December 09, 2010

We're sure that many of you are as saturated as you want to be with the ongoing saga of WikiLeaks and the associated cyber-uprising aimed at protecting freedom of speech. With that in mind, we'll keep our reflections short and to the point.

The DDOS attacks coordinated by Anonymous and Operation Payback are a fascinating evolution of activism. In the comments on a Boing Boing post about yesterday's actions, commenter "insert" made the point that the DDOSes are analogous to sit-ins, in that "they involve doing something ordinary in such a way that blocks others from accessing the resource". This also marks the first time that non-hackers can participate in these high-tech actions. While the mainstream media suggests that the LOIC push-button tool referred to in the Boing Boing article is an incitement to participate in illegal activity, others are of the opinion that it democratizes the ability to defend freedom of expression on a twentieth-century playing field.

Check out this very slick video by Operation Payback / Anonymous. Do you feel like you're living in a William Gibson novel yet?

Van Ajemian 09am December 13 Even when defending freedom, we have to try to evaluate the outcomes, the consequences, of our action, however inaccurate our evaluation mig... View Full Comment Close Full Comment

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