[SPEAKER_01]: Another year another spot if I wrapped another day of me Not going on Instagram cuz I'm really boring I mean I say never got your spot if I wrapped you never got my spot if I wrapped because it's fucking random every year Oh cuz you you may have this and so like ambient electronic music to right to that's so non true Well actually to be honest my algorithms now all just like jazz cuz like he putting on like cozy Christmas jazz and now it thinks that's all I like
[SPEAKER_02]: That's all I've been listening to is like vintage jazz.
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's not good because now that's all you're going to get really.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know, I just, I don't need to like, I'm scrolling through my stories and every story is like, oh my god, Charlie XX was my number one artist and I'm like, I'm just being really cramagently, but I really just don't need to every single story scroll through and see that you all listen to the same five artists.
[SPEAKER_01]: That fine, I find that depressing.
[SPEAKER_01]: She feels left out because she didn't like Brad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, that's not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think Brad is mid.
[SPEAKER_01]: And extremely overblown.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I like Charlie?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, yeah, part of it is like a saltiness about me feeling left out of the conversation because I find my music taste is a little random and a little bit like it's kind of hard to put into deafness and artists.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to understand.
[SPEAKER_02]: You wouldn't get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I will, I just really, I don't understand how we've gotten to a point in culture where we're all listening to five artists at the same, like I don't know, maybe this is something I missed out on, but that's just not how I approach my listening and that's okay, but I just like, my Spotify ever have, they don't even send it to me half the time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, this year I had to update and that was why it hadn't been sent to me, but in years past, like I've never had the banner appear on my,
[SPEAKER_01]: home page.
[SPEAKER_01]: I saw I do feel a little bit left out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I usually have to like search it and then it's always kind of like uh okay they're like this girl does not want to see her spot if I wrapped kind of they're kind of like girl this is random mama you think spotifies like targeting you for having random days yeah they're like you're loser
[SPEAKER_01]: You think like is this girl with the fuck is that girl so I feel a little bullied by my rap So that's part of it and the other part is just like It's feeling compelled to post on your story is just kind of like no, I'm just being a hater But I'm okay with being a hater about it like no one's that interesting I don't care about your spot if I rap
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a proud hater if if I were to I'm not always proud.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes I feel bad for being a hater But in this context I'm just like yes, I sound like an asshole.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm being a dick I don't care about your spot if I wrapped.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: You all listen to pink pantheras this year We know ground breaking like yes, she's famous
[SPEAKER_01]: That's my hate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love eye-like pink pantheras.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not about the artist.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's just like yeah on that no Should I share my spot if I wrap?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's hear it Hannah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um my top artist was Leonard Cohen.
[SPEAKER_02]: My top song was diet Pepsi Which wow, I'm so 2,024
[SPEAKER_01]: Mike H. 74, which everyone's age was like over 60.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, okay, the age thing was another thing that this year that I just found so obviously not correct.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, what does that even mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're judging based on like what year the music came out?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's your age?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, when I don't care, and she tells you, if you look at your Spotify wrap, it will just tell you your age.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's part of the, like, slideshow.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna put my Spotify wrap.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, I'm not even talking into my, Mike, can you wear one?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, and I have my headphones in.
[SPEAKER_02]: My ears crashing out of her spot if I wrapped.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like fully fixing me all the direction of my mic speaking to you like I'm just too heated.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm telling you that my spot if I wrapped does not send me these little gadgets.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't, I didn't open up my spot if I in it said it was like you had to click on oh that's your wrapped and then it no I don't know I don't want to know my age because that that feels like a flawed system.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you're really overthinking this.
[SPEAKER_02]: You're really trying to like over intellectualize why you don't like, but I'm not trying to over intellectualize it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've actually acting on my like most primal emotions right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure everyone listening can tell.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, like, look, I think you're feeling sort of spotify wrapped.
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, I'm like yelling.
[SPEAKER_02]: I can see it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're feeling sort of spotify wrap, or really similar to my feeling towards letterbox.
[SPEAKER_02]: Where everyone's like, yeah, but it's fun, and I like it.
[SPEAKER_02]: And like, yeah, but I obsess me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't like it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Really?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and I love letterbox.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I mean, no, I hate almost like every top review on letterbox, because I'm like, this is so stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like platforms where you're just like shoving your interest in people's face, which I think is what is annoying about Spotify wrapped is it's just like I understand I think being like Look at this like isn't this an embodiment of who I am like how can I best represent myself like as a consumer or something what I'm like bravo you listen to geese we all listen to geese
[SPEAKER_01]: I think people listen to geese.
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't listen to geese.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never heard a geese song.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they're great, but there's a really like ridiculous amount of geese hatred happening right now on the internet that I just really in a lot of fan of.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like people really...
[SPEAKER_02]: I just woke up one day and people were like talking about this band.
[SPEAKER_02]: I actually think that my top artist being lettered Cohen and my top song being Addison Ray is like perfectly synthesizes my music taste.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the duality of Hannah.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that's like the most contemporary I've gotten in the recent years is literally just like that Addison Railbum.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm very much like like a mob.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like that's not true.
[SPEAKER_01]: You would listen to contemporary music doll.
[SPEAKER_01]: More than a lot of people.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm very behind.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're behind on certain genres with the pop girlies you're like right there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Maybe.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I just mean I like, I feel like sometimes people everyone would be talking about an artist and I'm like, where did this person come from?
[SPEAKER_02]: How did
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, keys did come, you know, up through the ranks pretty quickly, which is why everyone's calling them industry plans because Cameron winters like a park slope kid, but to be honest, I just think it's like NNV, yeah, it's pretty like aniosyncratic music, like the whole world is not going to like it, but I think what they're doing is pretty like, sonically interesting and cool and it's fun to have a band be big, you know, I feel like band culture really fell away for a while and it's it's nice.
[SPEAKER_01]: date one of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll date one of geese that would be cradle snatching doll.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're quite young.
[SPEAKER_02]: How old are they?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Very baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're very baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like very early.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't like when people who are younger than maybe come famous.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of like most people honey because you're 20.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Are you 28?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 28.
[SPEAKER_02]: And a half.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I'm the geriatric one.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really have been struggling with the age 29, like I'm not enjoying it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really don't like it.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I remind myself you're 29 and like that's so random.
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives me like copious amounts of existential dread in ways that I don't.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't need.
[SPEAKER_02]: 30's gonna be amazing.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what everybody tells me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel my skin getting thinner, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my skin.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, my yeah, you haven't seen me in a year and a half.
[SPEAKER_02]: The skin around my eyes thin and sagging.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the first thing I'm gonna think when we reunite in a week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say damn we're going to see each other for the first time you're going to be like that beach age terribly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to be like that page let herself go over there in London with all her pub crawls or whatever you guys do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well you know what they say um how do I segue this to WikiLeaks?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry so you're just putting this burden on me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I may, uh, and I'm Hannah, and this is Rehash.
[SPEAKER_01]: A podcast about the internet phenomena that strike a nerve in our culture only to be quickly forgotten, but we think are due for a revisiting.
[SPEAKER_01]: This season is about communication on the internet, online if we may have shot the shit, but have we also shot the messenger?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you like our show and you want to hear more from us, you can support us on Patreon at patreon.com slash rehash podcast where we have bonus episodes and early access to our regular programming.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't want to join the Patreon, feel free to rate and review us on Spotify and Apple podcasts because that helps us out.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna help me out.
[SPEAKER_01]: it's 2011.
[SPEAKER_01]: An employee at JSTOR, which is Hannah and my beloved online academic archive, sends an email to MIT, flagging an unusual number of downloads occurring on their site from an MIT IP address that peaked at 200,000 sessions in a single hour.
[SPEAKER_01]: The staff at MIT placed a camera in a wiring closet in one of the school buildings and discovered that the person responsible for what was essentially an elaborate hacking of JSTOR's database was 24-year-old computer launch a new and internet activist, Erin Swartz.
[SPEAKER_01]: Swartz was widely known at this time in his community for his amazing coding abilities.
[SPEAKER_01]: He won a prize at age 12 for creating a user-generated digital encyclopedia.
[SPEAKER_01]: He later became a co-founder of Reddit and was famous for his outspoken stance on freedom of information.
[SPEAKER_01]: What Swartz was doing in the wiring closet was attempting to free thousands of
[SPEAKER_01]: Hannah and I know the frustrations of that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, thank god I'm living with a lost student because otherwise it's so hard to read a good academic article these days.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes our research or Sarah will be like, my can we use this journal article for the video and I'll go look in its 65 dollars and it's like a 20 page article and I'm like, well yes Sarah, we can and then I promptly write it off.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's still sucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: But eventually, Swords was apprehended by MIT police and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, meaning that his charges, which had been two counts of wire fraud and 11 violations of the computer fraud and abuse act, would have amounted to 35 years in prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, don't get me started on that shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: While he was eventually offered a plea deal, he denied it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He sent a counteroffer that also got rejected and soon after this swore it was found dead in his apartment after taking his own life.
[SPEAKER_01]: His family and those in the hacking community attribute his deaths to the harsh treatment he received from the Massachusetts State Department.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Swartz is now widely regarded as a martyr, you know, who used his remarkable skills not to make a bunch of money like your typical Zuckerberg or Musk, but to advocate for the people's right to information and knowledge.
[SPEAKER_01]: When Swartz was only 14, he helps to develop the RSS feed.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is how we're delivering this episode to you right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in many ways, we owe our ability to podcast to him.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was also in communication with another infamous vigilante actor, Julian Assange during the peak days of WikiLeaks.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when Swartz died, another vigilante group, anonymous, conducted a widespread hacking of MIT's domain in revenge for his death.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what Swartz was doing when he hacked InterJ store has a name.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called, as I'm sure many of you have guessed, hacktivism.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hannah, can you take a wild guess as to what hacktivism entails?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's when someone employs their killer hacker skills in order to achieve some kind of political objective for what they believe to be a greater good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have like a favorite hacking moment and pop culture?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have to say I'm just so grateful that Mark Zuckerberg hacked into all of those weird college website groups so that he could get pictures of girls so then we could one day have Facebook and make the world a better place and I can't wait to live in meta He did all that so we could vague book and say really sad right now don't ask
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I wouldn't have been able to post, because you said forever and always on my Facebook account in the year of 2010, where it not for Mark Zuckerberg's desire to rank women against each other.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although, and we will make the distinction, what Zuckerberg was doing was not activism, just mere hacking.
[SPEAKER_02]: More like, slacking?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is why we shouldn't cover this topic.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Hannah, your initial instinct was right.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of names for different subsets of hacktivists, hackers, e-bandets, safer punks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ooh, I like that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, except a subset of which would actually go on to found a bit coin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Feel like every cool online rebel ends up doing something I hate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not these guys, not these guys in the episode that we'll talk about, not Aaron Swartz, for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's also freaks with the pH, and yeah, hacktivism is pretty broad in its application.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it boils down to people using information technologies, typically by hacking into them with, like you said, the goal of political action, political objective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this can be just like, you know, defacing a website like when Aaron Swords died, hackers redirected MIT's traffic to a hacked Harvard site that had a banner on it, which said RIP Aaron Swords.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it rained from that to equipping citizens with military
[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically like how Robinhood steals from the region gives to the needy, but here they're empowering the needy with information that makes the rich look weak.
[SPEAKER_01]: The point is to basically like embarrass those in power.
[SPEAKER_01]: And unlike with, you know, Watergate when Daniel Ellsberg was literally physically smuggling government documents from his office in bulk, like having to go back.
[SPEAKER_01]: over and over again to get the entire load, these guys are using their coding skills to do it with basically the click of a button and to do it anonymously too.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Steven Levy, who's one of the earlier tech journalists, wrote a book in 1984 called Hackers, Heroes of the Computer Revolution, where he outlines what he calls a hacker epic.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think their ethos is, Hannah?
[SPEAKER_01]: They're tenets.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think like you were saying it's like this sort of Robinhood mentality, right?
[SPEAKER_02]: The idea of like not having things like hidden, maybe behind paywalls or maybe like hidden because it's like confidential like correspondence, it's like the idea of freedom and like I don't want to say freedom of information because it's like, duh, that seems like, but like, essentially.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, he summarizes the hacker ethic in this sentence.
[SPEAKER_01]: He says, access to computers and anything that might teach you something about the way the world works should be unlimited and total.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, so it does come with some core tenets, like you said, all information should be free.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another one is hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria, such as degrees, age, race, or position.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's another one that's you can create art and beauty on a computer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And another is computers can change your life for the better.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very tech utopian.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yeah, I was going to say like this like also like this libertarianism that just kind of flowed through that entire sort of early internet era and like a lot of the pioneers of what would be the internet we know today like yeah tech.
[SPEAKER_02]: You topian for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes libertarian is exactly right.
[SPEAKER_01]: According to levy hackers believe that their jobs are basically to toggle with flaws and computers Flossing the internet and like make them better and no one should be getting in the way of that as he puts it in a perfect Hacker world anyone pissed off enough to open up a control box near a traffic light and take it apart to make it work better Should be perfectly welcome to make the attempt
[SPEAKER_01]: So, getting to what you said about libertarianism.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's this 60 minutes interview with Julian Assange, who we're going to talk about more in a bit, where he said something that really peaked my interest.
[SPEAKER_00]: I first became with all the computers when I was 13 or so, and I was unusually adept.
[SPEAKER_00]: I saw a sort of intellectual opportunity understanding how to program and understanding how these complex machines work.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was part of a social culture.
[SPEAKER_00]: in cracking codes to prove that you could do it.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very normal and healthy amongst young men.
[SPEAKER_00]: You see it in skateboarders that are competing to show that they are capable in learning the best tricks.
[SPEAKER_02]: What do you think about?
[SPEAKER_02]: For sure, yeah, like this idea of like one upsmanship.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's how a lot of stuff begins.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a couple of guys try to like best their friends.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's what like encourages people to kind of take things to the next level for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, healthy competition or some sort of like shared interest around skills.
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, I think this idea of like skateboarding, there's like an association with rebellion like a disregard for the rules.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a bit punk.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it is a bit punk, that's exactly the nails on the head.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was also reading that anonymous has a reputation for emboldening younger generations who would usually be apathetic towards politics to get involved by way of hacking.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought this was all really interesting because even from the research you get a sense of what you're saying hand at this useful zeal coming from these guys, like there's almost like a sexiness or a cachet the way that things are done
[SPEAKER_02]: Have you ever seen like a 90s movie with hackers they all have like milk hawks and like cyberpunk aesthetics like they look sick
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the music's always cool and you're like, what do these lines of code like rain falling?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think a lot of that youthful cache also comes from how these groups operate.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you already kind of picked this up, but one of the core tenets that Levy articulates is also mistrust authority, promote decentralization.
[SPEAKER_01]: What do you think these talking about in this context?
[SPEAKER_01]: What does that mean to hackers?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think a lot of people who did subscribe to this sort of like technor utopian ideal, like really liked the idea of the internet offering up this opportunity for everything to be decentralized, breaking up these boundaries, making everything
[SPEAKER_02]: accessible to anybody and like being able to just like transcend a lot of like physical limitations as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so like I think the idea of I don't know like when I was doing the dad heads episode, you could see this sort of vision that they had.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like a government-free society, essentially.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think, like, I can just see, in this case, this idea that there's a mistrust of the bodies in power.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, like, the internet is supposed to be this, like, alternative version of reality, where, like, the people govern themselves, essentially.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it also makes me think a bit of the chat rooms episode with the Muds in the Moos.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that creepy guy whose name neither of us can remember,
[SPEAKER_02]: this like one chat room decided to like come together and kick out and they basically like through this they invented like their own system of governing if you haven't listened to that episode go listen but it sparked a lot of debates about like what the best mode of government would be to implement into this like society that I think initially was like striving to be government free
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it was lawless, like when the internet first came about, when the web 2.0 was in its infancy, it was lawless and exciting and had so much potential, and so you could see how starting from scratch would really help, or would really feel like a possibility to kind of dream up any sort of alternative situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, basically, activists don't really have a discernible political leaning,
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they aren't true left or true right, although you could make the argument that some of the groups will talk about in this episode are leaning towards left and we will see how that kind of almost a politicism plays out.
[SPEAKER_01]: But essentially, they're one clear politics other than freedom of information is a belief in decentralized authority.
[SPEAKER_01]: They believe that centralized authority uses arbitrary rules to consolidate power and hoard information.
[SPEAKER_01]: and that's what they're essentially working against.
[SPEAKER_01]: So within their own groups, there's no clear one leader often with the idea of being that of one person gets taken down, another will spring up in their place.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this ethos also extends to how they approach the public.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're basically, you know, directly intervening in the standard top-down flow of information by hacking and then equipping the masses with tools to secure themselves against government control, whether that be through information or encryption, advice, et cetera.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the internet's version of handing the citizens a gun.
[SPEAKER_01]: right, very libertarian, or in our kick, however you look at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: We haven't really seen Anarchy play out in a large scale, in real life, in a sustained way, and it does make you think that like in these earlier days it felt like the internet could be the only real place where Anarchy is able to flourish, like the only fruitful environment for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Which must have been so cool for these people back in like whatever the 80s instead.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's so interesting Like when I was researching again for like a lot of the early internet episodes It was so interesting to see their vision like I'm like especially these are all these like San Francisco I mean in like the cases the ones that I've done, but it's like these sort of People who are very libertarian at heart and like are just like having these sort of dreams of like what cyber space would
[SPEAKER_02]: allow for us and it's like I get it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I get why they like were so into that and so obsessed with that because no one could know for sure that like
[SPEAKER_02]: The internet was going to become such a major extension of our lives in a way where there was no longer this wall up between here and there.
[SPEAKER_02]: No one saw the way that it was just going to become a part of our daily lives and so like it didn't ever get to become this fantasy that they wanted.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not saying that it should have become either.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, yeah, there's a lot of waste to potential there and we'll get into why that is.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, quick history, hacking culture originated back in the 50s at MIT, among members of the tech model rail road club, who were basically fucking around with tracks or country.
[SPEAKER_01]: The term hack came to refer to pranks made among these guys, and eventually like early students of AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: This rebellious spirit continues into the 70s and 80s with people engaging in what they call phone freaking, again, freaking with a PH, which is basically where you hack into telephone
[SPEAKER_01]: Some of the guys that were engaged in this phone freaking culture would become super famous, like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who as we know are the founders of Apple, were part of these like early groups.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so major activist incidents in 1989, NASA and U.S. Energy Department computers were hacked by an Australian malware called a Wankworm.
[SPEAKER_01]: that was used to spread anti-nuclear messaging, so when employees tried to log into their computers, they would just see a message that said, worms against nuclear killers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Your system has been officially wanked.
[SPEAKER_01]: I find computer terminology so funny like what do you mean I've been hacked by a wink worm, but again we're seeing that kind of trolling play out with a political angle.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 1994, there was a British activist group called the Zippies who shut down a bunch of government websites using a denial of service attack, which is basically this popular hacking method where you overwhelm a server with too many communication requests, and the Zippies did this in protest of government legislation that outlawed outdoor raves that played certain kinds of techno music, or it was like a music that has like a repetitive beat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, what?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, apparently, in the UK, the Prime Minister had his like, organization had, outlawed, yeah, tried to outlaw.
[SPEAKER_01]: Music with repetitive beats, so, you know, fight for your right to party.
[SPEAKER_01]: I said I shouldn't know this damn, because you live in London.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I don't know anything about England.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so funny, I truly don't know nothing.
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't know about the zippy's?
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know nothing about the zippy's.
[SPEAKER_01]: Luckily, I took a 20th century Britain class, so I can just lend you my textbooks.
[SPEAKER_01]: that beless.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, it is pretty interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Follow an empire, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then one of the most famous, early incidents of activism was also in the 90s when a computer hacking group based in Texas called Cult of the Dead Cow joins together with basically these Hong Kong dissidents, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is right around the time of the handover, to create a group called the Hong Kong Blons, which hacked CCP computer networks to give citizens access to blocked websites.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's kind of like targeting governments with like poor human rights records.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we get to more present-day hack-divisum, Hannah, want to tell me a bit of what you know about anonymous.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to take a wild guess as to where they originated?
[SPEAKER_01]: 4chan, incredible.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, God, 4chan's the birth of fucking everything, isn't it?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's not the season kind of made me respect it a bit more just in terms of yeah it's origins or like What it gave rise to but then in other ways made me paid it, but it's just interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, what springs up on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: I guess I feel like 4chan is to contemporary internet with like
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, like these weird dungeons and dragons, chat rooms were to, to early internet.
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally, I think a lot can happen on an image board site.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, the term anonymous in its internet context is native to image boarding sites like Borechan.
[SPEAKER_01]: It refers to when someone posts or requests content on the internet without signing their name to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's automatically labeled anonymous by the site.
[SPEAKER_01]: So as you correctly guessed, anonymous came up on 4chan.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's basically a decentralized group of anonymous hackers, the scope of which we have zero idea of, like they could be anyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: There could be thousands of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: If not more, there could be less than that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Much like Shakespeare.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they do use an identifying symbol, it's usually the guy Fox mask.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we're gonna talk about British guys from the 1500s.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I just can never remember it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Guy Fox, I can never remember if they're celebrating that he was gonna blow up Parliament or if they're celebrating that he didn't.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, he certainly kind of failed.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think they're celebrating that he failed to blow up Parliament because that would be kind of strange.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, if they're celebrating, they're like, ha, thank god this guy didn't blow up Parliament.
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that what's coming on?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you're the one in London.
[SPEAKER_02]: I know, but like, on Guy Fox Day, my friends and I were watching fireworks and then my other Canadian friend and I were both like, fuck, we actually don't know why we're celebrating this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you ask anyone?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, maybe so unexplained.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had a bit of wine to drink, okay?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, Mom has had some wine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't ask her questions.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know the remember remember thing from V. V. Vendetta and I know that when he went up to get hanged, he ended up just falling off of the scaffolds and died like that instead.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, and I know that he had his gunpowder plot, but yeah, I'm not sure why you guys are celebrating that either.
[SPEAKER_01]: You better find out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ingraciate yourself into your culture, Hannah.
[SPEAKER_01]: But basically, got anonymous began as more of a troll operation, like the harmless prank stuff of early
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so fucking hard to narrow down everything in all of this has gotten up to like truly I could not that would take hours, but I don't know a few examples back in 2008 they launched an attack on the Church of Scientology's websites in protest to the church censoring a video of Tom Cruise that was released by Gawker.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2009 during the Iranian elections they created a website that shared secret information from the Iranian government and provided activists with information on how to encrypt their communications.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2012, they leaked a recording of a conversation between the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Scotland Guard about basically figuring out a way to take anonymous down.
[SPEAKER_01]: They've cited publicly with movements like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring and BLM, and really the list of their activities is endless because again, the scope of the group could be massive.
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're very active.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of their members describes their activism as ultra-coordinated mother fuckery, which I thought was pretty jokes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels like something in like a fincher movie, uh, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, definitely like that would have a trend resonance score attached to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's WikiLeaks.
[SPEAKER_01]: So WikiLeaks is an organization founded in 2006 by an Australian hacker and international man of mystery named Julian Assange, which is a great name.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like that really yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like that's what you would write like a someone who was an international hacker to be renamed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, like it has like an intrigue to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: His face is also interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like he has this kind of like baby-esque face attached to like a really tall body.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, no, he wears kind of crazy outfits and has like, not crazy outfits.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just always wearing like interesting suits and sometimes he wears like a red tie.
[SPEAKER_01]: He has a very like calm demeanor.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all very interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: What WikiLeaks does is encourage people from within bureaucracies, like people from the inside, to whistleblow internal wrongdoing.
[SPEAKER_01]: By providing them with a quote, high security anonymous dropbox fortified by cutting edge cryptographic information technologies.
[SPEAKER_01]: Basically, it uses this online system that moves files across the web anonymously and without detection.
[SPEAKER_01]: The files are also routed through countries that have the strongest press freedom laws, and WikiLeaks keeps servers in several different countries.
[SPEAKER_01]: It also hosts files on hundreds of mirror sites, which makes it almost impossible to take down.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for a while there, WikiLeaks was really stinking shit up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Stinking shit up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Once again, almost impossible to summarize everything they've gotten up to.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll try my best to give you some examples.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in 2008 there was a Pentagon report where U.S. Army Intelligence concluded that WikiLeaks posed a significant security threat to U.S. military operations, and WikiLeaks just really sat in tire report on their own site.
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2016, they published thousands of hacked emails from Hillary Clinton's election campaign.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, which was a huge deal.
[SPEAKER_01]: My memory is terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just can't believe I forgot that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, they gathered as responsible for so many things that I think once you have the information new forget about the source.
[SPEAKER_01]: The basically this revealed that the Democrats were basically rigging the primaries against Bernie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ironically, this information, of course, was not included in the BBC article.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got most of this WikiLeaks stuff from, but we all fucking knew that
[SPEAKER_01]: In 2015 they leaked over 170,000 emails from Sony Pictures where some unsavory stuff was revealed, including the fact that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were paid less than their male co-stars in American hustle, ultimately ends up feeling like small peas next to the rest of this information.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you get to the really big ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in 2010, they published a video taken from a US military helicopter in Baghdad of men on a street.
[SPEAKER_01]: I watched it, where basically the men are milling around on the street.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure what they're up to, but someone on the transmitter says, light them all up, and the men who were suspected in surgeons were shot and killed.
[SPEAKER_01]: Two of the men in the video were Reuters photographers, which made the killings a war crime that the government
[SPEAKER_01]: Another video was released of the military murdering and inordinate amount of afghani civilians, so again another war crime which had been covered up.
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason that WikiLeaks came to global attention in scrutiny around this time was that along with these videos, it had released over 250,000 US diplomatic cables and over 480,000 army reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
[SPEAKER_01]: and the identity of the person who leaped this information to WikiLeaks ended up being revealed to be private Chelsea Manning, who was a US intelligence analyst and soldier, who was since Commettas Trans, and who smuggled the document files in a lady Gaga CD case.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I did not, I would not hear that detail, oh my god.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like you can't get more American than any
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I was gonna say it certainly.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, like, like a pop culture aspect of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it would be like a kind of a funny detail in, again, like a heist movie to have that happen, but the fact that it actually happened, I mean, make sense because when I'm looking for a lady Gagosidi, I usually am not looking for my top secret American government documents.
[SPEAKER_01]: you're going through airport security, they're like, wait, hold up and then they pull out the Lady Gaga city and they're like, I love just dance.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is crazy suspicions that you don't have the Deluxe Edition.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, this is also when Lady Gaga was, you know, in her prime, like, top of her game, so it's all making sense.
[SPEAKER_01]: Manning ended up being arrested and the case made international news.
[SPEAKER_01]: She was found guilty of 17 charges and meant to serve 35 years in prison, but Obama commuted her sentence and she was released in 2017.
[SPEAKER_01]: This situation, at the time, led to an avalanche of scrutiny on a song, obviously from the US government for the leaks, you know, causing security threat, but also because the Afghan documents, which are also known as the Afghan War Diary, reveals the names of a lot of Afghani informants who had collaborated with the US and would now be in grave danger.
[SPEAKER_01]: So his leaking of them was seen by some people to be very reckless, but again, back to the anarchic spirit, activism's main politic other than decentralization is freedom of information, and it seems like in these situations that means at all costs, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, let me said.
[SPEAKER_01]: total.
[SPEAKER_01]: All of this made Julian Assange, person and all grotto.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in 2011, the NSA began an investigation on him on the grounds that he was a malicious foreign actor.
[SPEAKER_01]: This was on the heels of a 2010 rape case where it was requested that he be extradited to sweetened to face charges.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just a bit more information on this, basically a Swedish human rights activist named Anna Arden, along with another unnamed woman, came out and said that they had no and consensual experiences with Asange.
[SPEAKER_01]: They filed police reports that the media ended up getting a hold of and it became a whole mail strum where there was a whole faction saying that this was a si-off by the US to smear Asange's name and extradite him to a country where it would be easier for the US to get him.
[SPEAKER_01]: a song corroborated this theory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Arden has maintained her position about the incident, but says that she believes in what WikiLeaks does, and that a song should not be prosecuted for his work.
[SPEAKER_01]: He ended up being granted asylum in Ecuador in 2012, but spent the entire time basically confined to the Ecuadorian embassy building in London.
[SPEAKER_01]: His asylum was then withdrawn in 2019, and he was arrested and spent five years in prison in England.
[SPEAKER_01]: And all the while, this whole time, the U.S. is trying to extradite him themselves.
[SPEAKER_01]: Truly trying to get like a comprehensive timeline of this guy's criminal record was so brutal Like every time he's like even somewhat free some countries like let me get him He's everyone's anime basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really had to suck the teeth of Wikipedia for this part.
[SPEAKER_01]: So sorry guys Hey, I think that Wikipedia is a great resource actually and Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikipedia, you know We wouldn't have Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks Wikileaks
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hannah's all up in that shit.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I hate to spike it to you, but so are you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Me?
[SPEAKER_02]: WikiVie is like where they post celebrities feet or something.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh really?
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm all up in that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I was just making jokes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like now that you're on the days 100.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I remember you're going on WikiVie to look at the pictures.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I was making a joke about you being a celebrity on WikiVie.
[SPEAKER_01]: I bet you are.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should be looking at that up.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I don't want to know if my feet are posted on the internet banks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's currently looking up if I'm on wiki feet.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really not important enough to be on there.
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, now you're not on wiki feet.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but keep dreaming.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want me to put you on there?
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, you know what's on the opening page of wiki feet?
[SPEAKER_02]: Your AI feet image studio.
[SPEAKER_02]: What the fuck does that mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: Wait, what does that mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I've never been on wiki feet before, this is so weird.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, back to wiki leaks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter Ludlow wrote this article for the nation back in 2010 that was about a song, and basically he credits that whole, like, logic of energy as being the reason he believes that wiki leaks can never truly be taken down.
[SPEAKER_01]: He talks about how despite the fact that a song seems like a central authority over wiki leaks, those mere sites would always be there too.
[SPEAKER_01]: catch it if he fell.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he says that it's difficult to truly disable the WikiLeaks system because, quote, the group simply relied on existing electronic communications networks, and the fact that there are tens of thousands of like-minded people all over the world.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was kind of wrong though.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you imagine why Hannah, like, what are some forces that you think could actually get in the way of a activist organization like WikiLeaks could lead to its downfall?
[SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine, like, one, I think with a lot of entities that aspire to decentralization ultimately like what gets in the way at times is the fact that in spite of those starting principles.
[SPEAKER_02]: human ego is a powerful thing.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I can imagine that it's actually very hard to keep an anonymous or decentralized like operation running when you have a bunch of people who are like, wow, I just did this impressive feat.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't think about this, but it is interesting because there was like some internal squabbling going on like back in like 2010, 2011 about Julian Assange, like some people within the organization were stepping down because they were like They thought even internally that he was acting recklessly, especially with the afghan were documents, like a lot of people disagreed with his choice to release those, so I could see how even having like
[SPEAKER_01]: a figurehead like a song, like there is maybe some ego involved there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that for a while his like photo was on the banner of the site, like it's like a photo of him kind of like intimidatingly smiling.
[SPEAKER_01]: He kind of looks like a magician.
[SPEAKER_02]: I feel like there's something kind of counterintuitive to like having a star figure out if you're anonymous, a hacker organization.
[SPEAKER_01]: that could be part of it so that's like the early downfall could definitely be part of that being a song kind of acting against the wishes of like the rest of it that is supposedly like somewhat an architect group choosing to be a leader, you know.
[SPEAKER_02]: These groups must get a bit heuristic whether just like like let's just see what I can hack into.
[SPEAKER_01]: What about some external forces external things happening outside of WikiLeaks that would take it down.
[SPEAKER_01]: The government,
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I can imagine like it's great that these hackers are really talented and are able to target these government institutions.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I can imagine that the government also have very skillful computer, whizzes, employed for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I mean, the internet was built by like the US military basically.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I mean, the people who were submitting the documents are also many of them part of the government.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right, duh.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know it's interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm thinking more like, what's happening outside basically?
[SPEAKER_01]: What's happening within the public?
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the result of the government?
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's say labeling WikiLeaks like a criminal organization.
[SPEAKER_01]: You might not think that has followed because they rely on like this kind of rebellious, like anti-establishment, Robin Hood, right, like outlaw, sensibility, but that actually does have consequences, like you said.
[SPEAKER_01]: So basically, WikiLeaks along with other
[SPEAKER_01]: are founded upon this logic that once information is in the hands of the public, the public will then take that information and act against their governments, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what they vastly underestimate, sadly, is the power of apathy and apathy is brought on by a few things.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there are many things that can contribute to it.
[SPEAKER_01]: For one, WikiLeaks releases raw data.
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're getting all this information dumped out there in the main case over 400,000 files.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are you as a public as a lay person gonna do with all of that, especially when a lot of it is drenched in military jargon?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's why they eventually ended up collaborating with news outlets who were able to nearby the information.
[SPEAKER_01]: Although they did this with the Afghan video and they were accused of manipulating the material so like there is a bit no winning there But I don't I found it interesting that like you almost need this combination of old and new media to really like get to the public Like just shape how information is delivered to the public which is kind of optimistic in a way I guess because it's like, oh, maybe we do need the news and like journalists But on the other handling people are even too lazy to read more than I had lying these days So it's like how far can that even go the narrativeizing thing?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just too much information.
[SPEAKER_02]: But then they can now, it's good they could put their leak documents into chatGPT and chatGPT would do an effective summarization for them.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're like, hey girl, please summarize this for me in the style of a fourth grader.
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: For another, the scholar Alistair Roberts wrote back in 2011 that the American populous at the time was every bit as cynical as a solange was.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is post-Vietnam post-watergate.
[SPEAKER_01]: The disillusionment had already happened around the country.
[SPEAKER_01]: People were already caught on to what the government was fucking around with overseas.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they knew these CIA ops were, you know, like, deposing world leaders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, they, they know this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Roberts writes that instead, it could be said that WikiLeaks was doing the one thing Americans least wished for, increasing instability into their sense of anxiety.
[SPEAKER_01]: The more WikiLeaks disclosed last year, so that would have been, like, I think, 2010 or 2011.
[SPEAKER_01]: the more American public opinion hardened against it.
[SPEAKER_01]: By December, according to the CNN poll, almost 80% of Americans disapproved of WikiLeaks release of US diplomatic and military documents.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you kind of have to also believe in the power that the public knows and they just know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's almost like too much.
[SPEAKER_01]: They just know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not really news.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, it's also like generally speaking like most people are dissatisfied with the government already if simply just like taking political action and like organizing would actually solve those issues that would have happened right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: We already know the government is doing terrible things and it's like not really stop them from continuing to do those things.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's also forgetting that like government does those things domestically to its own citizens, like think about the Vietnam War protests and the people who were getting surveilled.
[SPEAKER_01]: Never forgot Jean Cieber, you know, like, yeah, it's doing its own surveillance, it's own version of that helicopter attack, maybe less like explicitly violently, but even think about Kent State, like there was, yeah, I think it's just the idea that like information begets action and that's not necessarily always the case.
[SPEAKER_01]: And one of the people who worked who was like hi up at WikiLeaks talked at the time about how like they had released this stuff in 2008 and nothing happened like, you know, it was crickets.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's another force going on, which is like the monetary forces.
[SPEAKER_01]: So what these more utopian thinkers like, you know, Peter Ledlow also underestimated back then was the growing commercialization of the internet, which you were touching on earlier Hannah.
[SPEAKER_01]: WikiLeaks relied on certain corporate entities to keep its sights going, but when it was labeled a criminal organization in like 2011, a lot of these companies started pulling out.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's amazing how much power these companies actually had over WikiLeaks supposedly kind of like outlaw abilities to operate.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Amazon Web Services, which is a subsidiary of Amazon.com that basically rent space for like the storage of digitized information, stopped hosting WikiLeaks material on the basis that it had violated its terms of service.
[SPEAKER_01]: Every DNS.net, which was the firm that managed WikiLeaks domain name, also suspended services so that the domain name WikiLeaks.org was no longer operable.
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, you'd be like, okay, well then there's the mirror sites.
[SPEAKER_01]: But then,
[SPEAKER_01]: Apple removed an application from its online store that offered iPhone and iPad users access to the state department cables, which made it harder for WikiLeaks to distribute leaked information, and then worst of all was that PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa Europe all stopped processing WikiLeaks donations.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a song to sighted that as like the nail in the coffin for why WikiLeaks can no longer operate today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, WikiLeaks does still have mirror sites, but what I meant by this was that it's essentially a shadow of its former self and hasn't released a document dump on that scale since Assange was imprisoned.
[SPEAKER_01]: which is like the power of money, baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's thing is anarchy is only so effective when you're like living in a highly, highly, highly capitalist society.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like, that's all great and nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: These kind of big acts of like civil disobedience, obviously like make a statement, but ultimately, it's still not enough to override like the total power that is money and influence.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so ultimately like the internet,
[SPEAKER_02]: isn't this techno utopia?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not this free space.
[SPEAKER_02]: It is like governed heavily by will like little government but also by like money.
[SPEAKER_01]: By money and it's also like, you know, there is this disproportion in access on the internet access to internet skill access.
[SPEAKER_01]: So like, you know, these coder guys, these are guys who are extremely proficient in coding for example, but the masses are not.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are not at that level.
[SPEAKER_01]: right and so you have these outlaw like tech guys doing that but then you also have people within the government who can do that and that's basically like okay the citizen's having a handgun and the government having a tank you know like yeah so even with WikiLeaks wanting to operate enerically and like wanting to I mean a song just not an anarchist he has said that he's a libertarian but like
[SPEAKER_01]: Even him trying to operate outside the establishment, be an outsider.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, well, you're still on the internet and you still have to go through these gatecapt places like PayPal Masterford Visa to even get money.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can't accept cash through the internet.
[SPEAKER_01]: You need it to go through some sort of system.
[SPEAKER_01]: That is run by people who also aren't technically proficient, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a bit of like a contradictory thing, I guess, which is sad.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think it's just, again, like since the late 90s, like the internet hasn't actually, like ever since, basically, I guess you could put a credit card up on the internet and you could pay while everything and like monetize everything, like the internet has not been actually the wild ones.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not been free.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not really like being a place where I guess, like you can embody those principles.
[SPEAKER_02]: Try as you might, unless you're in the dark web, which I don't understand.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand it either, truly.
[SPEAKER_01]: It'd be really good to do an episode about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, oh, we should do like dark web next season like as a theme.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll figure it out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll talk about that later, honey It does make me wonder like how people would react if the manning leaks happened now Right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's been over a decade What has happened in the years since that could affect?
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess like public opinion about that Like what has happened in the way that we communicate with each other like receive an absorb information Use the internet like how how do you think that that would affect?
[SPEAKER_01]: how we were to respond to that situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, do you think we would be like, oh, God.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think if I was a person in a position of power, I would definitely employ more tactics to try and protect my correspondences in my information.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think for the average person who is not involved, who is not involved in any major corporations,
[SPEAKER_02]: government bodies or military operations.
[SPEAKER_02]: Generally speaking, like I can imagine it would make people more aware of that, but I think for like the layperson that doesn't really understand hacking, like hacking has always sort of felt like it's like a magical plot.
[SPEAKER_02]: device for example like in films since the invention of the internet like since the 90s hacking has sort of been this thing you can throw into a plot to explain something because the average person doesn't understand computers enough to really know what it would entail to break into this thing or do this thing you just need like a white guy with dreads and like yeah some neon lights tapping out a computer and then we're like
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure, okay, now the plot's moving along.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know like I don't know if it necessarily would change the average person's relationship to that stuff Because I feel like almost I maybe this is just my own experience, but over the years I've become less afraid of like things on the internet
[SPEAKER_02]: accent like giving me a virus or like being more shady because I think things have become so regulated But again, let's say like I was the CEO of a big company and I was like talking about stuff Yeah, maybe I would take whatever measures were available to Protect that well it's almost like it dags the people in power still, but it's it's not really guiding the masses like us
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I also just kind of wonder if we've asked control to these big companies so much to really care that we're being deceived or exploited.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we're almost in a way more complacent than we've ever been with the most information we can ever have.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like we are willingly using chatGBT, we're accepting cookies.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're giving our information to 23 in me and shit with
[SPEAKER_01]: The knowledge like the knowledge is out there that many of these companies are like let's say using and selling our information harvesting our data Girls are tracking their periods on their phones.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like don't give them that information.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's for you and the tides.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we're really like Bitch ghost stand out on the open sea.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, like
[SPEAKER_02]: I keep trying to explain to my flatmates why I can't sleep when there's a full moon and they all think I'm crazy for it and I'm like if the moon controls the tides and a swear it like does it controls your period in some way and we're part water of course I can't sleep when there's a super moon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And also we're per water.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what to tell you.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we're mostly about water is fucking moving around in my body But anyways, I refuse to write down when I've gotten my period into my iPhone this all yeah I mean like yeah, it's so hard like all these people are using these kind of like
[SPEAKER_01]: encrypted apps instead of imesage instead of what's app because those are compromised And it's like so many of us actually just don't fucking care We're using it anyways and people have been yelling to us for years like Julia's songs like like all these people being like Your information is not protected.
[SPEAKER_01]: You were at the whims of your government and we're all kind of like okay But like I want to go on Amazon like I want to go buy my shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to know when my period's coming Like you just I wonder if it's like too far gone that none of these active as groups are gonna be able to like really insight anyone
[SPEAKER_02]: I think the average person also probably doesn't feel that their data is important enough to protect.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and ultimately that's not the point of protecting your data.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that you're interesting, it's that you need to be able to be undetected in some ways.
[SPEAKER_02]: Instagram knows when I want to like, a certain snack.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, I've talked about for a Rochase.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting ads for for Rochase.
[SPEAKER_02]: If Instagram knows what chocolate I want, like, I don't want to think about what else they could predict about me.
[SPEAKER_02]: That isn't as like easily marketable, but like, you know, would maybe be a bit more useful in the future.
[SPEAKER_01]: going back to anonymous like, you know, encrypting Iranian activists information, it's like, okay, well, what if something like what's happening with Iran's government happens to us, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And like, I think there's just so much complacency and so much like shrugging and like, well, that will never happen to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't need to worry about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, well, things can change on a dime and you will be there at a time where you can't get that information back from your government and it's too late, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: So like,
[SPEAKER_01]: It is so fucking important.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and I think it's finally maybe coming to our attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: So in a way, maybe if these leaks happened, or if these like activists were coming back out, you know, like, I think last time anonymous really made waves was during BLM, but you know, if they came back out again, maybe we are actually more...
[SPEAKER_01]: aware of that now based on like a recent political changes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't want to be too cynical like Robert talks about how Wikileaks gave way to governments becoming even more secretive and like strengthening their security networks and basically it's like, oh, it's a consequence of activism like if Wikileaks hadn't done that then like You know, maybe citizens would have some more a margin of access, but I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just felt like that was kind of like
[SPEAKER_01]: Throwing your hands up, does that mean wiggily you should just never have done it?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, is it something that you should just like shrug and give up on because it might have a consequence?
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know, how do you think activism could effectively reach people today if we take like a bit more of an optimistic approach?
[SPEAKER_02]: I still think it's important to be empowered by information.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, yeah, maybe people aren't going to do with that information what they should, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't have it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's far better to keep ourselves in the loop and to be curious about what our government is doing to be curious about what people and positions of power are getting up to behind closed doors than to just say, well hey guys, they're fucking as over, we know that, good night.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now we can no longer pretend not to know, like it is just there.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we can't plead interference, we can't say that we just simply didn't know because it's like, well, that's your due diligence, like you should know it's out there, you know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're in a complicated position right now, like I think we've seen even through this season, this really interesting push and pull at the stage of the internet where information is like more controlled by big tech and government more than ever, but like also kind of completely uncontrollable, like we saw with the Pepe.
[SPEAKER_01]: episode like also completely out of our hands and I just find it yeah I find it that's really interesting a mix that we've gotten through this season of like the way that information is able to flow and explode or be contained and the way it's communicated between us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know I was just thinking about that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Which thank god we're gonna be following up this very important topic with an even more important one next week.
[SPEAKER_02]: emojis.
[UNKNOWN]: Thank you.