The Internet Hate Machine

Gabriella Coleman has for the past several years studied and chronicled the exploits of Anonymous, the shadowy collective of hackers, activists, and trolls, which Fox News notoriously dubbed “the Internet hate machine.” In “Our Weirdness Is Free,” published by Triple Canopy in 2012, Coleman asked: “How and why has the anarchic ‘hate machine’ been transformed into one of the most adroit and effective political operations of recent times?” This conversation, which marks the publication of Coleman’s book Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous (Verso), will link the activities of Anonymous to debates—many of which were sparked by the disclosures of NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden—about information security, surveillance, the right to privacy, and the means by which citizens can call attention to and resist government abuses of power. “While Anonymous has not put forward any programmatic plan to topple institutions or change unjust laws,” Coleman wrote, “it has made evading them seem easy and desirable.”

Before her conversation with Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy & Technology Project, Coleman will introduce a number of experts on encryption software, invited by her to facilitate an encryption workshop. These facilitators will speak about the personal and political reasons for encrypting one’s communications, the efficacy of various methods, how and why such technologies are created and deployed. Then they will guide attendees through the process of installing and optimizing basic software that will enable them to send and receive digital communications without fear of interception.