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Topic 22 of 40 [internet]: Cyberwar: The Information Revolution and Warfare
Response 3 of 7: wer (KitchenManager) * Sat, Feb 28, 1998 (00:29) * 4 lines
Cool...gotta get in on these...
nothing like adding a little Discordian
disinformation to the government's filing
system...
Topic 22 of 40 [internet]: Cyberwar: The Information Revolution and Warfare
Response 4 of 7: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sat, Feb 28, 1998 (11:51) * 82 lines
From: Geert Lovink
Message-Id: <199801201140.MAA02543@xs2.xs4all.nl>
Subject: ars 98 on Infowar
To: nettime-l@Desk.nl
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 1998 12:40:39 +0100 (MET)
INFOWAR
In 1998, under the banner of "INFO WAR", the Ars Electronica Festival of
Art, Technology and Society, is appealing to artists, theoreticians and
technologists for contributions relating to the social and political
definition of the information society. The emphasis here will lie not on
technological flights of fancy, but on the fronts drawn up in a society
that is in a process of fundamental and violent upheaval.
The information society - no longer a vague promise of a better future,
but a reality and a central challenge of the here-and-now - is founded
upon the three key technologies of electricity, telecommunications and
computers: Technologies developed for the purposes, and out of the logic,
of war, technologies of simultaneity and coherence, keeping our civilian
society in a state of permanent mobilisation driven by the battle for
markets, resources and spheres of influence. A battle for supremacy in
processes of economic concentration, in which the fronts, no longer drawn
up along national boundaries and between political systems, are defined by
technical standards. A battle in which the power of knowledge is managed
as a profitable monopoly of its distribution and dissemination.
The latest stock market upheavals have laid bare the power of a global
market, such as only the digital revolution could have fathered, and which
must be counted as the latter=BCs most widely-felt direct outcome. The
digitally-networked market of today wields more power than the
politicians. Governments are losing their say in the international value
of their currencies; they can no longer control, but only react. The
massive expansion of freely-accessible communication networks, itself a
global economic necessity, imposes severe constraints on the arbitrary
restriction of information flows.
Any transgression of a critical control functions in the
cybertechnologies=BC sphere of responsibility and influence puts central
power wielders in a hitherto unheard-of position of vulnerability and
openness to attack. The geographic frontiers of the industrial age are
increasingly losing their erstwhile significance in global politics, and
giving way to vertical fronts along social stratifications.
Whereas, in the past, war was concerned with the conquering of territory,
and later with the control of production capacities, war in the 21st
century is entirely concerned with the acquisition and exercise of power
over knowledge. The three fronts of land, sea and air battles have been
joined by a fourth, being set up within the global information systems.
Spurred on by the "successes" of the Gulf war, the development of
information warfare is running at full speed. Increasingly, the attention
of the military strategists is turning away from computer-aided warfare -
>from potentiation of the destructive efficiency of military operations
through the application of information technology, virtual reality and
high-tech weaponry - to cyberwar, whose ultimate target is nothing less
than the global information infrastructure itself: annihilation of the
enemy=BCs computer and communication systems, obliteration of his databases,
destruction of his command and control systems. Yet increasingly the vital
significance of the global information infrastructure for the functioning
of the international finance markets compels the establishment of new
strategic objectives: not obliteration, but manipulation, not destruction,
but infiltration and assimilation. "Netwar" as the tactical deployment of
information and disinformation, targeted at human understanding. These new
forms of post-territorial conflicts, however, have for some time now
ceased to be preserve of governments and their ministers of war. NGOs,
hackers, computer freaks in the service of organised crime, and terrorist
organisations with high-tech expertise are now the chief actors in the
cyberguerilla nightmares of national security services and defence
ministries.
In 1998, under the banner of "INFO WAR", the Ars Electronica Festival of
Art, Technology and Society, is appealing to artists, theoreticians and
technologists for contributions relating to the social and political
definition of the information society. The emphasis here will lie not on
technological flights of fancy, but on the fronts drawn up in a society
that is in a process of fundamental and violent upheaval.
see also: http://web.aec.at/infowar/eng.html
Topic 22 of 40 [internet]: Cyberwar: The Information Revolution and Warfare
Response 5 of 7: Alexander Schuth (aschuth) * Thu, May 6, 1999 (12:27) * 3 lines
The NetAid event of Belgrad radio B92 is something of a David-vs-Goliath uphill-struggle on the Web. There's a great lineup of artists supporting them (Sonic Youth, Mike Watts, etc.).
Read more in the B92 topic: http://www.spring.net/yapp-bin/restricted/read/radio/28 .
Topic 22 of 40 [internet]: Cyberwar: The Information Revolution and Warfare
Response 6 of 7: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Jul 5, 2001 (09:42) * 79 lines
Cybermania Takes Iran by Surprise
Youths Swarm Online; Tehran Scrambles to Respond
By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, July 4, 2001; 12:00 AM
TEHRAN – Arash Fahimi is a teenager in a nation that frowns on dating,
outlaws rock music and offers a 17-year-old almost no chance for
travel beyond its borders.
But Fahimi, like hundreds of thousands of young Iranians, has
discovered an escape from his cultural cocoon. Sitting at a computer
terminal in an Internet cafe, he downloads the latest Western pop music
hits and chats daily with cyber-acquaintances around the globe. He
even found a girlfriend on the Internet.
"I want to have a better idea of what the world is like," said Fahimi,
earphones clamped under a Nike baseball cap and fingers tapping out a
chat room response on his screen. "If I can't make a trip abroad, the
Internet is the best way."
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, where public behavior is stringently
regulated and citizens fear arrest for speaking their minds, the
Internet is transforming personal lifestyles and liberating public
expression at a pace that a technologically handicapped bureaucracy has
been unable to control.
Although Iran lags behind much of the world in Internet use – service
became widely available only about 18 months ago – it is now escalating
so rapidly that the government has been caught off guard. Officials
are drafting rules and preparing software and equipment for controlling
Internet access and service, but authorities say it is unclear whether
restrictions will be implemented, and if they are, how effective they
would be.
For now, chat rooms have become the new, uncensored recreation centers
for young people with few places to socialize or express political
views. Web sites offer a link for gays and lesbians to meet in a
culture where homosexuality remains taboo. They provide a forum for
dissenting opinions in a country where the conservative-controlled
judiciary has shut down nearly 40 reformist newspapers and magazines in
the past year. They can be a conduit for sending flowers to mom or
making software-related U.S. business deals despite U.S. sanctions.
Internet cafes, or "coffeenets" in Iranian parlance, are opening in
Tehran at the rate of about one a day, with an estimated 450 now
operating, according to government and business estimates. Some private
Internet service providers claim the number of new subscribers each
month is more than triple the number of just over a year ago.
"One-and-one-half years ago there were two Internet cafes in Tehran,"
said Madjid Emami, 30, a graduate of the University of California at
Berkeley who returned to his homeland seven years ago and recently
started Pars Online, a private Internet service provider, with a group
of friends. "Now there's an Internet cafe on every corner. Even tea
shops are putting computers in."
Government and private service providers estimate that 350,000 to 1
million Iranians use the Internet – mostly through universities,
government agencies and Internet cafes – up from 2,000 users five years
ago. The cafes charge about $2 for an hour online.
Rather than lash out at the potential evils of the Internet, many of
the country's highest-ranking clerics have created their own Web sites
– as the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said –
to "answer religious questions, to introduce the jurisprudential
decrees of Imam Khomeini (may Allah's blessings be upon him)" and to
offer their own interpretation of Islam.
But government authorities are raising concerns over the uses of the
Internet and debating what to do about them.
"The state is concerned with the security problems the Internet might
bring. Anyone can put what they want on a site without being tracked,"
said Shahram Sharif, 29, a reporter who covers computer issues for the
daily newspaper Hambastegi. "One day the Internet will conflict with
the interests of the state. They are going to have to decide whether it
will be filtered or whether they'll leave it free. Now, it's all open
to question."
Several weeks ago, police shut down nearly all Internet cafes in
Tehran, claiming they lacked operating licenses. Owners discovered the
government had placed a notice in a little-read newspaper several
months earlier warning them to obtain permits. All but a handful of the
cafes have since been licensed and reopened, officials said.
"It's the negative points of the Internet we have to fight, not the
Internet itself," said Ahmad Motamedi, who heads the Ministry of Post,
Telegraph and Telephone, which has the most potential authority over
computer access and control.
"
continued at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15729-2001Jul3.html
Topic 22 of 40 [internet]: Cyberwar: The Information Revolution and Warfare
Response 7 of 7: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Fri, Jun 28, 2002 (11:07) * 31 lines
Kit Fit for the Future
Shines at Paris Arms Fair
Mon Jun 17, 2:41 PM ET
By Estelle Shirbon
VILLEPINTE, France (Reuters) - Forget binoculars. Now you can carry
your own solar-powered spy plane in a backpack and send it flying over
nearby hills while it beams video images back to you.
The drone, about three feet long and equipped with both regular and
infrared cameras for day and night vision, is on display at the
Eurosatory arms fair near Paris, where some 800 exhibitors are showing
the latest in defense equipment.
"I call it the foot-soldier's third eye," said Michel Haigrou, an
engineer at French company Tecknisolar-Seni and one of the
remote-controlled mini spy plane's inventors.
The plane is designed to let soldiers in hostile territory see what is
happening around them, he said. It can be assembled in less than three
minutes and fly a distance of just over half a mile from the person
controlling it.
more @
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=585&ncid=753&e=8&u=/nm/20020617/sc_nm/france_inventions_dc_1
internet conference 
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