Towards Bottom-Up Information Warfare Theory and Practice: Version 1.0 

0.0 Contents

    1.0 Bottom-Up Information Warfare  
    2.0 Negation of Dominant Information Warfare Conceptions  
    3.0 Affirmation of Resistant Information Warfare Conceptions  
    4.0 Resistance to Future War  
    5.0 Global Zapatista Internet Resistance  
    6.0 An Electronic Boston Tea Party 
    7.0 Conclusions 
    8.0 Other Work


1.0 Bottom-Up Information Warfare

    Bottom-up Information Warfare (BUIW) theory/praxis is needed because dominant IW conceptions are not based on our interests, but on the interests of the corporate-state and its military-intelligence community. Bottom-up IW theory/praxis should negate dominant corporate-state/military-intelligence IW theory/praxis and should affirm our digital resistant experience and related theory/praxis. Resistance to future war, totally dependent on information and communication technology (ICT), is a useful area for exploration and elaboration of bottom-up IW theory/praxis. Many of today’s conflicts verge on future war and current resistance to them provide sites for developing bottom-up IW ideas and practice. 

2.0 Negation of Dominant Information Warfare Conceptions

    A negation of dominant corporate-state/military-intelligence IW theory should be based on a close examination of the sources of these dominant conceptions, the content and main conclusions, the underlying assumptions and myths, and the context from which IW theory was produced. Primary sources for dominant IW theory/praxis are U.S. academicians, scholars, and analysts from places like the RAND Corporation, the National Defense University, the U.S. Air Force, other branches of the military, public and private universities, and ‘independent’ think-tanks. Dominant IW theorists argue that, in today’s information society, nations and corporations are increasingly vulnerable to information-based attacks aimed at ICT infrastructure. With the end of the Cold War, the ideology of Information Warfare – often in conjunction with Drug War ideology – provides the state and the military with a new rationale for growth and expansion. 

3.0 Affirmation of Resistant Information Warfare Conceptions

    An affirmation of bottom-up Information Warfare theory/praxis means learning who we are, consolidating our own theory/praxis, and recasting dominant myths and assumptions with ones more suited to our interests. So far, bottom-up Information Warfare actors are an international mix of computerized activists, politicized hackers, new media theorists, digital artists, and others at the juncture of computers, media, radical politics, and the arts. The theoretical basis for bottom-up Information Warfare is from a mix of related sources including work on nomadic warfare (Bey; Deleuze and Guattari), on electronic disturbance and civil disobedience (Critical Art Ensemble), on tactical media (Next Five Minutes), and others. Bottom-up IW praxis is not widespread, but one example of incipient work in this area are the Electronic Civil Disobedience actions against the Mexican government that use a device called FloodNet. 

4.0 Resistance to Future War 

    The Gulf War has been called the first Information War because of the heavy reliance on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for military and propagandistic purposes. Since the Gulf War such reliance on ICT – on InfoWar technology - has become commonplace for both military conflicts, such as in former Yugoslavia and in southern Mexico, as well as for law enforcement efforts, for example, to control drugs and immigration. For all intents and purposes, future war has arrived and people who resist war today are finding that new means of electronic, digital, or virtual resistance are becoming both possible and necessary. Cyberspacial resistance to future war enables polyspacial hybrid forms of resistance that combine the older rural-agrarian and urban-industrial models of warfare, with the newer cyberspacial-informational forms. 

5.0 Global Zapatista Internet Resistance

    A current example of hybrid rural, urban, and cyberspacial resistance is the case of the global pro-Zapatista movement, which has demonstrated how the Internet allows non-state actors to build networks of solidarity and resistance across national borders. Immediately after January 1, 1994, the Zapatistas had a strong Internet presence. Through email listservs like Chiapas95, Cc: lists, and an array of interconnected web sites, a global pro-Zapatista movement formed. This year political communication moved toward political action as, for example, the Electronic Disturbance Theater started Electronic Civil Disobedience actions against the Mexican government. Also on several occasions this year, anti-government and pro-Zapatista messages have been placed on Mexican government web sites. 

6.0 An Electronic Boston Tea Party

    As the Paris Salon is to political communication on the Internet, the Boston Tea Party is to political action; more so it is a metaphor for direct action. Although the bias of Internet politics favors the more passive discursive space of political communication (the salon), things like Electronic Civil Disobedience campaigns against the Mexican government (the tea party) are expanding the range of possibilities. While individuals and small groups have experimented with electronic resistance there is still room for more experimentation and development of techniques and devices. A particularly intriquing idea, that has not been tested, but that has been proposed to Ars Electronica is a proposal for a SWARM, an advanced, multiple source, ECD action happening on different levels and in different spaces, somthing like a simultaneous convergence of numerous electronic Boston Tea Parties. 

7.0 Conclusions

    There is a need for an elaboration and an expansion of bottom-up Information Warfare theory/praxis. For this there needs to be a negation of dominant top-down conceptions of Information Warfare and an affirmation of resistant bottom-up conceptions. The sites of resistance to future war are good locations for further thinking and practice of bottom-up Information Warfare. The global pro-Zapatista movement is one site where such experimention with electronic resistance has taken place. Finally, there needs to be more experimentation and development of electronic techniques and software devices for more advanced electronic civil disobedience. 

8.0 Other Work

  • 8/1/98: Paris Salon or Boston Tea Party? Recasting Electronic Democracy A View From Amsterdam
  • 7/7/98: Rhizomes, Nomads, and Resistant Internet Use
  • 6/17/98: The Electronic Disturbance Theater and Electronic Civl Disobedience
  • 5/14/98: SWARM: An ECD Proposal for Ars Electronica Festival 98
  • 5/5/98: Die Umwandlung des Widerstands der Maschinenstürmer in Einen Virtuellen Widerstand 
  • 4/7/98: Transforming Luddite Resistance Into Virtual Luddite Resistance
  • 3/20/98: On Electronic Civil Disobedience
  • 3/20/98: Digital Zapatismo
  • 5/31/97: The Drug War and Information Warfare in Mexico