FROM FREE SOFTWARE TO STREET ACTIVISM & VICE VERSA:
AN INTRODUCTION
by Verdura Obscura (darkveggy) - May 2005
Contemporary societies have now endorsed computer
technology, to the
point of turning its use into an attractive social
duty. But while some
computers power market-economy, other machines remain
busy with myriads
of software alternatives, counter-initiatives &
community offensives.
What follows is a quick walk-through some of the
cracks in the official
computer picture; a surface exploration of the
convergence between
digital alternatives and political subversives.
.:. FREE SOFTWARE: THE BIRTH OF A COMPUTED
RESISTANCE .:.
· analog recipes and digital bakery
Computers do not speak anything but binary language;
that is, a
succession of 0 and 1. Since hardly any human can
communicate in such a
way, intermediary languages have been developed for
programmers to use
when creating programs. This human-readable
combination of words,
punctuation and mathematical expressions is called
"source code".
Software and cakes have a lot in common. Both involve
a list of
instructions to follow, ingredients to mix, and a
transformation
process
to go through. Cooking is about producing and
following a recipe, just
as programming is about generating and typing a source
code. Just like
cakes, programs have to be baked too. The process of
turning source
code
into binary form that computers can eat is called
"compiling".
Just as cakes can be cooked for you, computer programs
often come
pre-compiled & ready to run. Fine. But what if the
cake was so good you
want to bake your own? What if the program was so
impressive you want
to
understand how it works? What it you want to share the
cake's recipe
with friends? What if the program lacked an important
feature you need
and feel like adding? You need the recipe; you need
the source-code!
· the birth of a hacker revolt
Back in 70s, The Artificial Intelligence Lab from
Massachusetts's
Institute of Technology gave birth to a digital
counter-culture: the
hackers'. Hackers [1] enjoyed computer-programming and
bypassing
limitations by finding clever solutions. Rather than
using the
operating
system [2] that was shipped with the lab's computer,
they had crafted
their own, and shared the source code with whoever was
interested.
Their
community was based upon the dissemination of software
recipes, mutual
cooperation, and the belief that "information should
be free".
Such sharing dynamics were to be seriously shaken in
the early 80s.
With new hardware came new software, which one was
explicitly forbidden
to share. It came without source-code, but with
copyright, restrictive
licenses & high expenses. Users would be repressed for
helping each
other by copying; software developers would be banned
from cooperating
by sharing code; without recipes nor the rights,
others wouldn't get an
occasion to learn, modify, recompile! This is what
proprietary software
is about: companies claiming property over knowledge,
restricting its
access according to their interests; selling expensive
cakes, keeping
their operation secret, while preventing others from
doing them better
and sharing them with the rest. Proprietary software
is now a commonly
spread disease among personal computers, as shows the
number of
machines
running Microsoft Windows.
In 1984, MIT hacker Richard Stallman [3] quit his job,
in a refusal to
abandon his community practices and ideals. He founded
the GNU project
[4], aiming at developing an alternative operating
system that would be
free to use, free to understand, free to copy, free to
modify. Copyleft
replacing copyright; source-code availability, instead
of binary-only.
To backup this emerging project, the Free Software
Foundation [5] was
created, and introduced "copyleft" [6] by issuing the
GNU General
Public
Licence (GNU GPL), a legal trick to prevent
illegitimate appropriation
of free software by third parties. One has the right
to modify GPL
licenced-software and distribute his/her
modifications, provided they
use the same licence, and thus grant the same freedoms
to their users;
using copyright... to subvert copyright! That was the
birth of the free
software movement, as a political act of resistance
against proprietary
software.
The GNU project was met with enthusiasm and quickly
grew out of the
benevolent participation of a number of individuals
across the world.
In
1991, a finnish student by the name of Linus Torvalds
released the
Linux
kernel [7]. Put together with already existing GNU
software, it
resulted
in the fruitful combination known as GNU/Linux [8],
that was soon to
become the fully-featured & powerful operating system
which is widely
used today. Then, free software was no longer a
hacker-exclusive
playground, but had become a valuable alternative to
proprietary
solutions; not only providing good programs, but, most
importantly,
putting power in the hands of the users, instead of
stealing it away
from them.
This is what free software is about: a digital
revolution that is
social
before it is technical. Free software grants
user-power and flexibility
against the tyranny of a profit-making software
company: source-code
provides the possibility for one to understand and
double-check a
program for bugs or weak security, fix it accordingly,
adapt it to new
uses, or improve its quality. Free software
demonstrates the efficiency
of volunteer association & self-organisation, rather
than wage work
constraints & hierarchies; it proves the benefits of
solidarity and
effort mutualisation, rather than opacity and
competition: it powers
70%
of servers over the Internet [9] and technically
defeats closed-source
equivalents in most cases, thanks to the involvement
of thousands of
individuals worldwide. Free software breaks the
boundaries between
developers and users, rather than having people rely
on experts. It is
based upon participation, rather than sole
consumption: anyone is
encouraged to contribute according to his/her skills
and wills, by
writing documentation, submitting program
modifications, doing
translations, spreading the word and supporting
individuals willing to
free their machines from the proprietary.
· when it backfires...
Free software was initiated as both a technical
alternative and a
political offensive against proprietary software and
values. While
Richard Stallman and other prominent figures of the
movement have
maintained that dual commitment over years, it is
clear that the
subversive potential of free software has consciously
been eluded by a
number of parties. While large amounts of geek types
tend not to show
interest in politics, thus passively discarding the
militant approach,
a
new tendency emerged against free software's engaged
discourse. The
Open
Source Initiative [10] was launched by Eric S. Raymond
in 1998 to
publicly stand against the FSF's leftist tendencies,
and set a new
label
for advertising non-proprietary software -
"open-source" -, with a
particular focus on business leaders, frightened by
the "free software"
emblem.
Of course, building market-compliant sex-appeal, to be
directed at
multinationals, couldn't go without dropping what made
free software so
special [11]. The "Open Source Definition" logically
abandoned all
reference to the social & ethical means & motives of
free software, not
to mention the fight for freedom as a primary aim.
Preaching for a
peaceful coexistence between free & closed software,
"open-source" is
also about politics; but its politics are those of
pacification,
integration, acceptance and promotion of the market
rules, with the
slight difference of a smarter development model. Free
software has
often been dismissed as "communist" by its enemies
(and by Microsoft in
particular) [12]. It might not be that simple. What is
very clear,
though, is that "open source" pledges capitalism,
while free software
can be a contribution to something else.
Looking in the opposite direction to the Open Source
Initiative is
another myriad of individuals, collectives and
networks, working at
extending free software's political spectrum, merging
it with ongoing
struggles, aiming to explore the subversive potentials
of computing,
rather than extinguish them.
.:. GRASS-ROOTS ACTIVISM: ANALOGICAL MOVEMENTS MEET
THE BYTES .:.
· hierarchy, capitalism & property, among other
nastiness
Contemporary societies all rely on hierarchies, as
they have done
almost
exclusively for centuries. Be they called democracies
and pretend they
grant everyone the same freedoms, rights and duties,
they involve a
political authority, whose power can override
anybody's, provided it
has
been once approved by the majority. Representative
democracy involves
letting a board of so-called experts - politicians -
deal with issues
concerning everybody and take decisions which will
affect the whole
community, while the intervention of the primarily
concerned is
restricted to electing a leader every X years. Such a
system
disempowers
everybody but a minority, for it draws away power &
responsibility over
one's own life from the individual, to be centralised
by a collective
entity, supposedly defending the interest of the many.
Not only does
this result in the individual being systematically
crushed by the
majority, but it also involves allowing a tiny group
of people to
decide
upon laws that will later be enforced on you and me.
Most governments have totally embraced capitalism,
dismantling public
services and encouraging private companies to make
their way through
market economy. Defining the maximisation of profits
as the priority,
capitalism relies on the dynamics of competition and
domination, feeds
the law of the fittest, and implies a permanent state
of war in and
outside the economy. Placing the interests of a
company above all
ethical concerns, capitalism leads to huge dismissals
by favouring
benefits over employees, supports exploitation by
delocalising
production lines and has work done nearly for free,
commits massacres
and uncountable human-right violations while stealing
indigenous
resources, generates mass precarity through the World
Bank &
International Monetary Fund, which force developing
countries to drop
their social rights for incoming money, takes the most
prominent part
in
destroying the environment, and tends to turn
anything, being or
tendency, into a good, for sale in the global economy.
Can one believe a society to implement equality, when
it relies on such
mechanisms, and distributes
{social,economical,political} power in
variable quantities, depending on gender, race, age,
class, sexual
orientation and many other such dividing categories?
However,
discrimination, oppression and domination do not just
occur inside
institutions. They lie within one's social relations,
forged by an
early
acceptation of hierarchy, integration through abidance
to social norms,
a life-time education to authority, and our very own
reserves towards
equality.
· being active programmers of our lives, not passive
users
These critiques are nothing new. They have been
explored, deepened,
publicised, debated and fought about for years, by
webs of collectives,
individuals, affinity groups and organisations often
referred to or
self-defined as "radicals", "anti-authoritarians" or
"anarchists",
whose
history is far too long and complex to render in a few
words [13]. Some
of them are part of international networks such as
People's Global
Action [14], which actions eventually came to the
broad public's
attention, throughout previous years' counter-summit
demonstrations
[15]. Unlike most other political factions, these
movements generally
attempt to go beyond the mere slogan, by putting their
ideals into
practice: by confronting the politics they fight
against through
actions; by coding, compiling and experiencing
alternatives to the
current social order.
In opposition to vertical-organising,
anti-authoritarian movements
share
a tradition of self-management and assembly: decisions
are directly
taken by those who are affected by them, without the
mediation of a
hierarchy. This is about emphasizing individuals'
power over their
lives, through collective concern and personal
responsibility; about
working towards consensus, instead of some being
silenced by the
majority. Despise the common & well-too-spread belief
that freedom and
equality only require "spontaneity", activist networks
have thought and
implemented some practical facilitation tools to allow
efficient
meetings & truly democratic decision-making [16].
In opposition to capitalism, stand quantities of
non-profit production
and distribution initiatives, be they about books,
vegetables or
bicycles! The "do it yourself" counter-culture [17] is
one of these
lively examples: a world-wide and long-lasting
movement, successfully
opposing the reign of money over culture, by bringing
together
thousands
of independent music labels, radical book publishers
and engaged bands,
exchanging through fanzines, spreading through mail
distribution and
peer-to-peer contact, organizing music shows and
tours, settled in
hundreds of alternative venues, private garages or
squatted houses
across countries. Against economic discrimination,
European activist
circles have made widespread use of "prix libre" for
their public
events' entry fee: a donation instead of a fixed
price, for the
attendant to adapt his/her contribution to her/his
financial situation;
no entry prohibition upon money, if one doesn't have
any. Among the
routes to escape capitalism, is attempting autonomy,
by growing food,
producing alternative energy, and, possibly, code
free?
In putting these alternatives into practice, one
requires space, time
and energy. Squatting [18] has played a major role in
the development
of
radical-left cultures since the 70s: recycling
abandoned buildings
allows appropriation of spaces for collective uses;
not paying rent
reduces the need to work for money, thus liberates
time for benevolent
activity; collective project-building providing energy
and practical
experiences of self-management, with its successes,
failures, and
difficulties; and all in all, allows further autonomy
from consumer
society. Squatting the empties is a form of
direct-action against
capitalism, the latter relying on private property.
Ownership is a
virtual title, which grants the person in possession
an absolute and
exclusive right over what s/he owns, might s/he not
make any use of it
at all. Speculation is a fairly common game for owners
to play. It
involves maintaining houses in an unused state,
waiting for prices to
higher, while denying access to people in need. In
opposition to that,
squatting empty properties is about reclaiming
abandoned resources for
those who can put them to use; it is about placing
legitimacy before
legality; it is about inverting dominant values,
claiming that property
belongs to its users, rather than to its entitled
owners.
· from hacking property to fighting the proprietary
Computer technology has long been met with skepticism
and denial within
grass-roots movements, for being central in capitalist
development,
enforcing government control and serving corporate
interests. While
this
does remains true, tactical use of technology as means
of subversive
communication has always been part of political
activism, as has shown
free radio movements from the 80s, performing pirate
broadcasts to
"reclaim the airwaves", in defense of freedom of
speech and independent
information. Yippie revolutionary Abbie Hoffman
provides yet another
example, for being involved in phone phreaking,
explaining through
underground fanzines how to exploit bugs in phone
networks to
communicate for free.
In the 90s, activist computer use grew from producing
flyers and
posters
to disseminating content through the Internet, which
cyber-utopians &
techno-anarchists believed to be a free & independent
territory, back
then. Not only was early online computing largely
mixed with
libertarian
ideals, but it also supported the first marginal
attempts at activist
networking. Internet was a big step in bringing
together analogical
struggles to digital mediums, thanks to its
decentralised structure and
bidirectional communication. Unlike television, this
media was not
limited to consuming contents, but provided an easy
way to organise and
distribute one's own information. However, the
encounter that is
possibly to be the most fruitful involves two
movements or tendencies;
one being analogical, the other being digital;
anarchism & free
software.
Free software and anarchist movements indeed happen to
share a number
of
concerns and practices. Both have the ultimate goal of
building a free
society, free software focusing on public empowerment
through
availability of knowledge, anarchism on destroying
power structures
that
prevent their accessibility. Both are about putting
back power in the
hands of the user: user power over tools s/he uses,
user power over the
life s/he chooses to run. Thus, both destabilise
established power
roles, based upon corporate and governmental models.
Both advocate
solidarity, and rely on cooperation to function: free
software
development depends upon team-work and collective
emulation, just as
anarchism requires consensus, mutual help and
consideration. Both lead
to reconsidering common perception of property: free
software flipping
copyright upside down with copyleft and claiming that
"software should
not have owners", anarchists questioning the
legitimacy of exclusive
ownership and practicing resource sharing through
squatting. Both
provides working examples of alternative social
models, based upon
decentralisation, volunteer participation and
self-management: free
software development is made of hundreds of autonomous
clusters
organising independently, without a central authority
nor any corporate
agenda to carry, coordinating willingly, while
anarchist organising
usually involves similar affinity groups gathering
around common
concerns, without a hierarchy. Against corporate
opacity and elitism,
free software functions with transparency, allows
everyone to
participate, just as a libertarian open-organisation
would distribute
information and responsibility to all those who would
agree.
By getting involved in free software,
anti-authoritarians get the
opportunity to have their relation to computing shift,
from solely
tactical considerations to a more exciting option:
participating in
designing and building operating-systems in a
contributive and
horizontal fashion, by putting self-management into
practice, and
having
the chance to shape egalitarian uses & applications.
The Debian
GNU/Linux operaring-system [19], in addition to
providing the Anarchist
FAQ among its software packages [20], includes
anarchists among its
developers, some of whom have been debating the
political nature of the
project as a whole [21]. While free software offers
activists a number
of possibilities, in terms of secure &
community-driven communication &
organisational tools (thanks to web portals,
self-managed websites aka
wikis, mailing-lists), grass-roots politics allow free
software
enthusiasts to break the bounderies of computing and
insert their
practices within a broader picture. This opens up new
questions,
provides new inspiration, and allows learning from the
experiences of
other struggles.
Over the past few years, individuals from both
communities felt they
could gain from closer interaction and mutual
recognition. From geek
parties taking place in squatted communities, to free
software powering
street action counter-information, a number of
initiatives, collectives
and movements have emerged out of these hybridations.
.:. MERGING LAYERS, ANALOGICAL AND DIGITAL:
IMPLEMENTATIONS .:.
· plug'n'politix: opening access to squats & Internet
In October 2001, a number of groups and individuals
gathered in the
Egocity squat in Zürich, Switzerland [22], for three
days of
discussions, debates and practical workshops. This was
to be the first
"Connect Congress" of the "Plug'n'Politix" network.
The experience was
renewed in December 2004, hosted by Cyber*Forat [23],
a squatted
cybercafé located in central Barcelona. Plug'n'Politix
[24] allows
groups and collectives from all over Europe to share
their experiences
in running Internet open-access spaces and hacklabs in
squatted
social-centres or alternative venues. It provides a
common channel for
information exchange, community building and
developing a hybrid mix of
anti-authoritarian politics, free software development
and activist
computer use.
One of the first groups to implement this crossover
was ASCII
(Amsterdam
Subversive Center for Information Interchange) [25],
bringing together
computer-inclined political activists and
free-software hackers. They
engaged in squatting actions, filling empty basements
with keyboards
and
wireless signals. Despise evictions, they successfully
set-up a public
venue providing a computer workspace for local
activists, offering free
Internet access to visitors seven days a week, as well
as using,
promoting and teaching free-software. From 1997
onwards, similar
initiatives popped up in different corners of Europe:
PUSCII in Utrecht
[26], LOTEC in Berlin [27], PRINT in Dijon [28], Monte
Paradiso in
Croatia [29], Cyberpipe in Slovenia [30], Blouk Blouk
in Lyon [31]...
among others!
Such collectives have largely contributed to raising
ethical and
practical issues related to technology within radical
activist circles.
Questioning the use of corporate and proprietary
software by groups
protesting against the very same type of
multinationals producing these
programs, they have been working towards integrating
computer-related
issues to activists' political concerns, introducing
free software as
an
alternative. Considering the digital tools we use as a
meaningful
political choice, campaigning was extended to bringing
awareness to the
general public, by encouraging computer users to break
their dependency
upon Microsoft, and start setting their system free!
While offering curious novices an occasion to give
free software a try,
open-access spaces often put software's versatility
into practice. Not
only are they real testing grounds and a good source
for user feedback,
but they also tend to inspire creative network designs
or resource
sharing experiments, in efforts to improve overall
efficiency and
implement ecology [32]. Friendly visitors can
generally ask for help in
migrating their systems towards free software
alternatives, burn a copy
of the Debian archive, which some open-access spaces
provide
officially,
or grab a Knoppix, a Dynebolic or an Ubuntu live-CD
[33].
Commercial trends keep forcing new hardware down
people's throats while
dumping yesterday's, that is now ridiculed by the
gigahertz race
happening everyday. Open-access spaces attempt at
breaking the
capitalist chain by recycling discarded hardware,
putting together
deprecated computer parts, and plugging dead boxes
back to life. Yet
another demonstration of the irrelevance of
productivism, when people
are told to buy, whereas the trash contains it all;
it's the matter of
a
dumpster to hack, and a handful of free machines to
take back!
As computing becomes central, digital illiteracy grows
tall. By
organising free teaching and skill-sharing workshops
to disseminate
computer knowledge, hacklabs contribute in fighting
the digital divide,
looking towards empowering those left-out by new
technologies. While
officials might also pretend to do so when walking
people around
supermarket Internet, others prefer to arm people with
awareness on the
possibilities for governments to use the net to spy,
identify and
repress.
Open-access spaces are providing social environments
for free software
users and enthusiasts to meet, exchange and support
each other, by
merging the tradition of Linux User Groups [34] and
squat-cafés. As a
result, they act as bidirectional gateways, leading
activists to make
the switch, and encouraging geek types to discover
places they might
not
have had the opportunity to enter otherwise...
· hackmeetings beyond computing: reality-hacking
While Plug'n'Politix was acting as an inspirational
hub in northern
parts of Europe, bridges were being built in Italy to
allow the
transport of hundreds of keyboards behind squatted
doors. It began in
Firenze, in June 1998 [35], and was restarted each
year since: hackers
gathering in squatted social centres, for three day
festivals of
digital
counter-culture, anticapitalist free-software,
anti-authoritarian
skill-shares, peer-to-peer friendship and community
building; without
sponsors, without entitled organisers; powered by
volunteer work from
people across the country, coordinated through an open
mailing-list and
contributing their skills; with a particular focus on
meeting people &
being sociable; with a joyful general assembly to
close the party.
Enthusiasm eventually jumped borders, and the concept
quickly caught on
in Spain, where a similar movement emerged in 2000,
when the first
hackmeeting took place in the Barcelona's "Les Naus"
squatted social
centre [36]. Like in Italy, hackmeetings were to
become a yearly event.
But the most successful aspect of these meetings,
besides effectively
melting hacker culture and activist practice, was the
creation of
hacklabs [37] all over the two countries, providing a
permanent
continuation of the hackmeeting effort, following the
idea of "reality
hacking". Reality hacking is about exporting the
hacker attitude out of
the digital sphere it originated from. It is an
invitation to embrace
life with the ingenious, critical and rebellious
spirit emphasized by
hacker ethics. Iruña's hackmeeting [38] slogan was
"hack your brain";
encouraging geeks to reclaim their intelligence,
driving it away from
social norms and dominant culture influence, to use it
as a subversive
tool against alienation & constraints.
The very social nature of southern hackmeetings and
their successful
mix
between technology and politics generated the will to
further export
the
tradition and disseminate its magic outdoors: a
European-wide
Transnational Hackmeeting (THK) took place in June
2004 at the Monte
Paradiso hacklab from Pula, Croatia, in an effort to
draw connexions
between eastern & western computed dissent [39]. A
next encounter
should
happen by the end of 2006...
· Squatting the Internet & spreading the word
Internet has brought a new dimension to social
activism, allowing the
coordination of large scale actions that were never
seen before. Spread
through the net, international calls to decentralised
protests
sometimes
led to hundreds of blockades, demonstrations and
miscellaneous civil
disobedience actions being carried throughout the
world with a common
goal, such as those which happened on November 30th,
1998, where
thousands blocked the World Trade Organisation in the
streets of
Seattle. Thanks to an instant dissemination of
information, it has been
possible to keep track, react, organise emergency
solidarity, while the
intensification of communication between
geographically distant groups
has undoubtedly generated emulation, fueled
inspiration and facilitated
project creation.
Using the Internet as an activist medium requires
infrastructures.
Before Internet was largely spread among the public,
were already
running some servers dedicated to hosting webpages and
e-mails for
groups who could not cope with advertisements, who
would require
security, and favour trust based upon affinity with
administrators to
feeding the dot-com phenomena. Tao.ca in Canada,
kyuzz.org & ecn.org in
Italy, nodo50.org in Spain or flag.blackened.net in
the US were some of
the first, soon to be followed by a number of others:
squat.net &
nadir.org in Germany, sindominio.net in Spain,
inventati.org &
autistici.org in Italy, riseup.net & mutualaid.org in
the US...
Thanks to free software, it is possible to set up and
administrate an
autonomous server over the Internet, without resorting
to hosting
companies' commercial offers. While system
administration is
traditionally carried by one person in businesses and
institutions,
activist server admins have been working towards
merging their politics
and computing passion, by experimenting with
mechanisms of cooperative
work. Boum.org, for instance, implements a
"collective administration"
framework that's been brewed by some french hacklabs
for some years,
before being put into wider practice in running the
server. In an
effort
to facilitate the "learning by doing" approach and
limit the extent of
informal hierarchies depending on knowledge between
project members,
administration tasks are being divided in small
clusters. A group of
two
or more volunteers - one having prior knowledge on the
issue, the other
willing to learn - takes care of each section for a
certain period of
time, and then moves on to handle another cluster.
Participants
eventually get to share a global view over a complex
system, novices
being empowered by the process, whereas they're
usually excluded.
Tech activists have often been prone to contribute
modifications to
free
software projects, some of them particularly
reflecting their ethical &
practical concern, in regards to anonymity and
privacy, related to
content-publishing, video editing or radio
broadcasting. Riseup.net,
for
example, distribute their server-enhancement
developments as free
software [40]. Italian hackers issued Dynebolic [41],
and the Metabolik
hacklab provided X-Evian [42], both being
activist-oriented GNU/Linux
systems booting off a CD, allowing one to turn his/her
computing into a
communication weapon in a few clicks. And sometime in
1999, Australian
group CAT (Community Activist Technology [43])
released a software
called Active [44], that would allow the quick spread
of a well-known
activist information revolution: Indymedia!
· Indymedia: information, from the bottom to the top
Indymedia [45] was created as an activist answer to
corporate
misinformation and outrageously biased media coverage
of radical
protests. It was initiated in the midst of Seattle's
tear gas in
November 1999, by a group of radical techies offering
an original
contribution to the anti-WTO actions. It quickly grew
into a world-wide
network for counter-information, providing an
alternative to mainstream
media through a collection of decentralised websites.
It is one of the
most inspiring examples of activist technology
development putting
Internet to use. Similar to free-software in its
open-participation
scheme, it has become a major medium, involving
thousands.
Indymedia relies on open-publishing. Whereas
traditional media divides
people into active journalists and passive consumers,
Indymedia allows
anyone to instantly publish or comment on information.
As a portal of
street activism, Indymedia attempts to counter
official propaganda and
mediatic formatting by offering alternative views on
the news, and
covering social struggles that are generally ignored.
By taking its
decisions on consensus through transparent public
mailing-lists,
Indymedia contrasts with the opacity and power-games
that lie within
the
official press. The whole network is based upon
volunteer work, and
remains independent from institutions, corporations or
political
parties. Being spread in a number of cities
world-wide, it is able to
relay information from its source, allowing activists
to avoid mediatic
filters and censorship. This decentralisation proved
to be particularly
helpful in countries who seriously lack alternative
media structures,
and were going through hectic political times, like
Argentina or
Ecuador, whose Indymedia centers were donated hardware
from the US,
collected by the Indymedia Solidarity project. Of
course, Indymedia
runs
free software on its servers. Like 80s MIT hackers
used to say:
"information has to be free!".
Open-access and hacklabs provide physical gateways to
Indymedia and
like-minded alternative news sites, by re-routing
people's habits away
from cnn.com!
· get off the Internet, the street is a rootshell!
Internet is no longer the realm of freedom that
techno-enthusiasts had
advocated. Probably it was never so, since its
physical structures,
though dispersed throughout continents, never belonged
to its users.
Governments, who have long been scared of the
Internet's freedom
potential, are now taking it back, forcing
restrictions upon its unruly
tradition. In 1997, one of the biggest German Internet
Service
Prodivers
started blocking requests directed to a dutch website
hosting Radikal,
a
radical-left German newspaper banned from Germany.
Dozens of mirror
sites popped up as a result, and a big pressure
campaign led to the end
of the blockade [46].
As in most other European countries, France has
recently suffered from
a
series of new laws on the Internet, generating large
waves of
discontent
among the cyber-population. Outraged geeks organised
virtual
gatherings,
looking forward to exerting pressure, but seriously
lacking campaigning
experience. Standing at the cross-roads between geek
and activist
cultures, this is exactly where hacklabs can fill the
gap, by sharing
knowledge in organising protests with the rest!
Looking forward to
letting geek anger out on the streets, the PRINT
collective initiated
the first street protest for "freedom on the Internet"
in France, March
2004 [47]. Gathering a few "angry people of the net",
the demonstration
went down the streets of Dijon, ryhthmed by a
geek-battucada, shouting
slogans and eventually dropping dead screens covered
in fake-blood in
front of government offices. Bigger demonstrations
followed in Paris,
when Internet users' coalitions joined effort with
anarcho-syndicalists
from the CNT, and organised a street-party against
anti-free-Internet
repressive politics.
Considering the diversity of tactics deployed within
anti-authoritarian
struggles over the years, and the very practical
victories it could
lead
to
- from maintaining social spaces to shutting down
detention centres -,
geek struggles can only benefit from getting offline
for a while.
Here
there are probably issues to be considered, in the
current fight
against software patents and in defense of free
software, among
others
[48].
· yes, computers do have genders
However, not everything is so perfect in the
(alternative) computer
sphere, by far. We still live in a patriarchal
society, where power and
influence are mostly males', where men are taught to
dominate womyn
from
an early age, while gender roles attempt to make girls
accept their
condition. Yesterday, womyn would be treated as
irrational beings and
denied access to science. Today, technology remains
dominated by men.
Just as there are few womyn drummers or female guitar
players since
social pressure makes it so difficult for girls to get
there, there are
ever fewer fem programmers. Womyn are almost always
excluded from and
so
often made invisible by computing environments; they
are lead to use
simplified interfaces on Macintoshs, while men play
with complicated
PCs, just as girls are offered dolls, while boys play
at firemen. Of
course, geek types aren't usually very helpful in
encouraging womyn's
integration, as the number of sexist jokes and
outrageously macho
remarks shows. By the way, it is interesting to note
that manual pages
generally use "he" for the programmer, and "she" for
the user.
"What about anarchist geeks? They can't be sexist!"
one could be
tempted
to say. Unfortunately, there can be no guarantee,
since dropping male
privileges and dominant attitudes takes a lot more
than wearing an
anti-sexist shirt as these behaviours are deeply
rooted in our social
habits and personalities. Virility also lies within
keystrokes, through
ways of speaking, through means of putting forward
one's capacities
while refusing to help out others, through creating &
feeding
atmospheres of competition, through gently scorning
beginners, through
supposing that all computer knowledge comes from men
without
questioning
it further. It also comes in more subtle ways, by
taking over the
keyboard to help and demonstrate, rather than explain
and let womyn do
it themselves. Breaking running sexist code and
reprogramming oneself
probably takes a while, but remains necessary, as
should be the
acceptation and support of male geeks towards womyn
initiatives.
Fortunately, some girls reclaim the tools, some chicks
hack their
computers, some womyn merge feminism and technology,
some fems code and
spread their creativity, some cyber-revolted grrls go
public and
encourage others to come out. Among these are the
Genderchangers [49],
who emerged out of the ASCII collective in Amsterdam,
organising
workshops for womyn, by womyn, on hardware crashing
and GNU/Linux. In
2002, they set up /etc [50] in the Balkans, as a
"grassroots meeting of
women interested in technical activities", which
happened every year
since. In Berlin, the LOTEC hacklab had a womyn-only
opening day a
week.
Within hackmeetings, gender issues are being more
regularly brought up,
with cyberfeminist performances or workshops. In
parallel to the sixth
edition of the Libre Software Meeting [51] in France,
a womyn-powered
free-software based cybercafé will be setup by
grep|grrl [52], whose
IRC
channel [53] provides a self-organising meeting &
visibility space for
computerized girls.
· facing possible contradictions: remaining questions
While most hacklabs rely on low-tech by saving
computers from the
trash,
recycling remains a pure contextual hack, dependant on
the current
consumption chain. Breaking free from any dependency
upon capitalism
would involve producing hardware, which, given the
requirements, is
currently highly unlikely. Still, some projects aim at
designing
open-hardware, whose internals would be transparent
like free software
is.
Hacklabs might indirectly rely on our current economy,
but ultimately
depend on hardware, whose production currently proves
to be an
ecological disaster, considering the raw materials
used, the energy
consumed and the waste produced. Not to mention the
direct social
consequences of the high-tech industry in terms of
human exploitation,
for getting some of the precious materials contained
in chips. While
switching to a non-productivist economy would
definitely change
parameters, part of the issue remains, as long as we
are to use current
computer designs, sustainable alternatives to which
have not yet been
invented or researched. Questioning this remains
crucial, for one to be
conscious about the ethical cost of technology as it
is, act
accordingly, and be able to envision rational models
for an alternative
society.
· new tools, new struggles, new identities
>From hackmeetings to wireless networking user groups,
from free
software
developer rooms to squatted roofs, from Indymedia
tents at
demonstrations to tech workers' unions... individuals
cross-over, shape
new configurations and associations, in a "refusal to
be enslaved by
either a political system or a computer system", as
claims an
"anar[cho]geek manifesto" [54].
It might appear as fancy, but probably is it also
vital, when
technology
is growing so central and determines tomorrow's
weapons of social
control, through face recognition, DNA fingerprinting
and sub-skin chip
implants, to unite technical knowledge and political
awareness. In the
70s, when universities first installed password
systems, MIT hackers
cracked them in protest, considering that measure an
unbearable
division
between users, while their politics involved open
flows of information.
Today's issues are no longer about refusing passwords,
and one should
not expect a revival. They are about making something
else possible
through computers, but shouldn't they also involve
technical people
standing up in refusal of computer-enforced control?
May 2005, darkveggy <darkveggy@???>
This text is licenced under the a Creative Commons
licence, as stated
on
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/.
Share & pass around!
.:. NOTES .:.
[1] For more background information on what hackers
are, and what they
aren't, read
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker
[2] Wikipedia defines an operating system as "the
system software
responsible for the direct control and management of
hardware and basic
system operations. Additionally, it provides a
foundation upon which to
run application software such as word processing
programs and web
browsers." More on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
[3] Richard Stallman's personal webpage:
http://www.stallman.org/
[4] The GNU project:
http://www.gnu.org/
[5] The Free Software Foundation:
http://fsf.org/
[6] More on copyleft on
http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/copyleft.html
[7] a kernel is the core component of an operating
system, interfacing
hardware and software. More on
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel_%28computer_science%29
[8] Linux and the GNU project:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/linux-and-gnu.html
[9] The usage statistic come from Netcraft's web
server survey reports.
See
http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html
[10]
http://opensource.org/
[11] Why "Free Software" is better than "Open Source":
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
[12] Facing the accusation of communism, free-software
geeks have often
appropriated its symbols with humour:
http://www.mozilla.org/party/2000/mozilla2.gif
[13] Anti-authoritarian movements' inspiration comes
from a number of
sources, ranging from last centuries' socialist
utopias and
revolutionary social movements of the 60s & 70s, to
feminist, black
liberation & queer struggles, among others. For more
detailed history,
political perspectives and tendencies, see the
Anarchist FAQ at
http://anarchistfaq.org/.
[14] People's Global Action (PGA) is an international
network of
anti-authoritarian, anticapitalist and liberation
activists. More
information on
http://agp.org/ and
http://pgaconference.org/.
[15] For more than 1O years, official summits of the
G8, IMF, World
Bank, European Union or WTO have been shaken and
sometimes partly
canceled, due to international anticapitalist &
anti-authoritarian
protests, which particularly escalated since 1999. For
a partial
listing
and links to background information, see
http://www.infoshop.org/octo/.
[16] For an overview of direct-democracy community
practice and
facilitation methods used within activist networks,
visit
http://www.basisdemocratie.tk/.
[17] A starting point among others to the broad DIY
culture, which is
mostly to be discovered off the net:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIY_punk_ethic
[18] More squatting-related theory and news is
available on
http://squat.net/.
[19] Debian GNU/Linux:
http://debian.org/
[20] `apt-get install anarchism`! See
http://packages.debian.org/stable/doc/anarchism and
http://www.anarchistfaq.org/
[21] "Is Debian an anarchist organisation?".
Discussion thread at
http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/10/msg02466.html
[22] Egocity was a social-centre dedicated to
organising public events
such as concerts, benefit parties for political
causes, debates,
conferences and workshops. It was evicted & destroyed
by riot-cops in
January 2004. Some traces of the adventures it allowed
can still be
browsed through at
http://egocity.net/.
[23] Cyber*Forat:
http://cyberforat.squat.net/
[24] The Plug'n'Politix network has a website
(
http://squat.net/pnp/)
and a wiki (
http://wiki.boum.org/Connect). French
speaking readers can
also visit
http://squat.net/connect-fr/.
[25] ASCII:
http://a.scii.nl/
[26] PUSCII:
http://squat.net/puscii/
[27] LOTEC:
http://lotec.squat.net/
[28] PRINT:
http://print.squat.net/ &
http://print.squat.net/en/
[29] Monte Paradiso:
http://monteparadiso.hr/
[30] Cyberpipe:
http://kiberpipa.org/
[31] Blouk Blouk:
http://bloukblouk.squat.net/
[32] Clustering allows to bind machines together, and
mutualise their
computing power. Sharing & distributing it over
networks allows to
envision some alternative models for computer
distribution, saving
unused resources and reducing hardware requirements.
[33] A "Live-CD" is a complete operating-system that
can boot off a CD,
allowing people to test and use GNU/Linux without
affecting their
existing installation. Some of the most popular are
Knoppix
(
http://knoppix.org/) and Ubuntu
(
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/).
[34] Linux User Groups gather GNU/Linux enthusiasts
for socialisation,
chit-chat and mutual help in numerous towns in the
world. Some of them
are listed on
http://lugww.counter.li.org/.
[35] See
http://www.ecn.org/hackit98/ for Firenze's
'98 hackmeeting
related content, and
http://hackmeeting.org/ for
information about
Italian hackmeetings.
[36] The "Les Naus" social centre was evicted in
December 2003, after 9
years of public activities. More information on the
hackmeeting on
http://www.sindominio.net/~hm/hmbcn00/. See
http://sindominio.net/hackmeeting/ for informations
about Spanish
hackmeetings.
[37] Visit the hacklabs' portal:
http://hacklabs.org/
[38] Hackmeeting 2003 Iruña:
http://www.sindominio.net/~hm/iruna03/
[39] More information on the THK on
http://trans.hackmeeting.org/. The
introduction leaflet provides an insight view the
self-managed
principles at use; see
http://twiki.fazan.org/bin/view/Transhackmeeting/ThkHowTo
[40] See
http://dev.riseup.net/.
[41] Dynebolic:
http://dynebolic.org/
[42] X-Evian, a "hacktivist device for disobedience",
"toolbox for
digital autonomy" and an "interface with cyberspace
configured for
social activism":
http://www.sindominio.net/metabolik/x-evian/
[43] Community Activist Technology - "low tech grass
roots net access
for real people. Pedestrians, public transport and
pushbikes on the
information super hypeway":
http://cat.org.au/
[44] Active, "stuff for social change":
http://www.active.org.au/
[45] Visit the global Indymedia portal on
http://indymedia.org/. For
more about Indymedia's internals and organising,
explore
http://docs.indymedia.org/.
[46] For information about Radikal and digital copies,
visit
http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/radikal/.
[47] Photos and report of the action are available at
http://print.squat.net/move.html
[48] Software patents allow private companies an
exclusive property
right over concepts, knowledge and ideas. This could
ultimately lead to
the illegalisation of free software, and prevent
independent creation.
For more information, see
http://swpat.ffii.org/.
[49] The Genderchangers:
http://genderchangers.org/
[50] Eclectic Tech Carnival:
http://etc.genderchangers.org/
[51] The sixth edition of the Libre Software Meeting
is to happen in
Dijon, in July 2005 (
http://rencontresmondiales.org/).
An "off"
proposing nighty complementary activities is being
organised by the
french plug'n'politix network in a local squat, Espace
autogéré des
Tanneries, which programme can be seen on
http://squat.net/connect-fr/nocturnes/.
[52] See
http://grepgrrl.org/.
[53] IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat. It is a
network protocol
allowing users to talk simultaneously within
chat-rooms. It is being
extensively used by a number of hacklabs and Indymedia
groups to
organise. See
http://irchelp.org/ and
http://irc.indymedia.org/.
[54] "An anargeek manifesto":
http://anargeek.net/
--
d a r k v e g g y - gnupg key @
http://garlicviolence.org/gpg.asc
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