Hacktivism Intent 1 — ElliotC
Problem: At present, Web-based information technology companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook have a disproportionately large amount of power, have a disproportionately large role in how individuals are able to conduct their daily lives, and are single points of failure for a large portion of the modern lifestyle. There is no practical way to rebel against this system. Van Gelder refers to “institutions whose behavior calls into question their right to exist” (“Introduction: How Occupy Wall Street Changes Everything”, Sarah Van Gelder, 2011, p. 10). The hegemony of corporations is a strong parallel to such institutions — unlike the government, corporations are private institutions with little to no public oversight and control, despite having a large and visible role (perhaps even larger than any one government) in individuals’ lives.
Proposed solution: To begin to challenge this power structure, as part of an ongoing project, I propose developing an semi-decentralized document-oriented computing platform that can integrate the abilities of traditional information technology systems into a single, cohesive system. Such a system should be free/libre software, and should be designed in such a way that it can adapt when needed to functioning as a fully decentralized, serverless system, transparently adjusting to the networking capabilities or lack thereof available to it on an ad-hoc basis. The existence of this project as a replacement would prevent single IT companies’ systems being single points of failure, and its distributed model would prevent it itself from being a single point of failure. Additionally, by being fully free/libre software, and by using a single system and data format for the full range of services, this proposal would reduce the dangers created by vendor lock-in, proprietary products, and incompatible IT systems.
Top strategies: My goal is to develop an initial implementation for this system, and create a community-led nonprofit organization to manage it. An alternative strategy could be omitting the implementation phase, and only focusing on developing a specification for such a system that could be presented elsewhere, although that strategy would risk increasing the problems the project is intended to fix (by providing existing IT companies with the project’s technological innovations, but not having a free/libre implementation of them to prevent existing companies using distorted clones of the idea to further their proprietary goals and vendor lock-in).
Target audience: This project is aimed at and would benefit people who currently use proprietary IT systems. Secondary audiences include people who already use and care about free/libre software, and people who have not used IT systems but would like to. Making such a system be accessible and aesthetically pleasing is important, but achieving those aims is mostly a solved problem, and by following standard best practices this should not be a significant issue in the development of this project. To help it be easy to use, a user interface proposal is available that serves as an iteration on traditional computing models while being simpler and more capable; I believe that this proposal should be used as the default user interface modality for the proposed IT system. The project itself is quite serious, reflecting its great importance (at least in my opinion) and substantial scope, but fun elements certainly play a role in it (free/libre computer games, etc.) — not to mention the simple fun of using a great system that you know you fully control and can rely on, rather than being controlled by and dependent on corporate interests!
I envision this information technology system as a component of a more general community development project. One other possible innovation to try in the course of this community development project is the use of an information technology system to manage and facilitate work by individuals, by tracking what needs to be done and what skills people have, and offering jobs to people with the relevant skills. This would allow the individuals to bypass the difficult job search and application process, which uses a lot of individuals’ time and energy without producing any real value from that expenditure. Then, when a job is completed, the person who did the work would be granted credits corresponding to the work they did, which could then be exchanged for goods or services. This type of system could be implemented as a single, centralized system. However, it could also be implemented as a decentralized system.
To decentralize such a system, individual computers that make up the information technology system would have to be able to negotiate information sharing between other computers that are accessible via network. If each individual computer has the entire capability to maintain the system, then the network would be able to split and recombine as needed depending on situation.
For instance, if a community in Maine, USA implemented such a system, and a community in Peru implemented such a system, the two systems would be able to be connected when a network connection between them was available, being able to share work assignments remotely, but if a storm or other situation disrupted the network connection, the two communities’ economies would split into separate economies and continue working independently seamlessly, and then recombine when the network connection returned. In such a system, each individual who has a computer thus has access to and control over that part of the economy. This still leaves one centralized aspect, though, which is the software controlling the economies. If it is community-maintained libre software, that problem is largely eliminated, aside from the usual problems of project governance. If it is preferred, the software could also have facilities for creating ad-hoc centralization, where one instance of the software within each group of instances accessible within a given network would adopt the role of leader. This could be decided automatically, and made fully invisible to users of the system, or through community selection with automatic selection as a fallback, which would probably be preferable so as to ensure that systems with good connectivity and uptime (such as servers in datacenters) were selected as leaders, avoiding unnecessary inefficiency and maximizing reliability.
3 thoughts on “Hacktivism Intent 1 — ElliotC”
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Concept
what media is the intent/project? 1-1, 1-many, many-many? explain.
This is a Many-many concept, it requires many-many interaction in order to function.
does the idea enlist any of the New Media Strategies? If so which & how?.
It aggregates, compiles and visualizes data.
what major issue(s) does the project engage?
It engages the issues of big tech companies having a monopoly on IT.
does the concept interest you?
This does not particularly interest me. That’s a matter of personal opinion.
Design
Is the design clear and appropriate?
The post does not describe what the interface would look like, only how it would function.
Does the design invite attention and/or participation?
I don’t know becasue I cant tell what it would look like.
Technical
What tech is used? is it appropriate?
the tech used are computers that people already own, which sounds appropriate.
What is the cost? is it affordable for most people? the planet? is it sustainable?
The cost of production was not provided. However, it would be free to the user with minimal environmental impact.
Audience
Who is the intended audience?
The target audience is anyone who has use for an IT system.
How is the project geared to the audience?
It is an IT system, therfore exactly what it’s target audience needs.
Would the project appeal to or challenge the audience? how/why?
It would challenge the audience by offering them an alternative to the system they already use.
Creativity
Does the idea stem from some personal passion of the creator?
Yes, they seem passionate about IT systems.
Can you detect the mark of a particular sensibility?
Yes, this person seems sensible to monopolies.
Concept
what media is the intent/project? 1-1, 1-many, many-many? explain
This project used a community based, man- to-many system of retrieving information. The purpose is to seamlessly combine two or more communities so that if one seems to suddenly have a disaster the others can work separately but on the same system.
does the idea enlist any of the New Media Strategies? If so which & how?
This does use the idea of many to many. By enabling two communities to connect it provides a platform where the information of many people can be accessed by anyone else who is in this system.
what major issue(s) does the project engage?
This solution eliminates the problem of major companies having too much power, we see recently that companies like Amazon rule the shopping world or Disney ruling the entertainment world by buying other entertainment companies.
does the concept interest you?
This is an interesting topic but it would be extremely difficult to pull off for a student going to the University of Maine trying to eliminate major corporations.
Design
is the design clear and appropriate?
The design is very clear and basic, hopefully, this would make it easy to understand for communities that are connecting such as Maine and Peru.
does the design invite attention and/or participation?
The project would not be successful without participation from people in the communities that are being connected. If there is no participation from the communities then no information can be shared.
Technical
what tech is used? is it appropriate?
The idea is to build its own system that is internet based to share information. This is really the only appropriate way to share information long distance with other communities now because if you did it paper-based then it would be pen pals.
what is the cost? is it affordable for most people? the planet? is it sustainable?
There doesn’t seem to be any mention of money or costs for this project.
Audience
who is the intended audience?
The audience seems to be those who are not happy with the way that corporations are becoming more powerful than they should be.
how is the project geared to the audience?
It seems to be the program is made to be an easy access place where information can be shared and that what can interest the audience to participate in this project.
would the project appeal to or challenge the audience? how/why?
I think the point is for the project to be easily accessible. People would not use the program to share information in it was difficult to use.
Creativity
does the idea stem from some personal passion of the creator?
Listen to you talk about the project before it does seem that you are very passionate about the subject of corporations like Amazon and Google have too much power in this world.
can you detect the mark of a particular sensibility?
This seems like a very passionate project that comes from the idea that people are offended by the corporations having too much power.
This is an intriguing and ambitious project. I’d like to see where you might go with this…
I need to understand better how and if this tech solution would actually divest large IT corporations of their hegemony. Sometimes when all systems are similar, a system becomes vulnerable (this is true of ecosystems, for example, and so biodiversity is a law of resilient systems)
Second, Iwould like to know better what part of this you might be able to do as a class project–can you carve out some part that would be feasible–eg even creating a functioning club might be a first step…
You might want a logo for the project, this would give you another compelling visual.