Gunshots by computer:
New forms of power and sabotage
Isaac Quinn DuPont, 2009
America the beautiful, nappy headed hoedown
Lynchburg throwdown
It seems our favorite past-time has become our most feared future
Technology has failed us. Gunshots by computer(Saul Williams, “Gunshots by Computer” 2008)
It is a rare opportunity to see contemporary capitalism work in naked ways. The result of such honesty is often confusion, arising from entrenched narratives about capitalist processes that preclude these naked behaviours, such as the Internet sabotage of 2007 and 2008 by Media Defender. Media Defender is an anti-piracy company that performed Internet sabotage against consumers pirating music and movies on Bittorrent networks. In 2007, due to a series of counter attacks by an Internet hacker group, corporate email was leaked and put Media Defender’s business practices in the open. In 2008, Media Defender launched a cyber attack against Revision3, a small Internet media company. Why would Media Defender engage in Internet sabotage, and why would any company hire their services? Further, what role in contemporary society does Media Defender play?
At the heart of it, the question is “What are the grounds of existence for Media Defender?” Existing narratives are challenged to the breaking point in trying to answer this question. Neoclassical economics is a—-if not the—-dominant narrative, yet the explanation comes up short because it cannot quantify production, a fundamental tenant of the ideology. Neoclassical economics, however, could never really solve the problem by quantifying production. As is becoming evermore obvious, production is not about material substance, and the problem is not about quantification. Instead, I will argue that capital accumulation is a hologram of social processes, and these social processes are shaped by meaning. Meaning is, however, preconfigured by sabotage. Thus, Media Defender sets the grounds for production by limiting social processes, not by competing with media pirates or rebalancing market forces.
In early 2007 Media Defender was still a relatively unknown company in an equally unknown market for combating media piracy. A hacker group called the Media Defender Defenders had suspected Media Defender’s involvement with Big Media[1]—to entrap online pirates, and poison or sabotage the peer–to–peer networks that are used to share copyrighted material. When Media Defender accidentally registered a central corporate employee as the owner of the file sharing MiVii.com domain, the rumours became demonstrable reality. It was suggested that the site was used to entrap users who upload copyrighted material. Media Defender issued a press release claiming ownership of MiVii.com, but stated that it was an internal project not intended for public use. Months later, Media Defender made Web headlines again; thousands of internal emails that had been forwarded to a Gmail email account (for backup purposes) were hacked and leaked online by the Media Defender Defenders. The emails show internal Media Defender dialogue regarding MiVii.com, and illuminate many other practices used by the company to counteract online piracy. Most importantly, the leaked emails contain direct communication between Media Defender and Big Media.
The cyber attack against Revision3 further illuminated Media Defender’s tactics. Revision3 is a New Media company that creates and publishes professional web–distributed video content. Their success, it has been suggested, is what drew the ire of Big Media and the crippling Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack by Media Defender.
My analysis of Media Defender’s techniques identifies tactics and technologies used against online pirates, and situates the evidence against an inherited theoretical framework. The methodological challenge is that Media Defender’s actions are the product of complex assemblages which precludes leveraging Media Defender as evidentiary support for an interpretative schema. The difficulty of understanding the grounds of existence for Media Defender is because of our inherited conceptual and rhetorical tradition. Rather, like Foucault’s idealist history, my attempt is to provide illustrations of an interpretative schema, instead of support. In this way I will reconnect the rhetorical strategies of neoclassical economics to Media Defender’s anti–piracy and expose the framing and commoditizing mechanisms. These mechanisms are, I will argue, constitutive of reality and shape the conditions of power relations. Further, I reject the idea that Media Defender’s tactics are unusual or unprecedented. As will be shown in some detail, once these actions are ‘discounted’ into asset prices they become facets of capital (Nitzan, 2001, 230), acting for power aggrandization.
Beneath the social and technological machinations of anti–piracy lies a discourse of neoclassical economics. Neoclassical economics has an epistemological problem: a theory of value must be able to enumerate its origin, but labour is essentially diffuse and does not stabilize in commodities. The alternative, as found in Marx’s later works, suggests that capital is measured in terms of ‘dead–labour’. To the extent that Marx had a labour theory of value it does not appear to suffer the same quantification issues, however, capital (as the result of labour) and power are not integrated in his analysis. According to Marx, power only results from the effects of capital—-it is not part of the formation. Both views suffer from the same false assumption. I argue that capital accumulation is not about the productivity of material goods, in fact, it isn’t even really about production.
Without going deep into the technical details, I develop Nitzan and Bichler’s suggestion that power should be at the root of the analysis, and that regimes of power result from capital accumulation. Nitzan and Bichler suggest that a theory of differential accumulation can be used to study economic phenomena without collapsing the epistemology, and while maintaining an analysis with power at its foundation. By integrating the mechanisms of differential accumulation I will show that Media Defender is merely a strategic technique, and just one of many, used to aggrandize power. The purpose of aggrandizing power is to commodify power itself, but this cannot be performed in absolute terms—power must be aggrandized and set differentially against that of others. Effective power commodification arises when capitalists develop a ‘mega–machine’ (Mumford, 1934) that assembles and operates power arrangements. It becomes critically important who is able to maintain power, for the present and to establish the conditions of power for the future.
Media Defender engages in strategic sabotage by limiting the production of globalized social knowledge and processes. Further, Big Media hired Media Defender to regain power that has been lost to pirates and New Media. The logic of attacking the distribution technology arises from the tendency for power to crystallize in technology. However, when one gains a greater share of power, another loses it—thus it will be shown that Media Defender is attempting to reclaim power for Big Media by recommodifying capital.[1] My analysis will revive an information ethics by associating economic processes with power, which constitutes who constrains information flows and therefore share in the production of social knowledge.
Media Defender poisons Bittorrent
The analysed emails were obtained from the Media Defender Defender’s website.[2] The original mbox format was converted into HTML threads for easy browsing. There is no evidence of redaction or alteration. The methodology for the coding and analysis of the leaked Media Defender email was simple and exploratory but treats the raw data as illustrative of a revived interpretative schema.
There are several techniques used by Media Defender to counteract piracy. All of the techniques are, I will argue, species of sabotage. The major areas of attack by Media Defender are: usenet, peer–to–peer (e.g., Kazaaa, Soulseek, Gnutella), and Bittorrent. Media Defender’s primary business is ‘poisoning’ peer–to–peer networks. The common goal of the poisoning techniques is to reduce a usable peer–to–peer service to chaos. A functioning peer–to–peer network is comparable or functionally superior to commercial systems developed for media “discovery” and dissemination (such as Amazon.com’s algorithmic “you may be interested in” discovery services for additional purchases). The ‘network effect’[3] is very strong on peer–to–peer networks, but poisoning the network reduces this effect which lowers search relevancy and leads to frustrated users who download incorrect or harmful data.
Typically Media Defender poisons peer–to–peer networks by creating and posting “decoy files”.[4] Media Defender creates decoy files using purpose–built proprietary software (Doctorow, 2007). This software avoids automated detection and reconstruction by using a “chopped and screwed” technique which renders the media file useless (Startling Moniker, 2007). Media Defender tends to avoid mere “renaming” of media,[5] unlike other less sophisticated anti–piracy companies in the market. Media Defender emails specifically mention a competitor that renames pornography, an odd technique to be sure, so that, e.g., someone searching for “Spiderman 3” would instead receive “Bang Bus – All natural Debby”.[6] Media Defender avoids simple decoy techniques because media pirates have sophisticated automated (and crowdsourced) techniques for banning IP addresses from infringing users (such as Media Defender). Media Defender does, however, use a variant technique for enticing super–fans (who are the heaviest users of peer–to–peer networks), a section of the Media Defender business specializes in “leaks” (i.e., pre–releases, b–side, etc.) that are intended to frustrate users.[7] Oddly enough, there is considerable “natural protection” in which decoy files are created (accidentally or purposely) by unknown corporations or users themselves.[8]
Media Defender’s secondary line of business is the gathering of information on infringing users, which is then used to assist legal and criminal investigators. Media Defender developed MiVii.com to entrap uploaders who post content that infringes copyright. However, ‘Ernesto’ at the TorrentFreak website argues that
no evidence can be found that MediaDefender is actually involved in prosecuting or gathering evidence against filesharers (as we reported earlier). Their core business is releasing fake files and polluting the filesharing networks (Ernesto, 2007b).
Media Defender did, however, take special interest in locating sharers on universities and colleges.[9]
Media Defender has developed techniques to avoid detection, these include spoofing and supernode creation.[10] A newer technique for spoofing was detected in the Revision3 attack, which will be discussed later. Media Defender has also been accused of developing malicious software that acts like a virus and removes files on local machines, or worse. The leaked email communications are inconclusive about this, but the Revision3 attack suggests an active (rather than passive) technique of sabotage. Some of the techniques revealed in the email (vaguely) suggest the deletion of Bittorrent hashes from the server (or client), Bittorrent seed destruction, and p2p or Bittorrent swarm destruction. Certainly the language used by Media Defender employees is colourful and evocative when discussing their actions, e.g., “The next big Fox project is the new Die Hard and it comes out next WEDNESDAY. We need to kill this on bit torrent [sic]”,[11] but colourful language in email communications is common, and little of substance can be drawn from this.
There are a number of organizations involved with Media Defender, and each brings a particular logic. Surprisingly, throughout the email correspondences there is very little discussion about copyright, yet copyright law clearly undergirds the perception of legitimacy for Media Defender. Big Media is known to act in cartels for litigation and lobbying, but the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) explicitly denies involvement with Media Defender. The MPAA is an entity both independent and wholly constituted by the companies it represents, but direct involvement between the MPAA and Media Defender has never been clearly shown. The companies themselves are clients of Media Defender. These companies include: Universal Pictures, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Sony Pictures.[12] The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) appears to have some direct relationship with Media Defender.[13]
Media Defender attacks Revision3
On the US Memorial Day weekend in 2008 the New Media company Revision3 suffered a significant Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack that first crippled their Bittorrent tracker, and then rolled over to cause significant Internet and intranet outages across the company (even causing outages to corporate email). DDOS attacks are a common and potent variant form of Denial of Service (DOS) attacks. In a normal DOS attack the attacking computer attempts to make many repeated connections to the server in effort to flood the server with requests, leading to timeout errors from other legitimate requests. Typically SYN packets are sent which each request a connection to the server, that issues an ACK packet in return. In a DOS attack the SYN packets are sent so rapidly that the server runs out of resources to continue honouring these requests. Regular DOS attacks are no longer effective because upstream server and router hardware can rapidly detect a flood of requests from a particular Internet Protocol (IP) address, and then stop responding to infringing IP addresses. DDOS attacks, on the other hand, are nearly impossible to defend against because the attacking computers come from many different (distributed) IP addresses and thus are indistinguishable from regular Internet requests. Usually DDOS attacks come from ‘zombied’ computers under the influence of a central malicious administrator, known collectively as a ‘botnet’. Some of the largest botnets are thought to contain millions of machines that can be directed at will, producing DDOS attacks large enough to cripple an entire country’s infrastructure (as shown by the attack on Estonia in 2007). The best know defence against DDOS attacks is to rapidly switch on reserve bandwidth, basically creating such a large pipe that the DDOS attack becomes an annoyance but not a crippling attack. Additionally, server failures can cause ‘roll over’ outages where other backup and connected servers also fail.
The DDOS attack that Revision3 suffered was unusual in its force and unmasked nature. Because DDOS attacks are highly illegal (cyber warfare in its highest form), they are usually masked to hide their origin, but the attack against Revision3 did not require any sophisticated forensics to find its origins. Jim Louderback, the CEO of Revision3, argued that the attack was obvious in its origins,[14] and tantamount to a schoolyard taunt. The offending packets originated from properties owned by Artist Direct. The Internet Service Provider (ISP) confirmed that the infringing addresses belong to Media Defender, a subsidiary of Artist Direct (Louderback, 2008). Although not a widely distributed attack (in terms of IP range), Media Defender controls 2000 servers and a 9GB/s connection (Paul, 2007) that flooded Revision3 with 8000 SYN packets per second (Louderback, 2008). Media Defender’s armament is sufficient to cripple many large Internet sites.
Media Defender claims that the DDOS attack was accidental—the result of a hardware glitch. Revision3 maintains a legal Bittorrent tracker as an alternative fast and inexpensive distribution method for its own media content, which initially employed a whitelist mechanism for ensuring that only Revision3 content would be tracked and distributed by their server. At some point, however, Revision3 changed its network architecture and was unable to maintain the whitelist, which accidently allowed others to use their Bittorrent tracker for their own purposes. Media Defender accuses Revision3 of allowing the illegal distribution of copyrighted works on their Bittorrent tracker after this switch, but Revision3 denies the claim (Laporte et al., 2008). Despite whatever content may have been tracked by Revision3, Media Defender took the opportunity to use Revision3’s Bittorrent tracker to spoof their identity as a way of poisoning other Bittorrent trackers under the guise of Revision3. As described above, Media Defender requires spoofing methods to post decoy files, and used the ‘clean’ history of Revision3 to post their decoy files. Louderback describes this unsanctioned use of their hardware as “sneaking in an open window”, and criticizes Media Defender for not acting ethically and informing them of a problem with their new network architecture (Laporte et al., 2008). Once Revision3 noticed the oversight regarding their network architecture, a whitelist was re–implemented that shut out offending users (including Media Defender) (Laporte et al., 2008). At this point the DDOS attack begins, but Media Defender claims that their servers only continued to reattempt a connection to Revision3’s Bittorrent tracker “once every few hours”. Louderback is unsure whether Media Defender’s servers “freaked out” or were issued controls to attack their Bittorrent tracker (as a means of retaliation) (Laporte et al., 2008). Accidental or purposeful, the 8000 SYN packets per second sent by Media Defender caused significant quantifiable damage to Revision3 as their entire Internet and intranet infrastructure failed for several days until the attack stopped.
Only pecuniary value counts
The economy cannot be the output of the productive value of labour because it becomes impossible to calculate the prices of goods and the labour necessary to create them. Marx was probably the first to think that there was a problem of circularity when it came to calculating capital. Marx was concerned that the classical theory of value could not “solve the problem of distribution (i.e., determine the price of labour–power, of capital and of land) as well as the problem of commodity values” (Moffat, 1939, p.355). Because distribution was thought of as a “derivation of demand prices of factors separately through the ‘imputation’ of the joint product, or its value, among the various agencies which co–operate in producing it” the factors could not be ‘added-up’ (Knight, 1935, p.175). In 1899 John Bates Clark wrote The Distribution of Wealth which stipulated a
direct mathematical link between income and production, based on two principal assertions. One was that output was a function of quantifiable ‘factors of production’, each with its own distinct productive contribution.… The second assertion was that the income of these factors was proportionate to their contributions, or more precisely, to their marginal contributions… (Nitzan & Bichler, 1998).
The problem was revitalized and brought to its zenith in the Cambridge Controversies, when it became clear that Clark’s theory was viciously circular—as summarized by Nitzan & Bichler, 1998,
the magnitude of profit was explained by the marginal productivity of a given quantity of capital, but that quantity was itself a function of profit, which the theory was supposed to explain in the first place!
The Cambridge Controversy resulted in a thorough refutation of neoclassical economics. The problem is that the neoclassical theory of value requires the value of capital to depend on the profit it generates, but, since capital is a ‘factor of production’ each factor is supposed to make a distinct contribution, so as to be calculable (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.32). The equilibrium of the supply and demand curves are tied to these factors: “the wage is equivalent to the contribution of labour, the rent to the contribution of land, and the profit to the contribution of capital” (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.32). But, the force that makes the curves stay in equilibrium affects more than a single industry (Sraffa, 1926, p.539). Likewise, it does no good to argue that competition is the force which stabilizes this equilibrium, since it is precisely the non–competitive factors that are stable enough for statistical analysis (Sraffa, 1926, p.542). The curves are stabilized by summing the inputs, but when attempting to add up the inputs, the products of capital (unlike labour or land) are understood as fundamentally different which eliminates the possibility of direct measurement (think apples and oranges). The alternative, of course, is to add up the pecuniary values—the cost of production vis-à-vis the commodity price; these pecuniary values depend on profit. Profit, however, is exactly what the theory was supposed to explain (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.32).
Given the critique developed in the Cambridge Controversies in the first half of the twentieth century, why have mainstream neoclassical economics continued to dominate the study of economics? According to Nitzan and Bichler (2002, p.23) power and wealth are dismissed by neoclassicists from the outset—the problem was “resolved…by eliminating it in the first place” (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.23). Indeed, the canonical and contemporary Arrow–Debreu economic model hangs on a robust theory of equilibrium. Where it is realized to be problem the discipline shifts and simply excludes non–utility information, and relies on Pareto optimality.[15] Neoclassical economics truly has become a ‘vulgar science’ that no longer cares to understand the ethical implications of economic phenomena. When the discipline is being honest it machines rhetoric entirely devoid of humanity to legitimize the accumulation of capital, with the ultimate end of aggrandizing power. When the discipline is being dishonest, it fabricates explanations based on broken theories of value. Surprisingly, the discipline tends to be pretty honest, it just doesn’t care about ethics.[16]
Production is social
Neoclassical theories of capital accumulation are analytically flawed. Worse still, the mainstream neoclassical view avoids this conclusion by ignoring facets of capital accumulation. Neoclassical theories of capital accumulation are no longer concerned with distribution or the ethics of who has capital, who doesn’t, and why. Indeed, neoclassical economics has become a machine for legitimization of the regime. Marx’s theory comes much closer to providing a theory of capital accumulation, but he was unable to integrate power into the root of his theory, and thus there exists a bifurcation in Marxist understandings of capital accumulation.
Nitzan and Bichler provide a way of reconstructing the economic analysis, such that the analytical pitfalls plaguing the neoclassicists are avoided, and yet power is integrated into the analysis at its root. In the picture that emerges, capitalism becomes a ‘mega–machine’ of power reconfigurations. By highlighting the role of information and power I will set the stage for returning to Media Defender and analysing its mechanisms, and indeed, its very existence.
The neoclassical and Marxist theories of capital accumulation suffer from analytical problems, but in the industrial society of Smith and Marx these problems were not as apparent (or as real). Labour as service, financial instruments, and institutional organizations that exploit these instruments are the forms of the new economy, which tellingly portray contemporary capital as non-material (Nitzan, 2001, p.227). In the new economy there is a separation of factory and business, and the leaders of the economy have transcended the factory (Nitzan, 2001; Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.240, p.35).
Taking a page from the ethnographer, Nitzan and Bichler argue that the new economy is best represented by those that run it—the business people. What we see by observing these people is that business is about managing capital, and that business people think of capital in the pecuniary terms of ‘finance’ (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.36). In an effort to more effectively manage capital the modern corporation was invented not for greater efficiency, but rather for greater ability to control capital (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan, 2001, p.42, p.239). Corporate alliances, such as the media cartels of RIAA and MPAA, have also been born to more effectively control capital. Controlling capital is best accomplished by collusion, exclusion, and strategic sabotage.
Summing up the problem with neoclassicism described above: capital accumulation is not physical (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.33), and the economy does not run on production and consumption (Nitzan & Bichler, 2006, p.14). Indeed, capital accumulation is not future utility nor dead labour (Nitzan & Bichler, 1998; Nitzan & Bichler, 2006; Nitzan, 2001, p.82, pp.14-15, p.229). The circularity of quantifying capital this way has been shown to be problematic (Nitzan & Bichler, 2006; Nitzan, 2001, pp.15-19, p.229), but, there is still a need to quantify capital (Nitzan & Bichler, 2006, p.16) so that we can understand who has it, how much of it they have, and how effectively they can wield it.
Even if the neoclassicists ignore the Cambridge Controversy and pretend that their analysis can quantify capital through equilibrium theory and Pareto optimality, there is still a further salient problem. Production, Nitzan and Bichler argue (following Veblen), results from the interaction and relations of “its numerous social components” and only marginally, if at all, “on their individual contributions” (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.33).[17] The problem with analysing capital accumulation as production is that productivity is “inherently societal” (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.34) and cannot be measured by counting the physical artifacts.
The only way to measure capital accumulation, then, is in pecuniary terms, as the business people do. But, such an analysis does not tell us much by itself; it is not very helpful to know merely that one business has a larger capitalization than another. Since the equivalence of exchange[18] is not physical phenomena, what could be underlying capital as finance? Following Aristotle, Nitzan and Bichler (2006, p.20) suggest that a human–created nomos underlies the system. Profit, which is measured in pecuniary terms, results from the control of production (Nitzan & Bichler, 1998, p.78) when ‘discounted’ by capitalists (Nitzan, 2001, p.230). Indeed, according to Marx, the product is only capital when it is owned for profit (Nitzan & Bichler, 2006; Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.16, p.32). This is not to suggest, however, that capital accumulation has no relationship whatsoever to production (Nitzan, 2001, p.229), rather, the relationship is non–linear and complex (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.34). So complex that, according to Veblen, production is a hologram of social knowledge (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.34). Characterized as a hologram of social knowledge, it is now clear why the tractability issue is so damning. Commodities are not material artifacts, rather, each commodity requires the entirety of the social processes and knowledge that went into its production. It isn’t a wonder that a theory of capital accumulation that attempts to count these inputs should fail.
In the hologram of social knowledge, clearest in the post–industrial economy, power is that which affects profit, and the ability to affect profit is capital (Nitzan & Bichler, 1998, p.83). Controlling capital, thus, is power (Nitzan, 2001, p.228). Capitalization is the expected growth of earnings measured in pecuniary terms (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.33, p.36). Controlling expected growth is accomplished by having power over production (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan, 2001, p.34, p.230). Further, this form of power aggrandization is a type of protectionism (Nitzan, 2001, p.227) that results in the ability to limit production in society (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan, 2001, pp.35-38, p.240). Because capital qua power is measured in pecuniary terms, power becomes extremely vendable (Nitzan & Bichler, 1998, p.83). It is the conflictual dynamics of capitalism that promotes the frequent exchange of power (Nitzan, 2001, p.252). As Marx had noticed, capitalism tends to accelerate production, and if not limited the resulting commodity devaluation would bring ruin for capitalism (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan, 2001, p.35, p.256). The only direct way for dominant capital to combat peripheral capital from taking advantage of easy vendability and the pervasive centrifugal force is to collude and engage in strategic sabotage (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan & Bichler, 1998; Nitzan, 2001, pp.40-41, p.85, p.231).
Collusion and strategic sabotage do nothing if capital is accumulated in absolute terms—accumulation must occur at a positive differential rate (Nitzan & Bichler, 1998, p.83). The yardstick of capital accumulation (as expected growth of earnings) is the ‘normal rate of return’. Thus, since any capitalist can own a diversified portfolio and meet the average, capital accumulation must always beat the average (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan, 2001, p.37, p.230). Yet, whenever one capitalist gains power, another must lose it (Nitzan & Bichler, 1998, p.84). So, capitalists accumulate capital for the future (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.36) and must engage in more obviously ‘political’ actions so as to not lose power (Nitzan & Bichler, 2006, p.4). There are two methods of beating the average, either increase your own rate of production, or limit others’ (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan, 2001, p.38, p.253). Since these two methods tend to cancel one another out, the pendulum swings from breadth expansion (greenfield investment, increasing own rate of production) to depth expansion (limiting others’ production) (Nitzan & Bichler, 2006; Nitzan, 2001, p.4, p.251).
Mumford calls the machinery of capital aggrandization a ‘mega–machine’. This machine must constantly and dynamically recreate its power structure as easily vended power shifts from one capitalist losing to another winning. Thus, capital is a strategic power institution which attempts to commodify power itself (Nitzan, 2001, pp.231-251). Unfortunately for capitalists, the productive elements of capital are difficult to commodify because they primarily crystallize in technology, but technology is difficult to monopolize (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002; Nitzan, 2001, p.50, p.253). The emergence of big business and big government has enabled effective strategic power techniques to commodify power itself (Nitzan & Bichler, 2002, p.35).
Sabotage creates reality
Although Media Defender performs the janitorial tasks of capitalism by limiting others’ production of capital, its slippery purpose reaches beyond the banalities of business and profit earning. Strategic sabotage may be underreported in mainstream discussions of capitalism, but only for want of the correct analytical lens in which to view these problems, not for want of examples. The hologram of social knowledge and modes of being is, from a certain angle, a replicating system of power for the present and the future. Capturing the part of social knowledge that replicates power is the principal goal of Media Defender. Seeing the action as a consequence of this kind of machine requires making strategic sabotage intelligible through aspects of capital accumulation and power aggrandization.
Instead of trying to out–produce others’ share of social knowledge and power, Media Defender attempts to gain a differentially greater share of capital for the ends of power by limiting the production of competing capitals. Media Defender is a good example of the interchange or flow of power through information technology that Foucault argues permeates the relations that people are placed in. Capital and information technology are the “relations of production and signification” in which the “exercise of power consists in guiding the possibility of conduct and putting in order the possible outcome” (Foucault, 1982, p.789). Just as Foucault argues that slavery is not power because power relations cannot arise “where the determining factors saturate the whole” (Foucault, 1982, p.790), I am arguing that power relations require the existence of alternative articulations, for the purpose of constraint by dominant processes. This echoes Heidegger’s critique of knowledge as representation and instrumentation which constrains knowledge to the ”freedom” to choose among acceptable forms of expression and action. Like Heidegger, my critique is an attempt to table the political problem for analysis, in a connective discourse. The mechanism of control seems to be rooted in economic (i.e., consumer) choices, but truly the manifestation of this mechanism is the political definition of realities of entertainment, free time, and labour.
I suggest that the consent to information restriction is a form of communication. Indeed, as information is constrained meaning is created, in which meaning is nothing other than power. Chomskian linguists have long understood that language requires a winnowing of possibility from Universal Grammar to individual languages, likewise, counter-factual realities become ‘real’ through the modal ‘id est’.
Since at least Warren Weaver it has been understood that quantity of information is linked to what could be said in any given situation. Anatol Rapoport writes, “it isn’t what you say, it’s what you could say” (Rapoport, 1955, p.161). He goes on to suggest that information is a type of explaining, in which if there is too much noise, or too many conflicting messages, the result will be less information (Rapoport, 1955, p.164). When Claude Shannon connected entropy to information quantity he made explicit the connection between the order of reality and information. Rapoport states this emphatically, “information is the carrier of order” and “the process of obtaining knowledge is quantitatively equated to the process of ordering portions of the world” (Rapoport, 1955, p.172). Media Defender is a mechanism of dominant capital for ordering, expressing, and creating the world by eliminating alternative media flows (e.g., New Media) and the channels of non-commodified information (e.g., media piracy).
Alternatively, in the language of neoclassical markets this process is ‘simplifying’ the consumer’s choice. Yet, instead of making realities disappear through simplification, realities are invented and meaning is established that configures Big Media as the dominant articulation of entertainment and therapeutics. Furthermore, there is an increasingly sharp separation between ‘factory’ and ‘business’; the producers, such as artists or actors, have a very small share of capital—stars are ‘made’ and all but the very few at the top make much money, or exercise control. The pirates, on the other hand, are manipulating capital accumulation. Although few media pirates are literally profiting from piracy, capital can only be measured in its ability to affect profit (the pecuniary measure), and thus media pirates present a substantial challenge to dominant capital. Indeed, media pirates are actually peripheral capitalists. The advantage of the media pirates is that digital media is easily shared and can be effectively priced down to zero (or very low marginal cost); such is the challenge of monopolizing technology and the easy vendability of power. To combat this centrifugal force, Media Defender was hired to limit the media pirates’ production by poisoning the network. Left to their own devices, the media pirates would gain power at the expense of Big Media losing it. The ability of Big Media to differentially accumulate at a faster rate than the pirates is unlikely without sabotage—as the 2008 Oink (a famous Bittorrent tracker) shutdown showed, when one site gets shut down a dozen more take its place. Media Defender helps control the distribution of entertainment media, but since music, television, and movies are just social knowledge and processes that have been previously commodified (such as folk music, dancing, etc.), sabotaging media piracy is just a recommodification of processes and knowledge that were previously commodified.
As I remarked above, Media Defender does not appear to swing the hammer of copyright law. Without an analysis of differential accumulation for the purposes of power aggrandization this might seem odd, since why else would Media Defender protect ‘intellectual property’? The reason is now obvious; the copyright regime is another but distinct mechanism of power aggrandization. Whereas the media cartels (RIAA, MPAA, etc.) collude and attempt to limit production primarily through the enforcement of copyright, Media defender uses techniques of strategic sabotage to limit production.
By critiquing mainstream theories of capital I paved the way for a reconstruction of the theory of capital accumulation. Capital accumulation is analysed differentially and seen as serving the greater ends of power aggrandization. Thus, Media Defender engaged in strategic sabotage by limiting the production of social knowledge and processes, and establishing present and future power. The product that Big Media is selling is seen as less important than the systems of differentiation which establish profit. This set the stage to illuminate strategic sabotage by associating capital with power, which crucially determines who has the share of control over social knowledge and processes. When one gains a greater share, another loses it, thus Media Defender is attempting to reclaim power for Big Media by recommodifying capital and constituting reality.
References
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[1] “Big Media” is a catch-all term used to refer to large multinational media corporations.
[2] Media Defender Defender’s website (http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com) appears to no longer be valid, however the contents of these emails is still accessible on Bittorrent sites.
[3] ‘Network effect’ is the result of a well developed network, which will tend to promote information retrieval, relevancy, and sharing or propagation.
[4] The evidence is overwhelming, but see, e.g., http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg05464.html where it is stated, “Please start decoying for this Universal Music.Verve [sic] project”. These links point to the original hosting of the files and are included for reference purposes only, since the content is no longer publicly accessible.
[5] http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg04303.html.
[6] See, e.g., http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg00111.html.
[7] http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg01844.html.
[8] http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg03340.html.
[9] http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg01944.html.
[10] See also http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg04394.html.
[11] See http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg01389.html.
[12] See, respectively,
[13] See http://www.mediadefender-defenders.com/msg04702.html.
[14] Discussed during a TWiT.tv podcast (Laporte, Louderback, Sargent, & Norton, 2008).
[15] For a relevant example, see Bae and Choib (2006), and many others.
[16] Cf., however, Walsh (2000) who argues that following Amartya Sen’s contributions to neoclassical economics we are entering a “second phase” of economics which seeks to “enrich present day [neo]classicism” with a differential capability theory that is full of “values” (and presumably the ethics that come with).
[17] There is an obvious parallel here between Veblen and Deleuze, of which ontology is separated into objects and relations, and it is realized that the analysis must occur at the dynamic intersections not the unassailable objects.
[18] I take it that equivalence is analytically distinct from equilibrium, the fact that capital is exchanged in pecuniary units is what is important; there is no static relationship of this exchange.