Anonymous v. Australia
Subject: Anonymous v. Australia
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 2/11/10, 17:39
To: Michael Hogan <Michael_Hogan@condenast.com>

Hi, Mike-

Not sure if you've seen this or if you recall the similar campaign against the Church of Scientology that began in 2008 and has gone on to a lesser extent since, but essentially an internet-based group called Anonymous is conducting a denial of service attack coupled with a campaign of general harassment focused on the Australian government in general and its online infrastructure in particular, with this being in retaliation for that state's increasing efforts to censor the content delivered via the internet, video games, and more traditional media. I was involved with some of the sub-groups associated with Anonymous a few years ago when I had more free time on my hands, and what I've observed leads me to believe that the group and its interlocking directorate constitutes an extraordinarily important development in human affairs; this is a system of corroboration that allows like-minded individuals from across the globe to coordinate, say, against a shared enemy, which is of course how early forms of government got their start thousands of years back. The difference is that the nation-state and its predecessors came into being due to the circumstances of an earlier age, one in which proximity and ethnicity (and particularly the former) determined one's ability to ally with others (a resident of China could hardly team up with an Irishman in any era before our own), whereas the online associations that are now coming into existence are organized around the structures of the information age, and thus nowhere near obsolescence. By the same token, the nation-state and the proximity-based community in general is already being undermined by the ability of any individual to coordinate with any other individual in a manner that would have been severely limited by the realities of geography and politics up until this century.

I did a brief introductory piece on the Australia/Anonymous conflict for HuffPo and True/Slant yesterday and ended by noting that I'd soon be making the case that this general phenomenon is not only proving a demonstrable challenge to the authority and relevance of the nation-state, but will someday almost certainly overturn such institutions. Let me know if you'd be interested in such a piece, or perhaps one dealing more specifically with Anonymous and the subculture from which it stems. 

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302