So suddenly, it's all over the news. From the National Public
Radio story about Russian attacks on US Defence Department computers to the
BBC reports of hackers taking over the official Websites
of the Pakistan Government, Digital Warfare seems to be seeping into
mainstream coverage. Even ZDNet's Kevin Poulsen has been talking to the FBI's
Cybercops about the long predicted Digital Pearl Harbor.
But even with all the attention these topics are getting in the mainstream
press there seems to be a significant lack of attention paid to a
full-fledged Digital War that has been waged since Jan. '98. I'm talking
about the Digital Zapatismo movement. Never heard of it? Maybe that's
because it has been systematically ignored by the US Government and Media
for the past five years.
Let me provide a little background.
"In January, 1994, a group of rebels led by Subcomandante Insurgente
Marcos in the Mexican state of Chiapas calling themselves the Zapatista
National Liberation Army (EZLN) rose up in a 'Declaration of War' against
several Mexican army barracks. In doing so, the guerrillas challenged the
status quo in Mexico, namely the more than 60 years of political domination
by the PRI [the ruling political party of Mexico]. Their demands: jobs, housing, health, and education for Mexico's
most impoverished peoples. Many observers inside and outside of Mexico have
seen the Chiapas uprising as a call for real change in Mexico, a movement
pushing forward truly democratic elections and process in that country." (1)
However, Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos is a different breed of rebel.
Instead of hiring Mercenaries he contracted Hackers (is there much
difference?). When the Mexican government used its control of the mass
media to limit and distort news about the uprising, he took his cause
directly to the Internet. Digital Zapatismo was born.
Digital Zapatismo started as a way to distribute information about the Zapatista
movement to the international community. Zapatista websites and coalitions
sprung up around the globe. When the Mexican government stepped up military
action in an attempt to crush the rebellion, the Zapatistas fought back in
more than one way.
FloodNet
A small group called the Electronic Disturbance Theater created a fun
little toy called FloodNet.
Technical Expination:
FloodNet is based on a java applet that even in the olden days could
constantly reload multiple frames. Each frame was set to reload the
home page of the Mexican government. This effectively created a client-side
"denial-of-service" attack.
"On April 10, Flood Net Tactical Version 1.0 was showcased during a dress
rehearsal action of Electronic Civil Disobedience against Mexican President
Zedillo's web site. As a Java applet reload function, the first test of
Flood Net sent an automated reload request every seven seconds to Zedillo's
page. Reports from participants and our observations confirmed that the more
than 8,000 participants in this first Flood Net action intermittently
blocked access to the Zedillo site on that day." (2)
"Several questions were brought up on the issues of net traffic, ISPs,
and small international pipes. Speculations on the technological
implications of these actions began to focus on questions of Who is most
likely to be damaged by this move? The Mexican target banks or the Internet
Service Providers, ISPs, who route data to these banks?"
"As these discussions were taking place a group of Mexican digital
activist on February 4, 1998 hacked into a Mexican government home page on
the Internet and placed pro-Zapatista slogans on the front pages of the
site. Soon afterwards an MS Dos Ping Action program from the ECD group
arrived to hit Mexican Banks and Chase Manhattan Bank on February 9.
The next level of possible ECD began to emerge at the end of February: an
automatic mail engine from the New Humans and Java based site that
automatically began to PING the Britsh Mexican Embassy URL every 7 seconds
once you logged-in." (3)
United States Flood Net: The Declaration of Violation
Despite predictions of futurists and utopians the digital age has not
made the government more answerable to the people. The American political
landscape has, in fact, become increasingly separated from the American
people.
As the Internet and digital technology pushes it's way into adolescence,
it is possible that those few with the knowledge and skills will again take
control of the powers embedded in the system by our forefathers. (5) From the American Revolution to Henry David Thoreau (4) a tradition of challenging authority was embedded into
the American character. We all possess the notion that civil disobedience
is a means to liberty and freedom.
As an illustration of the potential of digital warfare the Collusion
Group presents this initial offering: The United
States Flood Net. The USFN uses the same frame-reload tactics of the
original FloodNet, but does so with a slightly different goal.
"The FloodNet application of error log spamming is conceptual Internet
art. This is your chance to voice your political concerns on a targeted
server. You can make a statement in your own words." (2)
"Basically, with HTTP, you request a document (from a server) and it
either has it or does not. If it has it, fine, it pipes the html to your
browser. When the server does not have the requested doc, it returns the
familiar "File not Found" or "Error 404" message (also an html doc). It also
records the URL that was being asked for in the server's error log file,
which is used by system administrators to track down bad links coming from
other sites and in some instances to trace security threats or break in
attempts." (2)
References:
(1) Disinfo.org
(2) http://www.nyu.edu/proje
cts/wray/EDTECD.html, Stefan Wray, June 17, 1998.
(3) Digital Zapatismo, Ricardo
Dominguez.
(4) Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau
(5)
The Zapatista Effect: The Internet and the Rise of an Alternative Political
Fabric
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