Archive / Zapatista Tactical Floodnet

Nr. 428 / 1998 / United States

Zapatista Tactical Floodnet


A software to orchestrate a new form of protest through digital media

Initiator(s)

Electronic Disturbance Theater

Description

FloodNet was a tool for empowered net citizens to participate in electronic civil disobedience (non-violent digital action) in solidarity with the Zapatistas. Electronic Disturbance Teather combined politics and performative ways of protest with digital media.
Floodned was developed as a device, a software to orchestrate collective electronic civil disobedience, disrupting access to the targeted website by flooding the host server with requests for that site.
On April 10, 1998, there was the first global digital action: it took the form of a virtual sit-in generating a disturbance, to hack the websites of President Zedillo; U.S. government and Pentagon. The FloodNet Tactical Version 1.0 was showcased during an electronic civil disobedience action against Mexican President Zedillo's website.

Location

United States

Goals

To foster new forms of protest through digital media

Beneficial outcomes

With the free version software, everyone could Download EDT's Public Version of the Zapatista FloodNet, and use it to protest with any website, creating new campaigns of protest.

Maintained by

Electronic Disturbance Theater

Users

Electronic Disturbance Theater (Ricardo Dominguez, Carmin Karasic, Stefan Wray, Brett Stalbaum), Zapatistas, Netizens, hacktivists.

Links

http://www.thing.net/~rdom/ecd/floodnet.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-U-he8LN3k