WEBVTT 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Greetings Troublemakers... welcome to Trouble. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 My name is not important. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 At 10:30pm on October 29th, 1969, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Charlie Kline, a student programer at UCLA, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 successfully sent the first digital message 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 from one computer terminal to another via the DARPANET, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a top-secret research project run by the US Department of Defense. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The transmission of this single word, 'login' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was a pivotal moment in human history, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as it represents the official birth of the Internet. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it was from here that the first message was sent. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A revolution began! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In the nearly fifty years that have followed, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 this invention has thoroughly transformed our world 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and come to dominate virtually all aspects of our lives. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It has restructured and rejuvenated capitalism, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by revolutionizing finance and transforming the globe 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 into a single interconnected marketplace. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It has provided new methods of interacting with one another 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and helped shape the ways that we receive and process information. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it has provided a place for people to upload terabytes of videos of their cats. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 This is pinky... he's a male. He's available for adoption. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 He's pet of the week. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Internet has also become the central pillar of a new form of social control 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 based around mass data collection and the construction of algorithms 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 aimed at better predicting and manipulating human behavior. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But while states and digital capitalists have used the Internet 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as a platform for mass surveillance and pacification, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it has also been a site of subversion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and created new possibilities for decentralized attacks on the dominant order. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We've got a problem. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Someone synched a RAT to one of my servers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A remote access tool – we're being hacked! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On the front-lines of this war are hackers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... those who use curiosity, programming skills and problem solving 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to unlock closed systems and bend powerful forces to their will. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Over the next thirty minutes, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 we'll share the voices of a number of these individuals 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as they share their experiences of defacing web sites, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 leaking emails, developing tools to thwart digital surveillance 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... and making a whole lot of trouble. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Hacking is one of those terms that I think has become a little bit nebulous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I would define it as using technology in a way that wasn't intended, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by finding bugs and oversights in designs 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to make it produce results that were never supposed to happen. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Creative subversion of technical systems. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You take software and you modify it to get another result. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example, accessing information on a system that you shouldn't be able to access. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Or making the system do something that it shouldn't be able to do 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 – or that you shouldn't be able to make it do. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's a lot of different definitions of hacking, depending on who you ask. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 US criminal law defines computer hacking as unauthorized access 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to obtain information, transmitting destructive code, etc. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I mean, they've basically expanded the definition 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in their ongoing efforts to criminalize everyday Internet activity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you ask someone like Richard Stallman, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 he'll tell you that it's really just a creative solution to a problem. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But hackers also do like to break into systems. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There are all kinds of systems, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and there's all kinds of access 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... and all kinds of ways to gain access. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Some hackers choose to fix and protect these systems. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They work for the government, Microsoft etc. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They call themselves White Hats. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They're not even really hackers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They're seen in the hacking scene as sellouts. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They do it for the paycheck... or maybe because of the flag. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But there are those, of course, who don't don't it for employment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They don't do it for a paycheck, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they do it for the love of solving complex puzzles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For the thrill of breaking into whatever artificial borders 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that these people decide to erect. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Everything that's built can be broken. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't think hacking has changed all that much in the last few years. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What really has changed is the scope of things that can be affected by hacking. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Before, in the 90's, most of it was just practical jokes 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because none of it had a lot of impact on real life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And in popular culture, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you start to have hackers appear in movies, in television series, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where there's this whole figure of these hackers that have these super powers. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That can invade computer systems in any way, shape or form. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's a new virus in the database. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 What's happening? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's replicating... eating up memory.... uhh, what do I do? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Type 'cookie' you idiot! 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Then it gets a lot more popularized. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Since the dot-com boom at the end of the 90's, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 things now have a huge impact. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And everything tends to be connected to the Internet, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 or some sort of network. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 As digital information networks have evolved, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a lot of personal information is being stored. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Y'know, big data corporations and industries are relying on computers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... so hackers have access to this kind of information 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that these big companies have as well. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Hacking can be very simple and very complex. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But most times hacking is very simple. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 By supplying input in a certain way, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you're able to make the back-end system believe that what you're supplying 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is actually part of its own code. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Which, in a lot of cases, can give you full access to that system. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That's not just limited to computers or telecommunication systems. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We can really kind of apply this idea to all kinds of technical systems. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So, for example, something like social engineering 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is a human form of hacking. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Y'know, you can pretend to be somebody that you're not 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and ask another person questions about themselves 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in order to get them to reveal private information. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's possible that there is software 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in theory that doesn't have vulnerabilities. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But in practice, that's impossible to have. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If an application or a system performs queries to a database based on your input, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 you could possibly alter your input to be able to then alter the database query, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and possibly gain access to information that you shouldn't be able to. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Mostly what an exploit does, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 it's a small tool that you run to get access to a special sector 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the software you want to get. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A lot of exploits and vulnerabilities are discussed publicly 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and being used in the wild. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If you pay attention to lists like Full Disclosure or Security Focus, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they'll tell you some of the latest tricks that are being used. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Of course, those are the ones that are already publicly known, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and that the vendors have already released patches for 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... but a lot of companies don't always patch. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They're not as on-top of it as they'd like to think that they are. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For example, the Equifax hacks a couple of weeks ago 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 was running outdated versions of Apache software. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Most people don't really do updates regularly. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So most people will actually get hacked by something very simple. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Denial of service attacks 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... basically coming up with ways to create an enormous amount 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of traffic to your server, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to the point where it can't continue to provide those services. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's such a thing as Distributed Denial of Service attacks, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 where that traffic is coming from many places at the same time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The most serious techniques are what they call 'undisclosed vulnerabilities', 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 what they call a 'zero day.' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When someone discovers a vulnerability, and instead of reporting it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 – which is the White Hat way – 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they continue using it privately. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they don't report it publicly, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 so that way for anyone to really adequately protect themselves against it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think a useful way to think about this is 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that the Internet is a really hostile place. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was never designed with privacy or security in mind. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 State actors and corporations control the entire thing. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And so when you talk about their ability to exploit it 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... I mean, to me, so many of the basic services that we use 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on the Internet are exploitative 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 without thinking about a hacker getting into it, or malware or something like that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 State actors like the US government 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have the ability to observe all Internet traffic in real time, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 collect it and store it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and then use it later at their discretion. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And they work very closely with the digital capitalists 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 – facebook, google and all these other entities 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 – who are already storing that information anyway. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Internet has long been a tool used by social movements 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of various political stripes, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 both as a means of disseminating information 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and a fertile ground for recruitment. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Back in the 1990's, the anti-globalization movement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 arose alongside the open-media publishing platform, Indymedia, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which allowed for the virtual coordination of many localized fronts 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the global fight against neoliberal capitalism. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I need 50,000 people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 50,000? You're gonna have to give me some time. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And drums. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You want drums? OK, I can do that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And what about the Italians? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Italians? Man, they're stuck on the border. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They're gonna be with you tomorrow. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And the black bloc? 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The black bloc are already there. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You're gonna see black and red like there ain't no tomorrow, kid. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You just sit tight. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 These days, social media platforms like facebook 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have given rise to a new form of online activity known as 'clicktivism', 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in which likes, shares and the signing of online petitions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 have become a popular way for liberals and so-called 'progressives' 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to project an image of ostensible participation 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in campaigns centered around a variety of social justice-related issues, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and often masking their lack of participation in real world struggles. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Real change requires real action. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 That’s why I always share political articles on facebook, whenever I see them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But not everyone has been lulled into this comforting delusion 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of how social change works. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 On both sides of the political spectrum, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 groups and individuals have continued to use the Internet pragmatically, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 both to spread their ideologies and coordinate their IRL activities. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Anonymous is a decentralized network of hackers and activists 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that exist in places like IRC and Twitter, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and anyone is free to become Anonymous 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and start their own operations within the network. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's kinda similar to the black bloc tactic used as cover and collective identity. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I'm doing ten years in the fence for computer hacking charges 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 related to my involvement in Anonymous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I was hacking police departments, military contractors 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... defacing their websites, releasing their emails and databases to the public. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 One of the bigger targets was a company known as Strategic Forecasting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 – Stratfor – which is a private intelligence firm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 made up of mostly former State Department and CIA agents. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We took down their website. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We went on donation sprees with all their clients' credit cards, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and gave their email archives to Wikileaks. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And Wikileaks pubished them, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 showed that they had been spying on activist groups 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on behalf of corporations like Dow Chemical. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Groups like Anonymous got really really famous defacing websites. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Other groups attacked police websites, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 getting all the data they have about current police members. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 There's also groups that were blocking huge institutions, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like credit card companies or banks. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If they block their transactions, they lose money. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So there's a bunch of stuff you can do with hacking. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Anonymous, they were really famous for 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 really getting that kind of popular participation in a hacking movement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that really didn't mean you had to be an expert to use it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You could download a piece of software, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you could just run it on your computer 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you would enter in the target URL 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and you could begin to participate in what was effectively like a virtual sit-in. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Now as far as Anonymous, or hacktivists in general 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 playing a role in revolutionary movements... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Anonymous was very active during Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In general, an overall revolutionary strategy 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 benefits from a diversity of tactics. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Multiple attacks converging from all angles, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 including street protests, to smashed windows, to hacked websites. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So Anonymous, y'know, revealing scandalous personal information 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 on individuals associated with a company that is the current target of protests 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 – timed well, it could be very effective. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It's a really interesting concept to me. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And a lot of people who are members of Anonymous 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 use tools that I work on every day. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I hope they will use them for good. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think the unifying idea is just using anonymity to achieve some end. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And doing it with other people. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think that that speaks to some of their internal contradictions too, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 because they're not unified by a political ideology. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Members of Anonymous fight with each other about that. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And I think when you have no political ideology motivating work like that 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 – work that has the potential to impact the whole globe, and has before 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 - it can be really dangerous. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 We of Anonymous declare total fucking war on antifa, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and all who support their criminal and violent actions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 towards innocent civilians. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I've seen Anonymous operations go after people 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in a kind of y'know, right-wing, Pizzagate-type style. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 You know... I mean it originated on 4Chan. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Historically, the hacker community has been very inclusive. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 When everything started, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 nobody really knew who was on the other side of the line. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Everyone was just green text on a black background. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 With that said, there is a lot of sexism in tech generally, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and I'd say that the people who are recruited from places 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 like Reddit and 4Chan are like, y'know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 your typical tech bros. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Every community on the Internet, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and every sub-community within those sites, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 whether it's 4Chan or Reddit or whatever, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 has a dog in the fight in gamergate. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Gamergate and 4Chan, and the origins of the alt-right, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I think are one of the most obvious confirmations 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of something that many of us who are radicals already knew 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... which is that toxic masculinity, misogyny, whatever you wanna call it, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 is an incredibly dangerous and violent force. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And it never ends there. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Beyond the origins in 4Chan, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I don't really know exactly where a lot of these young men came from. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 I imagine that it's probably not any more interesting 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 than they are a result of late-capitalist alienation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 But I think that they started out with, y'know, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 just like your garden variety misogyny. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then actual literal fascists went to their forums 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and whispered fascist poison into the ears of these impressionable men. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And because they already were prone to violence and bigotry, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 then it was just the natural conclusion. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Doxxing is the practice of exposing information about your opponent 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that they'd rather have kept secret. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Typically, doxxing happens from information 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 that is already somehow readily available 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... maybe just a little bit hidden. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 If someone is doing their activism under a pseudonym, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 attackers will search for any connection 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to their real physical persona and put that information online. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And then whoever the target is, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 all the people who wanna go after that target 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 will work collectively to terrorize them. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The result of it can be, y'know, something like 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 getting 50 pizzas delivered to your house 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... or it can be a SWAT team showing up in response to a fake bomb threat. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Protection against this is best done by 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 compartmentalization of your online activities. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So keep your activist activities and your regular activities separate. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Use different email accounts when you sign up for services. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Doxxing's also been used by hacker collectives 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 to expose lists of police officers, members of fascist organizations... 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 A lot of people were doxxed after the Charlottesville rally 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 out of just public open-source knowledge, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and had to back-track on their beliefs 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and actually had to go out in public and offer apologies. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 In June of 2010, a malicious computer worm 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 called the Stuxnet virus was first discovered 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 by a small Belorussian software company, VBA32. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 It was soon shared with cyber-security experts 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 at Kaspersky Labs, in Moscow, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and Symantec in Silicon Valley, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 who quickly realized that it was unlike any virus ever seen before. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Far from your run-of-the mill malware, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Stuxnet was a sophisticated weapon, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 comprised of millions of lines of code 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and believed to have been jointly developed by the cyber-warfare divisions 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 of the American and Israeli military. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Its target was the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility, in Iran. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For Natanz, it was a CIA-led operation. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 So we had to have agency sign-off. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Someone from the agency stood behind the operator and the analyst 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and gave the order to launch every attack. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 For months, the virus had lain hidden 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 within the plant's Programmable Logic Controllers, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 machines that are commonly used to regulate and control 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 a wide variety of industrial processes. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Running commands that were completely untraceable to workers in the plant, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Stuxnet targeted centrifuges for sabotage, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 causing them to explode, seemingly without cause. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The virus was only discovered due to an error in an upgrade patch, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 which allowed it to jump out of the secured military facility 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and onto the world wide web 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 …. otherwise we would have never even known it existed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Israelis took our code for the delivery system and changed it. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Then, on their own, without our agreement 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 they just fucked up the code. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Instead of hiding, the code started shutting down computers 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 ... so naturally people noticed. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Because they were in a hurry, they opened Pandora's Box. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 They let it out and it spread all over the world. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 The Stuxnet virus set an important historical precedent, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 as it heralded the beginnings of a dangerous new chapter in modern warfare. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 Still in its relative infancy, state-led cyber military campaigns 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 are now being conducted under conditions of total secrecy, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 shrouded from public scrutiny, or even knowledge. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And given the widespread incorporation of digital systems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 into all aspects of industrial civilization, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 from electrical grids to emergency management systems 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 and even missile launch sites, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 the potential consequences of these types of attacks 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 could lead to truly catastrophic loss of life. 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 And while states have been the first to reach this stage 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the development of offensive cyber warfare, 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 corporations and other sub-state actors are already charting their own courses 99:59:59.999 --> 99:59:59.999 in the militarization of digital systems.