The Electronic Disturbance Theater
The Electronic Disturbance Theater (EDT) is a small group of cyber
activists and artists engaged in developing the theory and practice of
Electronic Civil Disobedience (ECD). Until now the group has focused its
electronic actions against the Mexican and U.S. governments to draw attention
to the war being waged against the Zapatistas and others in Mexico. But
ECD tactics have potential application by a range of political and artistic
movements. The Electronic Disturbance Theater, working at the intersections
of radical politics, recombinant and performance art, and computer software
design, has produced an ECD device called Flood Net, URL based software
used to flood and block an opponent�s web site. While at present a catalyst
for moving forward with ECD tactics, the Electronic Disturbance Theater
hopes to eventually blend into the background to become one of many small
autonomous groups heightening and enhancing the ways and means of computerized
resistance.
Acting in the tradition of non-violent direct action and civil disobedience,
proponents of Electronic Civil Disobedience are borrowing the tactics of
trespass and blockade from these earlier social movements and are applying
them to the Internet. A typical civil disobedience tactic has been for
a group of people to physically blockade, with their bodies, the entranceways
of an opponent�s office or building or to physically occupy an opponent�s
office � to have a sit-in. Electronic Civil Disobedience, as a form of
mass decentered electronic direct action, utilizes virtual blockades and
virtual sit-ins. Unlike the participant in a traditional civil disobedience
action, an ECD actor can participate in virtual blockades and sit-ins from
home, from work, from the university, or from other points of access to
the Net. Further, the ECD actor can act against an opponent that is hundreds
if not thousands of miles away. The Electronic Disturbance Theater, primarily
through its Flood Net device, is promoting ways to engage in global, mass,
collective and simultaneous Electronic Civil Disobedience and direct action.
The Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, immediately entered the global stage
just after January 1, 1994 when their communiques signed by Subcommandante
Marcos were distributed across the world through the Net. Quickly, through
pre-existing and newly formed listservs, newsgroups, and Cc: lists, news,
reports, analyses, announcements about demonstrations, and calls for intercontinental
gatherings spread throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.
We began to hear the Zapatistas use the terms intercontinental �networks
of struggle� and �networks of resistance.� This new media, the Internet,
became a vital means for the transmission of information from inside the
conflict zone in Chiapas to other points of resistance in Mexico and to
points beyond Mexico�s physical borders. Until recently the primary use
of the Internet by the global pro-Zapatista movement has been as a communication
tool. However, in recent times, particularly since the Acteal Massacre
in Chiapas at the end of last year, the Internet has increasingly been
seen as not only a site or a channel for communication, but also as a site
for direct action and a site for Electronic Civil Disobedience. The Electronic
Disturbance Theater, through its promotion of ECD tactics vis a vis the
pro-Zapatista movement, is pushing the envelope and is challenging the
notion that the Internet should be safeguarded solely as a site for communication;
it should be a site for direct action as well.
Flood Net
In January of this year, a group from Italy, the Anonymous
Digital Coalition, circulated a proposal through the Zapatista networks
for a virtual sit-in to take place on five web sites of Mexico City financial
institutions. Their suggested method was for many people to be simultaneously,
and note manually, striking the reload key of the targeted web sites on
the theory that if enough people participated in this action, that these
web sites could be effectively blockaded. Based on this theory of simultaneous
and collective, yet decentered, electronic action against a targeted web
site, the group that became the Electronic Disturbance Theater automated
the process of manually striking the reload key repeatedly. 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. The next site for electronic action
was the Clinton White House web site on May
10. A similar Flood Net device was deployed. Instead of reload requests
being sent every 7 seconds that figure was cut to every 3. But due to using
5 mirror sites, most of which did not have counters on them, we do not
have an accurate account of the participant�s numbers. And due to lack
of reports about White House web site blockage and an assumption that the
White House page exists on a much larger computer than the Zedillo page,
it seems that the Clinton web site was not effectively blocked on May 10.
Mexico Government Strikes Back
To protest the increased deportation of international human rights
observers and to again demonstrate the ability of people physically outside
Mexico�s geographic borders to act against an agency of the Mexican government,
the Electronic Disturbance Theater chose Mexico�s Secretaria de Gobernacion
for its June 10
ECD action. This governmental department oversees Mexico�s immigration
service and is directly responsible for the deportation of international
observers. Gobernacion also oversees Mexico�s federal public security forces
that have been working in conjunction with the military against Zapatista
communities in Chiapas. As on April 10 and May 10, ECD on June 10 against
the Gobernacion web site used a version of Flood Net. But this time, something
curious happened. The Mexican government struck back. The Mexican Government
or programmers hired by the government developed a countermeasure against
Flood Net. The Electronic Disturbance Theater believes the following is
what happened. A Java script was placed in the Secretaria de Gobernacion�s
web site that was designed to activate whenever Flood Net was directed
toward it. Upon activation, the Gobernacion site would open window after
window on the Flood Net users browser. If the Flood Net user remained connected
long enough. their browser, whether it be Netscape or Explorer, could crash.
As of this writing EDT software designers are working to correct the problem
in an attempt to make this sort of countermeasure in future actions ineffective.
Future Directions
In its short lived history, the Electronic Disturbance Theater has
demonstrated the capability to take action against portions of a political
opponent�s Internet infrastructure. While at the same it has shown that
its actions are of such a scale that they warrant state reaction and intervention,
at least on the part of the Mexican government. The Electronic Disturbance
Theater will continue to grow and move beyond tactics such as Flood Net.
Eventually, tactical devices like Flood Net will just be one potential
tool out of an array of electronic machines and software devices that cyber
activists and artists will have access to and know how to use. We hope
that soon, the Electronic Disturbance Theater becomes only one small group
among a multiplicity of small groups, nodes, or cells, that push forward
the ways and means for global electronic resistance to occur. We are already
involved at the international level. This September�s Ars Electronica Festival
in Linz, Austria, an annual festival celebrating the juncture of arts and
technology, will focus on Infowar and has already accepted our SWARM
proposal. Think of a swarm as an array of Flood Net-like devices, arising,
acting, and dispersing simultaneously against an array of cyberspacial
political targets. If the electronic pulses generated by our Flood Net
actions are represented by a small mountain stream, the electronic pulses
generated by a swarm of convergent ECD actions are a raging torrent. We
invite you to participate in, to help us promote, and to create new forms
of Electronic Civil Disobedience.
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