This was a .ppt presentation I had to give for one of my classes.

I thought people here on slideshare might have an interest.

Peace

Malcolm

Online activism

(with a special examination of how a bunch of farmers went to cyberspace to take on the

Mexican government and won!)

Presentation by Malcolm Haines Student ID: 13751304

A Junkie Dolphin production

My interest in cyber-activism started with this picture. I grabbed it about three years ago, and it was easy to find. Now, looking for it (in order to reference it), I find it no longer exists. The obvious question is ‘has it been censored’? Does it contain

too many subversive elements…? Does it represent new learnings that threaten the hegemony of the U.S.

(the capacity of the internet for activism instead of economics)?

Posada

How the internet can aid in activism (1)

• The internet represents potentially, the greatest tool for activists…

• …all it takes is a change in our thoughts…

• …from modernist ideas of central authority…

• …to post modern distributed actions with multiple actors.

• Postmodern deconstruction of present media forms yields a great number of tools for activism and representation. This is especially true of the internet.

How the internet can aid in activism (2)

• The internet can be seen as the great leveler. Given access to internet technologies and aid in the use of them, anyone can reach out and…

• …spread their message to others…

• …deliver their grievances to their oppressors…

• …take direct action against their aggressors.

Some forms of online Activism• New forms of internet or electronic activism are developing all the time.

Below is a list of some of the various forms of cyber-activity:

• Hacktivism (the overarching general term that covers all). Electronic civil disturbance is another term.

• Individuals support the movement by providing space on their servers, or providing mirror sites for easier access.

• Internet Action can come in many forms, from comments on blogs and MySpace, videos on YouTube to more direct actions that have ‘real world’ effects.

• Mass mailings (such as are going on at the moment regarding Tibet), putting pressure on the perceived aggressors.

• Community informatics, grassroots info war, virtual sit-ins and blockades.

• War driving (moving around finding free wireless networks and marking them with certain signs so others know what's there).

More direct actions• Here we move onto realm of electronic activism… ‘where every piece

of software or hardware is open to subversion’.

• Internet tactics can threaten business or even the structure of the internet itself.

• Initially, internet activity was limited to defacing websites (usually by adding HTML code.

• The real electronic struggle began when the EZLN made contact with the Electronic Disturbance Theatre (EDT). The EDT have been agitators for new and novel forms of electronic civil disturbance

• The Electronic Disturbance Theatre produced the Zapatista Tribal Port Scan (ZTPS) which can send thousands of messages to the website under attack, overloading the servers the site is hosted on.

• EDT provided software in order to launch attacks on any website, with its FloodNet software, a web based Java applet (yes, you can download it yourself…)

.

Other attacks• In 1998 EDT used its ‘SWARM’ project in a 3 pronged attack against

websites of the Mexican Presidency, The Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the Pentagon in order to show its support for the Zapatistas,

20,000 people acted globally.

• Similar tactics are used by others in what are called DoS (Denial of Service) attacks in which the target system is so overloaded that legitimate users cannot get access.

• A modification of the DoS attack is the DDoS (Distributed DoS) in which many computers send huge amounts of data to a target simultaneously. Sometimes Trojans called ‘zombies’ infect thousands of machines and, when the operator is ready, all unleash massive amounts of data simultaneously. The result is that the target systems crash and the author of the zombie is hidden somewhere amongst the masses.

• A similar attack was mounted against the Gibson Research Corporation (GRC) site by a 13 year old who resented being called a ‘script kiddie’. GRC produce and test security and firewalls. Full details can be found on the page listed in the bibliography.

• Even the poorest (represented by the skeletal peasant) can reach out to the strongest (represented by the US) and get their message across (the bomb) through the medium of the internet.

A case study – the Zapatistas

Subcommandante MarcosMap of the Chiapas region

Leader of the Zapatistas

Area of the rebellion

Who and where?• New Years Day, 1994, a revolutionary group called the ‘Ejercito Zapasta

de Liberacion Nacional (EZLN)’ moved in from the jungle and took over several cities and villages in the Chiapas region. These were the Zapatistas.

• The Chiapas region is extremely poor, even by local Mexican standards. The EZLN had decided Basta ya!‘ or ‘Enough is Enough! The EZLN fought Government forces for a month until a cease fire was arranged.

• What did they fight for? Work, land, power, education, respect and dignity.

• What is important for this presentation is that even though fought with humble weapons, this was the first major political upheaval extensively covered by media and on the internet.

• The Revolution was labeled ‘post modern’ because it lacked the clear ideological ideas of conventional warfare.

Transition to post modern warfare?

• Initially, there was only one call from a student to CNN reporting the events. Media interest grew from there.

• Subcommandante Marcos (the leader of EZLN) is sometimes portrayed surrounded by pipe smoke, getting updates on a cell phone or laptop somewhere in the jungle.

• The truth is that there is a complex mix of verbal, recorded, written and electronic media that gets the information to and from those who support the EZLN on the internet – a very hazardous process.

Zapatista rebels use Graffiti and other culture jamming techniques to spread their message.

What gave the revolution global appeal?

• One little word in the reported manifesto was to lead to the uniting of many small groups and individuals in a global and virtual show of solidarity.

• One word summed up all the collective fears of the aware, the poor, the threatened.

• That word was ‘Neoliberalism’

• To many involved, that meant the US domination of world markets, the growth of market economies (on the backs of disadvantaged workers) and all sorts of post modern terrors

• The attack on neoliberalism, plus a decentralized sources of attacks caused great disturbance in the world of military security.

Social Action goes commercial…

The Zapatista cause has been taken aboard by many groups and organizations (perhaps Tibet will get such luck!?). One

notable group of supporters and (arguably) the greatest rock band in the world is Rage Against The Machine. They have included Zapatista related themes in their DVDs, CDs, live shows….you can even buy the revolutionary t-shirt! A very

postmodern approach to spreading the message – distributed

media delivering distributed messages.

Results• Electronic communication can reach out to people and mobilize

them. In 1996, worldwide recognition of the problems raised first by the Zapatistas resulted in the “International Gathering for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism”. 3000 people from 44 countries debated their concerns and the relationship between Chiapas and similar struggles globally. The internet is providing links is a world wide web of activism.

• The struggle still continues, regular messages are sent from the Chiapas region to waiting websites, forums and blogs so that the truth can be spread.

• This truth is spreading further and faster with each new development in the technology or the social space of the internet.

• Any new form of representation on the internet can be added to the activists toolkit.

Bibliography

- Cleaver, H. The Zapatistas and the Electronic Fabric of struggle. Inet96. Retrieved March 20, 2008, from http://www.isoc.org/inet96/proceedings/e1/e1_3.htm

- Electronic Disturbance Theatre. Retrieved April 10, 2008, from http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/ecd.html

- Gibson, S. (2001). The Strange Tale of the Denial of Service Attacks against GRC.com. Retrieved April 4, 2008, from www.crime-research.org/library/grcdos.pdf

- Internet Resistance. Retrieved March 8, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_resistance

- Morello, H.J., (2007). e-(re)volution: Zapatistas and the Emancipatory Internet. Retrieved April 11, 2008, from Acontracorriente. www.ncsu.edu/project/acontracorriente/winter_07/Morello.pdf

- Woelfel, M.A.I (n.d.) Ink and internet The Zapatistas and the Electronic Fabric of Struggle. Retrieved March 16, 2008, from http://www.cs.utk.edu/~miturria/project/zapatistas.html

- Wray, S. (n.d.) Electronic Civil Disobedience and the World Wide Web of Hacktivism: A Mapping of Extraparliamentarian Direct Action Net Politics. Switch. Retrieved April 11, 2008, from http://switch.sjsu.edu/web/v4n2/stefan/

Image Sources

- Skeleton with computer [Image] (n.d.). (n.d.), from (no source available)

- Sub Commandante Marcos [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2008, from http://www.margencero.com/Magazine/machine/ezln_subcomandante_marcos.jpg

- Chiapas map [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2008, from http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/new/en/chiapas.gif

- Posada [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved April 04, 2008, from http://www.cs.utk.edu/~miturria/project/posada.gif

- Zapatista school [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved April 11, 2008, from http://pleaseexplain.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/murals036.jpg

- Zapatista Rebels [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved April 11, 2008, from http://www.boingboing.net/images/la_realidad1_medium.jpg

- Rage Against The Machine (RATM) : [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2008, from http://www.cs.utk.edu/~miturria/project/tshirt.4.jpg

- RATM : [Image] (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2008, from http://www.ratm.com/photos/live/thumbs/25.gif

Thank You