<nettime> Ippolita Collective, In the Facebook Aquarium Part Two, section #5 (concluded)

["Patrice Riemens" <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

Ippolita Collective, In the Facebook Aquarium Part Two

The Hacker Spirit and the disease of Anarcho-Capitalism: long time
buddies? (concluded)

(from previous installment:

In the 17th and up to the beginning of the 18th century, pirates
in the New World had a more adventurous, and also more free and
egalitarian life than the sailors embarked on Spanish, English, French
or Dutch ships [44].) --->>> Later they often sold their liberty under
duress, coerced by institutional imperialism, and enlisted under the
flag of various European powers, whose ships they previously used to
pillage. 'Letters of Marque' transformed pirates into privateers, or
with other words, into mercenaries. In the same fashion, hackers at
the beginning of the 21st century were confronted with joint attacks
by institutional colonizers and often opted to co-operate with them.
>From being free explorers they became proficient mercenaries in the
employ of companies and governments who are out to establish a new
order of things in the digital worlds [45].

The 'global war' frame of mind lampooned in /War Games/ (the film)
has unfortunately materialised in the realm of digital sociality.
News reach us everyday about malevolent hackers engaged on this or
that front, against - or on the side of - white, black, yellow, or
red terrorists, all with vague, unintelligible or downright absurd
demands, and who are battling or collaborating with intelligence
services, and shady, conspiring, manipulative, and occult powers
or outfits. The one time impish and spiritual scenarios out of the
hacker lore (gnosis), which started with friendly /Illuminati/ and
Voodoo goddesses of cyberspace have become concrete and turned
extremely ugly. Cyber-war is by now an everyday concept: Internet
has turned into a (massive) resource, but also into a threat to the
established order [46]. The enormous quantities and the computing
power of PCs and on-line servers can be used to manage flows of
malignant data in order to extract private informations, or to carry
out attacks, as with the armies of /zombie/computers remote-controlled
by other computers (/botnet/), e.g. by those owned by government
agencies, or to disconnect network(s). Viruses are created to carry
out attacks on enemy targets, to slow down or disable military
research programs. Today's wars like the one in Afghanistan ("in
defense of democracy"), are fought at a distance with drones, remote
controlled from bases thousands of kilometers away, which fire
missiles on targets identified by yet other drones. The modus operandi
is exactly the same as that of video-games, only with all to real
deadly effects.

Are hackers a menace in such an apocalyptic scenario? Are they
buccaneers or privateers? Are they dangerous subversives combatting
the established order, or are they the hired hands of strong powers
with libertarian tendencies? Let us now take a trip to the far North
(of Europe), to the land of Sweden, the locale where we find a number
of elements in the patchwork of hacking, piracy, and libertarianism:
the Pirate Bay site, the /Pirat Partiet/ and ... Wikileaks.

(to be continued)
Next time: section 6: Pirate parties, or technology in politics




------------------
(note belonging to previous installment)

[44] Still seen today as heroes in popular imagination, pirates
have embodied a very specific world-view, whose values were based
on liberty and equality. They were libertarians in the sense of an
socialist international /avant la lettre/ This thesis is supported
by Marcus Rediker's research, with a lot of historic examples and
pictures. Marcus Rediker, /Villains of All Nations, Atlantic Pirates
in the Golden Age/ London, Verso 2004

Synopsis:
http://www.marcusrediker.com/books/villains/Synopsis_of_Villains.htm
Excerpts on Googlebooks: http://bit.ly/1rjEyVP

--->>>
[45] Exemplary in this respect is the 'Tiger Team' case. This was the name
of a group of /security hackers/ working for Telecom Italia - and for the
Italian secret services. The TT team was involved in tampering with the
(electronic) electoral process and also in selling confidential
informations to French, Israeli, and American secret services. For details
see the article (in Italian) by investigative journalists Beppe Cremignani
and Enrico Deaglio: 'gli Imbroglioni' /Diario/, special issue with film
(2007):
http://forum.tntvillage.scambioetico.org/?showtopic=218923
Short excerpt of the film on Youtube - with a long description:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U25aWYjR8U8
One of the darkest character in this murky story is Fabio Ghioni, a
security - and paranoia - expert, and also essayist and novelist in the
/fantasy/ genre. As instructor of dark hat hackers for various grizzly
governmental 'agencies' he also promotes the E.N.O.C. program (for
Evolution and New Order Civilization) [I couldn't find anything in
English, but here's a short, very 'new edge' clip on YT:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHki7N0St6M - transl.]
Maybe this is simply a crude bait to part rich people from their money. Or
maybe it is (yet another) transhumanist project, since technologically
overcoming the human condition is a pet inclination of the technophile
anarcho-capitalist crowd.

[46] http://www.economist.com/node/16481504
("The threat from the internet: Cyberwar
It is time for countries to start talking about arms control on the
internet")


-----------------------------
Translated by Patrice Riemens
This translation project is supported and facilitated by:
The Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences
(http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/)
The Antenna Foundation, Nijmegen
(http://www.antenna.nl - Dutch site)
(http://www.antenna.nl/indexeng.html - english site under construction)
Casa Nostra, Vogogna-Ossola, Italy




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