Can Anarchy Protect Us From Bad People?

An Anarchist FAQ

The Anarchist FAQ Editorial Collective An Anarchist FAQ Version 15.4 (17-Mar-2020) 17-Mar-2020

The Anarchist Library

The Anarchist Library

Human-Computer Insurrection: Notes on an Anarchist HCI

The HCI community has worked to expand and improve our consideration of the societal implications of our work and our corresponding responsibilities. Despite this increased engagement, HCI continues to lack an explicitly articulated politic, which we argue re-inscribes and amplifies systemic oppression. In this paper, we set out an explicit political vision of an HCI grounded in emancipatory autonomy - an anarchist HCI, aimed at dismantling all oppressive systems by mandating suspicion of and a reckoning with imbalanced distributions of power. We outline some of the principles and accountability mechanisms that constitute an anarchist HCI. We offer a potential framework for radically reorienting the field towards creating prefigurative counterpower - systems and spaces that exemplify the world we wish to see, as we go about building the revolution in increment.

Human-Computer Insurrection: Notes on an Anarchist HCI

The HCI community has worked to expand and improve our consideration of the societal implications of our work and our corresponding responsibilities. Despite this increased engagement, HCI continues to lack an explicitly articulated politic, which we argue re-inscribes and amplifies systemic oppression. In this paper, we set out an explicit political vision of an HCI grounded in emancipatory autonomy - an anarchist HCI, aimed at dismantling all oppressive systems by mandating suspicion of and a reckoning with imbalanced distributions of power. We outline some of the principles and accountability mechanisms that constitute an anarchist HCI. We offer a potential framework for radically reorienting the field towards creating prefigurative counterpower - systems and spaces that exemplify the world we wish to see, as we go about building the revolution in increment.

Crime As Proxy For Disorder

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One Nation Under Blackmail: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein$dVol. 1

Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Publisher's Foreword -- Contents -- Introduction -- 1) The Underworld -- 2) Booze and Blackmail -- 3) Organized Crime and the State of Israel -- 4) Roy Cohn's "Favor Bank" -- 5) Shades of Gray -- 6) A Private CIA -- 7) A Killer Enterprise -- 8) Clinton Contra -- 9) High Tech Treason -- 10) Government by Blackmail: The Dark Secrets of the Reagan Era -- Documents -- Index -- List of Abbreviations -- Acknowledgments -- Back Cover

Tracers in the dark: the global hunt for the crime lords of cryptocurrency

"A propulsive story of a new breed of investigators who have cracked the Bitcoin blockchain, taking once-anonymous realms of money, drugs, and violence and holding them up to the light Black markets have always thrived in the shadows of society. Increasingly, these enterprises-drug dealing, money laundering, human trafficking, terrorist funding-have found their shadows online. Digital crime lords inhabiting lawless corners of the internet have operated more freely than their analog counterparts could have ever dreamed of. At the heart of their massive conspiracies: cryptocurrency. By transacting not in dollars or pounds but in Bitcoin-a currency with anonymous ledgers, overseen by no government, beholden to no bankers-black marketeers robbed law enforcement for years of their chief method of cracking down on criminal markets, namely, following the money. But what if the centerpiece of this dark economy held a secret, fatal flaw? What if their currency wasn't so cryptic after all? An investigator using the right mixture of technical wizardry, financial forensics, and old-fashioned persistence could crack open an entire world of crime. Men with No Names is a story of crime and consequences unlike any other. With unprecedented access to the major players in federal law enforcement and private industry, veteran cybersecurity reporter Andy Greenberg tells an astonishing saga of criminal empires built and destroyed. He introduces an IRS agent with a defiant streak; a Bitcoin-tracing Danish entrepreneur; and a colorful ensemble of hardboiled agents and prosecutors as they delve deep into the crypto-underworld. The result is a thrilling, globe-spanning story of dirty cops, drug bazaars, sex-abuse rings, and the biggest takedown of an online narcotics market in the history of the internet. This is a cat-and-mouse story and a tale of a technological one-upmanship that's utterly of our time. Filled with canny maneuvering and shocking twists, it answers a provocative question: How would some of the world's most brazen criminals behave if they were sure they could never get caught?"--

Scaring People into Supporting Backdoors - Schneier on Security

Back in 1998, Tim May warned us of the “Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse”: “terrorists, pedophiles, drug dealers, and money launderers.” I tended to cast it slightly differently. This is me from 2005: Beware the Four Horsemen of the Information Apocalypse: terrorists, drug dealers, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Seems like you can scare any public into allowing the government to do anything with those four. Which particular horseman is in vogue depends on time and circumstance. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the US government has been pushing the terrorist scare story. Recently, it seems to have switched to pedophiles and child exploitation. It began in September, with a long ...

The Final Straw Radio: The Situation with NoBlogs (a midweek special featuring Sabot Media and CrimethInc)

In this mid-week special, you may have noticed a change in our introduction, that we’re listing as our website (a work in progress, currently pointed at our blog, soon to be pointed at our new web host). This is because we’re moving our website from NoBlogs.org following the August 26, 2026 announcements by the US State Department and Department of Treasury that designated the hosts of NoBlogs, the Italian autonomous tech collective Autistici / Inventati as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and placed it on the Specially Designated Nationals list under Executive Order 13224. In this conversation you’ll hear a member of the crimethinc ex-workers collective and Sprout from Sabot Media talk about the designation, the intended impacts on anarchist, antifascist and other movements by the US government, and what can come next if we’re up for the fight. I invite listeners to check out the statement from as well as the still awaiting more signatures and articles available on the subject from sabot.media. There’s also a recent chat by with Shayana Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights on the legal elements of this chat, alongside a list of from Riseup that could be helpful for people looking for new web hosting homes for their projects. Sabot Media about NoBlogs: Also, check out Autistici/Inventatiti 's book about their first ten years: . ... . .. Featured Tracks: TFSR by Beatbuster by 

State Capacity of Secret Surveillance

The state capacity-civil society tradeoff model tends to treat the “state” and “civil society” as separate entities who move to constrain one another. However, this modeling technique leaves out the nuances of individual action within a collective setting by treating each as a relative black box. This article explores this balance in the context of the surveillance state that has arisen in the 20th and 21st century. As state capacity in surveillance increases it better allows the state to respond to threats to citizens from citizens. However, the increased capacity also lessens the ability of societal pressure to check authoritarian advances even in a nation with a thriving civil society presence.