antiwar memes

       While I am sympathetic to Floridi's ideal that IE should apply to everything, meaning ontocentric, rather than either biocentric or anthrocentric, I am not sure that it is necessary in order to deal with information. I am reluctant to bring up Nietzsche in this context but he did have some wise words about information philosophy. First he noted that all "truths" are really just metaphors, metonymies, and Anthropomorphisms. I find that redundant because the reason truths are metaphors and metonymies already follows from the Anthropomorphism. In other words we cannot escape the anthrocentric stance. Rocks cannot think of themselves as ontocentric and flowers cannot think of themselves as biocentric, it is only our anthrocentric stance that gives them "respect" as moral patients. Nietzche also pointed out that since all truths are lies, the only honest lies are the ones we make up ourselves, after first understanding that it is all lies. As I said, I appreciate Floridi's ecological perspective but I do not think he has thought out the implications of such inclusiveness. In the world wide ecology of the biosphere we can separate moral responsibility from moral accountability, but i don't think we can in the infosphere. Floridi seems to think that hacking is negatively related to entropy, but I maintain that hacking is sometimes the only way to counteract violent evil in a nonviolent way. Companies that buy, sell, or deliver weapons to third world countries (usually selling to both sides in any conflict) should be at least exposed, if not sabotaged, and this can be done nonviolently in the infosphere without killing any one. I would call that reducing entropy.
       I am opposed to hacking against non-violent groups for their freedom of speech rights. I am only concerned with neutralizing actual violence. See my website: http://www.peacemoon.org Obviously there is a fine line between the violent and the nonviolent when it comes to hate groups like the westboro church and the stormfront nazis, so I guess individual hackers will have to make decisions on a case-by-case basis. Then there is the problem of "hacking the hackers" which takes it all to another level. For instance, I totally support wikileaks, and if some hackers tried to mess with them, I would like to recomend that somebody hack the hackers in return, but then the whole thing could get waaaay out of hand. This could take a whole research paper to think about.
       What is scary to me about this news article is not what hackers can do, it is that the superpowers who have not given up violence as a problem-solving strategy are trying to frame the situation so that they can call all hackers terrorists and deal with them violently. Iran, Israel, and China are not the only superpowers in this category if you all know what I mean and I think you all do.
The hackers who would be most vulnerable to the charge of "terrorist" would obviously be any independent or NGO hacker. You know damn well that the superpowers have their own hackers trying to neutralize some other superpower's weapons systems unilaterally, but they aren't called "terrorists."
       If only one superpower gets their weapons neutralized, even nonviolently, they can legitimately yell "terrorist" because it would make them vulnerable to the other violent superpowers. The only solution is not unilateral, but omnilateral; a coordinated strike by all hackers, worldwide, to nonviolently neutralize all weapons systems at the same time. It would also have to be a "surgical strike" that only targets weapons systems and not any other infrastructure, and especially not the internet itself. It can be done, but only the same way that porcupines make love, verrry carefully.
       It has occurred to me, since my previous posting about hacking the hackers, that while some teams of hackers can specialize in hacking and sabotaging weapons manufacturing and delivery systems, other teams of hackers can specialize in hacking those hackers who are working on the side of the violence mongers, and a third set of teams can specialize in designing firewalls to protect all infrastructures, especially, but not exclusively, hospitals and other emergency services. By "teams" I mean individual hackers who are spread out all over the world but coordinate themselves through underground communication networks, with no central control that can be neutralized. Also, since the superpowers are trying to frame the ethics of information by calling all hackers (except their own of course) "terrorists," it is important that the world peace hackers refuse to buy in to the rhetoric of calling this "Cyber-warfare" or "a cyber war." While the terrorist and government sanctioned hackers will be waging cyber-wars against each other, the NGO hackers will be waging a cyber "antiwar" against both sides of any conflict. In chapter 8 of our textbook, John Arquilla is obviously trying to encourage terrorists to switch from violent acts against civilians to nonviolent hacking methods, (ha, like terrorists are reading his article?) but admits that there is no guarantee they will have any change of heart. A well coordinated network of antiwar hackers could force all parties to settle their conflicts using nonviolent strategies. They do not even have to be NGOs, there are plenty of small, neutral, non-super power countries with the resources to aid the antiwar campaign. Using all forms of media to spread the antiwar meme, the superpowers could be shamed into giving up violence as a problem-solving method. Then the truly "rogue" states and terrorist organizations will be isolated and labeled as such, and can then be neutralized with economic sanctions and no popular support.
       As Isaac Asimov wrote: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."