Cyber Disobedience: Re://Presenting Online Anarchy

by Jeff Shantz

  For political organizers and activists, there remain important questions about the tactical and strategic roles of cyber disobedience in social movements (particularly more radical movements against states and capital). Part of this probing requires better understandings of more focused forms of cyber disobedience and their potential contributions to collective, or common, struggles.

  Much of cyber disobedience has developed in an engagement with anarchist ideas and practices. At the same time there is much resemblance between cyber activist forms and anarchist approaches to organizing. Yet the anarchist character of much cyber disobedience has been little discussed.

  Organizing Anarchy

  Commentators have persistently failed to appreciate, or have misrepresented the organizational approaches of cyber disobedients. As internet analyst and author Gabriella Coleman, who has written on Anonymous, suggests:

  Anonymous is not a singularity, but is [composed] of multiple, loosely organised nodes with various regional networks in existence. [But] Operations don’t simply spring out of the ether and can be easily linked to a particular network…At minimum these networks usually will lay claim to, or deny, the source of an operation. (2012b, n.p.)

  While Anonymous, and other cyber activist groups, and their actions, can appear, from the outside, to be rather chaotic, unorganized, even random, they actually apply a range of organizing practices. As Squire suggests, cyber activist groups have their own internally functional methods of organizing (2013). Often these organizing methods are unfamiliar or recognizable to outsiders, even informed commentators, because they do not pursue the hierarchical, command structures of mainstream political (party) or corporate organizations. They do not have instituted leadership positions or roles, hierarchical structures, or authoritarian (leader/follower, boss/subordinate) command processes. Often decisions are made on a participatory basis in which all involved are able to discuss plans. In other cases there is full autonomy of action such that any member or collective can take action as it sees fit, as long as they are accountable for their own actions. Collectives are often formed on the basis of affinity and trust, so that people work on projects with those they have a direct connection with and commitment to. These organizing practices, from affinity groups to participatory democracy to horizontal structures, are precisely the practices that have characterized anarchist movements historically. Thus whether implicitly or explicitly, as many are, the cyber disobedient represent a form of organizational (if not philosophical) anarchism.

  This horizontal, participatory, decentralized organizing is perhaps more in keeping with the desires for personal liberty, authenticity, and action desired by a younger generation of people concerned about social justice. Such organizing provides an opportunity for people who believe their voices have been silenced by status quo politics to actually have a voice. Indeed, even organizational approaches that have marked the political Left up to the present period have tended to be rather hierarchical, even bureaucratic, and representational, whether one refers to social democratic political parties, communist parties, or trade unions. Anarchy has always posed an alternative to such organizational forms within the Left. A central component of anarchist perspectives is the belief that means and ends of politics should correspond. Thus in anarchist political organizing, a radical approach to form can be as important as content.

  As various commentators (Squire 2013; Coleman 2012a) point out, cyber activism and activists have drawn considerable media attention over the last few years because they are seen as novel and even a bit exciting. Certainly, cyber disobedience seems a bit more engaging and lively than the rather dour images of political party meetings and campaigns. The association with anarchism further gives them a sense of edginess or mystery that makes them even more appealing to many younger people upset about social injustice and seeking to take action against the status quo. It might be remembered that an earlier generation of young people frustrated with the early manifestations of neoliberal austerity and tired of the worn out forms and symbols of protest, the first wave punk rockers, also found a suitable expression for their outrage in anarchism. From the guttural howl of Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols, who proclaimed “Anarchy in the UK” (“I am an anarch-iste), anarchism and punk have been closely associated, the “circle-A” an instantly recognizable symbol of both (and of uncompromising resistance to authority). In the present context, the Guy Fawkes mask of Anonymous (drawn from the graphic novel “V for Vendetta” written by the openly self-identified anarchist Alan Moore), has become the ubiquitous symbol of anarchy (on the web and in the streets, as during Occupy protests and widely since).

  The word “anarchy” is derived from the ancient Greek word “anarchos” and means, rather than chaos or disorder, simply “without a ruler.” While rulers, not at all surprisingly, promote fears that the end of their rule will inevitably lead to a social decline into chaos and turmoil, anarchists assert that rule, economic or political, is unnecessary for the preservation of order. Rather than a descent into Hobbes’ mythical war of all against all, a society without government suggests to anarchists the very context for creative and peaceful human relations. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, the first to identify positively his social theory as anarchist, succinctly summed up the anarchist position in his famous slogan: “Anarchy is Order” (which is symbolically represented by contemporary anarchists in the “circle-A” or @).

  For anarchists, the regulatory and supervisory mechanisms of state capital are especially suited to producing docile and dependent subjects. Through institutions like courts and prisons, but also social work and psychology, authorities extend practices of ruling from control over bodies to influence over minds. Moral regulation, and unquestioned respect for laws, provides a subtle means for nurturing repression and conformity. The results is relations of dependence rather than self-determination as the externalized practices of the state increasingly come to be viewed as the only legitimate mechanisms for solving disputes or addressing social needs. For anarchists the “rule of law” administered through the institutions of the state, typically on behalf of capital, is not the guarantor of freedom, but, rather, freedom’s enemy. Such practices close off alternative avenues for human interaction, creativity, and community while corralling more and more people within the bounds of state capital.

  Of Plastic Guns, Lulz, and Liberty: Two Struggles over the Communication Commons

  In the second week of May, 2013, Cody Wilson of Defense Distributed, a loose collective dedicated to asserting the freedom of information against state regulation, was forced to remove plans for a 3D printed weapon from his website after receiving threats of legal action from the United States Department of State (DoS or State Department). Earlier in the month, Wilson had shocked people in the United States (and many observers across the globe) by creating a fully functional (if not particularly high-powered) plastic pistol using a 3D printer. Before the plans were taken down, though, the blueprint had been downloaded about 100,000 times. It can be found still (as of this writing) on other websites as well as various file-sharing services such as the popular Bit Torrent.

  More than wanting to talk about the gun that has stirred up so much public consternation and ire, Wilson has preferred to speak, in often excited terms, about the affirmation of knowledge freedom represented by his boxy derringer (which looks more like a movie camera than a handgun).

  Indeed, as much as concerns over the gun itself, an inaccurate, shingle-shot, short-range piece known as “The Liberator,” commentators have been troubled by the anarchist tinged perspective of the gun’s media massaging, and openly provocative, guru, Wilson. As supposed small government advocate, and former George W. Bush speechwriter, David Frum complained in an article on the implications of The Liberator: “Anti-social behavior will always be with us. It’s the accompanying sermons that stick in the craw” (2013, n.p.). For Frum, the 3D gun is simply the lasted in a growing line of examples of the do it yourself (DIY) culture of the inte
rnet going deadly.

  For Brian Doherty, writing in the December 2012 issue of Reason magazine, Wilson’s experiment “bears down on the techno-anarchy, ‘information wants to be free’ aspect of 3D printing, straining it possibly to its breaking point by grounding the grand promise of decentralized cheap ways to make ideas physically real in something as troubling as weapons” (n.p.). Doherty, who also identifies the impetus for a communication commons as anarchy, is less bothered by the gun and its advocate Wilson than is Frum. Nor does he express the outrage over the real subject of the ongoing debates over the 3D peashooter, which is, after all, not guns but anarchy (or freedom beyond the state).

  It is perhaps highly telling that in a socio-historical period of the real subsumption of society by a military metaphysic debates over freedom and liberty hide behind discussions of weapons. Even more telling that in a period of mass murder delivered from the skies by “unmanned” drones piloted by video gamers, all hostility and social anxiety is reserved for a single shot plastic zip gun.

  In moving against Wilson, the State Department chose openly to violate Wilson’s First Amendment rights, those protecting free speech, and arguably his Second Amendment right to bear arms. This confirms a point that all anarchists make, and have always made—that state-sanctioned rights are subject to withdrawal whenever the state decides (especially if it feels threatened). They are untrustworthy rights indeed.

  The “free market” (it has never been free) defender Frum sees the potentials of 3D printing not as a liberation of free information, but as a theft of copyrighted material. In this he expresses one side, the side of privatization, in the age old struggle over commons and enclosure. As Jesse Kline suggests:

  This is not the first, or the last time we’ll see governments struggle to adapt existing regulatory regimes to new technological innovations. But it will always come down to a simple choice: Create massive censorship apparatuses that have varying degrees of success (such as the great firewall of China) or come to the realization that overbearing government intrusions in our lives have become as obsolete as a ColecoVision games console at a garage sale. (2013, A12)

  This is only one in the long list of attempts by government to clamp down in panic fashion on new technological developments. As Kline reminds us: “When the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption protocol was released in 1993, the State Department targeted it for allowing people to communicate without the threat of government surveillance. But it was already too late: PGP’s source code was readily available and it became the basis for a host of other technological advances” (2013, A12). Cyber disobedience and the pursuit of communications commons overflow, and outpace, attempts at enclosure, not always, but often.

  In the case of Defense Distributed and their 3D marvel, as in other cases before and since, before the State Department could act, the file had already escaped—or been liberated. Once the plans were out, people, as they will do, set to work and began collaborating on improving the design. As Jesse Kline suggests: “The free sharing of information spurs innovation” (2013, A12). It also calls into question existing capitalist regimes of property ownership and control and the relations of production that privilege those who claim (rights to) value (as profit) over those who actually produce value. As is the case with much of cyber disobedience, what is really being challenged is a capitalist mode of production in which knowledge and the people who create it are rendered as commodities.

  At the same time as the US State Department was violating Cody Wilson’s First Amendment rights, a court in Britain was sentencing four young hackers to 32 months in prison for cyber attacks on a range of elite targets (economic and political) including prominent ones such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United Kingdom’s Serious Organized Crime Agency, the US Air Force, Sony Picture, 20th Century Fox, and Rupert Murdoch’s News International. The cyber disobedient also hit the Arizona State Police and tech security firm HB Gray Incorporated.

  The means of attack was the Denial of Service (DOS) attack overwhelming the sites with traffic. The sentenced were associated with groups Lulzsec (from LOL, or laugh out loud and security), a fraction that splintered from the amorphous collective Anonymous years before. The cyber disobedient had constructed a bitnet—a network of computers to perform the DOS attacks on the various websites. The chief executive officer of HB Gray resigned following the attacks. It is believed that the companies experienced serious financial damage.

  From the perspective of cyber anarchy the targets are understandable. All represent powerful interests socially and all have sought, in various ways, to privatize, to enclose the communications commons. All have also funded, supported, or carried out efforts to criminalize so-called hackers, information sharers, and/or cyber disobedients. For cyber anarchists, the DOS attacks are simply politics by other means. The impact on billion dollar companies and state agencies is minimal compared to the harms inflicted on society by those institutions and agencies targeted. One might remember in all of this that all the cyber disobedients actually did was visit publicly available websites. That they did so in a way that corporations and state agencies did not approve of does not alter that fact but it does, again, raise questions about who gets to be active on the internet (and who only gets to consume), under what circumstances, and according to whose rules (or fees).

  At the heart of these cases is the fundamental question concerning the role of government (and what is meant by government, what type of government) in the Internet Age. As Jesse Kline points out: “Most Westerners applaud the Internet’s subversive nature when it is used against authoritarian regimes, as it was during the Arab Spring. But the decentralized nature of the Internet can just as easily be used by people in the West, a fact that really irks those who think the government should be in the business of keeping people safe from themselves” (2013, A12). The flows of disobedience connect across space and time and across ideologies.

  As Kline concludes: “And here’s where we see the true brilliance of what Wilson is doing. No one is saying that shooting people is shouldn’t be illegal. But simply making and possessing a weapon is not about equating “gunplay with liberty…It’s about sending a message to lawmakers that they can’t ban objects or ideas, just because some people find them objectionable” (2013, A12). In this case, the people finding disobedience and the free sharing of information online (and off) to be objectionable have particular economic and political interests. They belong to capital and the state. In various ways and through diverse means they are attempting to ban anarchists and anarchist ideas—movements of and for collective labor and the commons.

  And Two on Surveillance

  In the first days of June, 2013, a perhaps even more ominous event garnered global attention and generated popular outrage in a way that the censorship of the 3d gun plans and the Lulszec sentences only hinted at. Documents leaked by whistleblower (a key aspect of cyber disobedience), and CIA contractor, Edward Snowdon during the first week of June revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA) in the US has compelled US phone and internet companies to turn over the metadata on millions of American customers every day for years. The information release by Snowdon showed an expansive program of cyberspying on a massive scale by the US government.

  The secret surveillance program PRISM has the NSA gaining information from multinational tech corporations, including Google, Skype, Microsoft, Apple, Facebook, and more—a who’s who of tech capital. This is the telelectronic convergence of state capital in the form of a world historic surveillance apparatus.

  That same week information was revealed about a surveillance program in Canada, the supposedly more liberal state, which collects data on personal communications. The classified program, which collects Canadian internet and phone metadata, was approved by the Defense Minister, Peter McKay, and had been running for several years at the time it was uncovered. Notably, the program was, and remains, so secret that the Office of the Privacy Commisioner of Canada, which oversee
s government privacy issues, knew nothing of it.

  The metadata collection program is managed by an electronic eavesdropping agency, the creepily named Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), which was formed during the Cold War to spy on communications involving Communist states (Freeze and Wingrove 2013, A4). The processes for acquiring metadata by CSEC are not known even by members of parliament. A bipartisan initiative, the first CSEC meta-data directive was signed by the Liberal government in 2005. It was renewed by the Conservative government in 2011.

  Before early June of 2013 few people had ever heard of, or knew anything about, metadata. It certainly was not an everyday concern. Yet it should have been and after the Snowdon release it has become so for many. As security analyst Ronald Deibert suggests, meta-data is something of a “digital biometric tag” (2013, A11). Meta-data on a cell phone could include the numbers you call, the time and length of the call. It could also include IP addresses of websites you visit.

  The electronic pulse of a cell phone emits an electronic pulse every few seconds to the nearest cell phone tower or wifi router, even when not in use. In these pulses are the model of phone, its OS, the location of the phone, and its user (Deibert 2013, A11). Taken together these pieces of data provide a clear picture of a person’s life. Deibert reports: “MIT researchers who studied 15 months of anonymized cellphone metadata of 1.5 million people found four ‘data points’ were all they needed to figure out a person’s identity 95 per cent of the time” (2013, A11). It provides a potential goldmine for state spies and corporate marketers alike.