Exploring the Territories of New Media Activism

DIY Enthusiasts

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Anonymous

Electronic Civil Disobidience

Project Chanology (also called Operation Chanology[1]) is a protest movement against the practices of the Church of Scientology by members of Anonymous, a leaderless Internet-based group that defines itself as ubiquitous. The project was started in response to the Church of Scientology's attempts to remove material from a highly publicized interview with Scientologist Tom Cruise from the Internet in January 2008.

4Chan

LoLCats

Electronic Disturbance Theater

According to the Washington Post, "the site's users have managed to pull off some of the highest-profile collective actions in the history of the Internet."

Hacktivism has emerged as people have learnt how to put their computer "in the way," instead of their body. Hacktivists have broken into websites to put a political message on the site (freeing computer hacker Kevin Mitnick, human rights in China, the Zapatistas, and East Timor have all been popular topics).

Rickrolling

Dead yet? A Rickroll is an advanced new war tactic, developed by US scientists for maximum use in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Arguably more effective a tool than cyanide or napalm, a RickRoll has been officially regarded by British and American authorities as a weapon of mass destruction. It used as a devious way of getting Taliban and Iraqi militia to kill themselves through sheer exasperation after relentlessly emailing the video to them dozens of times, usually under the guise of pornography and, less commonly, free life insurance. About the only other weapon in the world that even comes close to the formidability of the RickRoll is the hydrogen bomb. Since its development, the RickRoll is thought to have accounted for at least 40% of all successful war-based assasinations. Ownership of the weapon has been banned and is punishable by jail time in over two continents. This does not include the Internet, where over 91% of RickRoll weapons are both manufactured and sold.

In 2009, the winner of the annual Time 100 online poll was moot, the founder of the 4chan website, who received 16,794,368 votes. Time magazine claimed that their technical team "did detect and extinguish several attempts to hack the vote". However, it was shown weeks before the poll ended that the results had been heavily edited by hackers.The first letters of the top 21 names spell out "marblecake also the game". Marblecake is the name of the IRC channel where Anonymous started their campaign against Scientology, and "the game" is a reference to "The Game" meme.

Rickrolling is an Internet meme involving the music video for the 1987 Rick Astley song "Never Gonna Give You Up". The meme is a bait and switch; a person provides a hyperlink seemingly relevant to the topic at hand, but actually leads to Astley's video. Rickrolling has extended beyond web links to playing the video or song disruptively in other situations, including public places.

Hacktivism

On July 10, 2008, the swastika CJK unicode character (卐) appeared at the top of Google's Hot Trends list—a tally of the most popular search terms in the United States—for several hours.

Later that year, the private Yahoo! Mail account of Sarah Palin, Republican vice presidential candidate in the 2008 United States presidential election, was hacked by a 4chan user. The hacker posted the account's password on /b/, and screenshots from within the account to Wikileaks.

The stock price of Apple Inc. fell significantly in October 2008 after a hoax story was submitted to CNN's user-generated news site iReport.com claiming that company CEO Steve Jobs had suffered a major heart attack.

In May 2009, members of the site attacked YouTube, posting pornographic videos on the site.[87] A 4chan member acknowledged being part of the attack, telling the BBC that it was in response to YouTube "deleting music".

In September 2010, in retaliation against the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America hiring of Aiplex Software to launch cyberattacks against The Pirate Bay, Anonymous members, recruited through posts on 4chan boards, subsequently initiated their own attacks, dubbed Operation Payback, DDoS'ing the website of all three companies.

A number of law firms associated with the anti-piracy industry were also affected, most notably the UK law firm ACS:Law, front page accidentally revealed a backup file of the entire website, which contained over 300 megabytes of private company emails, which were leaked to several torrents and across several sites on the internet.[94] It has been suggested that the data leak could cost the law firm up to £500,000 in fines for breaching British Data Protection Laws.

Habbo raids

Hal Turner raid

Chris Forcand arrest

Project Chanology

No Cussing Club

2009 Iranian election protests

Operation Didgeridie

Activities during 2010

Operation Titstorm

Oregon Tea Party raid

Operations Payback, Avenge Assange, and Bradical

Operation Leakspin

Zimbabwe

Attack on Fine Gael website

Arab Spring Activities

Attack on HBGary Federal

Purported threat against the Westboro Baptist Church

2011 Wisconsin protests

2011 Bank of America document release

Operation Sony

Spanish Police

Supporting 2011 Indian Anti-corruption movement in cyber space

Operation Malaysia

Operation Orlando

Operation Intifada

Operation Anti-Security

Operation Facebook

Operation BART

Support of Occupy Wall Street

Operation DarkNet

Opposition to Los Zetas

Cult of The Dead Cow

4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime.

4chan users have been responsible for the formation or popularization of Internet memes such as lolcats, Rickrolling, "Chocolate Rain", Pedobear, and many others. The site's "Random" board is by far its most popular and notorious feature. Known as "/b/", there are very minimal rules on posted content. Gawker once jokingly claimed that "reading /b/ will melt your brain".

Guardian once summarized the 4chan community as "lunatic, juvenile... brilliant, ridiculous and alarming."

Users generally post anonymously and the site has been linked to Internet subcultures and activism, most notably Project Chanology.

Acs Law

Youtube

PayBack

Memes

Sarah Palin

Apple Stocks

Google Trends

Hacktivists invented the electronic sit-in. A program called "Floodnet" allows you to set your computer so that it is constantly requesting a webpage. Activists can cooperate from around the world, and if enough people join it will slow down the webpage, ultimately leading to a Denial of Service. In addition, it is possible to overload a target’s email account by sending them large attachments. Hacktivists flooded and email bombed the World Trade Organization during its meeting in Seattle.

meme is "an idea, behaviour or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."

A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.

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THE HACKTIVISMO DECLARATION

assertions of liberty in support of an uncensored internet

DEEPLY ALARMED that state-sponsored censorship of the Internet is

rapidly spreading with the assistance of transnational corporations,

TAKING AS A BASIS the principles and purposes enshrined in Article 19

of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that states,

_Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this

right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to

seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media

and regardless of frontiers_, and Article 19 of the International

Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) that says,

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right

shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and

ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing

or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his

choice.

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in paragraph 2 of this

article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may

therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be

such as are provided by law and are necessary:

(a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others;

(b) For the protection of national security or of public order, or of

public health or morals.

RECALLING that some member states of the United Nations have signed the

ICCPR, or have ratified it in such a way as to prevent their citizens

from using it in courts of law,

CONSIDERING that, such member states continue to willfully suppress

wide-ranging access to lawfully published information on the Internet,

despite the clear language of the ICCPR that freedom of expression

exists in all media,

TAKING NOTE that transnational corporations continue to sell

information technologies to the world's most repressive regimes

knowing full well that they will be used to track and control an

already harried citizenry,

TAKING INTO ACCOUNT that the Internet is fast becoming a method of

repression rather than an instrument of liberation,

BEARING IN MIND that in some countries it is a crime to demand the

right to access lawfully published information, and of other basic human

rights,

RECALLING that member states of the United Nations have failed to press

the world's most egregious information rights violators to a higher

standard,

MINDFUL that denying access to information could lead to spiritual,

intellectual, and economic decline, the promotion of xenophobia and

destabilization of international order,

CONCERNED that governments and transnationals are colluding to maintain

the status quo,

DEEPLY ALARMED that world leaders have failed to address information

rights issues directly and without equivocation,

RECOGNIZING the importance to fight against human rights abuses with

respect to reasonable access to information on the Internet,

THEREFORE WE ARE CONVINCED that the international hacking community has

a moral imperative to act, and we

DECLARE:

* THAT FULL RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS

INCLUDES THE LIBERTY OF FAIR AND REASONABLE ACCESS TO INFORMATION,

WHETHER BY SHORTWAVE RADIO, AIR MAIL, SIMPLE TELEPHONY, THE GLOBAL

INTERNET, OR OTHER MEDIA.

* THAT WE RECOGNIZE THE RIGHT OF GOVERNMENTS TO FORBID THE

PUBLICATION OF PROPERLY CATEGORIZED STATE SECRETS, CHILD PORNOGRAPHY,

AND MATTERS RELATED TO PERSONAL PRIVACY AND PRIVILEDGE, AMONG OTHER

ACCEPTED RESTRICTIONS. BUT WE OPPOSE THE USE OF STATE POWER TO CONTROL

ACCESS TO THE WORKS OF CRITICS, INTELLECTUALS, ARTISTS, OR RELIGIOUS

FIGURES.

* THAT STATE SPONSORED CENSORSHIP OF THE INTERNET ERODES PEACEFUL AND

CIVILIZED COEXISTENCE, AFFECTS THE EXERCISE OF DEMOCRACY, AND ENDANGERS

THE SOCIOECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONS.

* THAT STATE-SPONSORED CENSORSHIP OF THE INTERNET IS A SERIOUS FORM

OF ORGANIZED AND SYSTEMATIC VIOLENCE AGAINST CITIZENS, IS INTENDED TO

GENERATE CONFUSION AND XENOPHOPIA, AND IS A REPREHENSIBLE VIOLATION OF

TRUST.

* THAT WE WILL STUDY WAYS AND MEANS OF CIRCUMVENTING STATE SPONSORED

CENSORSHIP OF THE INTERNET AND WILL IMPLEMENT TECHNOLOGIES TO CHALLENGE

INFORMATION RIGHTS VIOLATIONS.

Issued July 4, 2001 by Hacktivismo and the CULT OF THE DEAD COW.

Ricardo Dominguez, a University of California, San Diego tenured visual arts professor and activist, designed the Transborder Immigrant Tool, an application much like a global-positioning system used in cars, to help illegals find the best locations for food, water and groups to assist them as they sneak into America.

Dominguez is also co-founder of the Electronic Disturbance Theater, or EDT, a group that developed virtual-sit-in technologies in 1998 in solidarity with the Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico. He also helped set up a website-jamming network called the FloodNet system to attack official sites of the U.S. Border Patrol, White House, G8, Mexican embassy and others.

"It allowed anyone with Internet access to overload the websites of several governmental entities,"

Cult of The Dead Cow, an independent group under the cDc communications umbrella dedicated to the creation of anti-censorship technology in furtherance of human rights on the Internet. The group's beliefs are described fully in The Hacktivismo Declaration, which seeks to apply the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to the Internet.

Critical Art Ensemble

(CAE) is a collective of five tactical media practitioners of various specializations including computer graphics and web design, film/video, photography, text art, book art, and performance. Formed in 1987, CAE's focus has been on the exploration of the intersections between art, critical theory, technology, and political activism.

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Tor

FaxWar

BorderXing Guide 2002 - 2003

Heath Bunting

National borders are increasingly frontlines of political and social dissent. Asylum-seeking and political migrations are some of the most significant issues of our time. Heath Bunting's BorderXing Guide website primarily consists of documentation of walks that traverse national boundaries, without interruption from customs, immigration, or border police. The work comments on the way in which movement between borders is restricted by governments and associated bureaucracies.

Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis

Irational

Anonymous is a loose organization of hacktivists best known for attacking its enemies--both corporate and governmental--via the Internet, by defacing websites or shutting them down altogether. But with most of the Internet down in Egypt, the folks at Anonymous are apparently resorting to a positively prehistoric technology: fax machines.

The Yes Man

RTMark

0100101110101101

Nike Ground

EToy

The Hacker Ethic

DIGITAL HIJACK (1996)

between march 31 and july 31 1996, etoy.SOFTWARE-AGENTS automatically infiltrated the world wide web's global search engines (lycos, infoseek, altavista, etc.) by placing over a thousand designated keywords (porsche, startrek, bondage, selbstmord, censorship, fassbinder, etc.) within the top 10 rankings, thereby setting up a trap for net travelers and technology tourists. with this action, etoy demonstrated the «space» behind the popular interfaces of the world wide web. they took control of the systematic illusion of net-quests for information.

the weak points of the internet and the twilight zone of the medium formed the location of the action. search-servers were transformed into a stage: etoy.UNDERGROUND FEEDING THE INFO-SPIDERS !

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Open Access and DIY Culture

GWBush.com

YOU'VE BEEN RICKROLLED !

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Open Source, Open Data, Open Sience and FreeSoftware Movement

Thank You For Your Atention

In April 1999, ®TMark co-constructed GWBush.com, a website that at first glance appeared to be that of Republican Presidential candidate George W. Bush (his website is GeorgeWBush.com). The first version incurred Bush's wrath, and his lawyers sent a threatening letter.

By the time the second version of GWBush.com was published, with much more content, the Bush campaign had complained to the Federal Elections Commission.

These attacks resulted in a major international news story, which was then magnified by Bush's televised response to a reporter's question about the site: "There ought to be limits to freedom," Bush said--an ominous gaffe that many still remember.

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SimCopter

MediaArt

Hackers

Access to computers - and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On imperative!

All information should be free.

Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.

Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.

You can create art and beauty on a computer.

Computers can change your life for the better.

Hacktivism

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The TMRC spawned a unique vocabulary. Compiled in the TMRC Dictionary, it included terms that later became part of the hacker's Jargon File, such as "foo", "mung", and "frob". Other substitutions include "orifice" for office, "boner" for cloud, "cruft" for garbage, and "hack", meaning an elaborate college prank carried out by MIT students. This last definition is the basis for the term ...

Contagious Paranoia

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In 1996, ®TMark channeled $5000 from a New York shopkeeper as a reward to a Silicon Valley programmer for substituting hundreds of near-naked kissing boys for buxom babes, tuba players, and other computer game staples. (Click here for pictures.) Learn more by searching the Web on "SimCopter," "kissing boys," and "fired".

Life Sharing - Data Nudism

Vaticano.org: The First Internet Coup

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Conceived and compiled for the invitation to the 49th Venice Biennale, Biennale.py is both a computer virus and a work of art. The virus is made public and spread from the Slovenian Pavilion on the opening day of the exhibition, June the 6th 2001. Biennale.py becomes headline-hitting news, suddenly turning into an unprecedented performance, a controversial work of art revealing how media hysteria can be theoretically provoked and raised. Following the spreading of the virus, Symantec Corporation, world leader in Internet security technology, detects Biennale.py and starts the hunt. Eva, 0100101110101101.ORG's spokeswoman, says: «As part of an organization that produces art, my only responsibility is to be irresponsible».

Barbie Liberation Organization

The night of the 10th December 1998 begins the action that will go down in history as The First Internet Coup. Over 24 hours, a commando takes posses of the official online organ of information of the Vatican State, or the Holy See. The commando buys the domain name vaticano.org pointing it to a Canadian server, where has already been created a huge website esthetically identical to the official one (www.vatican.va).

An editorial network works 24-7 with precise instructions: copy as many texts as possible from the official website, modify them slightly and publish them in the fake one.

Like the Pope, 0100101110101101.ORG has decided to open the Holy Doors of the Net to pilgrims from the whole world: from the moment in which Vaticano.org is opened, a huge stream of visitors pours into the fake website. Over one year the spoof website reaches more than 4 million hits: a one-year radical performance and the Net will never be the same.

Life Sharing is a real-time digital self-portrait. Started in the year 2000 and active uninterruptedly until 2003, Life Sharing is 0100101110101101.ORG's personal computer turned into a real time sharing system. Any visitor has free and unlimited access to all contents: texts, images, software, 01's private mail. One can get lost in this huge data maze. Based on Linux, Life Sharing is a brand new concept of net architecture turning a website into a sheer personal media for complete digital transparency. Permanent infotainment pioneering the peer to peer mass diffusion. Privacy is stupid.

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In 1993, ®TMark channel $8000 from a military veterans' group to the Barbie Liberation Organization, which used the investment to switch the voiceboxes of three hundred BarbieTM and G.I. JoeTM dolls.

Computer Art

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Starwars Uncut - CrowdSourcing

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Kickstarter - CrowdFunding

Identity Correction

Impersonating big-time criminals in order to publicly humiliate them. Our targets are leaders and big corporations who put profits ahead of everything else.

Ibm704

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And Final Conclusion Is ...

Unwraping

New Media

Activism

Guide thru territories of

underground tech and

new media sphere

TMCR Groups

1

those that wanted to do scenery and buildings only after prototypes (GodComm),

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2

The Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) is a student organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and one of the most celebrated model railroad clubs in the world

those who were interested in building and painting replicas of certain trains with historical and emotional values

McDonalds Sims Intervention

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those that wanted to run trains on schedules,

3

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Ubermorgen

4

those comprising the Signals and Power Subcommittee who created the circuits that made the trains run.

60s

This community is notable for launching the free software movement. The World Wide Web and the Internet itself are also hacker artifacts.

Games

Velvet Strike

Intervention Recipes

The following are instructions for how to intervene in Counter-Strike and some other online shooters with the intent to disrupt gameplay as usual with performative art actions. Please send us your own intervention recipes.

Recipe for Salvation by Graphical User Intervention(GUI):

1. Enter a Counter-Strike Server with a hostage scenario as a member of the Terrorist Team.

2. Rescue the Hostages you are supposed to be guarding.

Recipe for Crashing by Brody(aka sylo):

1. Join a vehicle heavy Tribes2 server.

2. Create and pilot a transport ship.

3. Gather friendly warriors in the transport pretending that you will soon fly to the enemy base.

4. When everyone is in, fly away from the enemy base, into the endless beautiful landscape.

5. Convince your passengers that this is a shortcut, or you are taking them on a nice tour, to calm them down.

6. Fly as far as possible.

7. Upon landing(or crashing), your passengers will be so far from the battle they must commit a mass suicide (ctrl-k) to return to the fighting.

Recipe for Martyrdom by John Brennan(aka BigJB):

1. You and several friends join a busy Counter-Strike server.

2. During the battle, tell everyone you are martyrs for peace, then jump off the tallest structure in the level, killing yourselves.

Recipe for Friendship by A.M.S.

1. Find a Counter-Strike server with 0 or 1 other player on line.(If you go to an empty one most likely someone will show up to see who you are.)

2. Shoot a few times at your enemy.

3. Tell them you are newbie and ask them to show you how to plant the bomb.

4. Ask them which country they are from.

5. Ask them all about themeselves.

6. Arrange to meet another time.

Recipe for Heart Stand-in by A.M.S.

1. Ask the members of your Counter-Strike team, (must be at least 14), Counter-Terrorist or Terrorist, to stand in a large, low, flat open area in the game that can be viewed from above.

2. Arrange everyone to stand in the shape of a heart. Do not move or return fire.

3. On all player chat send out the message repeatedly: "Love and Peace"

4. Retain position stoicly.

NetArt

Habbo Raids

The raid actually predates and was not inspired by the news of an Alabama amusement park banning a two-year-old toddler affected by AIDS from entering the park's swimming pool. Users signed up to the Habbo site dressed in avatars of a black man wearing a grey suit and an Afro hairstyle and blocked entry to the pool, declaring that it was "closed due to AIDS, flooding the site with internet sayings,and forming swastika-like formations. When the raiders were banned, they complained of racism. In response, the Habbo admins often ban users with avatars matching the profile of the raiders even months after the latest raid.

, because of its historic role as a wellspring of hacker culture.

Homebrew Computer Club

Improv Everywhere

Steve Jobs - Atari Breakout

Blast Theory

The Homebrew Computer Club was an informal group of electronic enthusiasts and technically-minded hobbyists who gathered to trade parts, circuits, and information pertaining to DIY construction of computing devices.

Steve Wozniak begins his career by building one of the best-known ‘blue boxes;’ tone generators that enable long-distance dialing while bypassing the phone company’s billing equipment.

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Early days of Internet

The club attracted many hobbyists and was attended by nearly 750 people one year after its foundation. The Homebrew Compu ter Club had its own philosophy. People meet, because they were interested in computers and liked tinkering with them, but not for commercial reasons - at least in its early times. Its members "exchanged information about all aspects of microcomputing's te chnology") and talked about devices they had designed. From its ranks came the founders of many microcomputer companies - for example Bob Marsh, Adam Osborne, or Steve Jobs and Steven Wozniak - the famous Apple founders.

How the state lost control of the Internet ?

Crakers

Millitary

Professors 2 Students

Millitary 2 Professors

Students 2 Activists

Second Life Protests

and the state lost control of the Internet :)

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The professors showed it to their students, and the students looked upon the Internet and saw that it was brilliant.

In the beginning the military-industrial complex invented the Internet, and the generals looked upon the Internet and saw that it was an effective war-proof control structure.

And as the military-industrial complex penetrated the halls of academia, the professors looked upon the Internet and saw that it was interesting.

Then the student activists saw the Internet, and realised that it was capable of being subverted into a more socially useful purpose than a control structure for the military-industrial complex

Community Memory

was the first public computerized bulletin board system. Established in 1973 in Berkeley, California, it used an SDS 940 timesharing system in San Francisco connected via a 110 baud link to a teleprinter at a record store in Berkeley to let users enter and retrieve messages. Individuals could place messages in the computer and then look through the memory for a specific notice.

While initially conceived as an information and resource sharing network linking a variety of counter-cultural economic, educational, and social organizations with each other and the public, Community Memory was soon generalized to be an information flea market, by providing unmediated, two-way access to message databases through public computer terminals . Once the system became available, the users demonstrated that it was a general communications medium that could be used for art, literature, journalism, commerce, and social chatter.

LOD

MOD

The creators and founders of Community Memory shared the values of northern California counter-culture of the 1960s, which included the celebration of free speech and the anti-war movement. They were also supporters of ecological, low cost, decentralized, and user-friendly technology

The Legion of Doom (LOD) was an extremely influential hacker group that was active from the 1980s to the late 1990s. Their name appears to be a reference to the main antagonists of Challenge of the Superfriends.

BBS

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Masters of Deception (MOD) were a New York-based hacker group. MOD successfully controlled all the major telephone RBOC’s and X.25 networks as well as controlling large parts of the backbone of the rapidly emerging Internet. MOD’s initial membership grew from meetings on Loop-Around Test Lines that led to legendary collaborations to hack RBOC phone switches and the various minicomputers and mainframes used to administer the telephone network. They successfully remained underground using alternative handles to hide even their true hacker identities, which over time had become notorious. Bearing no resemblance to the stereotypical profile or media representation of how a traditional hacker looks or acts provided a perfect cover for instances of hacking in public places. Ironically, MOD’s unique sense of style would later make some of its members very popular with the mass-media.