8/10/2019 Center for a Stateless Society the Coming Swarm

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..//00 112233445566 $$77889933Kevin Carson| December 18th, 2014

Molly Sauter. The Coming Swarm: DDOS Actions, Hacktivism, and Civil Disobedience on the

Internet(New York, London, New Delhi, Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2014).

The aim of this work, Sauter writes, is to place DDoS [distributed denial of service] actions in a

historical and theoretical context, covering the use of the tactic, its development over time, and its

potential for ethical political practice. And this is an excellent source on the history of the tactic; the

historical context she provides goes back to the early use of DDoS attacks, like EDTs campaign of

digital storms in support of the Zapatistas in the 1990s, and also devotes considerable attention to

Anonymous Operation Payback in 2010.

Sauters main line of argument is that DDoS actions to shut down government and corporate

websites are not only permissible but perhaps necessary, given the growing hegemony of such

institutions and their official perspectives over the Internet. A protester might set up a dedicated blog

which may or may not ever be read but it is much harder for her to stand collectively with others

against a corporate giant in the online space. Sauter didnt make an explicit comparison to so-called

free speech zones as a physical analog, but thats the first thing I thought of. Because of the

densely intertwined nature of property and speech in the online space, unwelcome acts of collective

protest become also acts of trespass.

Direct action is an ideological mode of activism that encourages activists to disrupt harmful

processes and systems at the same time as they attempt to provoke a dramatic, illustrative

reaction from their target. It doesnt force activists to channel their dissent through ombudsmen

or PR departments, or to curtail their political behavior to that recognized by their targets as

valid. Protesters arent required to tacitly supply their consent before being permitted to express

their dissent.

The disruption of government and corporate websites, against a background of such hegemony, in

itself carries a positive meaning. The disruption itself creates a counterartifact in opposition to the

flow of communication controlled by corporation and state.

The blank browser screen, the long-delayed load time. [W]e can see how the imposition of

silence and delay into a signal rich environment can be a powerful discursive contribution.

By replacing continuity with disruption, activists attempt to create a rhetorical cavity in the

digitized structure of capitalism wherein activism can take place. This break in business as

usual makes room for the counteractions of activism. It is the creation of excavated, disrupted

space that is valuable in these contexts, sometimes even more valuable than direct discursive

engagement between activists and their target.

If we look at the moment of content-less interruption as a moment of impact to be absorbed

rather than a conveyance of content to be understood, we can then look at it as a form of

exchange between differently empowered groups or between different power structures.

[The disruption] opens bandwidth for speech from new actors and participants in a public

discourse that otherwise only ever receives signals from those (always) already broadcasting.

As we look at the role of DDoS within online activism, the reader should bear in mind the power

of disruption to draw attention to issues that no one wants to talk about, and to call different

types of stakeholders to account. Though DDoS as a tactic is still relatively novel, it fits within a

centuries-long tradition of breaking laws and disrupting business as usual to make a political

point. These actions arent simply disruption for disruptions sake. Rather they serve to help the

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