Global News Flash

WTO Sit-in open! enter the virtual protest now!

http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/ehippies/action/index.htm
 

To coincide with the WTO's Seattle Conference, the electrohippies are organising - as their first major virtual action - a 'virtual sit-in'. To take part in the sit-in all you have to do is load the appropriate web page and leave you computer online for a period of time; the longer the better!
 

The Action
 

The electrohippies are organising a 'virtual sit-in' of the WTO's special conference website. It is intended that this website will be the main conduit for accessing information about the conference, and the events taking place. By taking action against the conference server, and the main WTO server, we restrict the PR staff at the WTO from spreading their global corporate agenda.
 
To make this action effective requires thousands of people to be online. However, because of the global nature of the organisation involved we hope to be able to achieve this figure. This means that people will have to consider the effect of different time zones this makes thing a little more complex.
 
The sit-in will begin. . .
     08.00 USA & Canada (Pacific time), 30th November
     16.00 Greenwich Mean Time (UK/Ireland)
     17.00 Central Europe
     18.00 Eastern Europe
     21.30 Indian subcontinent
     00.00 Hong Kong/Singapore/Western Australia, December 1st
     02.00 Eastern Australia
     04.00 New Zealand
 
 . . and will finish four days later.
 
To take part in the action all you need is an Internet connection, and a web browser. What people have to do is access the special web pages written for the action and then stay on line as long as they possible can. For those with 'dial-up' access to the 'Net that means staying on line as long as you can afford, as often as possible, for the four days. If you cannot afford to spend much time online then concentrate on November 30th (or Dec. 1st for those in the East). But we would like people to aim to go online from 12.00 Pacific time on December 3rd (add 4 hours to the above timetable for your local time) until the end of December 4th. For those of you with constant connections to the Internet - such as universities or corporations - the cost of being online isn't that significant. Therefore we'd urge you to stay on longer with more connections open. For those people with high speed dial-up connections or those with constant connections a 'special' version of the action web page is provided.
 

NOTE: THERE IS ALSO A SPECIAL EMAIL BASED ACTION BEGINNING AT MIDDAY, YOUR LOCAL TIME, DECEMBER 3RD, AND CARRYING ON TILL DECEMBER 4TH. FOR MORE INFORMATION POP BACK TO THE E-HIPPIES SITE ON DECEMBER 3RD.
 

What is a 'virtual sit-in'?
 

A sit-in is where a group of people place themselves in front of some sort of entry way, or inside a building, and remain there as a form of peaceful protest. That's not easy to achieve where the Internet is involved. Therefore we have to find a way of occupying 'space' in cyberspace.
This page has been developed from a similar facility - The ZapatistaTactical FloodNet. This page is a less flashy but equally functional alternative. The purpose of this page is simple. By accessing the WTO's websites using the Javascript-based pages you are in effect accessing repeatedly - as if you were pressing the 'reload' button on your browser every few seconds. The ability of a server to handle these requests depends on its bandwidth - that's the physical capacity to move data in and out. For most servers bandwidth is split, and there is only a small proportion of the bandwidth devoted to data coming into the site compared to data going out (this is because much more data flows out of web servers than flows in). So, constantly requesting information puts pressure on it's weakest point - it's incoming bandwidth.
Using these pages to send multiple requests queues up requests to the web server. Ordinarily this is not a problem. But, if the server is busy, or there are many people across the world using this same site to do the same thing, it starts to eat up the server's bandwidth. If enough people were to do the same thing, it would prevent the server from being
accessed. Eventually, if maintained for a longer period of time, it would temporarily crash the server.
 
So, you get the idea. If enough people use this page at the same time, going for the same target, they'll gum up the server and prevent other 'ordinary' users getting access. What this page is then is a form of remote cyber sit-in or cyber-picket - we occupy space in cyberspace!
 

Follow-up actions

The WTO action is the first electrohippies action. Others will follow on different themes and with different tactics. Mostly these will bebased in the UK, and possibly Europe. If you would like to be put on a emaillist to receive notices of when actions are due to take place then send an email to mobbsey@gn.apc.org, marked "FAO ehippies" in the subject line.

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ehippies@tesco.net
visit the Electronic Activism and Civil Disobedience web:
http://www.gn.apc.org/pmhp/ehippies/
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