[Reader-list] Virtual Sit Ins and Electronic Disturbances

[Menso Heus]

On Wed, May 23, 2001 at 01:16:06PM +0530, Shuddhabrata Sengupta wrote:
> VIRTUAL SIT INS AND ELECTRONIC DISTURBANCES
> Apologies for Cross Posting to those already on the Nettime List. This is 
> an interview excerpted from a posting by Florian Schneider on "Virtual Sit 
> Ins against Deprotation" on Nettime earlier today. The interview, itslef, 
> with Ricardo Dominguez, offers a very interesting take on what practical 
> everyday political action can be like on the Internet.  A well coordinated 
> virtual sit in,cannot be construed as 'Illegal', yet, can be quite 
> crippling to the target.

These so called virtual sit-ins are also known under another name, Denial of 
Service attack, or DoS for short and Mr Dominguez is quite wise to not name 
it so. Instead of just being a fight against a specific target (a sit-in 
in front of an office building as Mr Dominguez likes to see it) it takes 
along a great deal more than that and is actually more comparable to blocking
an entire street or block instead of just one office.
Imagine my www.peopledontlikemysite.com is hosted on a shared webserver, 
together with 10 or 20, perhaps even 100 other customers. If someone would launch
such an attack the server would go beserk,it is not just not able to serve the target
site anymore but *none* of the sites, thus damaging the 10, 20 or hundred 
other customers just as badly (or all the other shops and offices in the street).
Now imagine the target website is running on it's own dedicated webserver 
(a city block) in my serverfarm (a city) connected to the internet on a 33 mbit
line (the bridge connecting the island the city is on to the rest of the world).
If the attack would be on a large enough scale the bridge would be so flooded
with traffic for this one part of the city that nobody can reach any other part
of the city anymore, thus doing *all* the shops and offices in that city 
(customers in the serverfarm) harm.
DoS attacks are considered the lowest of the low, any moneky can do it and
sadly enough there's not much that can be done against it. The saddest thing 
though is that these so called hacktivists don't even seem to realize this, perhaps
they just don't care. I guess all is fair in love and getting your name in the 
newspaper...

As far as the legal issues are concerned: I am quite certain that legal action 
can be taken against these so called virtual sit-ins since it is quite
clearly disturbing normal network operations and done with malicious intent.
The problem is getting proof and since all the floods are distributed across the 
net it can be quite hard to figure out what were genuine requests and what not
so most simply won't bother since it will cost only more time and money then
the attack already did. Then comes the other, perhaps most important question:
who are they to disturb services for the rest of the world just because they 
don't agree with something? If people have a problem with KLM arilines next, fine 
with me, take it to the court, but if it prevents me or others from getting 
tickets online they will only piss people off making themselves more infamous
than their target. Honestly, I wish these peoplke would spent their time in more
constructive ways of fighting for their cause.

> Think of what it could imply in terms of a sudden silent virtual sit in on 
> the Sardar Sarovar Dam Website, or on any of your favourite ministry or 
> media business sites.

It would have as result that the government will have you arrested for disturbing 
behaviour, getting crowds to follow you and electronic sabotage. Exit Shuddha,
getting locked up forever for an action that will be forgotten by the rest of the 
world the day after.
As for the media websites, they will make you the bad guy and I would agree with
them. Just because a site lists content you don't like doesn't mean you have the 
right to silence it. Imagine people would not like what you think and silence you 
for that Shuddha... The beauty of the net is that for any site saying something you
don't like you can start 10 that say something the other site doesn't like, get that 
in the media and you'll probably earn more respect that with a lame sit-in.

Just my 2 rupees,

Menso

> Read, and circulate
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Shuddha
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> RELOAD REALITY
> Interview with Ricardo Dominguez on the eve of the
> online-demonstration against the Lufthansa Deportation.Class
> Q: Ricardo, what the heck is a "online-demonstration"?
> A: It is a method of allowing a networked community to
> gather on a site, or several different URLs of site, or
> different sites and create a disturbance of collective
> presence in a non-violent manner. Online-demonstration
> tools, or Virtual Sit-in tools, use the reload or refresh
> function on every public browser to call on a particular
> page or pages of the site that being protested over and over
> - taking into account how many people around the planet are
> participating and for how long they participate.
> This re-loading of URLs of the protested site creates a slow
> down of the site's normal distribution speed - the more
> people join the online-demonstration the slower the site
> will become. In the same manner that a thousands of people
> doing a traditional sit-in in an office building will slow
> down the movement of the people inside. The sit-in does not
> destroy the walls of the building or the floor, or hurt the
> people inside, but - it does cause a great deal of
> disturbance because the collective presence of the protest
> community shifts the daily routine towards a political and
> symbolic space. The VR Sit-in does exactly the same thing on
> a digital level - the big difference is that anyone with an
> on-line connection anywhere in the world can participate at
> the same time.
> Q: Did it ever work?
> A: Yes a number actions since 1998 have created a change in
> policy or a reexamination of the low-intensity warfare
> conditions that many marginal communities around the world
> have faced. During 1998 the Electronic Disturbance Theater
> in solidarity with the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico created
> deep symbolic pressure on the Mexican government by creating
> a great deal international press about VR Sit-ins and what
> the Zapatistas were calling for. Since that time Mexican
> dictatorship of PRI has fallen and the call of the
> Zapatistas has gained more ground in Mexico - in fact the
> Zapatistas were able to march into Mexico City and speak
> before congress - a great victory.
> In 1999 two important on-line actions took place. The
> electrohippes (from the UK) did a major action against the
> WTO meeting in Seattle that gathered about 500,000 people
> around the world that added to energy that was flooding the
> streets. This created even more press about the issues that
> the were bring such large protests onto the streets. Several
> other important actions around WTO and recently FTAA have
> followed - each adding just a bit more weight to the bodies
> on the streets.
> Also, the famous Toywar, that occurred in December of 1999
> where a number of groups like rtmark, the thing, and EDT did
> a VR Sit-in along with a number of other actions to support
> the net.art group etoy.com against eToys.com, the now dead
> toy .com, that attempted to take that net.art groups domain
> name. By Jan 15th, 2000 eToys.com relented and ended the
> legal proceedings against etoy.com.
> Recently, The Living Wage protest at Harvard, used a VR
> Sit-in component and the day after the digital action
> Harvard gave in. Just a few days before the President of
> Harvard stated that he would never give in to the Living
> Wage protesters demands for 10.25 and hour wages for the
> workers or even sit at table to discuss benefits for them
> Harvard - now he is sitting at the table.
> 
> Q: What characterizes or determines the success of
> e-protest? In terms of efficiency, is there a difference
> between online activities and what we know from the offline
> world?
> A: The same characteristics that determine the offline
> actions go for e-protest. Making sure the information of
> when, where, how ,and most importantly why, is distributed
> to the widest circles possible. Making sure that the tools
> are accessible to as many people as possible and that the
> tools are available on a number of servers around the world
> - so no single server has to maintain the entire action.
> That is why we have also pushed for client-side tools in
> conjunction with server side tools. If at all possible
> making sure that e-protest is just one element of a much
> larger and long term strategic protest. The e-protest is
> more efficient if it functions as a symbolic leverage node
> for the actions taking place on the ground - the virtual and
> real should link up and energize each other - the e-protest
> without the street actions becomes meaningless. (Of course,
> as in the Toywar, if the protest site exists only on-line,
> like eToys.com - then the nature of the ground actions would
> be quiet different or almost non-existent.)
> It is also important to leverage the media heat that
> e-protest creates by making sure that the issues and reasons
> for the protest are the dominant information that appears in
> the media and not just the nature of e-protest - is it legal
> or illegal, is it DoS (Denial-of-Service) or not? - each
> activist involved must always place the reason for the
> action at the forefront of discussion, interview, or
> presentation. The nature of the e-protest in terms of its
> digital quality should be just a side issue and nothing
> more.
> Q: A "Hacktivist" is a hybrid of a hacker and a activist.
> How did you become an "Hacktivist" and why?
> A: I was a member of Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) from 1987
> to 1995. During that time I also worked with Act Up,
> Tallahassee - that's where CAE was born. So between these
> two types of projects the idea of Electronic Civil
> Disobedience (ECD) emerged as possible space for future of
> activism. I became deeply involved in attempting not only to
> imagine it, but to see it be put into practice. I then
> started to teach my self technology at Thing.net, Blast.org,
> and 1994 became a founding member of the New York Zapatistas
> - it was the Zapatistas who became for me the fulcrum of
> what ECD could be in practice.
> In response to the Acteal Massacre of December 22, 1997
> where 45 Zapatista women and children were killed by Mexican
> paramilitary troops armed U.S. Drug War weapons - The
> Electronic Disturbance Theater came into being after we
> received an e-mail from an Italian netstrike group calling
> for a manual reloading of sites of the Mexican government
> for 4 hours.
> Then Brett Stalbaum and Carmin Karasic built the Zapatista
> FloodNet which automated the process - then along with
> theorist and activist Stefan Wray we did a year long series
> of VR Sit-ins against the Mexican Government and attempted
> to develop the protocols and practice of ECD: transparency,
> linking virtual and street actions, non-violence, open
> source code, and simple tools.
> At one minute after midnight on January 1, 1999 EDT released
> the Disturbance Developers Kit (DDK) that would allow anyone
> to create e-protest - by that time the media had started to
> call us Hacktivist. EDT never named its self that - but, it
> stuck and now a whole movement has emerged.
> 
> Q: Some people think, that the "virtual" is just a
> substitute of reality, something unreal and therefore worse.
> What do you answer to such objections?
> A: I don't think any type of activism wrong, be it virtual
> or real. What is important is that we attract as many
> different people to participate in the work and help with
> actions in whatever manner we can and whatever manner they
> can. E-protest can make our gatherings and actions glocal -
> not just local or global, but both at the same time. Also,
> sometimes, people who have families and need to work, or are
> homebound, or don't have enough money to travel to join the
> street action - can also participate and show their support
> - they should not be left out, because they can only join
> the e-action and not the street action. E-protest is just
> one more tool that we can add to our pile of tactics - it is
> not a strategy. E-protest is an active poster, an active
> puppet in the streets, or music to call the people to action
> - it is just a tool and nothing more or less than that.
> 
> Q: On the other hand, the internet seems to be widely
> overestimated. How not to raise hopes, which are not
> fulfillable or satisfiable?
> A: Again, e-protest is a simple tactic - it will not resolve
> the issues that we all face today just because it on the
> Internet. The Internet is not a way to some utopia or
> apocalypse - no one should place their hopes on it. But, the
> Internet can become an ante-chamber of shared questions and
> spaces where perhaps this time as the Zapatistas say, "the
> apple will fall up." After all this is Mayan Technology.
> 
> Q: Lufthansa AG argues, that their servers are so strong,
> and the activists so weak, that there won't be a visible or
> even remarkable effect of the demonstration. Would you worry
> about that?
> A: No, not at all. It does not matter how big or strong AG
> servers are - it is very difficult to stop symbolic actions
> in conjuction with media distribution about the actions and
> its connections with the long term work of activist before
> this action and after this action. The on-line demonstration
> is just a focus point for the community - it is not about
> crashing servers. EDT went up against the Pentagon, the
> Frankfurt Stock Exchange, and the Mexican goverments web
> servers - we never crashed any servers - no matter what
> myths have developed around our actions. We did create a
> great deal of media response and distribution about our
> cause, the Zapatistas - which was the main trajectory of the
> actions.
> On-line actions are not about technical efficiency - but
> about symbolic efficacy. The Zapatistas have become the
> dominant infomation war, or better said, InfoPeace community
> with poetry against arms, words above war, and gestures that
> go beyond the bounds of what technology can accomplish.
> "We saw that our silence was shield and sword which wounded
> and exhausted those who want to impose the war. We saw our
> silence make Power which simulates peace and good government
> slip time and again, and make their powerful death machine
> crash time and again against the silent wall of our
> resistance. We saw that each new attack they won less and
> lost more. We saw that by not fighting, we were fighting."
> --Fifth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, (The Zapatistas,
> 1999.)
> 
> Shuddhabrata Sengupta
> SARAI: The New Media Initiative
> Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
> 29, Rajpur Road, Delhi 110 052, India
> www.sarai.net
> 
> 
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