Web of resistance: Deleuzian digital space and hacktivism

Abstract

This article argues that the Internet possesses the potential to challenge corporate and Statist domination of digital space. Mapping Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts of the rhizome, smooth/striated space, and the nomad onto the idea of digital connectivity, I show how hacktivism can initiate change both online and off. In the first section, I argue that the Internet is characteristic of a rhizome. As a rhizome, the Internet’s structure affords it a flexible, morphological, and ultimately a vibrantly powerful configuration. As a result of its connective and generative power, corporate and State entities seek to control digital space. These controlling institutions stratify, segment, and claim ownership over the flat, smooth space. The second section, then, shows how the Internet becomes striated through corporate and State interests. As a remedy, the third section advocates for hacktivism as a form of nomadic action. In this section, I focus on the Distributed Denial of Service attack as a form of deterritorialization that redistributes the flow of information. Acting as a digital machine de guerre engaging in online direct action, and against the legal apparatus of the State, hacktivists create a rupture in the rhizomatic structure and form smooth spaces within a striated network. In the final section, I advocate for sustained smooth digital spaces that allow for new modes of association that radiate outward from the digital to the physical world.

Keywords:

• rhizome
• Internet
• machine de guerre
• hacktivism
• digital space
• DDoS
• resistance

Notes

1. Even on sites such as Wikipedia, where anyone can include a link to other information, these links are reviewed and often remain internal to Wikipedia itself – only through the citations does the site include “external sources.” Even though Wikipedia remains a free site run by donations, it remains an outlier in a majority of popular websites; other sites, such as CommonDreams.org or Truthout.org, run on donations but do not carry nearly the amount of traffic as Wikipedia.

2. “Clearnet” is the term used to describe openly accessible websites, usually found through a simple Google search. “Darknet” is the moniker for websites that are only accessible through a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or software that gives exclusive access to a network such as The Onion Router (TOR).

3. Molly Sauter (2014) writes, “by referring to all DDoS actions, regardless of motivation as “attacks,” the public, law enforcement, and even practitioners are primed to think of DDoS actions in terms of violence, malice, and damage” (p. 7). Sauter chooses not to use the term “DDoS attack” to avoid a “bias toward an interpretation of violence and harm” (p. 7). I want to maintain the subversive “criminality” of the action and allow DDoS to be an “attack.” Much like the machine de guerre, change must come as an immanent challenge, actively deterritorializing spaces. Similarly, the machine de guerre is a creation and response to the State and a DDoS attack is a response to perceived problematic actions by a group, state, or corporation. Consequently, I will use both the terms “attack” and “action.”