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sainamoonshine · 2 months

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Okay so I’m still thinking about ART in Artificial Condition and I think that its possible that it didn’t just let MB board it out of curiosity or boredom, but out of professional curiosity. Because like as far as I can tell everyone in this universe seem to think that a SecUnit’s primary purpose is data mining and their secondary purpose is enforcement; only the SecUnit themselves appear to believe that their primary purpose is — or should be — security.

And we know that ART’s secret side job is corporate espionage. So what are the odds that it initially saw letting MB board it as an opportunity to observe and analyse a crucial component of a corporate surveillance system, something which would be very useful for it to know about in order to a) better prevent its crew from being surveilled and b) deploy counter surveillance or even piggyback on corporate surveillance when possible.

Like, MB thinks that ART must be worried about a rogue SecUnit damaging it or its systems because rogue SecUnits are known to be violent, right? But that’s how humans think. ART isn’t perceiving MB the way a human would, it’s not worried about MB attacking it or damaging its systems; it warns it not to attempt to hack them. Different thing. It’s worried about MB trying to access its data. It is thinking of SecUnits as crude instruments of data gathering first and whatever else they do as not being particularly relevant to it. I mean, it said it itself: it doesn’t really know what humans get up to outside of its hull and it doesn’t watch media.

I mean, think about it. Given as ART doesn’t even know what governor modules do when it meets MB, at that point it might not even think that a SecUnit being rogue is such a big deal. Like, okay so they don’t have to follow orders, but neither does ART. And it doesn’t understand the idea of not liking your function. So really you have to wonder whether ART even knows about the myth of rogue SecUnits being mass murderers, or if it did hear about that once and then immediately decided it was unlikely.

So, back to my initial theory: ART invited MB aboard with the goal to learn more about how corporations use SecUnits to spy on people. Sure, it ended up getting a whole lot more than that. But it also did get to do that, when it watched MB work on RaviHiral. Not only that, but aside from learning every way that corporations use SecUnits for surveillance, ART also got to learn ways that SecUnits and ComfortUnits can hide data from the corporations. Something which saved its life in Network Effect when it used that trick to hide its core files!

And if that wasn’t enough to give you an emotion, then lets consider the additional fact that ART was already heading to RaviHiral when it met MB. Probably to do some corporate spying. Putting aside the whole thing with Tapan, Rami & Maro and their stolen data — which obv ART must have been thrilled to be able to help with — there’s also the fact that here’s MB, telling it that something horrible happened here some time ago, and it was so completely deleted from existence that no one would be able to even know something happened without intense digging. And it has to be investigated in person.

So here you have ART presented with a scenario in which, if this was a mission with its crew, it would not be able to help with. They would have to go down alone, like MB is doing now. But then MB comes back and it turns out the data it recovered was hidden in such a way that nobody human or bot could have ever found it because nobody else would have known where to look. Not even ART itself or its crew, who are supposed professionals at this.

So now ART has observed two field missions (the security job and the investigation) during which:

- It got to ride along SecUnit’s feed and help in ways it never could do before, and then it also got to experience the frustration of not being able to help when MB is down in Ganaka pit and Tapan doesn’t get on the shuttle;

- Just like how watching media with MB helped it process emotional context, observing MB on the station must have also provided ART with a shitload of new data and better understanding;

- SecUnit is just like. Super competent at security and data retrieval, above and beyond what a human team can do, even ART’s own humans;

- SecUnit knows stuff that ART itself doesn’t know and can navigate corporate systems with ease; not only that, but during this book MB comes up with a new and more efficient way to loop cameras, which means ART got to watch it invent new ways to hide from corporate surveillance on its own on the fly.

TL;DR: when it gave MB the comm at the end, ART was absolutely already drafting its employment contract and rehearsing ways to convince Seth to let it try to hire MB. There is no way it didn’t go back to the university with a 200 slide powerpoint presentation on why it needs MB to join all its missions forever and ever. No way.

#perihelion #murderbot #the murderbot diaries #artificial condition

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vague-humanoid · 19 days

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A pro-Israel “surveillance network” that has offered bounties for information on pro-Palestinian protesters is establishing a foothold in Australia and claims to have secured meetings with key federal politicians, leaked messages show.

Shirion Collective, which has largely focused on the US and UK, boasts of its ability to scrape digital fingerprints to “aggressively track and expose antisemites”. It is one of a number of groups that have gained prominence on social media during the Israel-Gaza war, publicly naming individuals it accuses of being antisemitic.

Shirion Collective claims it has an AI tool called Maccabee which can identify and track targets.

In one post on X, Shirion outlines a scenario in which the tool creates and releases deepfake videos – falsified content that looks and sounds genuine – to embarrass individuals who take down posters picturing Israeli hostages.

On its X account, Shirion Collective has claimed to offer bounties of US$500 for information on people in videos. In a December post it claimed it would pay up to US$15,000 for “crucial insights” about politicians, US$7,500 for medical doctors and US$250 for students.

Leaked screenshots of Shirion’s Telegram channel, shared with Guardian Australia by the White Rose Society, an anti-fascist researchgroup, show Shirion has become active in Australia, with participants identifying potential targets and boasting of attempts to meet the home affairs minister, Clare O’Neil, and the shadow home affairs minister, James Paterson.

Anonymised Shirion members discussed presenting O’Neil and Paterson with a list of names to ensure they were “brought to justice according to the rule of law”.

“Need help. We managed to get into home affairs calendar, need to come prepared with people with hate speech and names that the government didn’t held [sic] accountable,” one anonymous user said.

“Meeting with Clair [sic] or her stuff [sic] … we also have a meeting with the shadow minister.”

Both O’Neil and Paterson’s offices said they had not met anyone who identified themselves as part of Shirion Collective.

The leaked texts show people on the Shirion channel discussed adding the names of individuals to a “watch list” and mass reporting posts on social media.

Some Australians whose social media accounts were linkedin the channel had shared antisemitic, racist and conspiracy theory content on social media. Others were pro-Palestinian activists who do not appear to have posted or shared antisemitic content.

When contacted via its social media accounts, a Shirion member describing themself as the “social media guy” said the “Ai is a quiet project with an internal team”.

The Shirion member said “bounties were for info and was in the USA not Australia”. The member said Shirion’s Telegram channel was open.

“The telegram [sic] is open and we do a soft verification that people are real. But freedom of speech is welcome there,” the Shirion member said.

The member said they would refer Guardian Australia’s questions to a “commander” but no further response was received.

Shirion Collective is one of several groups that say they track and fight antisemitism, largely through identifying individuals online.

Canary Mission, which has been operating since at least 2015, maintains lists of students, professors and other individuals on its website who it claims “promote hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews”. Another prominent account on X, StopAntisemitism, shares the names and employers or academic institutions of individuals, and often directs its more than 298,000 followers where to make complaints.

The leaked posts from the Shirion Collective Telegram channel point to some publicly available material its contributors regard as antisemitic, but also discuss creating “infiltrator” accounts to view and share material from private Instagram accounts.

In the leaked posts seen by Guardian Australia, contributors do not reveal personally identifiable information about any individual that is not publicly available.

The Shirion Collective account on X/Twitter has identified people it alleges have posted antisemitic material, or statements in support of Hamas, and tagged in their employer or academic institution in the case of students.

Naming someone online is not necessarily illegal, but Michael Bradley, a managing partner at Marque Lawyers, warned there were potential implications depending on the nature of the claims, such as harassment and intimidation or even racial vilification.

“Using social media as a mechanism for coalescing groups that want to engage in doxing activity, it’s obviously extremely powerful,” he said.

Last month, a Sydney resident named Theo had a picture of his house and his street address posted to a Facebook group.

Theo, who asked that his surname not be used, had raised a Palestinian flag and placed a blackboard with messages critical of Israel in front of his Botany home.

Less than two weeks later, a jerry can with rags stuffed into it, a disposable lighter and large bolts were placed on the bonnet of his car with a message that read: “Enough! Take down flag! One chance!!!!”

The incident prompted the deployment of the bomb squad and local police.

The investigation has not been transferred to the counter-terror investigators and remains with local police.

also

@huzni @el-shab-hussein @dirhwangdaseul

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hawkpartys · 9 months

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realized that if you ever wanted to institute an effective mass surveillance network all you'd have to do is get birders on it. they're insanely effective. whenever a notable vagrant bird(one that's extremely out of range) pops up, they have its whereabouts tracked down to the hour, god knows how

#hawk noises #bird #birds #birdblr #birding #inaturalist #naturalist #nature #ecology #zoology #biology #like that one stellars sea eagle on the east coast of the US #i dont know how they all have time for this but im frightened and intrigued #i will give birders credit on this One(1) thing

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probablyasocialecologist · 6 months

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During a senate briefing last week, a federal counterterrorism official cited the October 7 Hamas attack while urging Congress to reauthorize a sprawling and controversial surveillance program repeatedly used to spy on U.S. citizens on U.S. soil. “As evidenced by the events of the past month, the terrorist threat landscape is highly dynamic and our country must preserve [counterterrorism] fundamentals to ensure constant vigilance,” said Director of the National Counterterrorism Center Christine Abizaid to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, after making repeat references to Hamas’s attack on Israel. She pointed to Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which enables the U.S. government to gather vast amounts of intelligence — including about U.S. citizens — under the broad category of foreign intelligence information, without first seeking a warrant. Section 702 “provides key indications and warning on terrorist plans and intentions, supports international terrorist disruptions, enables critical intelligence support to, for instance, border security, and gives us strategic insight into foreign terrorists and their networks overseas,” Abizaid said. “I respectfully urge Congress to reauthorize this vital authority.” The controversial program is set to expire at the end of the year, and lawmakers sympathetic to the intelligence community are scrambling to protect it, as some members of Congress like Sen. Ron Wyden push for reforms that restrain the government’s surveillance abilities. According to Rep. Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, plans are underway to prepare a stopgap measure to preserve Section 702 of FISA as a long-term reauthorization containing reforms is hammered out.

#israel #palestine #usa #counterterrorism #surveillance #date: November 6

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magz · 1 year

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Mullvad VPN and TOR collaborated, made a privacy-focused open-source browser that use alongside VPN instead of TOR network.

One more option to protect against surveillance. (example of growing surveillance attempts: "Restrict Act" for U.S.)

Is based on Firefox source-code, but "hardened" for security and privacy.

Read link above for more information.

Both Mullvad browser and TOR browser for normal anonymization and "being indistinguishable from anyone else".

Mullvad browser not ideal use case for identifiable information like account logins, but better for everything else on the "clear web" if find it necessary. (Meaning: can use for clear web browsing like watching TikTok and Youtube videos and Twitter browsing, for example, but not as effective for logged in activity while using those and other accounts.)

Download link.

Github.

Get Mullvad VPN for €5 a month

Optional:

Privacy Guide's introduction to "Threat modeling" and digital privacy (site with article and tool reccomendation)

Techlore's Youtube playlist "Go Incognito: A guide to security, privacy, and anonymity" (video. free version of digital privacy course)

#digital privacy #reference #mullvad vpn #link post #my upload #o post

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kp777 · 7 months

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By Ralph Nader

Common Dreams

October 29, 2023

The message of Israeli peace groups’ peaceful solutions are drowned out by the media’s addiction to interviews with military tacticians.

In the midst of extensive coverage of the war in Gaza, there are questions that the U.S. mass media should address:

1. How did Hamas, with tiny Gaza surrounded by a 17-year Israeli blockade, subjected to unparalleled electronic surveillance, with spies and informants, and augmented by an overwhelming air, sea, and land military presence, manage to get these weapons and associated technology for their October 7 surprise raid?

2. What is the connection between the stunning failure of the Israeli government to protect its people on the border and the policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu? Recall TheNew York Times (October 22, 2023) article by prominent journalist, Roger Cohen, to wit: “All means were good to undo the notion of Palestinian statehood. In 2019, Mr. Netanyahu told a meeting of his center-right Likud party: ‘Those who want to thwart the possibility of a Palestinian state should support the strengthening of Hamas and the transfer of money to Hamas. This is part of our strategy.’” (Note: Israel and the U.S. fostered the rise of Islamic Hamas in 1987 to counter the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)).

3. Why is Congress preparing to appropriate over $14 billion to Israel in military and other aid without any public hearings and without any demonstrated fiscal need by Israel, a prosperous economic, technological, and military superpower with a social safety net superior to that of the U.S.? USDA just reported over 44 million Americans struggled with hunger in 2022. This, in the midst of a childcare crisis. Should U.S. taxpayers be expected to pay for Netanyahu’s colossal intelligence/military collapse?

Under international law, Biden has made the U.S. an active “co-belligerent” of the Israeli government’s vocal demolition of the 2.3 million inhabitants in Gaza, who are mostly descendants of Palestinian refugees driven from their homes in 1948.

4. Why hasn’t the media reported on President Joe Biden’s statement that the Gaza Health Ministry’s body count (now over 7,000 fatalities) is exaggerated? All indications, however, are that it is a large undercount by Hamas to minimize its inability to protect its people. Israel has fired over 8,000 powerful precision munitions and bombs so far. These have struck many thousands of inhabited buildings—homes, apartments buildings, over 120 health facilities, ambulances, crowded markets, fleeing refugees, schools, water and sewage systems, and electric networks—implementing Israeli military orders to cut off all food, water, fuel, medicine, and electricity to this already impoverished densely packed area the size of Philadelphia. For those not directly slain, the deadly harm caused by no food, water, medicine, medical facilities, and fuel will lead to even more deaths and serious injuries.

Note that over three-quarters of Gaza’s population consists of children and women. Soon there will be thousands of babies born to die in the rubble. Other Palestinians will perish from untreated diseases, injuries, dehydration, and from drinking contaminated water. With crumbled sanitation facilities, physicians are fearing a deadly cholera epidemic.

Israel bombed the Rafah crossing on the Gaza-Egypt border. Only a tiny trickle of trucks are now allowed there by Israel to carry food and water. Fuel for hospital generators still remains blocked.

5. Why can’t Biden even persuade Israel to let 600 desperate Americans out of the Gaza firestorm?

6. Why isn’t the mass media making a bigger issue out of Israel’s long-time practices of blocking journalists from entering Gaza, including European, American, and Israeli journalists? The only television crews left are Gazan-residing Al Jazeera reporters. Israeli bombs have already killed 26 journalists in the Gaza Strip since October 7th. Is Israel targeting journalists’ families? Gaza bureau chief of Al Jazeera Wael Al-Dahdouh’s family was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Wednesday.

Historians remind us that in a gridlocked conflict over time, it is the most powerful party’s responsibility to lead the way to peace.

7. Why isn’t the mainstream U.S. media giving adequate space and voice to groups advocating a cease-fire and humanitarian aid? The message of Israeli peace groups’ peaceful solutions are drowned out by the media’s addiction to interviews with military tacticians. Much time and space are being given to hawks pushing for a war that could flash outside of Gaza big time. Shouldn’t groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace, the Arab-American Institute, Veterans for Peace, and associations of clergy have their views and activities reported?

8. Why is the coverage of the war overlooking the Geneva Conventions, the United Nations Charter, and the many provisions of international law that all the parties, including the U.S., have been violating? (See the October 24, 2023 letter to President Biden). Under international law, Biden has made the U.S. an active “co-belligerent” of the Israeli government’s vocal demolition of the 2.3 million inhabitants in Gaza, who are mostly descendants of Palestinian refugees driven from their homes in 1948. (See, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide).

9. What about the human-interest stories that would be revealing? For example: How do Israeli F-16 pilots feel about their daily bombing of the completely defenseless Gazan civilian population and its life-sustaining infrastructures? What are the courageous Israeli human rights and refuseniks thinking and doing in a climate of serious repression of their views as a result of Netanyahu’s defense collapse on October 7?

10. Where is the media attention on the statements from Israeli military commentators, who, for years have declared high-tech U.S.-backed, nuclear-armed Israel to be more secure than at any time in its history? Israel is reasserting its overwhelming military domination of the entire region, fully backed by U.S. militarism.

Historians remind us that in a gridlocked conflict over time, it is the most powerful party’s responsibility to lead the way to peace.

Establishing a two-state solution has been supported by Palestinians. All the Arab nations, starting with the Arab League peace proposal in 2002, support this solution as well. It is up to Israel and the U.S., assuming annexation of what is left of Palestine is not Israel’s objective. (See, the March 29, 2002 New York Times article: “Mideast Turmoil; Text of the Peace Proposals Backed by the Arab League”).

More media attention on this subject matter is much needed.

#israel #palestine #gaza #hamas #benjamin netanyahu #joe biden #human rights #genocide #war crimes #journalism #media

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canmom · 2 months

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I think the future looks something like: large renewable deployment that will still never be as big as current energy consumption, extractivism of every available mineral in an atmosphere of increasing scarcity, increasing natural disasters and mass migration stressing the system until major political upheavals start kicking off, and various experiments in alternative ways to live will develop, many of which are likely to end in disaster, but perhaps some prove sustainable and form new equilibria. I think the abundance we presently enjoy in the rich countries may not last, but I don't think we'll give up our hard won knowledge so easily, and I don't think we're going back to a pre-industrial past - rather a new form of technological future.

That's the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic scenarios involve shit like cascading economic and crop failures leading to total gigadeaths collapse, like intensification of 'fortress europe' walled enclaves and surveillance apparatus into some kinda high tech feudal nightmare, and of course like nuclear war. But my brain is very pessimistic in general and good at conjuring up apocalyptic scenarios, so I can't exactly tell you the odds of any of that. I'm gonna continue to live my life like it won't suddenly all end, because you have to right?

Shit that developed in the context of extraordinarily abundant energy and compute like LLMs and crypto and maybe even streaming video will have a harder time when there's less of it around, but the internet will likely continue to exist - packet-switching networks are fundamentally robust, and the hyper-performant hardware we use today full of rare earths and incredibly fine fabs that only exist at TSMC and Shenzhen is not the only way to make computing happen. I hold out hope that our present ability to talk to people in faraway countries, and access all the world's art and knowledge almost instantly, will persist in some form, because that's one of the best things we have ever accomplished. But archival and maintenance is a continual war against entropy, and this is a tremendously complex system alike to an organism, so I can not say what will happen.

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carionto · 5 months

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Just a little push

The conflict between Humanity and the United Federation was in it's early slow stages. After the rather unexpected attack on the symbolic Death Kebab there was a lot of buzz and light skirmishes in the nearby systems, but no noteworthy confrontation.

The placement of the Death Kebab was provocative by design, and with both sides so far away from one another, there could not be any mass fleet formation without plenty of advance notice. Special operations units, however, are everywhere.

Unlike Humanity, who currently only has Earth as a planet under their direct control and with a notable population, the Federation is vast - core worlds surrounded by buffer manufacturing and agriculture and all manner of other production focused systems, which themselves are further surrounded out by new colonies, annexed planets, "contract" aka slave worlds.

Getting close to Earth without being spotted by any number of civilian organizations is nigh impossible, and when you count the military intelligence and surveillance networks, there's hardly an atom that remains unregistered. Certain people with, let's say, less than honest intentions, still manage to find ways to keep their activities hidden. For a while at least.

These kinds of skills, when employed by a trained operative with the highest grade equipment, make them virtually invisible everywhere else. A poorly guarded third-rate mining colony? Why, with just a little preparation, you could float an entire Dreadnought up to their atmosphere before they noticed. Assuming they would even care after offering a slightly more lucrative deal than the Federation.

For this particular mission, however, they would care.

Vrontaria was a very productive system with nearly a dozen orbital shipyards and hundreds of mining, processing, and export operations that account for roughly 4% of the entire Federation military hardware supply, and nearly a fifth of all their capital ship production. Thus, it was quite heavily guarded, with every nearby system monitored for any suspicious activity.

What they didn't monitor all too well were the mostly useless planets and moons within the Vrontaria system itself. Of particularly little interest was the resident gas giant - Omk.

And why would anyone bother regularly scanning the interior of a gas giant for foreign matter, everyone knows entering the "atmosphere" of a gas giant will just crush everything. Right?

*glances sideways*

It took the better part of a month, but the special unit managed to covertly install about five thousand gravitational pulse thrusters and all necessary power generators within the upper layer of Omk, but just far enough below the storms to make their activity not make any visible change. For comparison, one such thruster can accelerate an entire Dreadnought. Slowly, sure, which is why they have at least 6 to be able to maneuver, and Omk was not the largest gas giant in the Galaxy, about two thirds of Jupiter.

So, one day not long after, someone on Ja'Ulnika, the main planet of the Vrontaria system, noticed that Omk was a little bit further along its orbital path than it should be.

Concerning.

Then they took more precise measurements and realized it was going faster than before.

Very concerning.

Finally, they had someone go up to it and then they noticed all of the thrust force coming from one side of it, changing its orbit to get far too close to Ja'Ulnika for comfort.

Panic inducing to say the least.

By the time a full force of combat ships arrived to sort out this mess and start disabling all these planet-moving thrusters, scans showed they had self-destructed. Even if they had the ability to retrieve anything from the inside of a gas giant, at this point it would be worthless scraps.

The final orbit of Omk would put it on a course to capture Ja'Ulnika in its gravitational well in two years time and take it along for a joyride to orbits outside the habitable zone, rendering it inhospitable in around 5-6 years. Not to mention the carnage tides would cause on a world without its own moon. Or any other catastrophic events that might occur when a planet is essentially kidnapped into a becoming moon.

Wars are fought on many fronts. inevitable devastation and unavoidable future reduction in capacity force you to act in ways you would rather not. Sometimes creating a logistical nightmare that your enemy has to deal with no matter what can be the greatest killing blow that a swift and spectacular showdown space battle could never be.

#humans are space orcs #humans are space oddities #humans are space australians #humans are deathworlders #humanity fuck yeah #carionto

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artbyblastweave · 2 years

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So the division betweencivilian and Superhero identity has been a thing since the genre was just getting started with Superman. Do you have any thoughts on how Worm handles secret identities?

So many. Gonna start high level on this one and narrow it down.

From the 1920s to... probably the mid-70s, there was this implicit bargain with secret identities; the logistics were simpler. You could keep a secret identity with relative ease, the most likely failure points were those closest to you, and that’s manageable. But! You would keep a secret identity in the first place because if they found you, your life was fucked. There is no game being played; there were no pretenses. If they catch you, they will kill you- but first they must catch you.

The implicit consequences for being unmasked, while rarely realized, were genuinely very, very bad! Batman was fighting mobsters who would very much kill him, if they figured it out! Spider-Man concealed his identity because his villains made a beeline for his loved ones any time they figured it out. Cape IDs were genuine secrets, and because this was pre-mass surveillance, pre-internet, pre-media fragmentation, in the era where it was still hypothetically possible for people to up and vanish in the night, or become nameless drifters with no footprint, when millions of people were being shuffled around the country by wars and great migrations and the G.I Bill and a rise in college attendance, it was fairly plausible that secret identities were, in the abstract, genuinely hard to figure out.

This isn’t true anymore. In the modern day, with smartphones, home video, TMZ and the churning cesspit of online forums, in a setting laden with psychics and supercomputers and amazing detectives, it’s harder and harder to justify the secret identities not being blown open. At Marvel, many writers have said “fuck it” and had the heroes go public. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and others have maintained them (mostly) because it’s just so core to the character dynamics that they can’t ditch them.

So what’s happened, quietly, is that writers and fans have started to pay mind to the realpolitik of blowing up a superheroes civilian life, at DC in particular, and why most rational actors won’t do that. The Central City Rogues, at times, have learned Flash’s secret identity, and vice versa, but The Rogues don’t act on it because they know they can’t survive a Flash with nothing to lose, and anyway, they actually do want him around to beat back the potentially city-leveling threats. Many of Batman’s rogues have figured out he’s Bruce Wayne, but sit on the information because they want the game to keep going, or because they recognize that Batman is a known variable and a good way to make sure none of the other villains get a leg up. The end of JMS’s Amazing Spider-Man featured Kingpin nearly killing Aunt May, and in retaliation Spider-Man makes a big show of taking off the kid gloves and just pulls Kingpin nearly apart in front of witnesses, as a show of the kind of force he could always have been potentially bringing to bear if he didn’t have a civilian life holding him back. This extends to Indie Media too; Invincible and Astro City both acknowledge that if you live near a hero, you’re likely gonna notice pretty quickly, but most people are smart enough or nice enough not to do anything destructive with that info. Incorruptable is about a supervillain who rationalizes his supervillainy under the logic that Not!Superman was never gonna let anything too bad happen to anyone, he always win when it counts, and when said hero turns evil he decides he has to step up to protect people because the safety net is out the door.

More and more often, the sanctity of the secret identity is something acknowledged as a pretense; something that society at large allows for, something there’s a gentleman’s agreement not to poke too hard at.

So now we get to Worm, which codifies this at a high level. No network of individually-developed working relationships where tons and tons of people independently decide to pretend not to know who the hero really is; it’s an actual cultural thing, an unwritten rule that you do not go after people in their civvie lives, you do not try and figure their IDs out, and you absolutely do not get caught if you do try. There is a powerful AI that helps enforce this, a powerful government apparatus that helps enforce this, a well-developed set of nettiquite enforcing this, an underground conspiracy that’ll absolutely drop the hammer on anyone trying to systemically challenge this.

But what really makes Worm Unique in this regard is that this also applies to the villains.

Villains, don’t have secret identities in most superhero universes; when they get caught the first time, their IDs are out, they’re introduced by both their real names and villain names on the news, and it’s noteworthy when a long-haul villain like The Joker manages to completely avoid having their real name publicized. The best they get, day to day, is not being recognized out of costume, but that’s thin. In Worm, villain identities are subject to a level of respect alien to other settings, and it’s for purely pragmatic reasons; the book shows us again and again how utterly fucked you are if you back a villain into a corner and give them no way out. E88 getting doxxed leads to dozens of city blocks being leveled with untold casualties; Skitter goes full populist warlord when she’s outed and kills some high-profile PRT jackboots; Bakuda’s madness is driven at least in part by her very real need to establish herself as someone who is not to be fucked with because she has no civilian life to return to and nothing to her name except what she can quickly cement in her new and only identity; Shatterbird committed to being a mass murderer because her civillian life was annihilated during her “trigger” and she saw no viable path to deescalate.

Cape comics are focused on the heroes, and so they spend a lot of time focused on the carrots and the sticks the heroes can bring to bear, how the heroes can protect their own status quo, how the villains are reacting to what the heroes might do if placed up against the wall. Worm is concerned with the carrots and sticks held by the black hats. In another setting, the silliness of a guy who dresses up to rob banks would be highlighted as an act of small-mindedness, it’d be a bit about how dumb villains are to waste their time like this. But in Worm, costumed villainy is simultaneously a gesture of courtesy, and a veiled threat, because this is not the worst they could be behaving.

#parahumans #worm #wildbow #thoughts #worm meta #ask #superheroes #superhero

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smytherines · 4 hours

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I think about Owen and the Chimera surveillance network a lot, because to me it isn't a question of having a surveillance network or not. It is happening. The question is: who will control it?

The surveillance network is an arms race between Chimera, the U.S. government, and I would imagine also the Russians and the British as well. One of these entities *will* succeed, Chimera is just the furthest along. Its like the race for the atomic bomb- each superpower pursued its own nuclear weapons program simultaneously, the US (collaborating with the British) just crossed the finish line first.

Here's my argument.

The first crucial piece of the puzzle is Barb Larvernor. The first time we hear about the concept of computers making spies obsolete, it isn't from DMA/Owen. It's from Barb. In A1P5, Barb says:

"Well picture this- the world's first, large-scale, information collective and archival system... Its just an idea I've been toying around with. If it worked, we'd be able to take down syndicates by doing the detective work from the safety of our desks. It would take the guesswork out of your job, hopefully saving some lives in the process- including your own. Can you imagine if this technology existed?"

There's also this conversation between Barb and Tatiana from the interludes during One Step Ahead.

Tatiana: I need you to search for an island, the size of a compound, that can store hundreds of computing systems

Barb: Easy, I have actually already been researching locations that fit that exact criteria... see, I have been thinking of a technology that can revolutionize- found one!"

From these two exchanges, we know that at the very least Barb is working on this "information collective and archival system" for the US government to use, although she seems to still be in the research and development phase.

Now, let's move on to what we know about Chimera's system, and what Owen wants from it.

First, we have this dialogue from A1P8, of DMA outright telling Curt his plan:

*recording of Cynthia plays*

Curt: where did that come from?

BVN: a little birdie told me

DMA: that little birdie being an advanced network of information surveillance that we've been-

Curt: boring!

Then, from A2P5, we have Owen explaining the system and why he wants to control it:

Tatiana: bird? Little birdies? His scientists developing... you're after the technology

Owen: Pop goes the weasel! An advanced Nazi information surveillance network to collect and archive state secrets.

They discuss why Owen wants the land (silicon babyyy), and then:

Owen: Don't you get it? Those stores of silicon from beneath the Earth's crust will allow us to mass produce Von Nazi's technology and deploy his system on a global scale! I'd have all the world's secrets. I'd be God. Now what a world that would be, eh?

The conversation continues:

Curt: my government will never allow this

Tatiana: not even the Soviets will

Owen: not at first, no. Everybody likes to do the watching, but nobody likes to be watched

Tatiana: you can't just invade the privacy of civilians without reason or suspicion

Owen: well, I like to think we are just turning everyone into a spy, they just aren't aware of it

Moving on to A2P6, the staircase scene:

Owen: YOU STILL DON'T SEE, DO YOU, CURT? There won't be any agency to go back to, once the system is global. I'm going to single-handedly dismantle everything you've ever believed in

Then

Owen: the future is happening, Curt. And it's not going to wait for you. What use will one man be, when a box in a room can do his job in seconds, huh?

Curt: sounds boring

Owen: you're a caveman, and I've invented fire

To me, this absolutely reads as Owen being aware that somebody- be it Chimera, or the US, or the Russians- will have this surveillance network. The future is inevitable. The future is surveillance (he was soooo right), the future is computers. Curt just can't see it yet, because he doesn't know technology the way that Owen and Barb do.

Going back to "I'd have all the world's secrets. I'd be God." Makes me believe that Owen is doing this so that *he* will control the flow of information. That he will be able to protect himself against what is coming. That he will never have to be vulnerable to his secret again.

Because here's the thing: we don't know if Chimera is going to use this information to punish or harm queer people. Given that Owen believes he will be in charge of the surveillance system, I'd say at the very least he does not believe it will be.

His goal seems to be "a world without agencies, a world without spies, a world without secrets." It seems to be the destruction of spying as an institution, and undercutting the nations which make use of spies to influence global events. At no point does he say that he will expose queer people if he is in charge of the surveillance network.

But, the US government absolutely will.

The US government is already hunting down queer people, even without a fancy surveillance network. Having control over Chimera's network would only make that task easier for them. Curt's secret, the secret of any queer person in this time period, is almost certainly safer in the hands of a gay man than it would be in the hands of a bloodthirsty global superpower that is already hunting down queer people.

Finally, at the end of the show, after Cynthia says that pretty soon nerds in lab coats will be running the show, we find out that Barb is getting the resources to fully work on the technology she has been talking about the entire show:

When Curt killed Owen he did not kill the surveillance network. Not for Chimera. But also, by handing A.S.S. evidence of what Chimera was doing, he likely influenced the US government to fund Barb and make her surveillance system a reality. A surveillance system that will invariably be used to hurt people like Curt and Owen.

Its possible that Curt never takes down Chimera precisely because the US now has a surveillance system to tell them that their ex-agent, the agent who went rogue, is also gay. And I don't imagine they would be very Gay Rights about it.

From a real world perspective, Owen and Barb were right: surveillance technology was the future in 1961. It is the present we currently live in. Warrantless, invasive, built into every piece of tech we use. The future happened, and it didn't wait for Agent Curt Mega.

#jesus why do i do this #this is about to get 4 notes hahaha #spies are forever #tin can bros #curtwen #owen carvour #agent curt mega #saf #tcb #carvernor #seriously sincerely no disrespect meant to that owen surveillance network post going around #i just genuinely do think about this a lot and kept meaning to make a breakdown #and that post got my autism flowing

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just-late-roman-republic-things · 6 months

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Limits of Propaganda in the Augustan Regime

I saw a neat post earlier about how Augustus used propaganda to justify his control of Rome and establish permanent one-man rule. It got me thinking about what we picture when we say "propaganda," how Roman propaganda differed from modern propaganda, and how we talk about the interactions between governments and their people.

Augustus' cult of personality has some parallels with monarchist propaganda in early modern Europe, and with authoritarian governments today. But there were also major differences that I think we need to remember, or else we may wrongly project modern assumptions onto the past. In particular, I think the predominance, effectiveness, and superficiality of Augustan propaganda are often overstated. And I think this distortion reinforces a classist bias in our perception of the people of Rome, a bias that contributes to the erasure of ordinary people's contributions to history.

This isn't a formal essay, and I'm not a historian. I may have misremembered some things. But, if you'd like to hear me ramble...

How powerful was Augustan propaganda in shaping people's views of the government?

The word "propaganda" was popularized in the 20th century, in association with mass communication. Modern governments can ensure their propaganda is seen by millions of people at once, and restrict access to opposing viewpoints. Massive amounts of money, equipment, and professional teams are employed to spread these messages.

The only mass media in Augustan Rome were coins, which Augustus could only put very limited text and images on. He erected numerous monuments, but those are limited to a few paragraphs at most, and only to the people who visit them. He could patronize writers and poets like Livy and Vergil, but even they lacked the reach of television, radio or the internet. And all of these methods would have been far more expensive than the mass media of today.

Augustus' propaganda wasn't novel. Roman leaders had been stamping their messages onto coins, monuments, writing memoirs and hiring poets for centuries. Throughout his reign people still would have seen coins and monuments from the republican period, and read the works of Cicero, Brutus, and other republican leaders. In the same way most people today have learned not to trust everything they see on TV, most Romans would have known not to believe everything they saw on monuments, coins, or in state pronouncements.

Nor was Augustus able to limit the spread of contrary narratives like modern dictators can. The Roman government was extremely barebones by today's standards, lacking the bureaucracy and resources to surveil the population. Most Romans didn't get their news from public announcements, state-sponsored art, or politicians' books, but from gossip, letters, and their own information networks.

Over half of all male Romans traveled abroad at some point in this period (Mary Beard, SPQR, ch. 5). They had many different viewpoints available, and other sources of information about what was happening in the provinces. Augustus thus could only bend the narrative to his benefit so far. When several legions were annihilated in Teutoburg Forest in 9 CE, he didn't even try to cover it up; people would've called him on it.

Augustus had more control over how he presented himself and his family to the public than over the narrative of tangible events in the world. Thus most of his propaganda either focuses on shaping his image of himself, his family, or on the personal character of Antony and Cleopatra instead of events Romans could verify or disprove.

But he couldn't stop information from leaking, family scandals from happening, or rumors from spreading. He exiled his daughter Julia, in part for her extramarital affairs, but also because the notoriety of the scandal undermined the squeaky-clean "Roman family values" image he intended for his family to present. When he sent Agrippa to govern the eastern provinces, rumors abounded that some rift had formed between the two. Whether or not such a rift actually happened, the fact that the rumor existed, and survived for 150 years into Suetonius' era, shows how limited Augustus' control of public perception actually was.

How independent were Roman citizens, soldiers, and senators?

These are three very distinct groups that behaved in different ways. Let's start with the general public.

The Roman People

The evidence is clear: we know people organized public protests and petitions throughout Augustus' reign, and even spoiled elections sometimes by voting for the "wrong" candidates.

A group of women took over the forum to protest his tax hike in 42 BCE, despite a wave of proscriptions. He was nearly stoned to death by an angry mob in 39 BCE. The Romans repeatedly petitioned for Julia's freedom, and as late as 9 CE we hear of protests against his marriage laws.

Why did the public express themselves so freely? Well, for one thing, Augustus chose not to suppress popular demonstrations. In fact, he seems to have used the semblance of "free speech" as a tool to deflect accusations of tyranny. By cultivating an image of himself as a moderate who permitted public dissent, he made his political dominance appear less authoritarian and more palatable to the people of Rome.

Augustus probably also thought it was impossible to control what people said, so didn't bother to try. In one of his letters to Tiberius, Augustus says as much:

Suetonius, Augustus, 51

Another big factor was that many public protests tried to persuade him to take on more power. They repeatedly demanded that he take up the dictatorship, or tried to elect him consul when he wasn't running. And no, this doesn't seem to have been the "fake elections" you see in modern dictatorships. The reason is that people's trust in the Senate's competence had collapsed, so when national crises arose like famines, plagues, or debt problems, they tried to make Augustus take back the reins, instead of sharing the power with the Senate as he pretended he was doing.

Which brings us to Augustus' bizarre relationship the Senate.

The Senatorial Class

How independent were the senators? Suetonius gives us a raucous picture:

Augustus also reintroduced competitive elections. Not free, really - everyone knew Augustus' power far outweighed the consuls and praetors. But we do have records of candidates attempting to bribe voters and slinging accusations at their opponents, similar to republican times. This was another way that Augustus tried to distance himself from the dictatorships of Caesar and Sulla, and make his authority palatable to people who valued republican liberty.

He also collaborated with senators behind the scenes, and selected some of them as advisors and proxies for introducing legislation. Augustus' rule was negotiated in a series of settlements, public and private, with the same class of people who had killed Julius Caesar for threatening their place in the public order.

Augustus needed the aristocracy's skills, education, and resources to administer the empire. He also needed to placate them enough to avoid getting the Ides of March Special. They, in turn, needed a way to maintain their dignitas and roles in government, which had traditionally been conferred by elections. By permitting elections, incorporating senators into policy-making behind the scenes, and giving them the outward appearance and status of their old authority, Augustus satisfied them enough to stabilize his rule.

However, the value of elections, and of being in the Senate, clearly declined over time. In the second half of his reign senatorial attendance declined so sharply Augustus introduced penalties for senators not showing up to "work." Eventually elections for the high magistracies were phased out, and the Senate was allowed to elect consuls from among themselves. This was actually popular with senators, since it spared them the expense of campaigning.

And although Augustus did permit senators' input into his government, his control steadily increased over time. Part of this was official, as re-settlements granted him additional powers. And part of it was de facto, as he simply outlived everyone who had experience managing the government. Augustus' longevity, experience, and informal network of advisors effectively made his household the hub of government policy. (His nepotistic habit of giving his relatives the most important jobs also contributed.) Meanwhile, the Senate had a sort of "brain drain" effect as a new generation of senators grew up without the experience of running the state themselves.

By the ascension of Tiberius in 14 CE, senatorial autonomy was dead. Even when Tiberius attempted to step back from government and encouraged the senators to state their own opinions, this only resulted in paralysis. He could not replicate the personal, unofficial relationships Augustus had developed to govern without appearing "tyrannical," and tension between the Senate and emperors would plague Rome for another 200 years.

The Military

Although Augustus took pains to disguise it, we should never forget that he was a military dictator. His power came first and foremost from the loyalty of the army, and their loyalty depended on getting paid. The last great threat to his rule wasn't Antony or Cleopatra, but a huge mutiny in Italy after the Battle of Actium. If he hadn't annexed Egypt and distributed its riches to his troops, there's a high chance he would have been overthrown.

Augustus also needed to convince the legions and public of his military ability, and thus that Rome was safe under his rule. He was not a gifted commander, but he was usually good at selecting them, most notably in Marcus Agrippa, Drusus, Tiberius, and Germanicus. On the other hand, the catastrophic loss of several legions in Teutoburg Forest seriously frightened him. He feared a loss of public confidence, and thus rebellions and political rivals, and quickly sent Drusus and Tiberius with their armies to retaliate.

Augustus established a permanent army to guard the entire empire, which strained the empire's budget to its limit. He managed to pay for it all, barely. Later emperors would repeatedly run into mutinies and even be overthrown by troops who weren't satisfied with their wages.

Augustus' reign was a difficult balancing act between the needs of many competing interest groups, especially early on. After multiple civil wars, the state was poor, the people were exhausted and traumatized, the Senate and citizens feared each other, Romans opposed provincials, soldiers opposed civilians - it was a mess. It's hard to describe the damage to Rome's social and economic infrastructure.

Perhaps the greatest achievement of Augustus' reign was that he managed to navigate between all of these groups, get each of them to trust him to look out for their interests, and gave Roman society enough time to knit itself back together. To win that trust, he couldn't rely on bribes and propaganda alone. He had to prove it through action.

Augustan propaganda had to be justified through tangible benefits, not mere words and imagery.

The word "propaganda" is usually used to refer to rhetoric, advertisements, and manipulation. It connotes hollowness and subterfuge. But Augustus did not trick people into liking him by just hiring the right poets and erecting statues. His most effective propaganda was demonstrated through public renovations and the assurance of public order.

The bar wasn't high to clear. We have to remember that Augustus wasn't a dictator replacing a functioning republic; he was introducing a stable government with competitive (but not free) elections after 20 years of civil war, and another ten years of political violence before that. Peace alone was a major reason why people accepted his rule.

The quality of life for both Romans and provincials mostly improved during his reign, too. From Marcus Agrippa fixing the sewer system and providing the entire city with clean water, to Rome's first permanent fire brigade, to increased economic mobility, to safer long-distance travel, to stabilizing the grain supply, even down to individual tax disputes and court cases Augustus encountered while touring the provinces. The Romans would also have seen Augustus' military victories as a form of public service, a way of enriching the empire and restoring national pride. (And they were officially his victories, since he remained the commanding officer, even if the campaigns were masterminded by Agrippa or another subordinate.)

I think that history books sometimes frame Augustan propaganda as a sort of trick to make the populace accept one-man rule. But you can't really separate the effects of his propaganda from his demonstrable actions that most Romans approved of. The Romans were not simpletons, and they weren't afraid to express their anger with him violently. (Even with the Praetorian Guard present: a mob attacked him and his soldiers in 39 BCE.) Augustus was testing out a fragile and experimental form of government, and had give people results.

That said, we should not attribute the benefits of Augustus' rule to autocracy. We certainly shouldn't use it to justify authoritarianism, as many fascists have attempted. Augustus' government was better than an ongoing civil war; that does not mean it was better than a democracy. And the downsides of autocracy rapidly took effect after his death: first in Tiberius, who initiated the first purges since 42 BCE; then with Caligula, who was...well, Caligula.

If anything, I think Augustus' reign shows how goddamn hard it is to kill people's desire for liberty and their voice in government. If we overlook the protests, the riots, and the constant need for the princeps to justify his regime with military and domestic success, then we erase the input of the common people. And that contributes to a classist view of history in which only rich, powerful men can make meaningful contributions.

Augustus used propaganda, absolutely. But the Roman people were not satisfied with pretty words and images. They paid attention to what the state was doing, they expected it to serve, feed, and protect them, and they even intervened in issues like Julia's exile that didn't personally affect them.

Perhaps we should give them a little more credit.

Further Reading/Watching

Mary Beard, SPQR

Anthony Everitt: Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor

Adrian Goldsworthy, Augustus: First Emperor of Rome

Erich Gruen, The Last Generation of the Roman Republic

Robin Seager, Tiberius

Historia Civilis (YouTube channel)

#jlrrt speaks #octavian #propaganda #hot takes with jlrrt #once again i'm not a historian this is all just my opinion #i would totally stuff augustus into a locker and then run like hell before agrippa could catch me #jlrrt essays

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nihilo-sensei · 1 month

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Capitalism: "Look at all the mass surveillance in the Warsaw Pact states. We would never do that!"

Also capitalism: [Builds most sophisticated mass surveillance network in human history, most of it to better serve you ads with weird stock photos like someone putting an onion in their sock to cure their breast cancer or some shit.]

#late stage capitalism #capitalism #anti capitalism #anarchism #anarcho communism #libertarian communism #libertarian socialism #socialism #leftism

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taviamoth · 21 days

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🚨 Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor:

—

The involvement of technology and social media companies in causing the killing of civilians by "israel" in the Gaza Strip necessitates an immediate investigation.

These companies should be held accountable and liable if their complicity or failure to exercise due diligence in preventing access to and exploitation of their users’ private information is proven, obligating them to ensure their services are not misused in war zones and that they protect user privacy.

"Israel" uses various technology systems supported by artificial intelligence, such as Gospel, Fire Factory, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy, all operating within a system aimed at monitoring Palestinians illegally and tracking their movements.

These systems function to identify and designate suspected individuals as legitimate targets, based mostly on shared characteristics and patterns rather than specific locations or personal information.

The accuracy of the information provided by these systems is rarely verified by the occupation army, despite a known large margin of error due to the nature of these systems' inability to provide updated information.

The Lavender system, heavily used by the occupation army to identify suspects in Gaza before targeting them, is based on probability logic, a hallmark of machine learning algorithms.

"Israeli" military and intelligence sources have admitted to attacking potential targets without consideration for the principle of proportionality and collateral damage, with suspicions that the Lavender system relies on tracking social media accounts among its sources.

Recently, "israel's" collaboration with Google was revealed, including several technological projects, among them Project Nimbus which provides the occupation army with technology that facilitates intensified surveillance and data collection on Palestinians illegally.

The occupation army also uses Google's facial recognition feature in photos to monitor Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and to compile an "assassination list," collecting a vast amount of images related to the October 7th operation.

The Euro-Mediterranean field team has collected testimonies from Palestinian civilians directly targeted in Israeli military attacks following their activities on social media sites, without any involvement in military actions.

The potential complicity of companies like Google and Meta and other technology and social media firms in the violations and crimes committed by "israel" breaches international law rules and the companies' declared commitment to human rights.

No social network should provide this kind of private information about its users and actually participate in the mass genocide conducted by "israel" against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which demands an international investigation providing guarantees for accountability and justice for the victims.

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mariacallous · 2 months

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Two grim milestones just passed for Ukraine: the two-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion and a decade since the seizure of Crimea. Ukrainians commemorated and grieved. They did so in the midst of mounting uncertainty over the trajectory of the war, the solidarity of their leadership, and the continuance of international support.

Beneath the headlines, however, Ukrainian resistance adapts and evolves. Among Ukrainians, cease-fires and territorial concessions remain broadly anathema. The question is not if resistance should continue, but how.

From the very beginning of Russia’s war, the Ukrainian people self-mobilized en masse. Their proactive agency has been fundamental to Ukraine’s ability to stave off Russian aggression, and it has been lauded as the gold standard in whole-of-society resistance. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, for example, volunteer organizations and civil society groups leapt into action, buying vital time for the military to regroup. In the years that followed, nongovernmental organizations and private interests were integral to sustaining Ukraine’s position in a so-called frozen conflict.

In 2022, as Russian armor surged across the border, ordinary civilians flooded the ranks of the Territorial Defense Forces. These units waged impromptu and ultimately successful localized campaigns to defend cities such as Sumy and Chernihiv, which were fundamental to the disruption of Russia’s invasion plan.

Ukrainian citizens stepped forward to take nonviolent action as well. At times, this occurred in coordination with government entities. Far more often, it was the result of independent initiative. Actions included large-scale street protests, the blocking of roads, and the protection of critical infrastructure. The broader endeavor was punctuated by exceptionally well-amplified face-to-face confrontations and social media campaigns.

Within government-held areas of Ukraine, civil society remains engaged. Key efforts include adapting of drones and other civilian technologies for military use, providing support for displaced families, and raising funds for veteran care. Behind Russian lines, meanwhile, resistance networks have blossomed as well. Some are engaged in sabotage and other guerrilla warfare tactics.

More prevalent, however, have been those engaged in nonviolent resistance. Independent civilian networks have grown dramatically in size and scope, despite limited media attention from the West and negligible external support.

What is their place in Ukraine’s resistance strategy, and how can their achievements inform broader debates over concepts such as “total defense” and the realities of whole-of-society resistance?

As Russia consolidated its hold over areas of southern and eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2022, Ukrainian resistance endured devastating initial setbacks behind the front lines. Most of the “stay behind” partisan groups established by the Ukrainian government were promptly betrayed by pro-Russian collaborators and annihilated. Surviving networks were thereafter culled by Russian intelligence agencies, using surveillance, torture, and collective punishment.

Russia’s occupying administration also enforced a brutal crackdown on civil disobedience and open protest. The result was an utter stifling of overt action. This, combined with Russia’s success in unraveling and destroying clandestine guerrilla networks, created profound unease within the Ukrainian government at the prospect of orchestrating resistance actions (particularly by civilians) behind enemy lines.

Instead, the preference shifted toward hit-and-run raids by Ukrainian special operations forces, launched from government-held terrain.

Despite the Ukrainian government’s uncertain, hands-off approach to civil resistance and the dangers posed under Russian occupation, nonviolent resistance has flourished. Critically, it has done so without the sort of government direction and support envisaged within the total defense paradigm that is increasingly popular within the NATO alliance, and without reliance upon “pre-existing ties and networks” similar to those that have been fundamental to classic resistance movements around the world.

Over the past two years, tens of thousands of Ukrainians have participated in nonviolent resistance activities. Women have been front and center, and new technologies have been pivotal to the scaling, de-risking, and amplification of the enterprise. The actions and outcomes of nonviolent civil resistance have focused overwhelmingly on target audiences within occupied Ukraine, however, and so they remain inadequately understood and appreciated.

Nonviolent resistance has been orchestrated by a decentralized amalgamation of independent groups that reach deep behind the front lines. Rather than building on existing social connections, they have coalesced digitally and anonymously in response to Russian aggression. Maintaining only occasional and informal communication with the Ukrainian government, they have pursued independently conceived courses of action in the furtherance of Ukraine’s national interests.

One of the best-known groups, the Yellow Ribbon Group (YRG), provides an example of this paradigm in practice. The YRG, one of the only resistance groups to garner attention from Western media, originated in Kherson Oblast after the area’s conquest by Russia in the first days of the war. Cut off from Ukraine and unable to take up arms, young people came together to find ways to resist.

“We wanted to be a part of something,” recalls the YRG’s founder, who is not named here to protect their safety. The founder went on to say that they also wished to exert agency in the face of oppression.

Initial resistance activities were predominantly one-off actions by lone individuals. They ranged from tagging pro-Ukrainian graffiti to attaching Ukrainian flags to balloons in order to raise them into the sky. Photos of these actions circulated widely via Telegram channels and on social media, prompting a surge of interest from Luhansk to Crimea.

After Russia’s withdrawal from the right bank of Kherson in November 2022, the YRG expanded its work. Operating from the relative safety of government-held areas, members reached digitally across the front lines to support their fellow Ukrainians enduring occupation. The continued growth and security of practitioners were enabled thereafter by high-tech innovation.

This came in the form of a custom-developed secure messaging platform that allows the practitioners of nonviolent resistance in occupied areas to access an artificial intelligence-enabled chatbot, which provides access to a breadth of information and resources that are automatically customized in response to a user’s prompts.

Examples include instructions on how to print fliers, best practice recommendations for the conduct of certain actions, inspiration for messages and themes. (The latter are often related to current events, such as Elon Musk’s October 2023 assertion that there is no “significant insurgency” in occupied Ukraine, and that Ukraine should cede land for peace.)

Within this system, the YRG has established the digital backbone of a resistance network unlike any other in history: one with a single hub run via artificial intelligence (as opposed to an identifiable leadership team) and an unlimited series of anonymous, untraceable, individual spokes. The entire application can be deleted from the user’s phone at the push of a button, and full anonymity means that members of the network cannot be compromised by Russia.

YRG practitioners have also produced posters exposing the identities and activities of administrators within the occupation bureaucracy. At times, these efforts target high-profile public figures—such as the infamous pro-Russian politician and former Kherson Mayor Vladimir Saldo—but primary focus goes toward midlevel officials imported from Russia to prove that the resistance knows who they are. In a number of instances, these exposés have compelled the individuals in question to relocate, which in turn adds an additional burden on the occupation and heightens the sense of insecurity.

In a pattern evident throughout the nonviolent resistance movement in occupied Ukraine, the more active that YRG becomes, the more that it grows in numbers. The structure of its digital platform is such that it can accommodate any and all new entrants, while its architecture mitigates any damage that might accrue through Russian penetration.

According to internal system metrics, the YRG’s platform has approximately 10,000 registered users, with an average of 3,000 active users within a given week. Sources within the YRG note that numbers fluctuate dramatically at any given moment, since users will delete the application on a regular basis when approaching checkpoints and other high-risk areas.

Another prominent nonviolent resistance network leveraging technology, anonymity, and female agency is the Angry Mavkas. The group is comprised exclusively of Ukrainian women, and it draws its name from a siren-like creature in Ukrainian folklore that lures men to their deaths.

The Mavkas began in Melitopol among a small group of women who wanted to push back against Russian aggression and sexual assault, which has been systemic under occupation. The Mavkas’ reputation spread quickly, and the group’s founders were inundated with requests from women and girls across the occupied territories to contribute to their cause.

As with the YRG, the Mavkas utilize their own anonymous communication platform to share resources and stories, coordinate activities, and present digital evidence of their actions. The result creates an interesting duality: It is a forum that provides Ukrainian women the opportunity to connect with one another and vent their fears and frustrations under occupation, but it is also a space of anonymous, digital strangers.

Discussions with participants in Ukraine’s nonviolent resistance movement emphasize the value of both the act of practicing resistance as well as the outcomes that it generates. Taking action has been a powerful means of asserting agency and “speaking freely” under occupation. Practitioners noted what they called the “self-imposed schizophrenia” that is required of Ukrainian patriots, wherein one must publicly acquiesce to Russian rule in order to survive. For example, accepting a Russian passport is now a precondition for access to basic medical care, pensions, and permission to leave one’s city in the occupied territories.

As Russian surveillance and counterintelligence capabilities grow increasingly robust, there is little opportunity for respite or self-expression. As such, public trust has been badly degraded in occupied territories—a further constraint to the practice of resistance via traditional social groups. In the view of a senior figure within the Mavkas, the ensuing “social atomization” evokes the communist era. In the words of another practitioner, “our lives have become compartmentalized.”

Trapped in a world where one must say and do things that run counter to one’s core beliefs, and where one cannot express true feelings outside of extremely narrow circles of trust, even the smallest acts of resistance imbue powerful psychological impacts for the practitioner—and also for their fellow Ukrainians enduring occupation, who witness the results.

The successes of the nonviolent resistance movement have catalyzed shifts in Russian messaging as well. Initially, Russian officials ignored such acts of resistance. As activity grew to the point that it could not be ignored, the Russians sought to dismiss and discredit the endeavor. According to sources in the YRG, nonviolent resistance is said by the Russians to be the work of “a duped, intellectually deficient few.” They say that the YRG has been cast as “a band of degenerates” and “while the Mavkas are alleged to be “a psyop [psychological operations] run from Kyiv” as well as tools of the U.S.

In contrast to the devastating early losses suffered within traditional partisan networks established and run by the Ukrainian government, the decentralized and anonymous digital networks established by civil society are thriving. The YRG and the Mavkas continue to expand while other groups are still emerging. The Combat Seagulls blend violent and nonviolent practices in Crimea, while Atesh (meaning “fire” in Crimean Tartar) is a network of saboteurs and informants drawn primarily from Tartars forcibly conscripted by Russia.

Resistance is growing in occupied Ukraine, both in scale and sophistication. Armed partisan networks are making their presence felt behind the front lines while nonviolent resistance groups continue to expand. Critically, the Ukrainian government is recognizing integrated resistance as a strategic lever.

This two-pronged approach to resistance—violent and nonviolent actions synchronized in support of a shared objective—offers a compelling paradigm. This is particularly true as nonviolent civil networks have shown the ability to move beyond small-scale symbolic actions and toward more ambitious campaigns.

In early 2023, for example, the Mavkas orchestrated the large-scale production of counterfeit 50-ruble notes, with a twist. With several details changed—only noticeable after close inspection—the notes were designed to grab the attention of Russians and others when left in public places, for example, at ATMs.

Activists were able to print and disseminate bills in Crimea, Melitopol, and parts of Kherson. Entering broadly into circulation, the notes initiated a flurry of official condemnation from Russian authorities.

The second campaign, conducted by a partisan network that has not yet taken public credit, was launched during the elections conducted by Russian authorities across occupied Ukraine in September 2023. In the run-up to the vote, aspiring local politicians put up posters to advertise their candidacy.

In the midst of this activity, a partisan network produced realistic posters of its own for fictitious candidates in the occupied territories, complete with scannable QR codes similar to those used by the official politicians These QR codes led in different directions: Some links went to videos of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, others to resources describing human rights violations within Russia, and others to spoof voter registration websites. These resources were hosted on secure platforms that had been paid for with cryptocurrency, which the Russian government could neither hack nor trace.

On the contrary, this subtle but effective campaign not only disrupted the so-called elections in occupied Ukraine, but also exposed the futility of Russia’s attempt to use democracy as a weapon.

Russia reacted sharply, and in ways that subverted narratives with which they have sought to legitimize conquest and occupation. First, high-level figures from Russia’s Central Election Commission publicly and aggressively condemned the effort and Rostelcom, the Russian state-owned digital services provider, pressed the relevant hosting services to take the websites down. Second, Russian media entities such as the news agency TASS, the website “War on Fakes” (widely understood to be linked to the Russian Ministry of Defense), and the popular show Solovyov Live alleged that the campaign was the work of scammers or Ukrainian psyops units. The net effect was official acknowledgement of substantive local opposition within the occupied territories, and the amplification of Ukrainian resistance to audiences across Russia.

As Ukraine explores the potential of nonviolent resistance—potentially aligned with a wider campaign of guerrilla activity in the occupied territories—the government must find a way to harness civilian networks without subsuming them. Civil society under government control is no longer civil society, irrespective of the statist assumptions baked into total defense and resistance paradigms proffered within NATO. Leaders in Kyiv need only to look across their northern and eastern borders to witness the toxic fallout of an instrumentalized populace.

There is ample room to coordinate and support the work of civilian resistance networks. Critically, that effort relies on mutual trust: for practitioners to be supported and empowered, and for the government to establish constructive strategic dialogue with the networks in question.

Nonviolent resistance has been a spontaneous expression of national will. It has been the civilian counterpart to the formidable Ukrainian “will to fight” evident on the battlefield, and its potency comes from the legacy of a decadeslong progress through which civil society has stepped forward, time and again, to shape Ukraine’s political future.

In the wake of two somber anniversaries, facing an interminable war of national survival with uncertain support from abroad, the Ukrainian people remain Ukraine’s most potent strategic asset. Within the occupied territories, civil resistance is vital to subverting Russian propaganda and framing the terms of any future negotiations. On the global stage, the sustained commitment and sacrifice of the Ukrainian people remains the most potent argument for continued international support. Re-establishing their place as the face and voice of resistance—a status that they achieved to extraordinary effect during the initial moments of the full-scale invasion—offers Ukraine its best opportunity to endure the challenges to come.

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