The rise of WikiLeaks and the heated response from the US political leadership brought worldwide attention to a little known underground population that calls themselves Anonymous. Some think of it as an organization with certain identifiable members but as Sam, a member of the #WikiLeaks Forums pointed out, this is misunderstanding the nature of this open source action group. In anticipation of the Bank of America DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack that was planned by a section of Anonymous, some pundits were assuming that this was the same organization as Operation Payback, the Pay Pal/Amazon DDoS group. Yet, even though there may be some overlap for those who were involved in this Bank of America action, it was actually a distinct and separate endeavor. Anonymous is not really an organization, in the sense of a centrally lead group. In the article Anonymous, Wikileaks and the Age of Online Activism Paul Sims described how this group works:
The whole point of Anonymous is ultimately a label for a leaderless, loosely -coordinated collection of activists – it doesn’t exist as an organization, there is no membership in the traditional sense and there are no clearly-defined aims …. Those involved can range from pranksters and hackers in it for the sport, to highly-principled activists. Anyone can get involved …. (Dec 9, 2010)
Anonymous generates a fluid movement based on a free flow of information, ideas and calls to action. It is not a top down organization tying people to its agenda and vision. Cass R. Sunstein, a law professor in Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge (2006) described how in the information age an online network creates collaborative shared knowledge seen in the example of Wikipedia and open source software innovation.[1] What is seen in the rising Anonymous movement is the birthing of new form of knowledge. This source of knowledge is anonymous in nature and inherently non-proprietary. It does not come from the top of a hierarchy of an organization or from experts, nor from one identified person leading the current, but is a collective act of thinking together with instant exchange of ideas through social network like twitter, Facebook and message boards around the world.
This kind of knowledge that is produced by the anonymous mass mind is formed by a new intelligence, one that springs out of higher creative faculties such as intuition and imagination. It fosters interconnections within the living organism of society rather than taking things apart and damming up the flow for the power that comes with disseminated mass information and narrow views as with the old form of intellect.
The intelligence that is carried by large institutions such as corporations and governments is bureaucratic in nature. Its top down style of knowledge requires managing a large number of people, and takes a lot of time to process decisions and carry out actions. On the contrary, intelligence that comes through a group like Anonymous emerges spontaneously and moves faster with the collaborative free sharing guided by the principle of open source. Because of this fluidity, the planning and activism carried out by Anonymous can be ahead of corporations and catch them in surprise. The effect of it was seen in DDoS counter attack for the Payback operation. The idea started somewhere and quickly went viral, resulting in a critical mass that then had measurable effective capacity.
Image Credit - commons.wikimedia.org
Also, the intelligence of Anonymous is in a sense directly democratic, as it calls for the resonance of each person, and the free will to engage with the call or cause of the moment, similar to Quaker and Native American circles where the source to knowledge can be from from anyone and each person has a direct access to it. On the other hand, centralized intelligence (as in the CIA or a closed circle at the top of a Corporation) is exclusive and dependent on specialized compartmentalized knowledge. In a kind of survival of the fittest mode, emphasis is given to efficiency by eliminating dissenting and multiple views. This is exemplified in dependence on the status of experts and maintaining control over the flow of information.
Credit Image - current.com
The lightning quick group decisions and the instantaneous cyber-action of Anonymous are a glimpse into the future of what is behind the larger infowar seen in the battle of WikiLeaks vs the Pentagon and any other hidden misuse of power. Here we see the clash of two intelligences. The old form of centralized intelligence represented by CIA and the Corporate conglomeration is resisting the natural human potential that is now coming to realization and available to each individual around the world.
As was stated in the US Declaration of Independence, “that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive …, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form…” Intelligence that comes through Anonymous is anarchistic in nature in a highest sense of the word and brings out new impulses either to replace or renew the established structure. It is as if our ancient wisdom of the world’s interconnectedness is coming through the strident voices of Anonymous and the total game-changing advent of WikiLeaks. Everyone is invited to engage in this battle. The victory of free information in this Infowar is actually a freeing of the human spirit. This battle must be won not only for survival of the species, but also for the greater evolution of humanity.
Notes:
[1] Cass R. Sunstein, Infotopia: How many minds produce knowledge. New York: Oxford University Press. (2006).
Insightful article. I would just further the description of the opposing forces in the infowars by pointing out that this is not just a mental battle. Here in the real world, things can (and probably will) get very ugly should the old intelligence model win. If they should maintain control, they will most assuredly attempt to limit access to information through physical means (afterall, they are the monopolies of violence).
Enter “net neutrality.” The governments and corporations of this world are *NEVER* neutral, and this is merely an Orwellian euphemism for dictatorial control of the internet, and hence, information. Should the old school get control of the Internet, the infowar is over.
It should NEVER be forgotten that the anarchy of the Internet is the ONLY way we’ve been able to reach this point of enlightenment.
Thank you for your comment. I agree with you concerning the importance of net neutrality. The sole point of this article was to shed light to something that is often not carried in the discourse on journalism or technology. Yes, infowar really is about the freeing of information, its access through open source medium in the Internet and net-neutrality that you pointed out here is one critical ingredient. Yet, open source sharing is now much more than sharing music, software development etc. It is now the very act of communication and mass media that are becoming viral and instantaneous in carrying powerful common voice of common consciousnesses. Any attempt to control and bottleneck the medium simply won’t work anymore. The mass awakening of this cannot be monopolistically controlled. If any corporate of government regime was actually successful in squeezing the current internet into a China-like gestapo-Orwell entity, an open source peer to peer internet would pop up to replace it. This genie cannot be put back in the bottle. It is a signal of a total change of consciousness.
I feel what is important to remember is Internet, technology is an ever changing tool. Infowar can seen at the surface level as the battle that evolves the use of that technology, but is in essence a battle of consciousness. Therefore a victory of this battle cannot come simply from the technical realm, but through transformation of consciousnesses, choosing on the one hand between succumbing to fear or narrow ideas of what the future could bring or on the other to an amazing vista of open communication that is both content, event and participant driven. Only awakening the human consciousness can make technology such as the Internet really serve human communication. One form of consciousness which I described with the term old intelligence is power to freeze the flow of communication. The act of monopolization of internet, secrecy and censoring can be simply seen as a manifestation of particular consciousness that dehumanizes humanity, turning it into more like a machine (use of technology as a means of efficiency, cutting out emotional components in the communication, fiscalizing all content etc).
Good thing to note is that there is now a new model out there. Yes internet and net neutrality are important, but if all else fails, no one can stop the evolving of peer to peer communication.
http://www.thevirtualcircle.com/2010/12/wikileaks-this-is-just-the-beginning/
As I said a whole new internet can be based on this, and will not be stopped just as noone can ever stop file-sharing. Technology is simply a tool but one that evolves with the consciousness. For that each individual needs to know what it is to be human in the age of technology.
Yes, point taken, and as much as I believe you are correct about this “common consciousnesses,” such a consciousness depends upon the technology. If we the people lose access to this technology, we lose the cosmic connection as well.
While it’s true the technology cannot be completely contained, it can most definitely be censored and physically policed to render it neutered for a long time– long enough to destroy the recent strides we’ve made. The needed infrastructure for p2p is simply not available (at least, not in a form that is readily accessible to the numbers needed to continue an open share environment) and to my knowledge, it could still be easily “sniffed” out and shut down. While this would mean a world-wide concerted effort on the part of the censors, it could most definitely be done.
As long as the would be internet police remain as behind the times as they are, there may still be time to setup such p2p and disguise/tunnel the headers so that they are not easily identifiable. Until that happens, we too are behind the curve and they are gaining on us.
I agree with CertainQuirk. The internet is the greatest experiment in anarchy the human race has ever seen. If the FCC is allowed to take over the internet then we will be truly screwed.
100% agree with the CertainQuirk
I agree with all of the above.
As for what has actually been revealed by WL, the most obvious fact, to me at least, is the serious lack of intelligent intellect in the centralized Intelligents’ organizations, world-wide.
However, as many others have stated, I have not seen one word written, let alone spoken, about any action that has been taken to bring to justice ALL – from the highest to the lowest – those who have clearly broken many laws, in many countries, notwithstanding those ancient laws by which people live in civilzed communion.
I would love it, as would others, presumably, if you would activate the “print” feature on WordPress, so that we can take your very insightful articles with us.
I have linked to this entry from the comments section here: http://wlcentral.org/node/728#comment-1334
Wonderful article! And very nice to read on the cusp of the New Year. The world is very lucky to have this author writing such insightful and hope-catalyzing essays on this topic. Thank you!
わかった。同感。
今週LAですけどNYCにの前SFに戻るかも。
お元気で！また会いましょう。
レジナ
A great article. Not enough authors write about Anon with such insight. Keep it up.