Hacktivism. -- Final End

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Date Posted: 12:57:59 11/12/02 Tue
Author: The Serpent
Subject:

Hacktivism.

I know I keep mentioning Jello stuff, but here's something that Lona might enjoy, if she didn't already go herself. Since she's into hacking, and all that.

Jello Biafra, former lead instigator of the Dead Kennedys, still knows how to lob a metaphorical Molotov cocktail.

In a two-hour keynote address at the Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) convention in New York, Biafra ranted against "corporate rule," the cult of celebrity, and what he sees as the cozy relationship between the media and business interests.

And he issued a call to arms to resist the system through "hacktivism."

"I thought it would be years before there was a mass backlash against run-amok corporate rule," Biafra told a standing room-only crowd at HOPE. "But the issue is growing like a prairie fire."

Biafra, who was born Eric Boucher, likened the crusade to resistance against the Vietnam War.

The establishment has "money, power, guns, and media," he said. "It was the same situation when a few people put down their rah-rah flags and said we shouldn't be in Vietnam."

Biafra chided the profit-driven system that prompts drug companies to spend billions searching for the next Viagra rather than finding a cure for malaria.

"This isn't capitalism, it's feudalism," he said. "We're their serfs."

Biafra reserved some of his harshest words for the major media outlets, whose agenda he said revolved around cross-selling products from their parent companies and promoting commercialism.

As examples, he cited the incessant coverage of celebrity news and the decision by a newsweekly to put the latest Harry Potter book on its cover.

"Oh my, Meg Ryan is breaking up with her husband. Oh my, how important!" he mocked. "It's CNN, USA Today, Time deliberately not reporting the stories that affect our lives."

Biafra called on the hacker community to create alternative information sources.

"Don't hate the media, become the media," he said, calling for the rise of pirate radio and television stations.

He also praised computer hacking when it's done with a social conscience as opposed to "your frat boy brand of hacking."

An example of this "hacktivism" took place when a group dismantled a firewall that separates China's computer users from the rest of the Internet.

"I've always had a soft spot in my heart for creative crime," he said.

But the last few months have been rough for Biafra.

In May, he lost a long-running legal dispute with his former bandmates. He was ordered to pay $220,000 after a San Francisco jury found he had underpaid band members and that his indie label, Alternative Tentacles, failed to promote its record catalog.

The Dead Kennedys, whose "California Uber Alles" and "Holiday in Cambodia" were punk anthems, broke up in 1986, but remained business partners. Biafra maintained the suit was brought because he wouldn't let band members put "Holiday in Cambodia" in a Levi's commercial.

In June, Biafra lost the Green Party's nomination for president to Ralph Nader. His platform included proposals to enact a maximum wage, lower the minimum voting age to five, decriminalize drugs, and eradicate sport-utility vehicles.

At the end of his speech, Biafra, clad in black T-shirt, baggy shorts, red socks, and black shoes, marveled that he had kept the attention of an audience of hackers "without ever having used a computer in my life."

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