“The hacktivism 1.0 was the activism of outsiders. Its organizing principle was to get outsiders into the territory of the other. Wikileaks, on the other hand, is an infostructure developed to be used by insiders. Its sole purpose is to help people get information out from an organization. Wikileaks shifts the source of potential threat from a few and dangerous hackers and a larger group of mostly harmless activists – both outsiders to an organization -, to those who are on the inside. For mass protesters and cyber activists anonymity is a nice, but certainly not an essential feature. For insiders trying to smuggle information out, anonymity is a necessary condition for participation. Wikileaks has demonstrated that the access to such features can be democratized, made simple and user friendly. Easy anonymity also radically transforms who the activist may be. It turns a monolithic, crystal clear identity, defined through opposition into something more complex, multilayered, hybrid, by allowing the cultivation of multiple identities, multiple loyalties.  It allows those to enter the activist scene, who do not want to define themselves – at least not publicly – as activist, radical or oppositional. The promise – or rather, the condition – of Wikileaks is that one can be in the inside and on the outside at the same time. Through anonymity the mutually exclusive categories of inside/outside, cooption/resistance, activism/passivity, power/subjection can be overridden and collapsed.”

excerpt from my upcoming publication on wikileaks, freedom and sovereignty in the cloud.“The hacktivism 1.0 was the activism of outsiders. Its organizing principle was to get outsiders into the territory of the other. Wikileaks, on the other hand, is an infostructure developed to be used by insiders. Its sole purpose is to help people get information out from an organization. Wikileaks shifts the source of potential threat from a few and dangerous hackers and a larger group of mostly harmless activists – both outsiders to an organization -, to those who are on the inside. For mass protesters and cyber activists anonymity is a nice, but certainly not an essential feature. For insiders trying to smuggle information out, anonymity is a necessary condition for participation. Wikileaks has demonstrated that the access to such features can be democratized, made simple and user friendly. Easy anonymity also radically transforms who the activist may be. It turns a monolithic, crystal clear identity, defined through opposition into something more complex, multilayered, hybrid, by allowing the cultivation of multiple identities, multiple loyalties.  It allows those to enter the activist scene, who do not want to define themselves – at least not publicly – as activist, radical or oppositional. The promise – or rather, the condition – of Wikileaks is that one can be in the inside and on the outside at the same time. Through anonymity the mutually exclusive categories of inside/outside, cooption/resistance, activism/passivity, power/subjection can be overridden and collapsed.”

excerpt from my upcoming publication on wikileaks, freedom and sovereignty in the cloud.