User:Pedro Sá Couto/Graduate Research Seminar Trim 5/Chapter 01 10022020

From the XPUB PAD
https://pad.xpub.nl/p/psc_chapter_01_04

Download pdf here↓

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 (PAST)

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 (NOW)

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 (STRATEGIES)

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

Bridge : Why researching on watermarks?

Research focus

Linking how printed media was used to challenge repressive power structures and which 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

To understand the issue of the internet being used as a tool for enforcing surveillance by authoritarian regimes, we must step back. 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 used 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 used to happen when governments would suppress analogue media, we can establish connections and parallelisms between identical counter-strategies. Nowadays, the use of Virtual Private Networks and internet extensions are playing an essential role in establishing encrypted and secure connections online, providing privacy and helping to bypass surveillance. These online strategies may be compared to how different analogue media shaped parallel publishing streams throughout history.

After the Second World War, around the 40s and 50s, the Soviet Union made the flow of art and music circulating from the West illegal, 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 acquiring the material to use in homemade record presses, this new method consisted of going through hospital dumpsters and collecting used x-ray sheets. 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 types of vinyl 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, during the 60s' post-World War II, within the American, Western European and Asian context, illegal or clandestine publications start to emerge. Dominant governmental, religious, or institutional groups would prohibit any publications that weren't officially approved before publishing (Miles, 2016). The term "underground press" refers to all the underground periodicals and publications that arose associated with the counterculture of the 60s and early 70s. These periodicals were inspired by their predecessors, such as the POW WOW. POW WOW, standing for Prisoners Of War - Waiting On Winning, was a periodical published in Germany during World War II, and was considered "the only truthful newspaper in Germany" also advised "to be read silently, quickly in groups of three". Prisoners of war published it in the Stalag Luft I camp in Nazi Germany to give insights on what was happening outside of the camp. It ended up being the most abundant circulating daily underground newspaper in Germany during World War II, even though germans made an effort to eliminate it. From March 1944 to May 1945 not one edition was missed. (The POW WOW Newspaper, n.d.) Another notable endeavour within the phenomena of the "underground press" was the samizdat a "do-it-yourself" underground publishing that operated in the Soviet Union during the cold war (Kind-Kovács and Labov, 2015). Across the Eastern Bloc, readers would reproduce censored materials by hand, and these would be passed from reader to reader. Harsh punishments existed to anyone caught with these publications in their possession. Vladimir Bukovsky gives an overview of this phenomenon as: "Samizdat: I write it myself, edit it myself, censor it myself, publish it myself, distribute it myself, and spend time in prison for it myself." (Bukovskiĭ, 1988)

[Figure 02 — "POW WOW newspaper — D Day June 6, 1944"]

With an underlying inspiration on the free press, on counter-culture and empowered by self-publishing, the zine culture starts to emerge in the 80s' within the underground publishing panorama, emancipating print when it comes to overcoming repressive power structures. Zines speak from and to an audience of underground cultures. They are self-published media, either with original or appropriated images and texts with small-circulation and a small print run. Tied to technological developments such as the mimeograph or the photocopier, zines have to be observed within a DIY perspective. These technologies allowed almost anyone to publish because of low printing costs and fast printing runs. Zines are personal statements written by someone to like-minded communities. Their positioning is in between open letters and magazines and almost always not for profit, and even more common; you end up losing money while publishing them. (Duncombe, 2017). Zines main thematics are very broad. They often vary from politics with an emphasis on anarchism, libertarianism or "identity", such as Queer or Feminist; Culture, such as music, sports, pop culture; Literature, such as sci-fi and poems; And so on. Within these genres of zines, there is also one that stands out: Networking, such as the Factsheet 5 periodical founded by Mike Gunderloy. Publishing 44 issues, starting in 1982. These kinds of zines were fundamental to broadcast, index and publicize other zines. As an end result helping to spread these DIY publications, contributing by increasing the audiences and the access to such published material, and leading to the beginning of the emancipation of self-publishing as a strong response to repressive regimes.

The circulation of zines is puzzling. Even though zines are an individualistic medium, their end intent is to establish communication. (Duncombe, 2017) In a time where publishing would need to be previously authorized, this publication, depicturing motivations of counter-culture would have been censored. Albeit mailing existed, it was too dangerous to share these printed publications in this way, creating vulnerabilities, disclosing the one who had sent it, and the recipient. (Gunderloy, 1988). Printed zines were then passed by hand, and became key to engage within smaller communities. Zines would circulate through trusted people. This intimate movement of culture was also significant when it came to starting building communities — more than reading texts, meetings between people alike started to occur.

Contrasting fast paced spaces

In contrast to the intimate circulation within the phenomenon of the "underground press", 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 may be changing how we perceive distance (Munster, 2006). An exciting example of this phenomenon was the website GeoCities, founded in 1994 as Beverly Hills Internet, a name that didn't last long. Geocities was organized in different regions, as an example, "Hollywood" spaces were assigned to webpages dealing with entertainment, and "SiliconValley" computer-related web-hosted spaces. Not only these web spaces started to create a different perception between virtual and real spaces, but communities were also built remarkably inspired by what happened with passing zines by hand. Webpages were linked in rings, and users navigated within different websites linked related to their interests.

Currently, public discourse is invading free online spaces. And the circulation of media and opinions is is now viral. Political statements penetrate internet spaces, a lot of the times hidden, such as in memes. Memes function as a virus, as an easy way to propagate an idea. But they are used by both left and right wings to spread 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 present in the online sphere — coming back to the example of the Chinese government. While censorship measures are being implemented online, by blocking access or hiding 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 03 — "Grass Mud Horse"]

Analyzing strategies that enable access

While online spaces seem like safe havens to freedom of expression, the reality is that companies are using users to capitalize on. Users start to be more responsible for their online behaviour, for what they consume online and for what they share. At the same time as this online spaces are free markets to explore uninformed users, trapped in black boxes where they are not able to understand their real value, the need to control and create regulation around these assets are also increasing. 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, it is different, the use of nicknames and pseudonyms is not as present, and a user must display its real identity. Not only the use of a name is reinforced, but it is almost mandatory to connect a face to this name. As an example, Facebook demands real names, abandoning pseudonyms and making us use our real identity. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, even defends this option saying that "having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity." (Kirkpatrick, 2012)

[Figure 04 — "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog" cartoon]

It is essential to understand that while the threatened interests regarding privacy 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. When approaching these two interests, Laurence Lessing states that these differences have the consequences of making a lot of legislative changes to solve the problems within the copyright. Still, few were faced regarding the issues of privacy (Lessig, 2008). Identity is not protected because the parties interested lack power and influence, unlike the entertainment industry who has the authority and knowledge to demand change. This being, strategies to open access to copyrighted materials and protected research journals started to emerge. While researchers are coming across unbearable paywalls that are expensive and inaccessible to everyone, tactics are put together to make them more widely available.

Online spaces such as archives and extra-legal libraries provide spaces to access media within alternative channels, and their structures play a crucial role in who gets to access them. This user filter is implemented using tactics, such as invitations, or requiring specific technological knowledge, such as the ability to use web hidden services. When thinking about extra-legal publishing streams, we have to consider how these will shape the way different digital files are accessed and by which audiences. Different strategies may protect users, restrict communities, or answer more specific needs. I will delve into what strategies as extra-legal libraries and unindexed archives are available and what kind of resources enable gates to access walls to be opened. It is also crucial to introduce infrastructures, policies, and tactics that protect the ones who host such materials and that protect users of such platforms.

Within shadow libraries, libraries that exist in the margins of the law, different organizing structures exist: from public shadow libraries, 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 browser.

Library Genesis 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 economy, and geology to housekeeping. The library contains several copies of the same books in different formats and editions. The content is mostly written material, and all users are encouraged to upload and download content. 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, n.d.) Although this vast library seems to take information without any specific methodology, the reasons behind it look more as a political statement against copyrighted material rather than pleasing a particular crowd. The focus on dimension rather than curation also provides clues to what appears to be the primary goal, publishing as most proprietorial material as possible, dissolving the idea of ownership. The main page of the website links to a letter of solidarity demanding for action, a manifesto for standing up for what we believe in, incentivising the dissemination of knowledge. In this letter, we can read: "We find ourselves at a decisive moment. This is the time to recognize that the very existence of our massive knowledge commons is an act of collective civil disobedience. It is the time to emerge from hiding and put our names behind this act of resistance." (Custodians, 2015)

aaaaarg.fail is an interesting example, because of the demographics of its users and the connections that are established amongst them, 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. It is mainly used by researchers, academics, students and people interested in theory. To become a member, you need to get an invite, which 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.

Libraries like "The library" http://www.libraryqtlpitkix.onion/ and "Clockwise libraries" https://clockwise3rldkgu.onion operate within hidden parts of the World Wide Web. Standard web engines do not index their content. 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 on the focus of each space. These Libraries are not as straight forward to find; you have to Tor, the onion browser to access them, making them hard to come across with, and more specific to a determined public. It is interesting how they form a ring between themselves, bringing a sense of community to the numerous projects found. 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. Other archives 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".

Recently, I also came across a more informal system of file sharing. There is a group in Facebook titled, "Ask for PDFs from People with Institutional Access". It is interesting how from the start, we are compelled to understand that exist two sides to the story when it comes to research within the academic context or outside from it. This group can bring them together by matching the two intervenient needed, the ones who are part of an institution and the ones who are not and cannot afford research papers. What appealed to me the most was how it is using a centralized social media to create a mainstream hackerspace. It is also compelling how they were able to appropriate the design features of Facebook groups', such as the cover picture. In this feature, they display a graphic (see figure 04) to help guide newcomers. It is a strategy to transform the act of giving access less specific to a hacker community, to the ones who can crack these texts, and almost banalizing it. The workflow is as simple as; If you are part of this group, you post asking for a pdf you might need. Other users that are interested in getting this particular item comment on the post "F", which stands for following. 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, uploading pirated material to this platform and creating a social library.

[Figure 05 — Facebook's group cover picture]

Apart from shadow libraries, systems such as archives that document and organize perishable sensitive information preserving their digital memory also exist. It is relevant to use MayDay Rooms as an example where infrastructures and counter-strategies demanded to publish and to cease control over experimental culture, play equal parts. MayDay Rooms is 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. It is not only a digital archive, where you can browse a catalogue and read pdf but also deals with physical material. The home for this archive is the Birmingham Daily Post’s former London office refurbished over 2012 and 2013. This building is not only used as space to hold material, or as an infrastructure to its digital archive. It is also able to offer communal areas, such as reading, meeting and screening rooms and a canteen. It is a place for informal researching, gathering, and activation of the social aspect of the archived materials, for example, by digitizing and distributing it online. (MayDay Rooms, n.d.)

After looking into shadow libraries and digital archives, strategies to distribute and preserve copyrighted material, their users and the political agendas behind them, my research will delve deeper into the phenomena of watermarks. Watermarks are often used to identify file owners' as sources of copyrighted material, intimidating them, raising concerns of liability, and as a result, discouraging solidarity. I will focus on this tactic of protecting intellectual property and expand over how this technique is negatively impacting the sociability within texts and restraining the flow of files within online digital spaces.