User:Pedro Sá Couto/Graduate Research Seminar Trim 5/Chapter 01 06022020

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Part 1: Bridging between Surveillance and Publishing

Point A: Bypassing surveillance

Argument 1 : Alternative publishing channels became fundamental to engage locally, spread information and freely publish thoughts

Parallel publishing streams

Overcoming repressive power structures with publishing

Impact of analogue technology shaping these parallel streams

Zine Culture and self-published media

Argument 2 : Contrasting fast paced spaces

Spreading is now viral.

Political statements are online.

Memes as a tool to free speech

Memes as a virus, upfront and hidden messages

Point B: Analyzing strategies that enable digital access

Argument 1 : Archives and libraries provide spaces to access sensitive media

From shadow libraries to .onion libraries, how their structure influences who gets to access them.

Preserving sensitive information and its' digital memory, how do archives document and organize perishable material?

Infrastructures and counter-strategies demanded to publish and to cease control over knowledge

Research focus

Linking how printed media was used to challenge repressive power structures and what communities still use alternative publishing channels. What are the efforts to preserve these kinds of media, and how are they digitally available?

Summary

In this chapter, I will start by creating a link with the introduction, where I delved into governmental surveillance and Digital authoritarianism. From understanding how the internet is a valuable asset to be controlled and to control the flow of information, I will compare it to the press control in authoritarian regimes. This sets as a base ground from where I will explore how printed media played a vital role in the past to tackle oppressive regimes and its use to bypass censorship. I will also point out some strategies that were used to share different media within this context.

With the introduction of technology as the mimeograph or the photocopier, communities found a way to share printed publications faster, more accurately, and cheaper. I will explore what these developments meant to these communities and how they are compared with the use of VPNs and browser extensions to bypass surveillance nowadays. The introduction of the internet shaped this discourse differently, making it easier, faster and viral while opening a space where the propagation of files and political ideas started to occur more quickly and within a bigger audience.

I will finish this first chapter by delving into some strategies implemented in digital archives and libraries, providing spaces to access media that come from alternative channels. It is essential to understand what efforts have already been put in place to archive illegal and extra-legal documents. While creating these archives, strategies are set to limit who accesses them and how technology plays a political role within them. What is the current impact of these? What are its positions while preserving the digital memory of sensitive information?

BRIDGING BETWEEN SURVEILLANCE AND PUBLISHING

Bypassing Surveillance

It is clear that the introduction of the internet changed how we relate among ourselves. Digital media have been responsible for some of the most wide-ranging changes in society over the past quarter-century. (Schroeder, 2018). Our notion of control has changed, and our perception of physical spaces tied to new media maybe be changing how we perceive distance. (Munster, 2006) I remember when I wanted to have a pirated copy of a film, I would physically have to move. I recall first seeing them, with a transparent case and a poorly printed cover and a few still with text in Spanish, the neighbouring country from where I am from. The film would most commonly be recorded with a low-quality camera in a cinema and sold to you burnt in a DVD. This example of how our access has been shaped helps to understand the shift that exists when it comes to establishing digital relationships. This understanding of the internet as a vehicle of information is key to understanding its value for authoritative regimes and its use. Vehicles of information because of their ability of talking to different masses have always been desirable strategies to work with when shaping, bending and creating political discourse and propaganda.

To understand the issue of the internet being used as an effective tool for enforcing surveillance by authoritarian regimes, we must step back. While this is happening, we must delve into how censorship was applied in repressive regimes way before the internet. And also how it still functions as a political mirror applied by these countries. For example, in China and Turkey, reactive measures like restricting Internet access, filtering content, monitoring online behaviour, or even prohibiting Internet use entirely are put in place. (Kalathil and Boas, 2001). By comparing these measures to what happened in the press before we can establish connections and similar counter-strategies used. Like we see nowadays with the use of VPNs and internet extensions to bypass surveillance we can compare it to how different analogue media and technology shaped parallel sharing streams.

After the Second World War, around the 40s and 50s, the Soviet union made illegal the flow of art and music circulating from the West, making these kinds of cultural expression extremely limited. Against this, the stilyagi which were members of youth counterculture in the Soviet Union found a way to bootleg and smuggle western records. While the main problem with DIY vinyl was getting the material to use in homemade record presses, this new method consisted of going through hospital dumpsters and collecting used x-ray sheets. The music would then be engraved in this vinyl material x-rays, and the hole in the middle to fit on the spindle would be burnt with a cigarette. More often than not these vinyls would picture old images of bones and medical material, and started to be called “music on the ribs,” and “bone records”, creating space for a black market and leading to a cultural revolution. (Grundhauser, 2015)

[Figure 01 — "Bone Record"]

Alongside this phenomenon, illegal publications and periodicals published without official support start to emerge during the time of post-World War II, the late 60s and early 70s. Against what dominant power structures demanded, printed media surface as a weapon for distributing information, culture and believes. In this period efforts like the underground press was a strategy to cope with a repressive post-war press. Publications were produced without official approval, illegally or against the wishes of governmental, religious, or institutional groups (Miles, 2016).

Even earlier, technological improvements such as the Mimeograph, patented in 1876, that was a low-cost printing press played a crucial role in the importance of print. The mimeograph machine would work by forcing ink through a stencil transferring it onto the paper. This method became prominent within the fanzine scenario in the middle of the 20th century (Rose, 2018). During the 80s and early 90s, the Factsheet 5 periodical emerged, founded by Mike Gunderloy. Publishing 44 issues along this period and being key to the beginning of the emancipation in publishing as a strong response to repressive regimes. This was a collection of reviews broadcasting and helping to spread publications that are now called fanzines and that exist during the zine culture. This periodical was produced with a spirit duplicator which coexisted alongside the Mimeograph. Before the photocopier became widespread technology, zines which are self-published media, either with original or appropriated images and texts with small-circulation and a small print run would be more economical to produce in this way. The possibilities created to print and disseminate material became key to engage within smaller communities. Their role within publishing media has to be observed within a DIY perspective enabling almost anyone to publish and can be compared to different outside publishing, such as the publishing phenomena of samizdat, a "do-it-yourself" underground publishing which operated in the Soviet Union during the cold war (Kind-Kovács and Labov, 2015).

It is essential to understand why zines would be passed within a hand distribution. Even though mailing existed, it was to dangerous to share it in this way; this could lead to disclosing yourself and the recipient. (Gunderloy, 1988). What happened was almost spreading knowledge by passing zines through trusted people and in this way increasing their circulation, always with the chance of it ending up in the wrong pair of hand and could end up into prosecution.

Contrasting fast paced spaces

In contrast public discourse in now evading free online spaces. And the circulation of media and opinions is is now viral. Political statements evade internet spaces, a lot of the times hidden, such as in Memes. Memes function as a virus, an easy way to propagate an idea. But they are used by both left and right wings to spread ideas and political agendas. "Memes play a distinct role in protest; they seem to be to the resistance of today what 'political posters' were to yesterday" (Metahaven, 2014). It is also interesting how illegal propagation continues to evade being present in the online sphere. Coming back to the example of the Chinese government implementing censorship measures online, blocking or hiding access to digital content, memes are used as a way to mask messages. The Grass Mud Horse Meme gained some protagonism because of its ambivalence it would explore this dual linguistic feature and evade digital censorship. In Chinese, Grass Mud Horse "When pronounced one way, it refers to an innocuous mythical animal that is apparently related to the Bolivian alpaca. However, when pronounced another way, it means 'fuck your mother' (肏你妈)" (Wu, 2019)

[Figure 02 — "Grass Mud Horse"]

ANALYZING STRATEGIES THAT ENABLE ACCESS

Living within these online spaces where people regularly interact with each other in various ways is natural for me. My friends would meet in chat rooms, and it was not a big learning curve for me to get attached to this since I remember all my resources for studying were incentivized to be found online. Of course that my concern with online privacy was not even close to what it is at the moment. On July 5, 1993, a cartoon from Peter Steiner was published by The New Yorker where we can read "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog", it pictures two dogs interacting and one is behind a computer. It symbolized the understanding of internet privacy, where users could interact with a certain degree of identity anonymity. Now, this sense of identity is reinforced, and it is almost mandatory that we merge a face with a name, as example facebook demands real names, abandoning pseudonyms and making us accountable for our actions online. It is relevant to look upon how Lawrence Lessig compares privacy and the reinforcement of copyright. While privacy's interests threatened are diffuse and disorganized, they are protecting values that are well understood and are compelling, such as, security and the war against terrorism. With copyright, the protection is facing the commons, or the public domain, while not being neither compelling nor well understood, these interests are well organized and authoritative. He also stated that these differences have the consequences of making a lot of legislative changes to solve the problems within the copyright, but few were faced regarding the issues of privacy (Lessig, 2008).

[Figure 03 — "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon]

From a context where the internet is now recognized as a place where social interactions are established, such as within social media platforms, the roots of these online spaces had the main purpose originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and institutes around the world ("The birth of the Web | CERN," n.d.). It is essential to acknowledge how this informal way of personal interactions still happens within its venerable context. The communication between researchers is very present online nowadays. Online spaces such as archives and extra-legal libraries provide spaces to access media that come from alternative channels, and their structures play a crucial role in who gets to access them. When thinking about extra-legal publishing streams, we have to consider how it will shape how others get to this material. What other organized strategies as extra-legal libraries and unindexed archives are available and what kind resources are able to open gates to access walls. It seems crucial to delve into how their infrastructures and tactics protect the ones who host such material and the users of these platforms.

Within shadow libraries, libraries that exist in the margins of the law, different organizing structures create spaces with different approaches. I will introduce some libraries, from shadow libraries that are public, where no invite is needed to download and upload digital material, to more restricted libraries where an invite or proxies are required, until .onion libraries where the onion services, most known as "hidden services" are reachable via the Tor network.

Library Genesis is a pertinent example to approach when talking about a public shadow library — started in 2008 as a successor, from library.nu, previously ebooksclub.org and gigapedia.com even before that. Between 2008 and April 2014, this library grew at a fast pace, with 1.2 million records by 2014 (Balázs, 2018). The website owners describe themselves as "random book collectors", which means they don't accept requests or focus on curating materials. The topics are broad: from business, economy, and geology to housekeeping and leisure. The dimension of this library is enormous; there are even several copies of the same books. The content is mostly written material. Although this vast library seems to take information without any specific methodology, the reasons don't look completely apolitical. The main page of the website links to a letter of solidarity with strong opinions on sharing materials, copyright, moral values, etc. All people are encouraged to upload content and to download it too. There's no score to maintain, log-in necessary, or price to pay. The desire of the platform to exist is well seen in the possibility of downloading all content, accessing the database and making mirrors. Within their context, they seem to distance themselves from the idea of bringing academic research for people without access "If you are from India, Pakistan or Iran, you may have difficulties with finances and be tempted to place such requests, then this answer is for you. There may exist some sites on the net that can help you find certain books upon request, but we simply cannot do this. If you need the book urgently and it's missing in LG, please, do not rely on us and try to get it from some other place." (Library Genesis: FAQ, n.d.)

aaaaarg.fail is one shadow library I would also like to introduce, because of the demographics of its users, and it also approaches their community in a closer approach. Used by researchers, academics, students, people interested in theory, you can only become a member by invitation. It might feel like you are in a private club, where you don't spot any advertising or even asking donations on the website. As a member, you not only can upload and download but also request new titles through a messageboard augmenting the sense of community and solidarity that exists in this online space. It is also situated close to their users, using strategies to do so, such as incorporating RSS, creating a panel where users can discuss and display a contacts list on the landing page.

Libraries like "The library" http://www.libraryqtlpitkix.onion/ and "Clockwise libraries" https://clockwise3rldkgu.onion operate within the invisible web, or hidden web are parts of the World Wide Web. Their content is not indexed by standard web engines. Instead, these libraries are indexed in specific web pages just as "http://mx7rwxcountermqh.onion/". In this index, you can find an annotated list of URLs, with a small description of what each of these links is focused on. These Libraries are not as straight forward to find; you often have to use different browsers to access them what makes them hard to come across with, making them more specific to a determined public. It is interesting how they can be seen as forming some sort of ring between themselves, also bringing a sense of community to the numerous projects found. Very few onion libraries use Calibre as a way to distribute and organize books, this is mainly because they demand the use of javascript, which is a great private vulnerability while using these browsers. Regarding their organization, it is noticeable the way how they are curated. A lot of the projects are organized just like a folder in someone's computer. Take for example "The library", a library that mainly focuses on sciences, with topics such as, Biology, Chemistry, Neuroscience, Physics, etc, this one looks just like a computer directory, where there is no index but the different data is stored inside folders and when you open them all the content fit in one scrolling HTML page. There are also other archives that appear to be personal libraries just as "Pokedudes Archive of Interesting and Odd Files", a place where they organize what is described as being "a small list of" weird or interesting files".

More informally, I also came across a different system of file sharing, and for me, it was really interesting how it was shaped. There is a group in Facebook titled, "Ask for PDFs from People with Institutional Access". The name by itself tells us a lot to what has been happening within the academic context. What appealed to me the most was how it uses a mainstream, centralized social media which is politically appealing. Taking profit from the design features of Facebook groups, such as the cover picture, they have displayed here a graphic (see figure 04) to help guiding less informed users or newcomers, as a strategy this helps to transform the act of giving access less specific to a hacker community, to the ones who are able to crack these texts, and almost banalizing it in a way. If you are part of this group, you can post in it asking for a pdf you need to anyone who as legal access to it. Other users comment "F", which stands for following, on the post if they are also interested in getting this particular item. Due to the design of the platform, if you comment you will be notified whenever the item shows up. It is an informal community of hackers, sharing items among themselves, creating a social library with centralized users solidarity.

[Figure 04 — Facebook's group cover picture]

Apart from these libraries, systems, such as archives that document and organize perishable sensitive information preserving theirs' digital memory also exist. Archives like Cryptome publish and enable the download of files that are prohibited by governments worldwide, namely material on freedom of expression, privacy, cryptology, dual-use technologies, national security, intelligence, and secret governance, open, secret and classified documents (Cryptome, n.d.). Another example is Syrian Archive which is responsible for collecting, verifying, preserving, and investigating visual documentation of human rights violations in Syria, the Syrian Archive establishes a verified database of human rights violations, and to act as an evidence tool for legally implementing justice and accountability as concept and practice in Syria. (About | Syrian Archive, n.d.). The third example I also consider relevant to include is MayDay Rooms, an educational charity founded as a safe haven for historical material linked to social movements, experimental culture and the radical expression of marginalized figures and groups. It was set up to safeguard historical material and connect it with contemporary struggle. (MayDay Rooms, n.d.)

Even though a wide variety of infrastructures exist to publish files that have been made exclusive for a wide diversity of reasons, I find it necessary to reflect not only in the creation of these places to spread protected/copyrighted material but also to explore the required strategies to do so. The contemporary panorama where book publishers reinforce DRM (Digital rights management) forcing customers that have paid for a file to keep them in an airtight area, such as their computers, iPads, or Kindles. More critical these users are not able to transform these files into sharable ones. Academic journals published through a wide variety of companies such as JSTOR and Elsevier are also contained within paywalls that demand payment of approximately 30 euro per paper, making access practically impossible to anyone who is outside institutions that have a paid subscription.

My research then looks further into the creation of awareness to the politics of sharing, identity and Copywrite laws. I am exploring grey areas to do it and to come up with techniques able to provide safe spaces to the ones who are interested in participating in this discourse, protecting their identity and ensuring anonymization. It is also important to clarify that not only are journals closed, someone that has access to them is not able to openly share them because of Copywrite strategies such as watermarking. In parts 2 and 3 of my thesis, I will delve into the background of watermarks. I find it crucial to give insights into their history and on their appropriation. Reflecting upon how they are used to insight fear and discomfort, I will look at them with a positive attitude, tweaking these strategies and exploring hidden possibilities.