Sunday, May 9, 2010

Week Eleven: Stefan Wray and the Yes Men

Investigating grassroots infowarfare and political hacktivism
as an extraterrestrial cyberspace in society

In his recent essay titled, “Electronic Civil Disobedience and the World Wide Web of Hacktivism: A Mapping of Extraparliamentarian Direct Action Net Politics,” author Stefan Wray discusses how his own coined terms of “electronic civil disobedience” as well as the “browser wars” became a phenomenon of the 1990s. Wray states that these criminal structures occurred as retaliation against the Mexican government. Throughout the world in various countries, these “hacktivists” were taking over anti-nuclear websites and accessing highly sensitive information on private websites.

Wray states that these innovative forms of activism combined electronic media, art and political portals to operate through a new type of communication, similar to the concept of a “grassroots infowar.” In doing so, computerized activism emerged in 1986 with the invention of PeaceNet, which focused on connecting activists throughout the world. As a result, email communications flourished and mostly text-based capabilities expanded with graphic user interfaces and visual concepts. Nonetheless, Wray discusses that an “electronic democracy” occurred among the activists where maintenance generated much “solidarity among the networks.”


Throughout his essay, Wray mentions that Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) began in sociology and psychology departments as methods of quick communication. Afterwards, this idea encompassed the conceptual crossover of political propaganda and communication as well as its overall effect on the general public. By researching this concept, scholars decided that there was an “overarching dominant paradigm” that garnered much “discourse, dialogue, and discussion” on various political issues and provided free and open access to these libraries of information.


Wray notes that this rapid industrialization of the grassroots infowar has enabled activists to become present on a “global stage, telepresent across borders, and simultaneously.” He mentions that the wave of information sharing, which includes descriptions and reporting results has now moved to the next step, which calls for action. Wray discusses how experimental methods of “virtual sit-ins” occurred in the late 1990s and proved that the Internet could generate not only descriptive behavior but also legitimate actions.


One form of hacking occurred when a “symbolic gesture” of multiple Web-based Java applets called for a browser to reload its commands and ultimately took over the system. Wray discusses how the 1998 SWARM project launched a huge disturbance by quickly streaming Java applet coffee cups across the computer screen and the entire system froze. These types of political activists often remain anonymous and actually occur as a result of an individual, not necessarily an organization.


Wray concludes his essay by discussing the impact of “cyber-protests” and how the general public responds to activism as well as computer viruses and worms. He states that these methods generate attention and advertise to the various causes. However, Wray also notes that forms of communication often bring up ethical questions that this activity supports open and free access to information.


Towards the end of his argument, Wray states that “cyberspace is extraterrestrial” because it is not constrained to certain borders. Wray notes that this sort of behavior requires a deeper analysis and better understanding as to the purpose and perspective of hacktivists as well as their main objectives. He states that phenomena of future war are often discussed among computer activists and whether the difference in word and deed are causes for alarm. Nonetheless, these computer skills although not very favored when a virus hits, become invaluable as a response to future warfare and to combat others from performing the same actions. Without this valuable knowledge, how are we able to combat the offensive?


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