Hacker Groups

[JamesH]

I was messaging Paul about this topic and he gave me the idea to introduce it to the broader community.

I've been hearing a lot recently about a particular group of hackers called "Anonymous" that are well known for attacking the servers of banks and government websites. Most of these attacks, at least I think, haven't been too damaging, undertaken more as a way of warning.

How can we, as leftists, integrate this kind of cyber-warfare into socialist activity? What sort of possibilites does it open up for reasserting socialist ideas? Can such a movement have much of a wide influence without a coherent political and economic message, focused as it is now on vague, liberal platitudes about freedom and human rights? Do you think it opens up any possibilities for concrete political action towards revolutionary education, such as hacking into banks to wipe out debt ledgers?

[Cambyses]

Anonymous itself is an amorphous organization, with numerous faces, ranging from script kiddies hacking the Soy Playstation Network "for teh lulz" to the more adult members who brought underground internet to the Middle East during the Arab Spring and have hacked corporate and government sites. At its core, "members" of anonymous are merely internet users who have masked their IP address and thus identity and who support or engage in hacktivity. Socialist activists can and should become anonymous, though associating with Anonymous is a very bad idea; this movement does not need that kind of negative coverage (the media focuses on the "school of Lulz" types to downplay the serious threat members of Anonymous pose).

Now, do not go off half-cocked thinking Socialists can change the world through hactivism. Learning to become a professional hacker takes a lifetime of experience. There are very few of those in the world and most of them seem to be Libertarian anarcho-capitalist types. Maybe there are a few anarcho-socialists out there; if so I do hope they get together and create a Revolutionary Hacking Group. "Malicious" hacking, such as targeting banks, could be useful, but unless it is cordinated with a wider "on the ground" movement, I fail to see the point.

[Killforpeace]

It's a bit off topic but...

The possibilities on the internet are endless, whether its hacking, campaigning, education tools or just general leftist interests – issue is lots of it is hidden deep inside the cesspit. I believe 'a' solution to this problem is better designed leftist projects, this applies to websites, campaigns, youtube, podcasts etc.

It relates a lot to judging a book by its cover, people who end up on say marxist.org who generally visit sites like good.is are going to be immediately confused, navigation isn't the greatest, its quite ugly and it says nothing on what it is — it looks like a home made high schoolers project to a certain degree. Although we know the content inside isn't a high schoolers project, anyone unfamiliar with marxist is going to question the legitimacy through the image. You need to have people engaged instantly and then to keep them engaged. This is done through design, make it easy (readability, navigation, simplicity etc), trustworthy (legitimate, good hosting etc) and most importantly make people curious (updates, celebrating the culture etc). I also know I just compared good.is to marxist.org, but its just an example!

Another part is there is not enough websites out there (and most that are, are poorly designed and maintained) that celebrate the culture we want. I'm not talking of forums either, a lot of people don't enjoy forums because of the amount of bickering etc, I'm talking about sites like brainpickings.org, good.is, curiositycounts.com etc, that update constantly but from a more socialist point of view. Also not to push socialism and the political side so much, but act almost as though we are already living in a socialist society, utopia is almost possible on the internet. Can always have links back to the more important issues at hand on other affiliated websites. Another is the videos on youtube, most are hobby made etc, if they were better designed (higher quality pictures, better animated, type set etc) people would take them more seriously, people would stay more engaged etc. — this paragraph isn't explained the best, limited time and thoughts sorry.

I believe there are loads of potential radical leftists out there, its just that they don't know of anything better, they are unaware of the real socialism/communism, they right it off because of what we are taught in schools, video games, movies and any other capitalism propaganda. Engaging them with what looks like high school made projects I believe can almost have a negative effect, we have to play in their pitch. As much as I hate adverstising/marketing and believe its capitalism's propaganda it can work both ways.

How big of a role did constructivism and art/design of the soviet union play in the revolution, pre and post?


ps - apologies for bashing marxist.org :(

[Die Neue Zeit]

Now, do not go off half-cocked thinking Socialists can change the world through hactivism. Learning to become a professional hacker takes a lifetime of experience. There are very few of those in the world and most of them seem to be Libertarian anarcho-capitalist types. Maybe there are a few anarcho-socialists out there; if so I do hope they get together and create a Revolutionary Hacking Group. "Malicious" hacking, such as targeting banks, could be useful, but unless it is cordinated with a wider "on the ground" movement, I fail to see the point.

I'm not sure about the usefulness of malicious hacking even "with a wider on the ground movement." I am sure, however, about the necessity of Left defenses against malicious hacking and of counter-hacking "this side of revolution." I am doubly sure of the necessity of cyber security and outright cyberwarfare ops, just as with retaliatory proletarian nuclear deterrents, "that side."

[palotin]

I think you can convincingly posit a revolutionary status for the hackers if you treat their activism as motivated by a defense of the internet as commons. You can argue their targets are institutions that have offended against rote liberal pieties ("human rights", "transparency" etc). But an equally valid interpretation is their targets are the aggressors in a modern enclosures movement dedicated to alienating a sphere of economic and social life from the public that had previously been common to all. Work by folks like Hobsbawm on 'social bandits' might be applicable. Speaking dialectically, their actions are clearly directed by social forces and impulses that we must acknowledge as revolutionary, but, as yet, they are not developing a sense of collective identity that is self-consciously opposed to present relations of property and production. O for fifty revolutionary intellectuals who can code and stomach 4chan.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Get us enough people and we can LOIC some shit...but that's about all I'm capable of doing lol