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Towards Bottom Up Information Warfare
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by Stefan Wray
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0.0 Contents
1.0 Bottom-Up
Information Warfare
2.0 Negation
of Dominant Information Warfare Conceptions
3.0 Affirmation
of Resistant Information Warfare Conceptions
4.0 Resistance
to Future War
5.0 Global
Zapatista Internet Resistance
6.0 An Electronic
Boston Tea Party
7.0 Conclusions
8.0 Other
Work
1.0 Bottom-Up Information Warfare
Bottom-up Information Warfare (BUIW) theory/praxis is needed
because dominant IW conceptions are not based on our interests, but on the interests
of the corporate-state and its military-intelligence community. Bottom-up IW
theory/praxis should negate dominant corporate-state/military-intelligence
IW theory/praxis and should affirm our digital resistant experience and
related theory/praxis. Resistance to future war, totally dependent on information
and communication technology (ICT), is a useful area for exploration and elaboration
of bottom-up IW theory/praxis. Many of today`s conflicts verge on future
war and current resistance to them provide sites for developing bottom-up IW
ideas and practice.
2.0 Negation of Dominant Information Warfare Conceptions
A negation of dominant corporate-state/military-intelligence
IW theory should be based on a close examination of the sources of these dominant
conceptions, the content and main conclusions, the underlying assumptions and
myths, and the context from which IW theory was produced. Primary sources for
dominant IW theory/praxis are U.S. academicians, scholars, and analysts from
places like the RAND Corporation, the National Defense University, the U.S.
Air Force, other branches of the military, public and private universities,
and `independent` think-tanks. Dominant IW theorists argue that,
in today`s information society, nations and corporations are increasingly
vulnerable to information-based attacks aimed at ICT infrastructure. With the
end of the Cold War, the ideology of Information Warfare - often in conjunction
with Drug War ideology - provides the state and the military with a new
rationale for growth and expansion.
3.0 Affirmation of Resistant Information Warfare Conceptions
An affirmation of bottom-up Information Warfare theory/praxis
means learning who we are, consolidating our own theory/praxis, and recasting
dominant myths and assumptions with ones more suited to our interests. So far,
bottom-up Information Warfare actors are an international mix of computerized
activists, politicized hackers, new media theorists, digital artists, and others
at the juncture of computers, media, radical politics, and the arts. The theoretical
basis for bottom-up Information Warfare is from a mix of related sources including
work on nomadic warfare (Bey; Deleuze and Guattari), on electronic disturbance
and civil disobedience (Critical Art Ensemble), on tactical media (Next Five
Minutes), and others. Bottom-up IW praxis is not widespread, but one example
of incipient work in this area are the Electronic Civil Disobedience actions
against the Mexican government that use a device called FloodNet.
4.0 Resistance to Future War
The Gulf War has been called the first Information War because
of the heavy reliance on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for
military and propagandistic purposes. Since the Gulf War such reliance on ICT
- on InfoWar technology - has become commonplace for both military conflicts,
such as in former Yugoslavia and in southern Mexico, as well as for law enforcement
efforts, for example, to control drugs and immigration. For all intents and
purposes, future war has arrived and people who resist war today are finding
that new means of electronic, digital, or virtual resistance are becoming both
possible and necessary. Cyberspacial resistance to future war enables polyspacial
hybrid forms of resistance that combine the older rural-agrarian and urban-industrial
models of warfare, with the newer cyberspacial-informational forms.
5.0 Global Zapatista Internet Resistance
A current example of hybrid rural, urban, and cyberspacial resistance
is the case of the global pro-Zapatista movement, which has demonstrated how
the Internet allows non-state actors to build networks of solidarity and resistance
across national borders. Immediately after January 1, 1994, the Zapatistas had
a strong Internet presence. Through email listservs like Chiapas95, Cc: lists,
and an array of interconnected web sites, a global pro-Zapatista movement formed.
This year political communication moved toward political action as, for example,
the Electronic Disturbance Theater started Electronic Civil Disobedience actions
against the Mexican government. Also on several occasions this year, anti-government
and pro-Zapatista messages have been placed on Mexican government web sites.
6.0 An Electronic Boston Tea Party
As the Paris Salon is to political communication on the Internet,
the Boston Tea Party is to political action; more so it is a metaphor for direct
action. Although the bias of Internet politics favors the more passive discursive
space of political communication (the salon), things like Electronic Civil Disobedience
campaigns against the Mexican government (the tea party) are expanding the range
of possibilities. While individuals and small groups have experimented with
electronic resistance there is still room for more experimentation and development
of techniques and devices. A particularly intriquing idea, that has not been
tested, but that has been proposed to Ars Electronica is a proposal for a SWARM,
an advanced, multiple source, ECD action happening on different levels and in
different spaces, somthing like a simultaneous convergence of numerous electronic
Boston Tea Parties.
7.0 Conclusions
There is a need for an elaboration and an expansion of bottom-up
Information Warfare theory/praxis. For this there needs to be a negation of
dominant top-down conceptions of Information Warfare and an affirmation of resistant
bottom-up conceptions. The sites of resistance to future war are good locations
for further thinking and practice of bottom-up Information Warfare. The global
pro-Zapatista movement is one site where such experimention with electronic
resistance has taken place. Finally, there needs to be more experimentation
and development of electronic techniques and software devices for more advanced
electronic civil disobedience.
8.0 Old Work
- 8/1/98: Paris
Salon or Boston Tea Party? Recasting Electronic Democracy A View >From Amsterdam
- 7/7/98: Rhizomes,
Nomads, and Resistant Internet Use
- 6/17/98: The
Electronic Disturbance Theater and Electronic Civl Disobedience
- 5/14/98: SWARM:
An ECD Proposal for Ars Electronica Festival 98
- 5/5/98:
Die Umwandlung des Widerstands der Maschinenstürmer in Einen Virtuellen Widerstand
- 4/7/98: Transforming
Luddite Resistance Into Virtual Luddite Resistance
- 3/20/98: On Electronic
Civil Disobedience
- 3/20/98: Digital
Zapatismo
- 5/31/97: The
Drug War and Information Warfare in Mexico
wray home
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