --> 35:48.390]  And Bernie, you're there too, I imagine.
[35:49.410 --> 35:50.190]  Yes, I'm here now.
[35:50.370 --> 35:50.730]  Okay, great.
[35:51.070 --> 35:53.330]  Uh, we just had an update from, uh, from the streets.
[35:53.510 --> 36:01.050]  So, uh, we had to go to that, but, um, Gabriella, you were in the middle of a sentence, uh, talking about, uh, some of the reaction to some of the more controversial things going on.
[36:02.010 --> 36:02.330]  Right.
[36:02.570 --> 36:11.850]  So, um, I think I was talking about Sabu and his charisma and, you know, how hard it is to see, or, you know, pick apart who's an informant or who is not an informant, right?
[36:12.250 --> 36:29.290]  And one of the interesting things about, uh, people who were caught was that on the one hand, he definitely, um, played a role, but people's, people feel that their kind of operation security as well, uh, which made it a bit easier for him and the FBI to catch people.
[36:31.470 --> 36:48.630]  I think that, uh, I think that the whole Sabu sort of fiasco illustrates well the, the actual power of Anonymous because when Anonymous started, when that, uh, that I think sort of offshoot started, uh, forming around Sabu himself, sort of a cult of personality around this person rather than Anonymous in general.
[36:48.870 --> 37:01.710]  Um, that's where the weakness was and that's where, you know, when he was, when he turned informant, that's, uh, that's where the, the, uh, vulnerability was when people aren't doing that and you do not have that basically, uh, would you, would you say that's correct?
[37:02.470 --> 37:03.390]  Yeah, absolutely.
[37:03.450 --> 37:10.550]  And I think that, you know, it was obviously, first of all, very interesting that his name was ever, uh, revealed.
[37:11.010 --> 37:13.450]  And that's something I always ask people to think about.
[37:13.630 --> 37:15.890]  Why do we know that Sabu's name exists?
[37:16.150 --> 37:18.330]  Uh, the FBI does not like to give over the names.
[37:18.330 --> 37:23.610]  And I don't have like the full kind of set of details as to why we know his name, but we do.
[37:23.730 --> 37:24.970]  And that's, uh, very interesting.
[37:25.350 --> 37:27.510]  And, and people I think learned from that.
[37:27.670 --> 37:36.210]  Um, you know, there, there was still a lot of activity post 2012, uh, both hacking and then general, uh, protest.
[37:36.710 --> 37:47.230]  And I think people learned quite a bit that they had to be a lot more quiet, that it was not good to have kind of these cults of personalities and that your security really mattered, uh, quite a bit.
[37:47.230 --> 37:50.270]  You could not share personal information with people.
[37:50.530 --> 37:51.870]  If not, you're going to get caught.
[37:52.050 --> 37:52.910]  There are informants.
[37:53.030 --> 37:54.250]  There's still informants, I'm sure.
[37:54.630 --> 37:55.470]  Oh, absolutely.
[37:55.850 --> 37:56.890]  And no question about that.
[37:56.990 --> 38:02.910]  In fact, in the hacker world, we like to, we don't like to say it, but we have to say it like about one in four people in any room is an informant.
[38:03.050 --> 38:06.350]  It's been the case ever since hacking began, phone freaking began.
[38:06.570 --> 38:13.350]  Uh, and, um, and just because you're not an informant today doesn't mean you won't be one when your circumstances change, uh, due to pressure or whatnot.
[38:13.350 --> 38:17.130]  Hey, I, I just got this update and this is, uh, this is really great.
[38:17.630 --> 38:21.470]  Um, this is a, I'm, I'm reading off somebody's hand right now.
[38:21.590 --> 38:24.310]  Somebody held up their hand to a camera and tweeted it.
[38:24.410 --> 38:28.510]  And this is the, um, uh, the number to call if you get arrested.
[38:28.670 --> 38:33.110]  Jail support, uh, 212-679-6015.
[38:33.110 --> 38:37.690]  I've never read a phone number off a hand on the air before, but that is the number to call.
[38:37.790 --> 38:42.910]  If you are in a protest in New York city right now and you get arrested 212-679-6015.
[38:43.710 --> 38:46.890]  And again, that comes to us from anonymous with, um, uh, the use of Twitter.
[38:47.130 --> 38:57.370]  Um, and Gabrielle, uh, social media, what social media has become over the past few years is, um, well, it's also, it's horrible, but it's also really amazing if used properly.
[38:57.370 --> 39:15.350]  And what I see, what I've seen after the Ferguson, um, uh, demonstrations and, and many other, um, um, mass gatherings, it's a great way to coordinate people to actually get the word out and to bypass the mass media and the authorities who want to control the message and are very,
[39:15.350 --> 39:17.110]  um, um, inefficient.
[39:17.330 --> 39:21.290]  And I'm able to find out things moments after they happen.
[39:21.590 --> 39:24.150]  And anybody can, if they simply know where to look.
[39:25.170 --> 39:25.770]  Absolutely.
[39:25.770 --> 39:32.430]  And this is, you know, something that is, you know, something that anonymous has really specialized in.
[39:32.730 --> 39:36.530]  Some of the largest kind of progressive accounts are anonymous accounts.
[39:36.650 --> 39:39.730]  Your anonymous news is one of them has over 1 million followers.
[39:40.090 --> 39:42.730]  And that was kind of built up by a group of people.
[39:42.850 --> 39:46.550]  At one point they had up to 25 people posting to that account.
[39:46.730 --> 39:50.330]  And they had a style guide and they were just really media savvy.
[39:50.330 --> 39:52.550]  And it was very important to kind of get the word out.
[39:52.550 --> 40:00.310]  And independent of anonymous, as you point out, Twitter has really kind of been a leveler and game changer.
[40:00.310 --> 40:12.030]  And I think quite a bit about Palestine and Israel over the summer, where a lot of the kind of mainstream Western news was kind of unwilling to report on what was happening on the ground among Palestinians.
[40:12.030 --> 40:20.230]  And there it was on Twitter, with just thousands and thousands of accounts and images and videos.
[40:20.230 --> 40:24.770]  And then it just got to the point where the mainstream media was forced to cover it, right?
[40:25.370 --> 40:34.570]  So it's been really a kind of game changer in a lot of ways and really wonderful to kind of diversify the stream from which people get their media from.
[40:36.230 --> 40:45.370]  Well, now, you've basically put together this book, which is about 300 pages in length.
[40:45.370 --> 40:53.270]  And I don't think there has been as complete a book on anonymous in the past.
[40:54.150 --> 41:01.430]  So I have to ask you, where do you see this going years from now, as you have some unique insight here?
[41:02.350 --> 41:08.210]  Well, at one level, it's hard to say what's going to happen with anonymous.
[41:08.390 --> 41:09.450]  They're just so unpredictable.
[41:09.450 --> 41:10.890]  They wax and they wane.
[41:11.050 --> 41:12.910]  But one thing is certain.
[41:13.230 --> 41:20.630]  You know, the name really is not tied to either one single political philosophy or a person.
[41:20.630 --> 41:24.170]  And that just makes it perfect, right, for reinvention.
[41:24.770 --> 41:39.570]  And so, in some ways, if it kind of vanishes for a period of time because there's kind of just fatigue among the activists or people are sick of the, you know, we can call it a brand because it is a sort of brand, because it's just not attached to an individual,
[41:39.570 --> 41:42.530]  I think it can resurrect quite easily.
[41:43.230 --> 41:47.310]  And already, you know, it's been in existence from 2008 to 14.
[41:47.310 --> 41:57.630]  That's quite a long time, given the fact that the government, you know, really cracks down against movements like we saw with Occupy and really try to dismantle them quickly.
[41:57.910 --> 42:04.710]  The other element just has to do with the explosion of hacker politics just generally in the last five years.
[42:04.890 --> 42:10.050]  I mean, hacker politics and groups have long existed, and I think 2,600 is one of them.
[42:10.610 --> 42:20.430]  But it's just been monumental to have Pirate Party, to have WikiLeaks, to have Snowden, to have Anonymous, you know, to have groups like 2,600.
[42:20.430 --> 42:23.010]  And I think we're going to just see more of this.
[42:23.530 --> 42:38.690]  More people have been exposed to political ideas, and a lot of geeks and hackers who have these technical skills, I think, have been rightly inspired by the actions of people like Snowden and Assange and Anonymous and will continue in their footsteps.
[42:39.010 --> 42:46.910]  So we're really going to have an exciting 5, 10 years down the line where we're going to see more political activity under the hacker banner.
[42:47.110 --> 42:51.170]  Well, it's interesting you should say that because it brings me back to 2000.
[42:51.770 --> 42:54.650]  We had a conference called H2K back then.
[42:54.750 --> 43:09.730]  That was the first of the HOPE conferences that was overtly political in that we brought in activists, we had Jello Biafra, we had all kinds of different perspectives, not just the hardcore technical angles that we're expected to cover as hackers.
[43:09.950 --> 43:11.630]  And we got a lot of flack for that as well.
[43:11.690 --> 43:12.370]  We still do.
[43:12.490 --> 43:16.690]  And we got flack when we went to WBAI, a radio station that has all these political messages.
[43:17.630 --> 43:22.710]  I've always been of the opinion that politics is not something that's separate really from anything.
[43:22.710 --> 43:28.150]  And certainly in other countries, you don't find that kind of separation.
[43:28.450 --> 43:29.990]  In Germany, for instance, it's embraced.
[43:30.470 --> 43:36.850]  And it was just amazing to me in that period, in 2000, to see the worlds meshing together.
[43:37.330 --> 43:50.850]  And over the years since then, to see how it's flourished, how it's matured, I think we're really in the middle of something quite significant that we were pretty much being told not to do that.
[43:50.870 --> 43:51.930]  It wasn't our place.
[43:51.930 --> 44:08.590]  And I just wonder how many times people, for whatever reason, whether they're a celebrity that's not supposed to talk about politics, or a hacker that's only supposed to talk about computers, how many times are people basically discouraged from saying something or being a part of something significant?
[44:08.590 --> 44:13.490]  And I just hope that people out there see what's going on and are inspired by all of this.
[44:14.530 --> 44:14.970]  Absolutely.
[44:14.970 --> 44:21.850]  And why it's so important to have, you know, institutions like HOPE and 2600, right?
[44:22.030 --> 44:34.690]  Because while in certain, you know, respects, the conference was an outlier for, you know, let's just say a decade, right at the moment where things, you know, change...
[44:34.690 --> 44:43.250]  Well, first of all, I think it's an important sort of, you know, condition of possibility for that kind of enlargement of politics, right?
[44:45.090 --> 44:48.890]  And because people, you know, learn from it, it's a tradition.
[44:48.890 --> 44:50.910]  It happens every two years, right?
[44:51.470 --> 44:57.650]  And then you never know when that, which is, you know, so-called marginal, becomes, you know, far more center.
[44:57.650 --> 44:59.890]  And I think exactly we've seen that.
[45:00.110 --> 45:05.270]  And every kind of player and institution and conference and manifesto counts, right?
[45:05.270 --> 45:10.350]  So even when you think, you know, you're not making a difference, at a certain historical moment, it can all change.
[45:10.350 --> 45:11.910]  So it does make a difference.
[45:11.930 --> 45:15.090]  And I think 2600 and HOPE is part of that story.
[45:15.450 --> 45:15.610]  Yeah.
[45:15.730 --> 45:28.450]  And talking of historical moments, I think, in my estimation, Anonymous could not have happened before it happened because just the intensity and variety of the tools available sort of rose to the occasion and people were able to use them.
[45:28.530 --> 45:46.490]  Now in your work, you're a cultural anthropologist, and going through what you did to learn what you did and write up this book, how does it compare studying something like Anonymous versus studying some more standard cultural group that you might be investigating?
[45:46.730 --> 45:50.090]  Well, you know, my first book was on free software and open source.
[45:51.470 --> 45:58.210]  And, you know, it's a kind of different strain of hacking where there's these ideals of transparency and access.
[45:58.210 --> 46:05.730]  And it actually... I used to always say studying open source and free software hackers was... it felt very traditional to me.
[46:05.790 --> 46:07.170]  And it was also very straightforward.
[46:07.690 --> 46:12.990]  People were very welcoming and they would talk to me for 10 hours about their Linux system if I let them.
[46:13.150 --> 46:15.890]  And it was just a straight shot.
[46:16.330 --> 46:19.610]  Of course, just endlessly fascinating.
[46:19.970 --> 46:25.710]  And, you know, a lot of anthropologists, I think, were skeptical that geeks and hackers were a site of kind of culture.
[46:26.410 --> 46:29.070]  And, I mean, I think I proved them wrong.
[46:29.370 --> 46:33.630]  But with Anonymous, it was much, much, much tougher to study.
[46:33.890 --> 46:35.550]  There is a lot of secrecy.
[46:35.890 --> 46:37.750]  There's cabals within cabals.
[46:37.990 --> 46:39.790]  There's a lot of deception and mystery.
[46:40.330 --> 46:43.570]  And there is a kind of master metaphor of my book is the maze.
[46:43.590 --> 46:48.590]  And if you open the book, I have an image of the maze right then, right there.
[46:48.590 --> 46:52.030]  And it made it very thrilling in a lot of ways.
[46:52.330 --> 47:05.250]  And I think it is exciting that there's spaces where the government just can't easily surveil everything, where corporations can't just collect every piece of data for predictive behavior modeling, right?
[47:05.250 --> 47:13.210]  I think it's really exciting that Anonymous has created a geography that makes it really difficult to even sociologically understand.
[47:14.150 --> 47:16.950]  But it was very frustrating at certain points.
[47:17.430 --> 47:32.930]  And in the end, ultimately, I think the book was only possible in its fullest sense, sadly, sadly, because of the arrest, insofar as a lot of people were able to kind of talk to me about things that otherwise I would not want them to talk to me about.
[47:33.630 --> 47:41.310]  And also, you know, people kept logs, which they shouldn't have, people who had been arrested, and they gave those over to me.
[47:41.750 --> 47:45.410]  And then there was a kind of slab of logs in Jeremy Emmons' case as well.
[47:45.710 --> 47:48.090]  So that kind of made the book fully possible.
[47:48.090 --> 47:52.490]  I could have still written it, but it's much more substantial because of the arrest.
[47:54.150 --> 47:56.370]  I'm sorry, I'm just looking at the maze here.
[47:56.430 --> 47:57.370]  I'm trying to find my way out of it.
[47:57.790 --> 47:59.730]  It's on the inside front cover.
[47:59.810 --> 48:01.010]  It's really, it's well done.
[48:01.530 --> 48:04.530]  The figures that are standing here, do they have any special significance?
[48:06.090 --> 48:07.010]  Not so much.
[48:07.010 --> 48:12.690]  I mean, we definitely wanted to kind of capture the fact that there were some informants and creepy people.
[48:12.690 --> 48:16.850]  And I think there are some kind of traditional activists from Occupy.
[48:17.470 --> 48:22.230]  I'm not sure why there are some people with kind of preppy-looking guys.
[48:23.170 --> 48:25.410]  I thought that was a little bit odd and weird.
[48:25.570 --> 48:27.910]  But hey, you know, you never know who Anonymous is.
[48:27.910 --> 48:30.910]  And actually, there's a lot more diversity than you'd expect.
[48:31.170 --> 48:33.890]  And then that's me entering the maze.
[48:33.990 --> 48:35.470]  I was going to ask if that was supposed to be you.
[48:35.570 --> 48:35.730]  Okay.
[48:36.430 --> 48:36.650]  Yeah.
[48:36.870 --> 48:37.470]  Yeah, exactly.
[48:37.510 --> 48:39.870]  I don't have long hair and I don't wear yellow dresses.
[48:40.090 --> 48:41.810]  But nevertheless, that's supposed to be me.
[48:42.570 --> 48:45.270]  Well, now, you mentioned the jail terms.
[48:45.450 --> 48:48.450]  And the jail terms have been rather excessive.
[48:48.850 --> 48:51.870]  The fact that there are jail terms at all is dismaying.
[48:53.190 --> 48:55.990]  What are some of the more egregious examples you can think of?
[48:56.010 --> 48:58.210]  And what should people be aware of?
[48:58.210 --> 49:02.690]  So I guess the two most extreme examples...
[49:02.690 --> 49:03.750]  Actually, there's three of them.
[49:03.950 --> 49:05.370]  One is in the UK.
[49:06.110 --> 49:13.170]  And actually, the UK and Ireland has generally been much more lenient when it has come to the hackers.
[49:14.210 --> 49:20.150]  For example, in Ireland, two Irish hackers basically got a slap on the wrist.
[49:20.150 --> 49:22.290]  They had to pay a $5,000 fine.
[49:22.470 --> 49:31.350]  But Chris Weatherhead, who helped run the IRC network, he was charged with conspiracy for helping for DDoSing.
[49:31.890 --> 49:35.610]  And he got 18 months, which is a really long time.
[49:35.670 --> 49:40.250]  And he only served, I think, three or four months in the end.
[49:40.450 --> 49:42.070]  But nevertheless, it was quite extreme.
[49:42.330 --> 49:52.550]  In the United States, the two cases that stand out first are Jeremy Hammond, who was found guilty of hacking into the intelligence firm Stratford.
[49:52.550 --> 49:55.050]  He released a lot of emails.
[49:55.050 --> 49:58.010]  He deleted almost all their files.
[49:58.010 --> 50:02.730]  So I wasn't surprised that he was going to get jail time.
[50:03.130 --> 50:04.830]  Ten years in federal prison.
[50:05.030 --> 50:07.270]  Ten years in federal prison, exactly.
[50:08.350 --> 50:12.850]  And, you know, he was kind of politically motivated to the core.
[50:12.850 --> 50:18.950]  He was hacking prior to anonymous for political purposes for many years.
[50:18.950 --> 50:20.690]  He'd actually done jail time before.
[50:21.030 --> 50:21.830]  He was a target.
[50:22.090 --> 50:22.450]  And then the other...
[50:22.450 --> 50:23.230]  Go ahead.
[50:23.350 --> 50:28.910]  He was a prime target of the FBI's in this community before all that.
[50:28.910 --> 50:34.190]  So this was an opportunity for them to get him using Sabu as...
[50:36.710 --> 50:42.730]  Basically as Sabu to have Jeremy Hammond commit a bunch of federal crimes.
[50:43.270 --> 50:44.250]  Yeah, absolutely.
[50:44.430 --> 50:48.930]  And, you know, I think it's interesting because in some ways, you know, again, we don't really know.
[50:48.930 --> 50:59.590]  But he jumped in in June 2011 and he kind of had hacked the Arizona police and he had offered the data.
[50:59.950 --> 51:08.810]  And right after that hack, he got a visit from a police officer and the FBI for a drug test because he was on probation.
[51:09.170 --> 51:14.670]  And apparently it was very unusual to have the FBI show up for this routine drug test.
[51:15.110 --> 51:17.050]  And then he was put in jail for two weeks.
[51:17.810 --> 51:24.230]  You know, they probably had a sense pretty early on that Jeremy was involved, is my reading of it.
[51:24.390 --> 51:28.110]  But, you know, it took a very, very long time to arrest him.
[51:28.110 --> 51:33.950]  And it seemed like Sabu was definitely, you know, encouraging him to hack.
[51:34.130 --> 51:36.330]  And he actually had many requests as well.
[51:36.430 --> 51:43.170]  He went to Jeremy and said, hey, can you hack Pakistan's government and Iran's and Brazil's?
[51:43.170 --> 51:44.770]  And that was one of the big mysteries.
[51:45.010 --> 51:48.570]  Like, why was he making these requests while he was working for the FBI?
[51:48.710 --> 51:50.570]  So it sure sounds like entrapment to me.
[51:51.230 --> 51:52.770]  I think it was more than entrapment.
[51:52.910 --> 51:53.190]  Yeah.
[51:53.770 --> 51:55.510]  Just a couple of updates here.
[51:55.530 --> 51:59.990]  I'm told there's a giant die in that's taking place at Columbus Circle here in Manhattan.
[52:00.190 --> 52:03.810]  And in Oakland, California, helicopters are already out in force.
[52:03.810 --> 52:12.990]  So they're anticipating some some activity there as well as some updates from Anonymous as they fan out all across the world.
[52:13.150 --> 52:13.470]  Mike.
[52:13.710 --> 52:17.050]  Hey, Biela, I wonder if you could talk a bit about your process writing this book.
[52:17.170 --> 52:26.430]  I know to say that you did a lot of research would be to really understate the case you spent, as I understand it, you know, hours and months and years online with Anonymous.
[52:26.430 --> 52:29.290]  How did this all play out for you?
[52:30.470 --> 52:44.430]  Yeah, you know, between 2011 and 2013, I was probably online an average of five hours a day, almost seven days a week.
[52:44.590 --> 52:47.210]  I mean, sometimes it was more and sometimes it was a little bit less.
[52:48.790 --> 52:55.150]  And especially during 2011, that whole year, I mean, first of all, I was on sabbatical, thankfully.
[52:55.510 --> 52:59.330]  So I wasn't teaching and I could be glued to the computer.
[52:59.330 --> 53:00.810]  And I was glued to the computer.
[53:00.990 --> 53:07.390]  I was on IRC and I was chatting, you know, with dozens of people every day.
[53:07.390 --> 53:08.930]  I was following operations.
[53:08.930 --> 53:16.230]  I was teaching a lot of journalists how to get on to IRC so that they can talk to Anonymous.
[53:16.810 --> 53:32.530]  And then, you know, as, again, people got arrested, then there was a kind of phase where I sought people out in jail or went to Ireland and London to meet with people and continued to kind of do the media work as well.
[53:32.850 --> 53:34.970]  But, yeah, it was incredibly intensive.
[53:36.470 --> 53:41.030]  And then I transitioned to writing the book and I had to kind of detach a little bit.
[53:41.150 --> 53:52.350]  But it was very interesting when Operation Ferguson started at the end of the summer, I went back to that kind of full-time mode while I was also teaching.
[53:52.950 --> 53:58.290]  And in retrospect, I was like, oh, I can't believe the amount of time I spent with Anonymous.
[53:58.290 --> 54:06.190]  But I felt like that's the only way that you could understand what's going on and make the connections so that people are willing to talk to you and trust you.
[54:07.570 --> 54:13.250]  I mean, it's really an insider's perspective, this book.
[54:13.310 --> 54:17.590]  And I really recommend that anyone who's at all interested in Anonymous read it.
[54:17.590 --> 54:23.290]  It's called Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy, The Many Faces of Anonymous by Gabriella Coleman.
[54:24.090 --> 54:25.810]  Gabriella, how can people get this?
[54:25.850 --> 54:27.450]  Is it available in bookstores?
[54:28.070 --> 54:37.990]  It's available in bookstores, a lot of independent bookstores, because it's published by Verso, which is the largest kind of radical independent publishing house in the world.
[54:38.170 --> 54:41.670]  They currently have actually a great sale, 50% off on the book.
[54:41.670 --> 54:48.210]  And it is a Creative Commons license, and I'm eventually going to kind of release it out to the world as well.
[54:48.470 --> 54:52.390]  And right there on the front cover, a quote from Glenn Greenwald, essential reading.
[54:52.390 --> 54:54.610]  And if he says that, you know he means it.
[54:54.770 --> 54:57.070]  So, congrats on that.
[54:57.350 --> 55:00.470]  Any final words that you'd like to share with our listening audience?
[55:01.750 --> 55:07.830]  I guess I would just encourage them to maybe learn about the case of Barrett Brown, which is still ongoing.
[55:08.550 --> 55:14.310]  He was a journalist involved with Anonymous who spent two years in jail.
[55:14.490 --> 55:18.270]  He's been in jail for two years, and he's going to be sentenced December 16th.
[55:18.390 --> 55:29.850]  And he's facing up to eight years for sharing a link on IRC and for threatening the FBI on video, you know, when he was a little bit, like, under the influence of drugs.
[55:31.070 --> 55:34.210]  And sure, that is something he probably should have been arrested for.
[55:34.350 --> 55:40.850]  But the fact that he's been in jail for two years for these, quote, crimes is really astounding.
[55:40.850 --> 55:48.210]  And we need the eyes of the world on him and on his case because he's just facing way too many years in jail.
[55:48.410 --> 55:49.270]  That's Barrett Brown.
[55:49.470 --> 55:53.370]  And he's got a wonderful kind of campaign, free Barrett Brown.
[55:53.370 --> 55:56.230]  And I just encourage people to follow his case.
[55:57.130 --> 55:58.870]  Deborah, thank you so much for joining us tonight.
[55:59.070 --> 56:03.070]  And best of luck with the book and looking forward to seeing what you work on in the future.
[56:03.670 --> 56:04.610]  Thank you very much.
[56:04.750 --> 56:04.910]  All right.
[56:04.970 --> 56:05.270]  Take care.
[56:05.750 --> 56:07.830]  Rob, you have an update for us as we head out?
[56:08.030 --> 56:08.450]  I do.
[56:08.670 --> 56:11.130]  This week, 2600 meetings all over the world.
[56:11.350 --> 56:13.950]  Go to 2600.com slash meetings on Friday.
[56:14.170 --> 56:18.270]  Also this Monday, December 8th at the Brooklyn Library on Grand Army Plaza.
[56:18.270 --> 56:29.870]  There is a crypto party, Journalist Security Edition, where journalists and interested people and experts can exchange information on cryptography and how to best use that to further your journalistic goals.
[56:30.010 --> 56:34.290]  And our latest update from Anonymous says that there are protests going on in Times Square.
[56:34.470 --> 56:37.510]  They're audible from 40 flights up and that's happening right now.
[56:37.710 --> 56:42.130]  Times Square, Columbus Circle, 6th Avenue, all over the city and all over the country.
[56:43.370 --> 56:45.190]  OTH at 2600.com is our email address.
[56:45.350 --> 56:45.850]  We'll see you next week.
[56:45.950 --> 56:46.090]  Good night.
[57:13.600 --> 57:16.660]  Welcome to the jungle where the cat loves to scratch.
[57:16.820 --> 57:20.500]  The rat squeals and the polar bear feast on the blubber of seals.
[57:20.720 --> 57:23.760]  The pack of wolves, we're scheming on a bunch of gazelles.
[57:23.920 --> 57:27.020]  Where the leopards grab the wildebeest, down by its tail.
[57:27.160 --> 57:30.400]  You see the chimps, they grow hemp, they hustle with slinging trees.
[57:30.780 --> 57:33.660]  Elephants for security, they move tons of leaves.
[57:33.920 --> 57:36.280]  The blue birds arrest parents that love to talk.
[57:36.500 --> 57:39.820]  Of eagles to stalk, freshwater trout under the wing of the hawk.
[57:39.820 --> 57:43.040]  You see the vultures pick the pockets of whatever remains.
[57:43.380 --> 57:46.640]  In the brain they watch for the shadow of the lion's mane.
[57:46.860 --> 57:49.780]  Whose roar is loud enough to take the stripes from a zebra.
[57:49.980 --> 57:53.060]  He camouflages bets in the spots of a cheetah.
[57:53.260 --> 57:56.400]  Shouldn't gamble with a cheetah and not expect to get beat.
[57:56.400 --> 57:59.560]  You silly goose, you know he move fast on his feet.
[57:59.660 --> 58:02.820]  And your neck deep in depth with a bunch of lone sharks.
[58:03.100 --> 58:06.080]  So you move on a colony of ants with odd rocks.
[58:06.240 --> 58:09.420]  You see most of the everglades controlled by the gators.
[58:09.460 --> 58:12.540]  It was crashed by the crocs who came years later.
[58:12.720 --> 58:14.840]  See the locust hat swarm with the bees.
[58:14.980 --> 58:16.440]  The tick move with the fleas.
[58:16.560 --> 58:19.040]  The dragonflies and the watch share with the seas.
[58:19.040 --> 58:22.220]  The crab in the leeches suck your blood flow.
[58:22.440 --> 58:25.380]  And they laugh like hyenas when they out to catch dough.
[58:25.660 --> 58:28.340]  See a million more skeetles from the west now.
[58:28.480 --> 58:31.800]  Carrying the virus that made the boys less wild.
[58:31.800 --> 58:34.300]  It's like the jungle sometimes.
[58:38.760 --> 58:40.600]  It's like the jungle sometimes.
[58:45.280 --> 58:47.180]  It's like the jungle sometimes.
[58:48.400 --> 58:49.420]  It's like the jungle sometimes.
[58:51.730 --> 58:53.670]  It's like the jungle sometimes.
[59:00.270 --> 59:02.850]  It's like the jungle sometimes.
[59:02.850 --> 59:05.350]  Streaming live at WBAI.org.
[59:05.870 --> 59:09.030]  The personal computer show will be on.
[59:09.290 --> 59:16.310]  It will be delayed slightly while we bring you some news updates on the Garner case.
[59:16.310 --> 59:25.230]  We're expecting a call from the field, as well as this pre-recorded report from Linda Perry, commencing now.
[59:34.870 --> 59:37.790]  For WBAI in New York, I'm Linda Perry.
[59:38.130 --> 59:43.570]  No indictment for police officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner.
[59:43.870 --> 59:47.050]  That's the decision from the Staten Island grand jury.
[59:47.270 --> 59:54.070]  Even though a video was seen widely online, which showed Officer Pantaleo putting Garner in a...