Journal of High Tech. Law review of A Hacker Manifesto
A Hacker Manifesto by McKenzie Wark Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 2004, Paper: ISBN 0-674-01543-6 (Price $21.95) pp. 208. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/WARHAC.html Reviewed by Kyle Bjornlund Journal of High Technology Law Suffolk University Law School http://www.jhtl.org/bookreviews.html As countless odd and interesting property decisions demonstrate, significant resources have been dedicated over the years to the clarification of lines on a map, notes in a song, or words in a sentence. Occasionally, a case or movement appears that extends the bounds of property ownership in a direction not yet seen or understood.1 At present, a movement of such significance is underway. In A Hacker Manifesto, McKenzie Wark discusses the impact of information technology on the law, politics, and society. Employing a critical theory-inspired vocabulary, Warks Manifesto elucidates a contemporary political movement in a quasi-Marxist framework. In the end, however, the appeal of Warks Manifesto may well depend on how the reader feels about Open Source theory and the Free Software movement discussed below.2 Practically speaking, Warks discussion of the interplay between social theory and information technology is likely to intimidate. Warks vocabulary is conceptual and potentially incoherent to the uninitiated reader. On the other hand, a reader familiar with recent copyright, or copyleft, disputes is likely to grasp and appreciate the depth of Warks hacker philosophy. In any event, a brief primer on both Open Source and Free Software is likely to be beneficial for our discussion of Warks Manifesto. The Free Software movement, founded by former software engineer Richard Stallman, questions whether there is a natural right to copyrights and other intellectual property concepts. As a means of circumventing the copyright mechanism, Stallman conceived of the General Public License (GPL), which allows for the free distribution of software covered by the license.3 At the heart of the Free Software movement is the ethic that software, and thus information, should be freely accessible.4 Open Source, meanwhile, is distinguished from the Free Software movement in that it relates to the development and modification of software.5 Proprietary software packages, like Microsoft Windows, do not allow end users to modify or customize code to meet the needs of a particular operating system. In contrast, Open Source is nonproprietary and allows the owner to modify code and customize the operating system to their particular needs. Most recently, litigation over the putative donation of copyrighted code to an operating system known as Linux resulted in a highly publicized lawsuit between software manufacturer SCO Group, Inc. and International Business Machines.6 Although Wark only references Open Source and Free Software in passing, the underlying current in his Manifesto is that the contemporary equivalent of a massive land-grab is in progress throughout the United States and around the world. At issue, however, is not land for farming or grazing, nor is it a property interest in ones own labor. Rather, Wark has focused on the emergence of intellectual property as a means of oppression. According to Wark, a new ruling class has emerged with the goal of controlling the use and ownership interests associated with intellectual property. Wark alleges that the "vectoral" class is employing intellectual property constructs like patents, copyrights, and trademarks to monopolize information.7 By controlling how information is accessed and utilized, the vectoral class has artificially created a new scarce resource information.8 One need look no further than the Open Source litigation referenced above for an example of the vectoral classes legal maneuvering. Building on the vocabulary employed by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Wark likens the vectoral class to the capitalist factory owners and land rich real property owners of Marx-era property conflicts. The copyright and patent, meanwhile, are the contemporary equivalent of farmland and factories. For Wark, hackers are in some ways the equivalent of peasant farmers and factory workers because the vectoral class controls access to the means of production, namely information. Please note that Warks concept of a hacker is distinguishable from the juvenile delinquent stereotype. Rather, Wark perceives hackers as individuals with the "desire to open the virtuality of information," and an ethic of "freedom and cooperation." Unlike farmers and factory workers, hackers are a unique class with a productive potential independent of either other workers or the vectoral class. What makes hackers unique? Information, the medium in which hackers operate, is a "non-rivalrous" resource that "knows no natural scarcity." According to Wark, hackers have the ability to produce independently of tangible resources like land or a factory, which should allow hackers t
ITU Proposal to Change IP Address Distribution meets resistance...
(bwo Vesna Manojlovic, with permission) http://www.ripe.net/info/internet-management/itu-proposal-200410.html ITU Proposal to Change IP Address Distribution As part of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, a proposal has been made that could dramatically affect the way Internet number resources are distributed and managed. On 21 October 2004, the Director of ITU-TSB published a memorandum, "ITU and Internet Governance" for public comment. This memorandum includes a proposal to create a new IPv6 address space distribution process, based solely on national authorities. This could have a serious impact on RIPE NCC Members, Internet operators and the global Internet community at large. The Number Resource Organization (NRO), on behalf of the Regional Internet Registries, has prepared a public response to the ITU memorandum detailing the flaws of the proposal and the negative impact it would have on Internet operations. A summary of this response is available at: http://www.nro.net/documents/nro18.html The full response is available at: http://www.nro.net/documents/nro17.html The original ITU memorandum is available at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-T/tsb-director/itut-wsis/files/zhao-netgov01.doc We urge our members and others in the Internet community to make their views about this issue known. Without your support being *visible* and *explicit* the bottom-up, consensus based model on which the success of the Internet has been founded may be replaced by the top-down bureaucracy of "Internet Governance". To show your support: * RIPE NCC Members: Log in to the LIR Portal and tick the support box. If you do not have an LIR Portal account, please e-mail your expression of support to [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Non-members: Please e-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] An e-mail archive of expressions of support will be available at: http://www.ripe.net/maillists/ncc-archives/im-support/ * ITU-TSB Members: Please also contact your ITU member state representative to voice your concerns you might have. Internet number resource distribution is fair and accessible to all. Its policy development process is open and transparent. It works. Let us keep it that way. === # distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [EMAIL PROTECTED] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
General Principle of Narrative (Violence) Under Capital
General Principle of Narrative (Violence) Under Capital 1. The general principal of narrative under capital is _withholding._ 2. In withholding, information, which would propel the narrative forward, is withheld in order to lengthen, not enrich, the diegetic flow. 3. Within capital, lengthening implies additional penny-dreadful or feuilleton segments. 4. This is accomplished by suspense, but beneath the 'sign of capital,' withholding is literally the order of the day. 5. Withholding is accompanied by local omniscience. 6. Example 0: In the book of Job, Yhwh waits until the three friends and Elihu have finishes their dialogs - at which point, the configuration of his power is enunciated. Note political economy, enumeration of children, servants, flocks, etc. 7. Example 1: In Dracula, Van Helsinger leads various people at various times to Lucy's crypt, demonstrating the corpse is or is not present, without explaining his belief in her vampirism, which is only revealed later. 8. Example 2: Almost any television/film: "What happened?" - "I don't have time to explain. Come with me." - or some such. 9. Example 3: Almost any US newscast? "Why did _x_? - We'll tell you after the break." 10. Example 4: The US military control of theoretically omniscient reportage or critique: the "embedded" journalist who becomes an advertisement for ideology and policy. 11. Example 5: Lyotard's differend returned with a vengeance: The withholding and withering of entire populations. 12. I don't have time to explain. Come with me. I can't tell you yet. We don't have any time to lose. You'll see in a while. We can't discuss this. We can't bring the cops in on this. The authorities would be all over us. We've got to go it alone. Believe in me. Trust me. 13. The Christology is apparent: Believe, not because it is absurd, but because of the fury of fast-forward time. Not a moment to lose: Kill the heathens. Fallujah? No time for the convoys. We've got to move on. We've got to move in. 14. The withholding promises a completion at _the end of time._ You'll see in a while. Hold your horses. Dramatic time is time deferred, pornographic time, differance-time. 15. The time of capital is continuous deferment. Iraq, Iran, Syria, USA, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Tiero del Fuego. The chain is random, arbitrary, except for the withholder. The withholder makes it up as it goes along. The withholder has a grand plan. The withholder is national. The withholder knows better. Re-elect Bush: We can't change horses in mid-stream. The driver knows. Withholding is always driven, always the sublimation and exfoliation, the production of capital. 16. What is withheld is almost always within the differend. What is withheld no longer speaks, not at all, or speaks only at the end of time. 17. The end of time when the differend speaks: defuge, useless, wastage. No one listens. The control of news is the control of the imminent, the explosion of the leading story. The rest is debris. 18. God sets the scene in Job. Gods speaks of the fecundity of the earth. God ensures his construct. Job is reduced either to silence or acquiescence. The dialog is over. 19. Withholding has moved from biblical narrative through popular narrative into the heart of news. It drives narrative forward. It has eliminated other forms of suspense; the "whodunit" has been replaced by the unfolding of Armageddon. Look at the Rapture, grown into an Amerikan industry; look at our Wars themselves. We know whodunit; we watch the pornography of unfolding, the _pli,_ the baroque which hides the raw vicissitudes of Power. 20. Omniscience is hidden, parcelling out effect and affect. Omniscience is the Amerikan lie come true, the lie of capital, planetary corrosion. The largest life-forms are fungal nets beneath the soil in the upper Mid-West. The largest life-masses are the single-celled organisms occupying rock strata beneath the surface of the earth. God waited while everyone talked. The news promises the answer to the question after the commercial. 21. The commercial is delivered; the news is the hiatus, the gap. At times (CNN Headline News for example), the question is not even answered; it is forgotten in the rush of passing content. "Whatever happened to Baby Jane? - News at 10." At 10, the news is silent, but the audience is present, continuing the violating narrative of the planet, what capital allows to pass for news. 22. "To be distracted by questions of administrative forms, race hatreds, man hunts, or socialisation of everything but the national debt, is merely swallowing the sucker-bait." (Ezra Pound, 1953.) 23. The ultimate withholding occurs with the _manhunt_ which is already foreclosed. The manhunt distracts from the world. The double-withholding: capital offers the scapegoat; the dead and wounded in Fallujah are withheld. Withholding occurs in the midst of battle which is never announced, never enunciated. Withholding creates a _story._ A _story_ promises
