The Blurring Politics of Cyber Conflict : A Critical Study of the Digital in Palestine and Beyond

This thesis explores how the politics of cyber conflict redefine violence, sovereignty, and territory in and through cyberspace. It does this by studying how the digital mediates different facets and experiences of conflict and security in Palestine. Through a comprehensive and context-informed approach, this research theorizes cyber conflict as a phenomenon spanning beyond the conventional sites, agencies, and categories of international cybersecurity and warfare. Paper I analyzes the game scenarios of international and national cyberwar exercises to understand how military strategists envision cyberwar and normalize the idea of cyberspace as a domain of warfare through the creation of simulacra of war. Paper II develops a disembodied perspective on the violence of cyber conflict by highlighting its harmful informational aspects through a reflection on how these have affected the process of knowledge production during the fieldwork of this dissertation. Paper III engages with the Palestinian national strategy for cybersecurity (and the lack thereof) to disentangle infrastructural/informational elements of the cyber/digital sovereignty narrative and reveal its emancipatory potential for actors other than the state. Paper IV interrogates the extent to which Israeli and Palestinian policies and strategies articulate cyberspace in territorial terms and reproduce its diverse spatial realities of annexation, occupation, and blockade in cyberspace. Paper V examines the relationship between conflict, technology, and freedom to critique the inclusion of internet access into the agenda on human rights by analyzing the political dynamics of connectivity in Palestine. Paper VI unravels how the video game's augmented reality of East Jerusalem constructs a spatial imaginary of the city that, by erasing the Palestinian urban space from digital representation, neutralizes the experience of play through a diminished reality. Paper VII explores how algorithms rearticulate security practices by making Palestinian users and contents hyper-visible to surveillance while also creating an aesthetics of disappearance through the erasure of Palestine from cyber and digital spaces. Through this comprehensive empirical approach, this research also contributes to cybersecurity scholarship by problematizing the epistemological relevance of traditional categories and thresholds of warfare and security for shedding light on the blurring politics of cyber conflict. Besides revealing the inadequacy of framing conflict in cyberspace as only an issue of warfare and security, the study of cyber conflict in Palestine also shows how the construction and operationalization of these narratives ultimately affect political life and individual liberties via (the seizure of) the digital

The original battle trolls: how states represent the Internet as a violent place

Das PRIF Working Paper analysiert den Aufstieg und die Konnotationen der Metapher des Cyber War. Die Autoren gehen dabei der Frage nach, wie sich die Konstruktion und Etablierung souveräner Staatlichkeit in dem lange als gegenüber Staatlichkeit aversen Raum des Internets vollzieht. Hierfür untersuchen sie am Beispiel der Diskussionen in Deutschland, Estland und Ungarn die sprachlichen Implikationen, die mit der Behauptung von Gewalt und Kriegsgefahr im Netz einhergehen.In this paper we argue that the rise of the ‘cyber war’ metaphor is connected to the spread of the norm of sovereign statehood on the Internet. Although early discourse about the social and political meaning of the Internet prophesied a stateless utopia, the growing importance of digital communication triggered an active proliferation of state-based metaphors. States began not only to seize legal and technical control of the Internet, but also started to shift the discourse on digital affairs, emphasizing typical attributes of statehood, like collective subjectivity, territoriality and hierarchical structuring. This happened through language, and the metaphor of cyber war and the related narrative of sovereign statehood is one of the strongest cases in point. The paper shows how metaphors and narratives work and why they are so important by, firstly, giving an introduction into the role of metaphors in discourse and cognition, then sketching the role metaphors play in the particular discourse on the Internet and finally examining how especially pacific and Internet-friendly states, like Estonia, Hungary and Germany, deploy the cyber war metaphor

The sublime of digital activism: hybrid media ecologies and the new grammar of protest

Research on the relationships between social movements and digital communication technologies has grown exponentially in the last few years, following episodes of increasingly intense contention around the globe. This inquiry has produced not only several valuable and illuminating insights but also many superficial and flawed accounts of the role of (digital) technology within contemporary protests. In this commentary, I will tackle some of the key points raised by Lim’s monograph. I start by addressing her claim that the Internet has become more “local” in contemporary movements. Then, I provide a socioeconomic excursus on the crisis of the middle class under financial capitalism that can integrate her reflections on the propelling role of middle classes in recent contentious episodes. To escape the enchantment of technological novelty, I also address the need to examine the historical communicative conditions of movements. I reflect on the radical media imagination, media imaginaries, and the sublime of digital activism. Next, I focus on multidimensionality of media hybridity within contemporary movements. I conclude by offering my perspective on the emergence of a new digital grammar of protest and on the enduring role of precarious bodies in the space of appearance

The sublime of digital activism: hybrid media ecologies and the new grammar of protest

Research on the relationships between social movements and digital communication technologies has grown exponentially in the last few years, following episodes of increasingly intense contention around the globe. This inquiry has produced not only several valuable and illuminating insights but also many superficial and flawed accounts of the role of (digital) technology within contemporary protests. In this commentary, I will tackle some of the key points raised by Lim’s monograph. I start by addressing her claim that the Internet has become more “local” in contemporary movements. Then, I provide a socioeconomic excursus on the crisis of the middle class under financial capitalism that can integrate her reflections on the propelling role of middle classes in recent contentious episodes. To escape the enchantment of technological novelty, I also address the need to examine the historical communicative conditions of movements. I reflect on the radical media imagination, media imaginaries, and the sublime of digital activism. Next, I focus on multidimensionality of media hybridity within contemporary movements. I conclude by offering my perspective on the emergence of a new digital grammar of protest and on the enduring role of precarious bodies in the space of appearance

“No Place” in CyberSpace

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College

Struggling to strike the right balance between interests at stake:The ‘Yarovaya’, ‘Fake news’ and ‘Disrespect’ laws as examples of ill-conceived legislation in the age of modern technology

The article deals with the legislative amendments that have been recently adopted in the Russian Federation, the so-called ‘Yarovaya’ law, the ‘fake news’ law and the ‘disrespect’ law. It explains the essence and problems of implementation of the above-mentioned legal instruments and assesses them from the human rights angle. It is established that the rather complex laws under analysis pose significant threats to the human rights and fundamental freedoms of individuals, including privacy, data protection and freedom of expression, and introduce other additional negative effects to the Russian society and economy. While in the adoption of such legislation it is crucial to give due weight to the involved interests, the used examples indicate that the State’s interests seem to prevail at the cost of the rights and freedoms of those who need to be adequately protected

Legal Anarchism: Does Existence Need to Be Regulated by the State

This thesis asks does existence need to be regulated by the State? The answer relies on legal anarchism, an interdisciplinary, particularly criminal law and philosophy, and unconventional research project based on multiple methodologies with a specific language. It critically analyzes and consequently rejects State law because of its unjustified and unnecessary nature founded on unlimited violence and white-collar crime (Chapters 1-4), on the one hand, and suggests some alternatives to the Governmental legal system founded on agreement and peace (Chapter 5), on the other hand. It furthermore takes into account the elements of time and space, which means the ecological, local, national, regional, and international aspects of the legal system, in its analysis, critiques, and models

The Commons

"This book explores the potential creation of a broader collaborative economy through commons-based peer production (P2P) and the emergent role of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The book seeks to critically engage in the political discussion of commons-based peer production, which can be classified into three basic arguments: the liberal, the reformist and the anti-capitalist. This book categorises the liberal argument as being in favour of the coexistence of the commons with the market and the state. Reformists, on the other hand, advocate for the gradual adjustment of the state and of capitalism to the commons, while anti-capitalists situate the commons against capitalism and the state. By discussing these three viewpoints, the book contributes to contemporary debates concerning the future of commons-based peer production. Further, the author argues that for the commons to become a fully operational mode of peer production, it needs to reach critical mass arguing that the liberal argument underestimates the reformist insight that technology has the potential to decentralise production, thereby forcing capitalism to transition to post-capitalism. Surveying the three main strands of commons-based peer production, this book makes the case for a post-capitalist commons-orientated transition that moves beyond neoliberalism.

The Commons

"This book explores the potential creation of a broader collaborative economy through commons-based peer production (P2P) and the emergent role of information and communication technologies (ICTs). The book seeks to critically engage in the political discussion of commons-based peer production, which can be classified into three basic arguments: the liberal, the reformist and the anti-capitalist. This book categorises the liberal argument as being in favour of the coexistence of the commons with the market and the state. Reformists, on the other hand, advocate for the gradual adjustment of the state and of capitalism to the commons, while anti-capitalists situate the commons against capitalism and the state. By discussing these three viewpoints, the book contributes to contemporary debates concerning the future of commons-based peer production. Further, the author argues that for the commons to become a fully operational mode of peer production, it needs to reach critical mass arguing that the liberal argument underestimates the reformist insight that technology has the potential to decentralise production, thereby forcing capitalism to transition to post-capitalism. Surveying the three main strands of commons-based peer production, this book makes the case for a post-capitalist commons-orientated transition that moves beyond neoliberalism.