34C3 - Ecstasy 10x yellow Twitter 120mg Mdma

Carmen: Hi. We're Mediengruppe Bitnik,
this is Doma, my name is Carmen. We're

really happy to be here; thanks for having
us. And we'd like to show you a series of

works. We don't quite know how many; we've
been kind of changing the slides, so we'll

have to see what fits. I think... just 2
words about Mediengruppe Bitnik: We're

from Zurich originally. We're based in
Berlin now... have been based for 1 and a

half years and we work on the digital, but
usually our works also affect physical

spaces, as you'll see in a minute. And
we'd like to talk about recent works

around bots remote code glitch. So, the
first work is called "random darknet

shopper". We produced this work in 2014
together with Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen.

This was after the Snowden revelations in
2013, where we kind of felt that, as

artists, we needed to re-assess our
cultural "heimat", the internet. As a kind

of it was this mass surveillance thing and
we kind of felt we couldn't work there

anymore or that many of our works were too
naive and so together with Kunst Halle

Sankt Gallen, which is an art space in
Switzerland, we put together a show around

darknet, because we felt that by looking
at internet subculture, we could kind of

question ideas around anonymity, intimacy,
identity, trust... And in this show we had

12 works by various artists around these
topics and our work was "random darknet

shopper".
Doma: So, basically the random darknet

shopper is a piece of software... is a
small bot, which we started in autumn

2014. We started with the interest in the
question of trust: "How do you gain trust

in encrypted networks, where you don't
know to whom you're speaking to?", "How

does those trust mechanism work when
everything is kind of obfuscated and

encrypted?" And we wanted to challenge
this question, basically, on the darknet

markets, which were kind of a big topic, a
controversial topic, after the Silk Road

raid. And we thought that it might be good
to evaluate these questions with a bot,

questioning also "How does trust-building
work when you have goods, which are

shipped from all over the world to the
buyers?" and so we wrote this part which

was called the "random darknet shopper",
which had $100 weekly budget, based in

bitcoins, and the idea was that the bot
would log in to the deep webs and go to

the biggest dark net market at that time,
it was called agora I think, and randomly

select an item and then buy it and
directly send it to the exhibition space,

without our interference. So the idea was
that in the exhibition, we had 12 of those

vitrines -- they were empty -- basically
waited to be filled over 12 weeks of the

duration of the exhibition.
Carmen: So we basically connected the very

dark markets of the darknet with the very
visible space of the art gallery.

Doma: Technically it was pretty simple: It
was basically a small python script which

remote-controlled a Firefox and basically
logged in to the darknet markets through

Tor and then just clicked around to choose
a random category, get all the items below

$100, randomly choose one, hit the buy
button, send an encrypted message to the

seller to send it directly to the
exhibition space, and pay the fee or the

things in bitcoins.
Carmen: So, over time we wanted to have a

whole landscape of goods from the
darknets. There was also a lot of talk in

the media at the time -- well, there still
is -- about the darknets and what you can

buy there and we didn't believe what they
were telling us; we really wanted to see

what we would randomly get from the
darknet. And the first item was called

"fire brigade masterkey set", which the
seller said was a set of keys usually

owned by the fire brigade in the UK to
open storage...

Doma: ...public gates in public spaces,
stuff they need access to, so...

Carmen: We have no idea whether it's true
or not.

Doma: But we still really like that
object, because it has that potential of

opening doors in the UK.
laughter

Carmen: The second item was cigarettes
from the Ukraine. So basically, in very

good darknet fashion, circumventing the
taxation on tobacco in the European Union.

Doma:I think, it was about $35 at that
time.

Carmen: Yeah.
Doma: Third week, we had this Louis

Vuitton Trevi handbag for $95. And
actually, if we speak about trust, this

was the only item which wasn't delivered,
but the seller was kind enough to send the

bitcoins back, because he knew he couldn't
deliver. So, also here, it kind of worked.

Carmen: Then, we received the Lord of the
Rings collection by JRR Tolkien in PDF

format, which, for $1, which we printed .
Doma: It's several thousand pages. Then,

the first or ... second super-digital
item: It was called Visa.

Carmen: Visa Platinum top card, sent from
Torland for $35. Apparently this was a

Visa prepaid. We received a visa, so the
visa number, the expiry date, the name and

the little number you have on the back.
Doma: And we didn't dare to use it.

Carmen: Then, sixth week the random
darknet shopper selected 10 yellow ecstasy

pills with a Twitter logo on them...
giggling in the audience

Carmen: ... sent from Germany for $48 to
Switzerland; they actually arrived. We

took them as a title for the talk also,
because we really liked the description.

We displayed them like the rest.
Doma: They came in this stealth packaging,

pretending to be a DVD in this alufoil and
then vacuumed again.

Carmen: Yes and around about this time,
also the press started picking up on the

work, because they kind of felt that this
random darknet shopper was questioning or

posing questions around who's responsible
if a bot commits something illegal. So,

"What happens when a software box goes on
the darknet shopping spree?", the Guardian

asked. Who is responsible when a bot
randomly shops for ecstasy in the darknet?

Is it the person who programmed it, is it
the person who executes it, can a robot or

a piece of software be jailed if it
commits a crime?

giggling in the audience
Doma: And also what happens if the code is

open source and written by many people,
like if you have an algorithm which goes

wild?
Carmen: But the random darknet shopper

just continued shopping and it bought some
Nike Air Yeezy 2 limited edition trainers

for $75.
Doma: If you convert the bitcoins into

nowadays' value, it would be around $3000.
laughter

Doma: It costed $75 at the time.
Carmen: Then, we received a cap with a

built-in camera that little... that's
where the camera is, from the US for $99.

Doma: Then a thing I really liked, it's
called the decoy first class letter. So,

it's basically a plain letter you receive,
like a service and it came from Australia,

addressed to our exhibition space in
Switzerland. It's basically an empty

letter, just to basically traceroute your
postal system, to check if the system is

ok, if you can receive mails...
giggling in the audience

Doma: ...if it's... maybe somebody opens
it. So, the idea by buying stuff in the

deep webs is basically also to anonymize
somehow your postal box and to test that

you can basically send yourself a letter
and see if something happens. It's also

good tactics, basically, if you want to
introduce a new address somewhere, start

sending letters there and the post office,
the post person, the delivery person, will

get used to it and basically...
Carmen: Yeah. The next item was a Sprite

stash can. You probably know this, this is
an empty soda can, constructed to weigh

the same as a full one and you can screw
the top on, so you can place whatever you

want inside and it's hidden away
Doma: Then, the next one: These Diesel man

jeans replica from Hong Kong for $79.
Carmen: And the last item we received was

a high quality scan of a Hungarian
passport for online verification. So, here

you see, this is basically how we
displayed the items and this all went

really well, until we took down the
exhibition in January 2015 and the day

after the exhibition closed, the public
prosecutor of St. Gallen in Switzerland

basically seized the whole work and we
were a bit confused.

laughter
applause

Carmen: So, we were a bit confused in the
first moment, because of the timing. So,

after the exhibition closed, they seized
the whole work, but it turned out, that

for them it was mostly about the drugs the
random darknet shopper had bought. We were

kind of worried about the passport and the
visa card as well, which they felt was

totally okay.
laughter

Doma: And in the first moment, the
question also by the public prosecutor was

raised, it was about responsibility: Who
is responsible in this specific moment? Is

it the artists who wrote the code? Is it
the museum who basically hosts the show?

Is it the curator? Is it the people who
work there? Because me and Carmen, we have

never touched those drugs; we have not,
basically... it was all done somehow

automatically. Or is it the bot himself
who is somehow its own legal entity and

could be punished? So, in order to somehow
also protect the staff of the museum and

to also to get our items back, we thought
"The stuff is ours; we want the things

back.", we raised our hands and said "No;
I think, if you want to charge somebody,

you should charge us."
Carmen: And we were summoned for an

interrogation, which was really
interesting. There we learned that the

drugs actually contained MDMA, so the
police had tested them and confirmed that

they did.
Doma: I mean, we knew through the ratings

on the drugs on the darknet markets, that
this stuff was good.

laughter
Carmen: But then we kind of had to

discuss. We tried to explain what we
were... that we were trying to raise these

questions in public through publicly
accessible art piece, because we felt it

very important that we talk about these
things. Nevertheless, the public

prosecutor decided to destroy the drugs,
which was very unfortunate. We, of cause,

claimed they were an art piece.
Doma: So, you're destroying an art piece

here and our lawyer was also referencing
all other artworks which involved drug

from the whole history.
Carmen: Yeah, but we did receive the whole

work back in the end, except for the
drugs, and all charges were dropped

against us and the public prosecutor wrote
a very nice letter, saying that we

actually were allowed to break certain
laws to raise certain questions within

society. Without specifically naming
freedom of art.

Doma: So, our understanding of why they
seized the whole thing, is that they were

afraid what the next artist would do. So,
the first one buys it, the second one

takes it as a performative act and the
third one gives it to the audience and

it's kind of clear that they need to draw
a line. So, the question about

responsibility was not solved.
Carmen: No, we still have it. We then

continued with this question of bots and
the mechanical gaze... Oh, okay. You're

jumping, sorry, wrong introduction... The
same year, we were asked to do a public

art piece, which is always the case in
Switzerland when public buildings are

built, part of the money has to go into an
art piece and usually that art piece is

sculptural: It can be a sculpture in the
lobby o...

Doma: ... a sculpture in public space. It
should... there're different kind of

things you need to address; the public art
piece should work for 30 years, should be

sustainable, so it's mostly made out of
stone.

Carmen: So, for us as digital artists,
this was a very interesting question, also

because the building is the house for
Electronic Arts in Basel, also

Switzerland. So, for us the question was
"How can we talk about digital topics, but

not using digital media?"
Doma: And we asked ourself "Is there a way

of... I mean we thought a lot about
architecture and software and how

basically the software you use is also
infecting the architecture which is built

and since this is all software, what we
have never seen is a software error. So,

we ask ourself "Is it possible to build or
is it funny to build a software error into

stone?" and...
Carmen: We kind of had to try that.

Doma: We had to try that, so we took a
picture of the place, of this house, and

basically glitched it through a small
script and told them to rebuild it and

this is how it looks now.
Carmen: This is what the building looks

like today. So, they... You can see it.
They...

applause
Carmen: And when you stand there it kind

of gives you a surreal feeling: There's a
square in front of this facade and you

you're not sure, whether your eyes are
wrong or the building is wrong, and then,

when you come closer, you then, of course,
see.

Doma: And also here, the glitch reveals
stuff, like... People came to us and asked

"How does the piping system work?"
giggling

Doma: "Is it still here?" And this is
something which we like about software

glitches. That you sometimes you get an
understanding how a system works only of

breaking it or by forcing it to throw
errors.

Carmen: Then we...
*the 2 lecturers discuss something,

whispering*
Carmen: Sorry.

Doma: We need to discuss what we are
speaking about.

laughter
Doma Okay, so we'll skip another project,

because we are running out of the time.
Carmen: I think the last piece we'd like

to just quickly show you is very recent.
We're still kind of amazed at this. So,

this year, we were asked to do a book on
our work and we felt... This was really

difficult for us, because usually we do
websites and you can change websites and

then you do a book and you kind of... it's
printed and then it's there and that

really... it was very hard for us, but
once we decided to do this, we kept

thinking about "How can we break this very
static print format of the book?" and

together with the 2 designers of the book,
Konrad Renner (???) and Christoph Knurz

(???), we thought about... we said "Well,
the title should be code, because maybe

through the title, you could inject code
into various websites, because books,

they're online, you can buy them online.
And we decided to go

for as its title.

Dona: JavaScript, which normally, like
YAML, you can't write JavaScript into a

commentary field on Facebook, because
these things is parsed out and so the

browser does not execute that code, so
they check it, but we thought "Maybe if

it's so deep in the databases, like the
ISBN databases, the national

bibliographies and whatever, it might pop
up somewhere."

laughter
applause

Carmen:And the book came out in September
and then in October we realized that on

Walther Kรถnig, which is a big art
bookseller with a big online website, it

worked, so when you search for
"!Mediangruppe Bitnik" on the website...

Hope this works... And you go to the
catalog...

laughter
applause

Doma: So, this one this one is pretty
okay. I mean, normally if you... on other

website it breaks the "buy" button, which
is not in our interest, but...

laughter
Doma: So, you can still buy it on

Buchhandlung Walther Kรถnig. Just click
"okay" and then it's okay. So, here's just

a small collection of 10, 12, which are
popping up. It's like... everyday we get

more. And we can show you a small video of
2, 3 pieces.

Carmen: Don't know what we're going to see
now. I think eBay.

Doma: I don't know.
Carmen: Okay. This is eBay.

Doma: So, ebay.co.uk.
smartphone notification sound

Doma: BAM! And this only worked on or...
they already fixed it, so somebody made a

bug report. I like this one.
smartphone notification sound

laughter
smartphone notification sound

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laughter
Doma: So, thank you!

Carmen: Thanks.
applause

herald speaks, but it is unintelligible
due to technical problems

Herald: We have 5 minutes for a very short
Q&A if there are already people lying out

(???). Please, number 2.
M2: Very cool talk, thanks. I'm from

Switzerland, so I wonder, you were lucky
that you got dropped off the charges. How

much would it got for the charges if you
would not drop them? Do you know?

Doma: I don't you know. I mean, it was
basically or here it was about drug

possession and 10 ecstasy pills and we
were totally okay to take this fine. We

don't know it, but it was kind of...
Carmen: It would have been fine, because

in Switzerland, according to our lawyer,
it would have been for personal use. I

mean, this is not the amount you carry
around, apparently, if you're selling, so

we would have gotten away with a fine.
M2: So and I... Thanks very much that you

said that actually writing the code and
then the program buys it makes you

actually responsible, right? So, would
you... At the end you said, it was your...

"I would take the charge", because you
were writing the code...

Carmen: Yes, the problem was that usually,
at least in Swiss law, possession of drugs

needs to mean that the drugs were either
found on your person or in a space that

can be... that definitely belongs to you.
And the problem was that it was clear from

the process that we hadn't touched the
drugs and we didn't want somebody else to

get fined for drug possession ; that would
have made no sense. We wanted to also

publicly discuss this... having to step up
and say "No, it was us."

M2: Thanks.
Herald: Okay, final one.

Microphone x: Hi. Sorry... thanks for the
talk. I have to ask: Does the plumbing

work?
Carmen: Yeah. It works, because... so the

pillars were... I'll try to explain
briefly. So, architecturally this building

was a storage for dry goods and the
pillars used to support the building, but

when they turned it into a museum, they
actually filled the space between the

pillars with insulation, so the pillars
were gone. And then the architects didn't

like it. They thought, the pillars should
be there, because the building didn't look

good, so they actually put fake pillars
onto the facade again and so we could just

take the empty pillars and cut them up and
put the plumbing inside. So, now the

visible plumbing is fake, but the real
plumbing is inside the pillars; that's how

it works.
applause

Herald: Amazing work. One final, big round
of applause for Mediengruppe Bitnik and

thanks for being here!
Carmen: Thank you; thanks.

Doma: Thank you.
applause

[Music]

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