Censorware like Cyber Patrol.

But the underdogs took a few kicks as well. Hackers shut down Web sites supporting Croatia, East Timor, and the Basque
separatists. Scientologists are suspected of sabotaging the usenet newsgroup alt.religion.scientology, a forum used by
critics of the Church. More ominously, officials of the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, styling themselves “in-
fowarriors," want to revive the Manichean (and lucrative) Cold War on the Internet.

THIS IS THE MILIEU OF TODAY'S NET.ACTIVIST.

Net.activists must decide what tactics best fit a medium whose users are quickly becoming identical to the general public
and which seems to be turning computers into TV sets. Is there a place for blunt denial-of-service attacks, hijacking of of-
ficial Web pages, or more serious havoc? It's easy to snarl Internet traffic; it happens often enough by accident.
Hacktivism risks yielding only media titillation or provoking an official crackdown or both. Are some attack modes more

profitable than others? Does hacktivism include providing technical support to dissident voices, as PressNow! did for
Belgrade's Radio B92 when the Milosevic government forced it off the air in 19967

And what does it mean to be on the receiving end of a campaign that spills off the Net and into an activist's personal life?
Critics of McDonald's and Scientology have been harried by non-wired lawyers, while Radio B92's offline contingent has
to deal with Milosevic's goons. Hit-and-run actions are very different from ongoing battles and the former is apt to turn into
the latter.

The net.activism forum at Next 5 Minutes is a way for activists to share their experiences in some of the aforementioned
arenas and learn new tricks. For example, the individuals who operate as Luther Blissett could use an anonymizer to cover
their electronic tracks (if they don't already). Or hacktivists may learn not to do serious damage to the Internet in the
Course of an action. This forum is not an attempt to define a program for activists. It aims to avoid reinvention of the wheel,
a problem that reoccurs as activists enter and leave the scene. If hacktivists learn from each other, they can more effi-
ciently go about regaining the Internet that belongs to them, not to the dinosaurs.

ELECTRONIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

SIMULATION

AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

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What counts in the long run is the use one makes of a theory...
We must start from existing practices in order to retrace the fundamental flaws.
~-Felix Guattari, “Why Marx and Freud No Longer Disturb Anyone”

In 1994, when Critical Art Ensemble first introduced the idea and a possible model of electronic civil disobedience (ECD)
as another option for digital resistance, the collective had no way of knowing what elements would be the most practical,
nor did it know what elements would require additional explanation. After nearly five years of field testing of ECD by vari-
ous groups and individuals, its information gaps have become a little more obvious and can finally be addressed. Of par-
ticular concer in this essay is the recent turn of events that has produced an ECD model that opts for public spectacle
over clandestine policy subversion, and emphasizes simulated action over direct action. CAE contends that these are un-

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