14 June 2019

‘Direct Action Against Computerization (1960-1990)’

In the political genealogy of computers, and even more so in the dominant historiography of the Internet, [neo-Luddite] opposition has been largely overlooked.

Among the actors who contributed in one way or another to shaping these technologies and the discourse surrounding them before the 1990s, postwar humanist scientists and technophile hippies of the 1960s are often mentioned (see, for example, the works of Fred Turner). Together, they helped to remove computers from large bureaucracies by promoting smaller machines, designed as tools for individual liberation, with all the unthoughts that were theirs (and ours, one might say, since their hopes and utopias also greatly influenced the dominant discourse on the Internet…). In the history of the right to personal data protection, we also sometimes refer to computer scientists, researchers, and lawyers who, as early as the 1960s, alerted public opinion and legislators to the risks of these technologies for privacy.

In this literature, the more fundamental technocritical opposition that stirred up the New Left from the 1960s onwards, and for which the computer was essentially a technocratic and warlike machine, often appears as a mere backdrop. In reality, little attention is paid to these actors, their discourse, or their practices of opposition to computer science.

Recent work has begun to correct these historiographical gaps, mainly in the United States. Anthropologist Gabriella Coleman, for example, has recalled (pdf) the connection between hackers in the 1980s in the United States and radical groups inspired by non-violent direct action, such as the Yippies. More recently, in Surveillance Valley (2018), journalist Yasha Levine unearthed forgotten archives documenting the opposition of militant organizations such as Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) to ARPANET in the early 1960s. The author recounts how ARPANET, which was the first packet-switched network and is generally presented as the ancestor of the Internet, was denounced during student protests for its links to the military-industrial complex, while also being implicated in scandals related to the surveillance of social movements by the US secret services.

A forgotten history…

But historiography says very little (if anything?) about more offensive modes of action, particularly acts of sabotage targeting computer equipment. When this issue is addressed, it is more often in relation to IT workers in the 1980s, whom governments feared would use software access to the infrastructure of strategic actors (for example, through computer intrusions) in order to disrupt its operation (deletion or modification of data). This was even partly what justified the crackdown on the hacker movement at the time and the adoption of legislation dedicated to “computer fraud.” However, beyond the rhetoric of security, these forms of digital sabotage remain relatively poorly documented. It seems to me that there are few convincing examples from that period that would suggest that this was an established militant practice among politicized hackers. Until the late 1990s, hackers seemed to stick to exploration or diversion.

However, what is often forgotten is that these fears expressed about hackers are part of a long series of sabotage and physical destruction of computer equipment by groups associated with the radical left. In France, for example, Celia Izoard’s work on resistance to computerization has brought the Toulouse-based CLODO group out of obscurity. This “Committee for the Liberation or Diversion of Computers” was responsible for several fires and explosions targeting leading figures in the IT sector and public administrations between 1980 and 1983.

But CLODO’s actions are not isolated. They are part of a much broader context in which, since the 1960s, the “direct action” practiced by certain activists has regularly targeted the computer centers of large companies or institutions linked to the military-industrial complex (see examples below). For years, these acts of material destruction have been a regular feature of the news (sources mention around 200 such operations over a period of 20 years), and it is likely that they have had a decisive influence on less violent and more “localized” forms of sabotage (e.g., workers sabotaging their computer work tools), and more broadly on the many forms of resistance to computerization that emerged at the time (resistance that, taken together, largely dominated the general apprehension of this technology in society, at least until the very end of the 1970s, before public opinion finally accepted the idea that computerization could be a positive process). . And yet, less than half a century later, these radical oppositions to computerization have been consigned to the dustbin of history.

These acts of sabotage, and the response of the authorities who were then laying the foundations for contemporary counterterrorism policies, constitute a neglected area of research that deserves further attention. This would not only counterbalance the dominant historiography, but also enrich our long-term perspective on the risks associated with technology in general and information technology in particular, raise important questions about civil disobedience and militant offensive actions, as well as the evolution of police treatment of political violence.

A few examples

Based on a few initial sources mentioned below (mainly researchers close to security circles who wrote in the 1980s), I wanted to record on this page a few examples of what these acts of sabotage were. The descriptions are brief and would need to be examined more closely, but they do offer some leads for future research on the subject. I will add to them as I go along, and if you know of any others, please feel free to share them in the comments (if possible, indicating the source).

Sources: