InformationWeek

Would Thoreau Approve?

Technology can be an effective tool for expressing political and social discontent

By Winn Schwartau
Issue column appeared: March 27, 1995

Recently, while speaking to 800 hackers in New York, I remarked offhandedly, "If my generation had the technical toys you guys have, the '80s never would have happened."

Twenty-five years ago, millions of Americans expressed their anti-government and anti-war views by marching in the streets and engaging in creative civil disobedience.

Today, the Clinton administration's manhandling of cyberspace invites similar anti-government outcry, but with a modern twist of technology-driven protest. Both the Clipper chip and the Digital Telephony Bill earned groans of disapproval from privacy advocates. Arrogant export-control laws turn software programmers into seditious felons if their creations should find resting places on hard disks overseas. A book about cryptography containing source code is sold globally, yet an electronic version is banned from export. Where's the sense? What will a disgruntled cyber-public do?

Protests In Cyberspace
Twenty-five years ago, a protest required organization and the physical congregation of huge numbers of people. Now, cyberspace provides the '90s alternative to conventional assembly. It is the ideal mechanism for cyber-civil disobedience, the protest means of choice for the information age. Cyber-civil disobedience is waged by remote control, over vast distances, yet it can be aimed at selected targets located anywhere.

One widely discussed act of mass cyber-civil disobedience would be the intentional vio lation of encryption export laws by hundreds of thousands of people, rendering attempted export-policy enforcement impotent. Put a favorite encryption scheme on the Net, electronically mail it overseas, or simply post it on a domestic bulletin board. All of these acts are, depending upon your interpretation, against the law. Precedent-setting cyber-civil disobedience on this scale gives the government the unenviable and unpopular choice of either selective enforcement or policy revision.

Or, if the E-mail-boxes of selected--and presumably offensive--government services are overloaded with lengthy, garbage-laden messages, they will literally collapse under the hefty weight of popular opinion.

The rotary-dial telephones that once were used to phone in opinions have since been replaced with millions of modem-laden home PCs. Using an auto-dialer, it would take only a few thousand distant and invisible confederates to shut down an organization's PBX and, thus, its ability to communicate.

For larger "demo nstrations" of cyber-civil disobedience, entire telephone exchanges would only be capable of responding to would-be callers with, "All circuits are busy." With an electronic U.S. population estimated at 20 million, the capability for cyber-civil disobedience is within the realm of short-term possibility. Network systems have limited bandwidth; an obvious weak point that a cyber-civil disobedient population can easily exploit to the detriment of the service provider and all of its customers.

Power Of The People
Unpopular private entities can also fall victim to the same techniques. Whether it's Right to Lifers shutting down an abortion clinic's ability to communicate, extremist environmentalists striking at a paper mill's piece of cyberspace instead of the woods, or an angry public venting electronic frustration at a polluting oil company, cyber-civil disobedience is within the power of millions of people.

Meanwhile, initiatives continue to emerge from the administration and other groups that could be unpopular enough to trigger such protest actions. A California couple is being prosecuted in Tennessee for violation of distant electronic-pornography laws. Proposed electronic-indecency legislation would criminalize popular Internet activities. President Clinton has conceptually endorsed an electronic national identification card. Congress is speeding ahead with plans to permit police to bypass the original intent of the Fourth Amendment as long as they search and seize "in good faith."

Washington, and indeed any modern large organization, should keep in mind that an information age population doesn't have to take to the streets to voice its discontent.

This column appeared in Final Word, a forum for professionals with opinions on information management. Your contributions are welcome. IW cannot return unsolicited manuscripts. Please send submissions to: InformationWeek, 600 Community Drive, Manhasset, N.Y. 11030, or E-Mail them to mfaden@cmp.com