You want to know what Anonymous really is?

Read this.

I would pull a citation, but you have to see the entire thing. This is the modern version of an epic poem. It is, in its entirety, a work devoted to the description of Anonymous.

As such, there is virtually nothing that can be lifted, quoted, gleaned, analyzed, without looking at the rest of it. Without realizing that it contradicts itself several times. Without noticing different contributors making fun of each other as they make fun of someone else. Without looking at all the links, shitty pop-ups the links generate, and without wondering in the back of your head if one of the embedded videos is installing a keylogger on your computer. Without realizing that it is all on Encyclopedia Dramatica, and all that that entails.

And then look at the talk page.

This is the key. You cannot have a discussion about what Anonymous is, without it turning into a flame war, a joke, a flame war joke, a joke of a flame war, and a reference to some other joke flame war. And if that reference isn’t funny enough, that will start a flame war.

Check out this section in particular. A legitimate flame war becomes a joke, then a more meta joke, and then a joke about comment threads, and then a discussion of signature gifs. And then everyone disperses, and goes back to the jokes.

The minute anyone says, “this is definitely what Anonymous is” is a chance for Anonymous to prove you wrong in the largest of ways. So instead, let me propose a hypothetical situation:

Imagine that there was a technology that was a sort of “word-layer” over the world, that was like the world, and about the world, and yet significantly different from the world that the rest of the world could still be called “real life” (or RL). And then, in this layer, people made jokes. Eventually, the jokes got so elaborate that they spilled over into RL, even though everyone often treated things as if they couldn’t. This became part of the joke. The joke grew, until there were many different parts of the joke, some of which acted like they were from RL and moved into the word-layer, and others acted like they were from the word-layer and moved to RL. Part of the joke became that you couldn’t tell what was a joke and what wasn’t, because part of the joke was to treat RL like it wasn’t a joke, even though it was. And the minute that anyone tried to show distinctly and clearly what the difference between RL and the word-layer was, between what the joke and seriousness was, it automatically became part of the joke.

And in the end, part of the joke was to destroy a country’s economy.

Or, take down a credit card web site, in RL, which is this world. What is so strange about Anonymous is that it both is a joke, and it isn’t. Maybe some people think it is serious, and some people think it is all about lulz, and some people think it is lame, and other people think it is important. But it ends up existing anyway. It is like a running mob, that suddenly spells out a catch phrase when viewed from space. Why not? It’s possible. And it’s happening now.

The amazing thing would be that an issue of international importance like Wikileaks actually cohered with Anonymous, except that it isn’t really amazing. This is just the way that the word-layer and RL will interact from now on. This is reality. Try and get a grip.

The media has their narratives, of hacktivism, and trolls, and spies, and laws. But the joke is that all of these are part of the same joke. Just because you try to isolate the narratives into “a story of justice”, “US national security”, “free-speech”, “the ever-search for lulz”, “opportunity for historic activism” or whatever, does not mean than anything on the earth happens in isolation of anything else. It is all part of the same beast. We see a DDoS attack against a credit card company, or a credit card company use the State Department to sway foreign officials, or a mouthy internet user make “official statements” on the internet, or a man arrested for operating a web site. What does anything have to do with the other? People are dead. Other people are rich. Some people’s day was ruined. Other people were embarrassed. Some people laughed. What is the end result? Human history. The world, every damn day. Welcome to the never-ending old sick twisted mostly unfunny joke that is life. The human mob, again and again and again. Until there are none of us left.

So what is Anonymous? Whatever you want. In my definition, the closest that a boring and trite platitude can get to summing up human existence while still missing it completely. Sorry. Add your own politics/doom/disappointment/enthusiasm/distrust/anger/fear/love. It’s jokes, all the way down.

The only problem with my definition is that it isn’t funny enough.

READ – A list of every organization and company that has so far shut the door on Wikileaks.

Speculative Fiction:

The widespread lockout of Wikileaks causes a proliferation of third-party “Pirate Party” services for financial, information, and other infrastructure. In the course of 3-4 weeks, an entire shadow internet, banking, media, and even certain physical logistics network is set up. Run by… who?

Clearly a total fiction, because even if there was enough public ire to demand these “diaspora” services, they could not just spring from nowhere. Money, servers, time, skill, etc. All necessary, and highly doubtful that these could be put together quickly enough to take advantage of the outrage of pro-Wikileakers willing to migrate right now.

But infrastructure is very important. Wikileaks is forced to hang on as it can, finding sanctuary where possible, and hiding its infrastructure that is still solid.

But all of these lockouts is making me think, mostly because I can’t think of anything similar in recent history where so many companies have turned against a (somewhat) public group like this. Feel free to chime in if you can think of a comparison, but meanwhile, let me run down this list of facts and presumed facts.

- Wikileaks publishes documents that are marked secret by the US government, in active disregard of their request, though it seems highly dubious that doing so is actually illegal. They are not the first group to do something like this, though the scale and press regarding the leak are seemingly unprecedented.

- The direct infrastructure by which they publicize these documents is attacked both by DDoS “groups”, and by commerical ISPs. Note: what was attacked was not the infrastructure by which they published the documents, which were released to media, and are no doubt safe in many repositories all over the world. Their web presence, which channels their publicity, was attacked. Their public “power to the people” face was attacked, not their actual existence. Also, their main page for channeling donations: which was the beginning of the attack on their financial infrastructure.

- The second level of infrastructure to be attacked is the finance. The details of Wikileaks finances are not known, maintained with a good deal of secrecy and front-groups. The reason for this is that, undoubtedly, this infrastructure would be extremely vulnerable to attack, either by governments or lawsuits by those Wikileaks has confronted. Julian Assange admits as much in this WSJ article, that also gives some background into what parts of this infrastructure are known.

- The criminal allegations against Julian Assange in Sweden notwithstanding, there are no criminal allegations against Wikileaks the organization, nor any companies or entities that are part of their infrastructure. Plenty of talk, but no warrants, charges, etc.

– Wikileaks has had their infrastructure attacked before. In 2008 details of anonymous Cayman Islands accounts from the Bank Julius Baer company were leaked via Wikileaks, allegedly exposing money laundering, corruption, etc. The bank responded by suing, and getting an injunction to force Dynabot, Wikileaks’ domain registrar at the time, to drop Wikileaks. After civil liberties groups came to Wikileaks aid, the judge lifted the injunction. They were also sued by Kaupthing Bank over documents exposing irregularities and write-offs prior to the Icelandic Bank collapse.

- Wikileaks claims it is holding information from inside Bank of America.

Now: let’s look at the hits on the publicity infrastructure. Companies involved are Tableau Software, Amazon, and everyDNS. Financial Infrastructure? PayPal, PostFinance, MasterCard, and Visa.

I’m going to suggest that these hits are not “politically” motivated. Tableau Software admits to being pressured by the office of Senator Joe Lieberman, but there is no other evidence that the US government or any other government pressured any of the other groups. Naturally, they could be lying. But they could also have motivation of their own. And a company’s biggest motivation is money.

Amazon could have faced a potential Christmas season boycott in America from anti-Wikileaks ideologues. That argument seems logical, but how many Christmas shoppers would forgo their gifts in order to make a point about a website isn’t clear. But would any of the others have faced boycott? Would Americans really boycott MasterCard or Visa for refusing to dump Wikileaks, when most of us owe a significant amount of money to these companies already? Even PayPal, the credit card of the internet, suffering much of a reaction seems implausible. Or a Swiss bank? Maybe everyDNS could have been susceptible to boycott, but it still seems doubtful.

What about the link to Bank of America? All of the financial institutions that have pulled moves on Wikileaks’ infrastructure have close ties to Bank of America, with the exception of Tableau and everyDNS. “Close ties” doesn’t even cover it. They are part of a mutual system that generates billions of dollars in revenue a year for all of them.

This is pure speculation. This is just looking at information I found in 15 minutes of Internet research. But it seems like a judgment one would have to at least propose. What could the US government or an irate public really do to any of these institutions? But what could Bank of America do? Or what could Wikileaks potentially do against any of these entities? It seems quite likely that this is not just a rebuttal to the Embassy Cables leak. It seems like a financial offensive in its own right. A lawsuit is premature–there would have to be an actual case made, and an assumption of guilt on the part of the suing party like in the case of Bank Julian Baers or Kaupthing. But how easy is it to call a fellow member on a board of directors, and get some strings pulled? All too easy. So easy, that it would be surprising if they didn’t.

This recent link is big news, and really catapults Wikileaks into a spotlight. Also, the delayed release of these cables means that we are going to be hearing the word “Wikileaks” every day for over a year, at least. Wikileaks is a threat, not in an ideological free-speech hacker-anarchism sort of way, but in a very real way to people might be exposed, and potentially lose millions if not billions of dollars.

I don’t know which would make me more paranoid and suspicious: if the US government was after me, or if the Bank of America was after me.

And also, think of this: if the US government isn’t as interested in going after Wikileaks or isn’t as able to through its channels as financial entities are, what does this say for the future of you and me? At what point will be need a shadow infrastructure to escape from the reach of these instutitons?

Speculative indeed.

Check this out. Philip Crowley answering questions in the daily State Department Press Briefing. Quoted un-interrupted for effect.

QUESTION: Some of the governments that have been mentioned in these cables are heavily censoring press in terms of releasing some of this information. How do you feel about that? (Laughter.)

MR. CROWLEY: The official position of the United States Government and the State Department has not changed. We value a vibrant, active, aggressive media. It is important to the development of civil society in this country and around the world. Our views have not changed, even if occasionally there are activities which we think are unhelpful and potentially harmful.

QUESTION: Do you know if the State Department regards WikiLeaks as a media organization?

MR. CROWLEY: No. We do not.

QUESTION: And why not?

MR. CROWLEY: WikiLeaks is not a media organization. That is our view.

QUESTION: So P.J., going back to the answer to your last question, have you contacted governments that have been censoring this to protest that – or sites that they have –

MR. CROWLEY: I’m not in a position to say what governments have done or what conversations have occurred between governments and media. There’s – certainly, there are countries around the world that do not have as robust a focus on these issues as ours does. That’s probably not a surprise to us, and when we do meet with these governments, we talk about media issues among key human rights issues. Our dialogue is not going to change over this.

QUESTION: P.J., on that subject of WikiLeaks, Amazon, as we know, did have them on their server for a time and then stopped doing that. And there’s a human rights group that says that Amazon was directed by the U.S. Government to stop that relationship. Do you know anything –

MR. CROWLEY: All I can say is I’m not aware of any contacts between the Department of State and Amazon.

QUESTION: Or the U.S. Government or just State?

MR. CROWLEY: I’m not in a position on this particular issue to talk about the entire government. I’m just not aware of any contacts directly.

QUESTION: From your perspective, what is WikiLeaks? How do you define them, if it is not a media organization, then?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, as the Secretary said earlier this week, it is – one might infer it has many characteristics of some internet sites. Not every internet site you would call a media organization or a news organization. We’re focused on WikiLeaks’s behavior, and I have had personally conversations with media outlets that are reporting on this, and we have had the opportunity to express our specific concerns about intelligence sources and methods and other interests that could put real lives at risk.

Mr. Assange, in a letter to our Ambassador in the United Kingdom over the weekend, after documents had been released to news organizations, made what we thought was a halfhearted gesture to have some sort of conversation, but that was after he released the documents and after he knew that they were going to emerge publicly. So I think there’s been a very different approach. And Mr. Assange obviously has a particular political objective behind his activities, and I think that, among other things, disqualifies him as being considered a journalist.

QUESTION: What is his political objective?

QUESTION: The same letter –

MR. CROWLEY: Hmm?

QUESTION: What is his political objective?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, his – I mean he could be considered a political actor. I think he’s an anarchist, but he’s not a journalist.

QUESTION: So his objective is to sow chaos, you mean?

MR. CROWLEY: Well, I mean, you all come here prepared to objectively report the activities of the United States Government. I think that Mr. Assange doesn’t meet that particular standard.

QUESTION: But just so I understand, P.J., what – I mean you just said the – that you thought he was –

MR. CROWLEY: Well, but I mean – let me – he’s not a journalist. He’s not a whistleblower. And there – he is a political actor. He has a political agenda. He is trying to undermine the international system of — that enables us to cooperate and collaborate with other governments and to work in multilateral settings and on a bilateral basis to help solve regional and international issues.

What he’s doing is damaging to our efforts and the efforts of other governments. They are putting at risk our national interest and the interests of other governments around the world. He is not an objective observer of anything. He is an active player. He has an agenda. He’s trying to pursue that agenda, and I don’t think he can – he can’t qualify as either a journalist on the one hand or a whistleblower on the other.

QUESTION: Sorry. What is that agenda, that political agenda? Can you be more –

MR. CROWLEY: I’ll leave it for Mr. Assange to define his agenda. He has been interviewed by some of your news organizations. He has the ability to talk for himself. But you asked — I was asked a specific question, “Do we consider him a journalist?” The answer is no.

QUESTION: In the same letter, he said that U.S. is trying to suppress the whole thing about human rights abuses. And do you agree with his contention that the U.S. is –

MR. CROWLEY: I found very little that Mr. Assange has said that we agree with.

Get that? Let’s summarize. The State Department deplores censorship of the media. But Wikileaks is not a media organizaton.

So if it is not a media organization, what does the State Department think it is?

[I]t has many characteristics of some internet sites. Not every internet site you would call a media organization or a news organization. We’re focused on WikiLeaks’s behavior….

And that behavior?

Mr. Assange obviously has a particular political objective behind his activities, and I think that, among other things, disqualifies him as being considered a journalist.

And that political objective? Despite being an anarchist, of course.

He’s not a whistleblower. And there – he is a political actor. He has a political agenda. He is trying to undermine the international system of — that enables us to cooperate and collaborate with other governments and to work in multilateral settings and on a bilateral basis to help solve regional and international issues.

What he’s doing is damaging to our efforts and the efforts of other governments. They are putting at risk our national interest and the interests of other governments around the world. He is not an objective observer of anything. He is an active player. He has an agenda. He’s trying to pursue that agenda, and I don’t think he can – he can’t qualify as either a journalist on the one hand or a whistleblower on the other.

So to do anything that might directly risk US interests and other governments’ interests is a political objective. So-called “objective reporting”, and even legitimate “whistleblower” status, must not contradict government objectives. Because that would make it political.

I don’t think I have to drag out the political theory to describe this as patently ridiculous. We don’t have to realize that everyday life is always political to acknowledge that, for example, suing the government over an eminent domain case and thereby challenging government objectives is a legitimate act. Endorsing a candidate is a legitimate act. Exposing corruption is a legitimate act. A media organization, a private citizen, whomever–they can do these things without attracting the ire of the State Department, without being anarchists.

The word I believe Mr. Crowley is looking for is “activist”.

To be in the media these days, to be a private citizen, is to be an activist. Either you stand up, or you sit down. If in this time politics includes web-borne leaks, a precipitous control of information, personal secrecy, and the ability to run a world-wide info-anarchist organization simply by being able to maintain a website (DDOS or not), then any person who forwards email is an activist. We already know that anyone who blogs can be part of the media. We’ve already fought this battle. What we’re learning now is that it isn’t about being media. You don’t have to be media to be in the right place at the right time, snap a photo with a cell phone and put it on your Twitter feed, and change the world. Maybe the media will reserve a certain sort of objective reporting, and write editorial columns to MLA standard. That is, as long as that sort of thing continues to be profitable. But the people who change the world with media won’t necessarily be media. They… YOU will be activists.

All activists have political objectives of their own. These political objectives are of minimal importance. Each piece of media is taken by various agencies, individuals, government entities, blogs, aggregators, and remixers, and interpreted in all of the ways that media is consumed and reproduced. Maybe that political objective is passed along, but it could easily be reversed or ignored.

This is no surprise to anyone who is not the Department of State. But what is a surprise to the rest of us is that all of a sudden, censorship of activists–that is, censorship of anyone who produces, holds, retransmits, or consumes media that is potentially contrary to the objectives of the State–is now permitted. Freedom of the press is obsolete, become obsolete with the presses and the publications they produced. In this present day future, the only protection is “objectivity”, of the kind that is never activist. Of the kind that is not contrary to the objectives of governments. Freedom of media is problem for other countries. Whereas, control of anarchists is the problem the State Department faces.

Julian Assange has made every person with a blog a potential anarchist. The real control of whether or not you are an anarchist, is how much the government disagrees with you.

US Passport 4x

US Passport 10x

US Passport 40x

US Passport 40x+

These are some of my favorite Small Stuff pictures so far. Passports are one of the few instances of really quality print today. While much of bureaucracy is trending towards the electronic, and thankfully so, passports remain an application of delicate print, where the delicacy is used as a security measure. This is my old passport, pre-RFID, so the design has changed. But you can see the important of the grain of the paper, as well as an overlay of litho inks done in precise colors. A color copy of a passport, done on even the best quality digital equipment, would be instantly recognizable on simple magnification. To create a decent forgery, one would have to have the exact plates, ink, and paper used in the official version, and even then I am sure there are other techniques and indicators in the print process I don’t know that would let an expert tell the different.

I don’t have a full essay in my head about Wikileaks, but I do have a little blog post in me. Something called so historical, even if it is not, bears a little bit of thought on whether or not it is.

Largely, I’m in favor of Wikileaks and the recent leaks that have provoked such historical emotions. Embarrassment is one of the worst reasons to keep a secret. And furthermore, anyone who argues that the truth ought to remain hidden should really think about whom this would benefit. Regardless of your opinion of Julian Assange or Wikileaks’ philosophy, what is really in question is the documents themselves. Arguing that you, either as American citizen or citizen of the world, would prefer to be lied to about government activities and opinions around the world, displays such a head-in-the-sand attitude that if I kicked you in the ass, you’d probably break your neck. Lies have utility. But the truth’s utility is greater. Considering that lies’ utility hasn’t gotten us anything other than a generally rotten foreign policy and two long wars, I think it’s time to give truth a shot.

Furthermore, look at the amount of these cables that seem related to ensuring the stability Western investment abroad–not lives, infrastructure, or ecosystems. That benefits investors, not you and me. And if you think that investors should lie to improve their profits, then you are on the side of Bank of America, Enron, BP, and every capitalist that has even stolen, lied, and assaulted their employees to benefit themselves. So, bear that in mind.

But all that aside, let us look at the historicity of this event. Much is made of Assange, because every story needs its central character, and because that makes Wikileaks easier to assault. There is a head of that snake, which the Canadians could assassinate, or who could be brought up on charges, or about whom jingoistic jerks could make any number of threats to make themselves feel awesome. There’s also Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked the documents originally, and who will almost certainly be brought up on charges.

But I think the emphasis on these two characters is misplaced. Certainly, these documents would not be leaked to Wikileaks if each of them had not taken the steps that they have taken, at least according to the narrative of this event. But does that mean that in an alternate, Assange/Manning-free dimension, these documents would still be secret?

I say that they would still be released. This is obviously a broken hypothesis, because unless we could prove that other dimensions exist, peak into them, and then come back into our realm without tearing time-space, there is no way to prove or disprove it. And yet, this is what proves it for me. Because there is no way to prove what would happen without the presence of these two actors, the question is mute. But what this means is that transitively, we cannot prove the positive causality of these actors actions, either. The basis of causality is “for every action an equal and opposite reaction”. But what if without the action, the reaction was still there? Schrodinger’s Cat begs us withhold judgement on causality until we find out for sure. Naturally, at first glance these two are (allegedly) “responsible”. But to attribute a unique historical causality to these events, imbued by wills of these two people, would require additional, and impossible, proof in the negative. IF Assange and Manning are historically necessary for the exposure of these documents, THEN their absence would result in these documents never being exposed in such a way. Regardless of what is likely, what is plausible, or what is “close enough”, there is no way to say for sure. In another dimension, literally ANYTHING could happen. The cat could be both dead and alive.

I don’t strictly believe in the will, and I also don’t strictly believe in fate. Both are ways of explaining causality. The former links historical causality to direct human action. The latter links historical causality to a lack of direct human action. Clearly, human action plays a role in all historical occurrences we call “events”. But to what extent? Solely and directly? Or only tangentially and haphazardly? We can say neither with assurance. I love the Final Destination series for this reason. The plot of these films implies a strong role for the tangential and haphazard in controlling events. There is a “fate” (again, a characterization for the purpose of telling a story) that would see these attractive young people dead. But, Fate could not murder them if the scissors had not been placed at such an angle, if a desire to drink tea hadn’t led to a spill of liquid on a wood floor, which you live over because you hate carpet, and if the mouse hadn’t run past your leg, leading your cat to tangle your steps at the exact moment… and so on. Human action is not irrelevant, it is just so much smaller than the larger network of “Fate”, which is the culmination of all the abstract, obscure, and eventually murderous effects of human action that we would ordinarily consider irrelevant and unrelated. And this is the horror aspect of the film–the horror is not that we can’t control our fate, but that EVERYTHING we do controls our fate, from leaving a toothbrush at a certain angle, to taking the car rather than the bus, to sitting facing the sun rather than away. Your life is always at risk, and everything you do minimizes or increases that risk. THE WORLD IS OUT TO GET YOU, simply by being the world. Death is stalking you simply by you being mortal. And who could prove any different, without visiting another world exactly similar except for a few small differences, to see if that world is out to get you any less?

So, if Assange/Manning didn’t exist would these documents still be exposed? Yes, because while these two individuals may have had the dedication to certain anarchistic and populist goals, this is a world of 6 billion people. The chance that others, given the same opportunity, would have done the same, is great. 3 million Americans had access to these documents–the surprising thing is not that they leaked. It is surprising that they didn’t leak sooner. Secrets are meant to be shared. You can quote me on that. The motivations that would lead someone to keep information to themselves is exactly the same as the motivations that would lead someone to share that information. It is entropy. As secrets pile up, they will eventually spill. Secrets are created, just as higher energy systems will develop from humble beginnings, but only to eventually return to earth. As I said, there are 6 billion people out there. The real irrational attribution of historical will is to assume that you alone, puny human, are strong enough to keep a secret. Harriet the Spy learned this lesson. Why didn’t the State Department? All it takes is a few anarchistic hackers, and all of your brilliant powers of international intrigue are posted on a website.

What is historical here? The status quo. Someone tried to build a big tower, and then it fell down. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. This is what humans do. We can remark on the particular humans that seemed to have affected this particular collapse, but we can’t praise them or blame them. We can only acknowledge them as equal variables in the massive human equation, outliers perhaps, until they return to the center and click into place in the algorithm. So if you want to blame anyone, blame yourself. We’re all equally human, and we’re all part of the system that kept the secrets, and part of the system that leaked the secrets. To call anyone more deserving of blame, or blameless, is to take a view of history that blames the bullets for the wounds they cause. Persecute them if you will. Try and keep all pointy sticks and cats out of your path. But the minute the point of a blade finds you, it doesn’t matter how many you dodged in the past.

And yet, we all keep trying to dodge. Every single day.

Smith-Corona Typewriter 4x

Black and White Toner 4x

The imprint of a typewriter compared to a black and white copier shot from Monday. A typewriter is similar to a letterpress, in which every character is created by a pre-molded piece of type. This creates sharp lines and the characteristic imprint in the piece of paper, but also necessitates setting each page of text before hand. A “laser” style toner machine uses an image loop charged with ions to create a one-off “plate” for adhering toner to paper. The lines are much less precise, but can be reset hundreds of times a minute during printing.

4 color process toner 10x

Digital color printers also use the 4 color process method, but with toner rather than ink. Compared to litho printing, the toners can melt and achieve a smoother color gradient, depending on the size of the toner. Also, because the toner is more translucent than ink, overprinting achieves a color gradient as well.