Re: <nettime> Re: PUBLIC DOMAIN SCANNER [x2]

["Lachlan Brown" <lachlan@london.com>]

Indeed, the distinction between assumed rights and
legal guarantee of rights, public and private, resides
in an interstitial state. Not a 'grey area' to be filled
in between the public and private by new conditions for
'cyber' space, but a contest in which like a Venn Diagramme the 
public and private vie over the terrain they both occupy.

Add to this the interests of several dozen States,
thousands of public service institutions
hundreds of thousands of companies and millions
of users, well... . What would we call it? War?
Wrestling? or Seduction? A Million times a million
contests. Cultural confusion.

I did a fair bit of research into the legalities
as a part of my groundbreaking (and aparantly retro-gardist)
PhD. First the question of aesthetics, then the question of
policy, finally the question of the regualtory, governmental,
legal terrain.

What struck me about the legal terrain is how
we are constructed as contractual subjects, the
intersection of dozens of legal rights and obligations.

These webs of the law are durable and have easy translation
to the new media distributive terrain. Despite word play
or administrative/bureaucratic assumptions of power. The
really interesting fact is that States, institutions, companies,
individuals, but not collectivities like artists, writers,
coders, primary producers and so on, are beginning to 'stand-off'
this terrain. We might, after all, consider a return to
the question of the aesthetic, and then of policy, and then
of law over several years. It will become clear as we do so
that we NEED insitutions, new institutions perhaps, that are
able to host the work you 

If anyone would like legal advice, advice on securities,
advice on digital properties, I can help. Advice on
the extent of the question? Always ready to oblige.

I think it helped my cultural anthropology of a familiar/unfamiliar 
culture not to have any knowledge of'cyberpunk' fiction. I am now 
catching up on this,
I see the parallels, but not the relevance to the broader
cultural geographical terrain. I see where I fit in however.

I mean, I see the Punks, I see the Cyber, I don't see enough fiction.
I do not see enough Art or Criticism that relates to or makes a
New England.

Lachlan
difference engine
00 cultural.knowbotics: the social shapes of technology March 1993 - 
May 2002


------------------------------

Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 10:48:42 +0200
From: "knowbotic.research" <krcf@khm.de>
Subject: Re: [rohrpost]  PUBLIC DOMAIN SCANNER


>
>unitedwehack.ath.cx
>
>All 1549 scanned ports on  (209.73.19.97) are: UNfiltered


May 5 21:00:34 on open scanner:

May 5 21:00:23 snd sshd[16010]: fatal: Read from socket failed: Connection 
reset by peer

netname: CABLECOM-MAIN-NET descr: Cablecom GmbH descr: Zuerich
May 5 21:00:34 snd sshd[16032]: Failed password for illegal user su from 
217.162.194.136 port 1116

May 5 21:00:39 snd sshd[16032]: fatal: Read from socket failed: Connection 
reset by peer
May 6 06:14:11 snd sshd[31593]: Did not receive identification string from 
211.124.245.7


Hutchison Telecommunications (Hong Kong) Limited
May 7 12:18:46 snd sshd[14426]: Did not receive identification string from 
210.0.210.16


[Network Name] CWO-NET g. [Organization] City Wave Osaka Inc.
May 7 19:03:56 snd sshd[28072]: Did not receive identification string from 
211.124.245.7

Freie Universitaet Berlin
May 7 19:26:24 snd sshd[31515]: Bad protocol version identification 'QUIT' 
from 160.45.155.53
May 7 19:27:27 snd sshd[31728]: Did not receive identification string from 
160.45.155.53

netname: DOM-NET descr: digital online media Gmbh descr: Bismarckstr. 60 
descr: D-50672 Koeln
May 7 21:07:02 snd sshd[11961]: Bad protocol version identification '^D' 
from 194.77.86.7




------------------------------

Date: Wed, 08 May 2002 17:27:40 +0200
From: "knowbotic.research" <krcf@khm.de>
Subject: Re: <nettime> PUBLIC DOMAIN SCANNER


 >I've never received an email that has caused me quite so much concern,
 >indeed, terror.

Yes, you are potentially right. Each network actor who does not follow the
legal guidelines of the political logic of security immediately becomes a
focus of concern.
If we published the precise vulnerabilities of the public domain in the
networks, the 18 U.S.C. 1030 Fraud and Related Activity in Connection with
Computers would make us hackers=terrorists.
(see http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/cybercrime/1030_new.html
and the new Amendments
http://unitedwehack.ath.cx/infoPatriotAct.htm)

In relation to our project PUBLIC DOMAIN SCANNER, minds of
concern::breaking news
this means concretely:
A) if we used in this Public Domain Scanner the full range of a Security
Scanner, i.e. enact also intrusive scans,
B) and/or we published the adresses of the scanned servers and their
vulnerabilities
we would turn immediately illegal.
Thats the dilemma: security becomes the leading principle of today's
politics; if you dare to go in this political mousetrap (public domain is
the zone of instability and contestation, and has nothing to do with the
concept of security=regulating disorder by means of appeasement) and
discuss, crisscoss, enact publicly/in networks the concept of security, the
law forces you immediately to obscure the topic.
We had hoped to raise these issues unobscured in an Art museum, but since
Art Instutions are unwilling to enter this zone, even or maybe especially
not in an 'Art Hacking' show, due to the ubiquitous paranoia and threat of
getting sued, - the museum and the curators made it very clear to us that
we as artists are 100% alone and private in any legal dispute -, we decided
by ourselves to hide parts of the information on the scanner.
 >, but more importantly, <intently>who</intently> is behind it?
The artist group Knowbotic Research, based on vulnerable site
194.95.163.253, part of a current show in NY New Museum called
OPEN_SOURCE_ART_HACK. (netartcommons.walkerart.org)

Lachlan,
have a look at Critical Art Ensembles Book4: Digital Resistance: (chapter:
2 The Mythology of Terrorism on the Net
http://www.critical-art.net)
and i hope you will find out who uses tactics of near random paranoia,
panic and (virtual) violence in order to define critical people als
terrorists. The sovereign imposes an immanent threat on network actors of
making them terrorists, or even become himself the cracker (see German
interior minister Schily's state actions of cracking websites).
We think the only way of escaping this spectacle of paranoia in networks
demands new tactics and agencies inside the domain of the public. Such new
ways of public acting cannot fall into the trap of the worn dichotomy of
private and public but rather open new possibilities of public agency for
domains of the commons which include tactics which were seen as
inappropriate for the contextualization of the public domain in the
modernist sense. Instead of referring only to the concepts of transparency,
visibility and manifestation, we suggest to upgrade the public agencies
with non-representational activities like encrypting, rendering invisible,
disinforming, hiding, fleeting, tunnelling, disturbing, spoofing, and other
camouflage tactics.

knowbotics/christian


------------------------------

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net





Lachlan Brown
T(416) 826 6937
VM (416) 822 1123

                                       

-- 
_______________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net