Please note that this page contains notes relating to all paratext in the document, not only footnotes. Some elements will be dealt with parentheses, others via directions to the glossary and the remainder via footnotes.
0.1-PrefaceNo TAV: The movement against the high speed train system Treno Alta Velocita (TAV) began in the early 90s in opposition to the construction of a new train line from Turin through the Alps to Lyon in France. This mega project is partially funded by the European Union and has been criticised on social and environmental grounds. The struggle against the TAV escalated from 2005 onwards and has become a cause celebre.
SIAE: Società Italiana degli Autori ed Editori (Italian Society of Authors and Publishers); the Italian copyright collecting society, active in all media sectors and much resented. They collect levies on blank media as well as HDTV sets. All creators are obliged to register with them for a one-off charge of 120 euros and an annual cost of 89 euros; 65% of their members do not receive sufficient royalties to offset these costs.
Tg3: Telegiornale 3. This is the daily news program broadcast on RAI 3, a public TV channel traditionally considered to have a leftist slant, having historically been controlled by the Communist Party (PCI).
0.2-Prefaziosa
Mela Marcia: ‘Rotten Apple’; Collectively authored critical history of Apple Inc., published by Agenzia X in Milan.
Counter-Information: A term common in 1970s Italy to describe responses to the censored or distorted version of the events published in the mainstream media. This alternative press encompassed both activist publishers and investigative journalism lifting the lid on the shady incidents. These efforts were especially significant amidst the so-called ‘strategy of tension’ – bombings orchestrated by sectors of the state, carried out by the far-right, and used to justify repression off the left – and in specific incidents such as the death of anarchist Pinelli through defenestration.
As a concept it has been superseded by alternative media, but is arguably best understood as both a product of media history (the period where news and information was still highly centralised, especially in the case of TV) and a moment in the history of ideas, where it was believed that if only people knew the truth they could, and would, act to change society. The term is still used today but usually in a more casual manner.
1.1-Setting The Scene: 1990-2001
Andreotti: longtime leader of the Christian Democrat party, seven-time Prime Minister.
DC, PSI, PSDI, PRI, PLI: Christian Democrats, Italian Socialist Party, Italian Social Democrat Party, Italian Republican Party,Italian Liberal Party.
_Tangentopoli _(Bribesville): In February 1992 Italy was convulsed by revelations arising out of a judicial investigation into the payment of bribes. This began in Milan but later spread throughout the country and involved thousands of politicians. The political consequences were devastating for the major parties: the PSI was decimated and disappeared; the DC lost huge numbers of voters. The collapse of these forces cleared the way both for the growth of the racist/separatist Northern League (Lega Nord) and the entry into politics of Silvio Berlusconi in time for the 1994 election. Meanwhile the Communist Party (the biggest in western Europe) was going through its own crisis following the end of the Soviet Bloc, and split in 1991. The majority faction became the Democratic Party of the Left (later the Democrativ Party (PD)), whereas the minority established Communist Refoundation (PRC).
Bettino Craxi: Former leader of the Socialist Party and Prime Minister from 1983-87, Craxi was charged with corruption during Tangentopoli and fled to Tunisia in 1994 to escape prosecution. He died there in 2000.
Gladio: NATO operation initially conceived as a contingency in the case of Europe ‘going red’ in the aftermath of WW2; the strength of Communist Parties in countries such as Italy and France made electoral victory seem plausible. Gladio became a key site for anti-communist networking and subversive activity on the part of state assets in collaboration with right wing militants.
La Guerra degli Antò: A film by Riccardo Milani mad in 1999 which recounts the of four punks life in a small city against the background of the fist Gulf war.
Self-Managed Social Centres: Centro Sociale Occupato ed Autogestito (CSOA). Since the 1970s groups of young people have squatted buildings in cities and towns for use in a combination of political, social and cultural purposes. While the type of activities vary enormously, there is always a bar, a concert venue and a space for meetings. The structures occupied are usually former industrial spaces and are managed by the occupants directly through weekly meetings. These occupations naturally produce conflict with the local authorities and are frequently evicted by the police. In some cases the ability of the CSOA to aggregate political and popular support will lead to the assignment of an unused space by the local council; these are referred to as CSA, Centro Sociale Autogestito. The willingness to negotiate such arrangements varies on a case by case basis depending the political flavour of the occupants. Over the last forty years there have been a number of national coordinations involving some or many CSOA/CSA. These spaces have retained their importance due to a capacity to innovate otherwise scarce in Italy’s conservative culture.
Berlusconi: Former cruise liner entertainer, media tycoon, former Prime minister currently serving community service. Ex boyfriend of Karima El Mahroug aka Ruby the Heartbreaker.
D’Alema: One time National Secretary of the Democratic Party of the Left (PDS), Prime Minister from 1998-2000.
Ruberti reform: Antonio Ruberti was Minister for Universities and Research in the years 1989-92. In 1990 he introduced a legislative reform of the University which was widely opposed. At the level of the University administration it limited student representative to a consultative role. Seconldly it opened the Universities up to private financing, a step which was opposed on the grounds that it would privilege Science-oriented and larger schools. and lead to the effective demotion of smaller and more humanist-oriented institutions. Eventually the Pantera movement against the reform dissipated without stopping the proposed changes, but in the meantime it has functioned as an incubation chamber for a revitalised political and cultural opposition.
1990-1991 Iraq: In August 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait. Over the next four months the US assembled a coalition of supporters and war began on January 17th 1991.The Iraqi quickly retreated and on February 24th US troops and their allies entered Iraq. The Iraqi army suffered significant casualties in retreat and the US declared a ceasefire on February 28th.
Leoncavallo: Social Centre in Milan founded in 1975 and now in its third location. Leoncavallo developed a national profile due to the intensity of police efforts to destroy it and the determination of its occupants to defend it by any means necessary.
“Whatever It Takes”: (can we find the poster or a link to it online?)
‘Social Opposition’: This was the banner under which Leoncavallo summoned supporters to protest in September 1994 following the eviction from their temporary home the previous month.
Autonomia Operaia: Workers Autonomy was the name broadly ascribed to a large part of the extra-parliamentary movement in Italy in the 1970s. It is generally regarded as being composed of at least two wings, those emanating from workplace committees and those involved in loosely subversive cultural activity. The use of violence was common in this political culture and this made it vulnerable to repression as the thermometer rose more structured armed groups emerged such as the Red Brigades.
Marxist-Leninist: In Italy this epithet usually indicates that the group or milieu retains a fondness for Maoism, Stalinism or both.
Anarchist or libertarian: Italy has an entrenched and heterogeneous anarchist and left-libertarian culture comprising numerous currents whose approaches range from open agitation on social questions to sabotage.
Virus & Bredaoccupata 3337 were Social Centres in Milan.
Decoder: This magazine, established in Milan in 1986, fused elements from punk and squatter culture with the emerging imagination of cyberpunk and eventually digital networks. Decoder and those around it were key drivers of the formulation of a computer-based communication hypothesis in Italy during that period.
Cox18: A historical Milanese Social Centre still active today.
Transiti: no sense in describing each individual social centre and squatted house.
Garibaldi:Torchiera: Pergola: Garigliano:Panetteria:She squat:Metropolix: s.q.o.t.t.:
CPA: Ex Emerson: Maf:
As is the case with social centres, it is customary to give squatted houses names:
Indiano: Giungla: Baracca: Bubusette: Matticao: Villa: Yoda House: Mulino:Cecco Rivolta:il Pacaro:il Pettirosso:il Bomba libera tutti: il Soqquadro:
Davos: Each year this Swiss mountain resort hosts the World Economic Forum, a gathering of political and corporate bigwigs. since the 1990s it has been targeted by protestors as one of the talking shops of neo-liberal capitalism.
Prague: In September 2000 the International Monetary Fund held a meeting in Prague. This was the first international summit held in Europe since the protests against the World Trade Organisation meeting in Seattle the previous year and the anti-summit wave was picking up momentum.
Nice: explained in the text
Naples: idem
Gothenburg: idem
One’s team: (I think it’s worth a paragraph on the tifo experience.) The Italian term used here is ‘trasferta’ which refers to collective expeditions made in support of one’s team in another city or country.
Piazza Municipio: One of the largest square sin Europe and the main square in Naples, location also of the city administration.
Raniero barracks: A Carabinieri barracks in Naples.
Carabinieri: Italy has two principal police organizations the Polizia dello Stato and the Carabinieri. The latter are semi-militarised and live in barracks. Military service can be served in the Carabinieri as an alternative to the army. Carlo Giuliani was killed by one such conscript, Mario Placanica, in Genoa 2001.
Pascoli and the Diaz/Pertini Schools: These were spaces allocated to the Genoa Social Forum by the City Council.
1.2-Hacktivism: 1990-2001
VIC-20, Commodore 64, Spectrum, Amiga and Atari ST: These models were amongst the first wave of truly home computers which began with the Sinclair ZX 81.
#Covered in glossary: Fidonet: Prior to the birth of the World Wide Web in 1991 the most popular systems of information exchange were Usenet and Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) which were highly local in nature (reflecting the structure of phone charges at the time). Fidonet was a suite of software used to manage data exchange between different BBS.
The Frankfurt School: The Institute for Social Research was founded in Frankfurt am Main in 1922 and became the centre for critical thought in Germany until the exile of its principal protagonists in the 1930s. Amongst its best known participants were Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse, and it was the latter who dedicated significant time and print to the question of technology. Marcuse made a distinction between technics (the material means of communication, transportation, production etc) and technology, which which was a mode of production, a system of social relations, as well as ‘a manifestation of prevalent thought and behaviour patterns, an instrument for control and domination.’.
1984, George Orwell’s classic dystopian novel describing a totalitarian society where technology is used for the purposes of surveilling the population and constantly subjecting them to propaganda.
Cassazione_: Italian Court of Appeal: Technically this refers to the Corte Suprema di Cassazione, the final Court of Appeal for penal and civil matters in Italy. The Constitutional Court has a separate jurisdiction. *Question: is it correct that the sentence referred to emanated form the Cassazione, or did it come from CC?*
RAI: Radio Televisione Italiana – The Italian public broadcaster, operating radio television and online services, rebranded as RAI in 1954 having existed under other forms and acronyms since 1924.
Radio Alice: Independent radio station set up in Bologna in 1976 by creative activists in and around the autonomist movement. The station was shut down live on air during the 1977 riots following the killing of medical student Francesco Lorusso by police. In 2004 Radio Alice was the subject of a feature film, Lavorare con Lentezza, directed by Guido Chiesa.
Radio OndaRossa: Long-running movement political station based in the San Lorenzo district of Rome.
Guglielmo Marconi: Italian inventor credited with the breakthroughs enabling long distance radio transmission, and founder of the famed Marconi company commercialising the technology. Marconi joined the Fascist Party in 1923 and became an outspoken defender of its ideology and deeds later in his life.
Pius XI: Pope from 1922 to 1939, signatory of the Lateran Treaties between the Catholic Church and Mussolini. This agreement put an end to the unresolved tension born of Italian unification and established the Vatican as a sovereign state.
1977 movement: This year was an inflection point in the composition of the movement. Lotta Continua had dissolved the previous year and other formal organisations could not develop traction. Instead there appeared a broader politicised youth culture mixing politics with music, sexual emancipation and direct action. In parallel to this the level of violence was growing and the atmosphere was increasingly militarised. Guido Chiesa’s Lavorare Con Lentezza provides a portrait of that moment, albeit in a city, Bologna, where the student element predominated over the proletarian.
ZERO! BBS[fn]: Bulletin board created in Turin in 1989 by elements of ECN. Also part of CyberNet.
Radio Black Out: Independent political radio station broadcasting in the Turin area, financially supported by the cities squatted spaces.
European antagonism: this phrase is something of a misnomer as ‘antagonism’ as a rubric encompasses that tendency of left radical politics uninterested in mainstream political lobbying, anti-institutional and direct action oriented, as a term it is specific to Italy. There it also designates a period, mainly the 1980s after the decline of the ‘77 movement, which was decimated by virtual internment and exile following the round-ups of April 1979 where several thousand people were arrested. Some of what survived came to reconstitute itself publicly with a focus on ’opposing imperialism’ and involvement in the anti-nuclear campaigns.# Maybe add more?
Decoder BBS, Virtual Town in Florence, AvANa BBS in Rome and ECN Bologna:
Digital Guerrilla: Text published online in 1995 and available at www.ecn.org/zero/digguer.htm
Infoshops: these hybrids combine elements of a bookshop, archive, meeting space. As the name suggests their focus is on disseminating information. whilst predominantly a Northern European phenomenon, there were some also in Italy during the 1990s.
Isole nella Rete collective: ‘Islands in the Net’ – this was the name taken by the collective formed to operate the ECN’S server hosting movement related material and web sites. It was born as as the web exploded and BBS culture, where ECN was born, declined. The name is taken from a cyberpunk novel written by Bruce Sterling and published in 1988.
The Italian Crackdown of 1994; This refers to the first major series of raids against Italian BBS, launched at the behest of prosecutors in Pesaro, Turin and Taranto. This investigation resulted in the seizure of dozens of computers and other equipment on the pretext that it was being used for software piracy. This episode catalysed the organisation of the defenders of the new digital public sphere in organisations such as ALCEI. The phrase ‘Italian crackdown’ intentionally echoes the phraseology used by Bruce Sterling in his classic account of the police raids against hackers which triggered the creation of the EFF in the United States.
Richard Stallman: Charismatic founder of the GNU (‘GNUs Not Unix’) project in 1983 with the purpose of developing a fully functional operating system which would enshrine four fundamental user freedoms in its licensing provisions. These freedoms require access to the source code of the program in order to be vindicated, and comprise the rights to: run the program for any purpose; to study and modify; to redistribute; to modify and improve the program. Software produced on such terms is referred to as Free Software. GNU/Linux is the most famous and fundamental as it is a full operating system which enables users to exit the world of Apple IOS and Windows. GNU/Linux is distributed in many different flavours of which the best known is Ubuntu. Debian on the other hand is the biggest community based GNU/Linux distribution, assembled and monitors by almost one thousand unpaid ‘maintainers’.
Nasdaq: the world’s first electronic stock market, established in 1971. Since the first DotCom boom it has been the preferred location for technology companies to publicly float, i.e. offer shares to the general public.
Chiapas: The southernmost region of Mexico, and home of the Zapatista rebel movement which launched an insurgency against neo-liberalism on 1st January 1995, the same day as the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect. In 1996 Subcommandants Marcos, spokesperson for the Zapatistas made a call for an independent communication network, a call he was to repeat to an audience of alternative media activists in
“In August 1996, we called for the creation of a network of independent media, a network of information. We mean a network to resist the power of the lie that sells us this war that we call the Fourth World War. We need this network not only as a tool for our social movements, but for our lives: this is a project of life, of humanity, humanity which has a right to critical and truthful information.”
1-3-ECN
TV Stop: Danish TV station operated by squatters from 1987 – 2012 in Christiania, later operating out of a studio in Norreboro, also in Copenhagen. Documentation available in Danish at tvstop.dk
Radio Sherwood: Independent radio station broadcasting out of Padua in the Veneto region of Italy. This station is closely associated with a regionally embedded left radical tradition which stretches from Potere Operaia to the Disobbedienti.
Radio OndaRossa: Long-running movement radio station based in the San Lorenzo district of Rome.
International Meeting in Venice: a mass meeting of radical left forces discussing new forms of social conflict which took place in 1991. The conference had a series of parallel thematic tracks, once of the which was Media & Communications. Participants included ECN, DEcode, The Chaso Computer Club from Hamburg, and the Austrian group Zerberus.
Autonomen: Left radical current in West Germany; notwithstanding the orthographic similarity to ‘autonomi’ and ‘autonomia’, this movement has its own distinct character, wedding a heritage from communist organisations in the 1970s with elements of alternative culture.
Decoder, AvANa BBS from Rome and the Cayenne from Feltre: Decoder was a BBS operated by a magazine of the same name in Milan, Avana BBs was based in Rome and later became a Hacklab inside the squatted Napoleonic Fort, Forte Prenestino.
Via dei Volsci: Street in San Lorenzo district in Rome well now as a hotbed of extraparliamentary activity and home to the Roman wing of autonomia operaia who published a magazine titled “i Volsci”
Lotta Continua: Born in 1969, LC was the biggest organisation of the heterodox far left with a strong orientation towards grassroots movement. As the 70s progressed they began to run candidates in elections and faced increasing internal tensions especially over gender question, leading to its dissolution in 1976. LC published a daily newspaper which continued to be printed until 1982.
Jerry Cornelius: fictional Michael Moorecock character.
1.4-Milan
Sintesi: a squat; Bredaoccupata 3337:Leoncavallo; Cox18, S.q.o.t.t.; Deposito Bulk; Breda:
two rooms in the tower: #why is this marked as a footnote?
Asti: Small city of 75,000 people located in northwestern Italy, not far from Turin.
tmcrew.org: ‘Tactical Media Crew’ – media collective active in Rome in the period from 1995 until the early 2000s.
kyuzz.org
1.5-Florence
Autonomist Movement: in the original text the reference is once again to ‘antagonismo’. Antagonism is a broad term embracing many different ideological groups. It resembles the use later made of ‘autonomi’, autonomists, after this term had broken away from its original reference to Autonomia Operaia. The picture is further complicated by the fact that many collectives directly integrated the word Antagonismo into their names, these groups often stove to maintain the legacy of the movement of the 70s through the difficult decade which followed.
The war in Kosovo began in February 1998 and continued until June the following year. From March to June 1999 NATO carried out a large scale air campaign using air bases in Italy.
Antagonist Movement: In this instance the reference is to the MAF and the MAT, Movimento Antagonista Fiorentino and the Movimento Antagonista Toscano. The latter was active until around 2005.
Castello neighbourhood: outlying neighbourhood in northern Florence and bordering on the industrial area of Sesto Fiorentino.
Kit Kats, Kinder chocolate bars, crisps, and coca-cola: I don’t know why they speak in British English.
Luther Blissett: LB was the first black english football player to transfer to an Italian team. Opposing fans subjected him to racial abuse. His name was then appropriated as a collective identity by groups dedicated to media criticism and urban experimentation, through the medium of media hoaxing and drifting,
Hannibal Smith: Leader of the A-Team, a band of outlaw Vietnam veterans and vigilantes in pursuit of justice.
Centro Popolare Autogestito di Firenze Sud: Historic social centre in the Gavinana district south of the Arno: Still active.
1.6-Bologna
Anti-Globalization Movement: the demonstrations and forums held in opposition to the institutions of neo-liberal governance (G8, WTO, OECD, EU) were widely referred to as the anti-gloablization movement until the turn of the 21st century. Thereafter the term became less popular. This was catalysed in part by a fear that the movement might be seen as embracing nationalism and sympathetic to notions of a right/left alliance. Since then alternatives stressing the internationalist nature of the movement have become more popular, such as ‘counter-globalisation’.#
Mediamente: Television program broadcast between 1994 and 2002, dedicated to raising awareness about computing and networks. The show was broadcast on RAI 3 and elsewhere and also produced accompanying educational materials.
Livello 57 social centre: Occupied social space in Bologna renowned for its anti-prohibitionist street parade and promotion of a safe drug culture.
Forza Nuova: Neo-fascist organisation founded by Roberto Fiore and Massimo Morsello. These two had fled to the UK following the Bologna train station bombing of 1980, and did npot return until the offences came under the statute of limitations. Following their return FN began an energetic campaign to establish itself as a serious player on the far-right, a process involving many provocative demonstrations in areas considered to be left-wing.
“People of Seattle”: Il Popolo di Seattle is the Italian way of referring to the coalition protestors present at the 1999 demonstrations against the WTO meeting viz. Turtles and Teamsters.
Forte Prenestino social centre: Famous left libertarian squat in Southern Rome, originally built as a Napoleonic Fort
1.7-First_Meeting
1.8-The_Foundation
#Covered in glossary: PGP
Copydown: See chapter 2.5 below.
Stampa Clandestina: A news sheet designed for plastering to the walls of Florence.
Spia la Spia: Spy on the Spy
1.9-Online
Development tools: These are programs used by software developers to create or debug applications. Examples would include compilers, source code editors and debuggers.
Janus: the ancient Roman god of beginnings and transitions. He looked towards both future and the past simultaneously, and thus is depicted with a face on both sides of the head.
1.11-Direct Communication
Situationist: The Situationist International was group active between 1958 and 1969, predominantly in continental Europe. Whilst it is commonly associated today with the cultural avantgarde, it was in fact an a social revolutionary organisation which sought to overcome the separation between life, art and politics. Its best known exponents were Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem.
Détournement: the practice of re-purposing well known symbols, characters or narratives for subversive purposes.
Il cinque maggio: Poem written about the death of Napoleon Bonaparte on Saint Elena.
Basilica of Santa Croce: Famous church in Florence situated on an expansive square of the same name.
1.12-Indymedia
Indymedia: Although Indymedia.org debuted in December 1999 during the Seattle protests against the WTO, its software had been developed in Australia the previous summer for use during the global June 18 protest against the G8. This system was called active and it enabled what was called ‘open publishing’ which allowed users to write and upload their news directly onto a continuously updated web page. The events of 1999 took place against the background of increased international coordination between activists protesting the most visible institutions of the neo-liberal consensus: EU, G8, WTO etc This new internationalism and attention to trade questions had been catalysed by the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico. Out of this experience was born the organisation People’s Global Action The Zapatista encuentros also facilitated a new season of coalition building; their broad appeal brought together many groups who had not history of collaborating with one another. This was to be seen in Seattle and was portrayed in the media coverage in the form Teamsters and Turtles, Together At Last.
The Indymedia.org domain was registered and sets up to provide live coverage of events on the streets in Seattle. It was such a success that the site was maintained and other regional sites began to spring up all over the world. Some time later it developed a process whereby prospective had to apply and be approved by existing participants, as there was a fear that the brand had become so powerful that its use required some level of management.
Free Software tools: In order to ease the installation of Linux based systems for specific tasks, live CDs were developed which combined a Linux OS with the applications necessary for web use, sound and video editing and media streaming. This meant that the suite of such tools could be installed quickly on whatever machines were available, which were often machines running Windows…
Internationalism refers in general to the desire for coordination and cooperation above national chauvinism. In the case of social movements it generally refers more to the idea of working class internationalism; that capitalism is a global system and that workers must unite internationally if they are to defeat it. The most famous early manifestation of this thinking was the Zimmerwald Conference held by socialists in Switzerland in 1915, where participants from all over Europe came together to repudiate WW1 as an imperialist war with which the working class should have no truck.
Campania: Region surrounding Naples in the south of Italy
S.K.A. squatted laboratory: space in Naples.
IRC: Internet Rely Chat; program allowing real time written communication between two or many users. Some clients also enable file transfers between participants.
1.13-The Joy Of Doing
El Paso social centre: uncompromising Anarchist squat and venue in Turin, defines itself as ‘Neither central, Nor Social’.
Radio Black Out: see above
CPA Firenze Sud social centre: see above
Free Software: see above
Digital Rights: ALCEI, no mention in text check?
Rodotà: Constitutional Lawyer and one-time Data Commissioner, more recently Presidential candidate.
CCTVs: Close Circuit Television
1.14-Hackit In Catania
Primo Moroni Archive: Moroni was a key figure of the revolutionary and countercultural milieu in Milan for over forty years. An autodidact, writer and professional dancer, he opened a bookshop ‘Calusca’ in 1971 which became a faucet for political and cultural heterdoxy, including the introduction of beat and hippie literature that would quickly have a significant impact in Italy. His book L’orda d’oro, co-authored with Nanni Ballestrini, remains the definitive account of the revolutionary movement in Italy in the ’60s and ’70s. The archive contains his personal collection of books, tracts and ephemera amassed over those years and has been supplemented by the addition of other private collections.
Palazzolo Acreide, Sicily: A small town in the province of Syracuse. After the eviction of CSOA Auro in Catania, this town’s ‘poetry hacklab’ briefly hosted the Freaknet hacklab.
1.15-Genoa
Gothenburg:Barcelona: already explicit in the text, no?#
Varazze: A small town of 14,000 souls located on the Liguria riviera west of Genoa.
Il manifesto: Born from a dissident group fo the same name inside the Communist Party. Il Manifesto was a monthly magazine from 1969 and became a daily newspaper from 1971 as its members either were expelled from the Party or drifted away of their own accord. Today it is not formally aligned with any political party.
Radio GAP: Collaborative radio station put together by existing free radio projects for the purpose of covering events in Genoa during the G8.
Radio OndaRossa: Radio Onda d’urto: Radio Black Out:
Piazza Alimonda: Square in Genoa, site of intense rioting during which Carlo Giuliani was shot dead by the police.
Carlo Giuliani: 24 year old protester shot dead by police during a confrontation on the streets of Genoa on the second day of the G8 summit in 2001.
Public exploit: in computer security an exploit is a piece of software or data that allows an attacker to exploit the vulnerabilities of a machine in order to shape its behaviour or hijack it.
2.1
Bolzaneto: Barracks of the Flying Squad (Riparto Mobile), a section of the police used on demonstrations and in football grounds. During the G8 the barracks was at last partially taken over the GOM (Gruppo Operativo Mobile), the riot squad used to suppress prison revolts. Many people were tortured in Bolzaneto, including some who had already been severely beaten in the police raid on the Diaz school
COBAS: One of two large grassroots trade unions (alongside the CUB) active in many sectors.
Supporto Legale: Organisation set up to co-ordinate the legal work and collect evidence relating to the prosecutions after the G8.
Social Forum: The Genoa Social Forum was the moderate left reformist component of the protest movement mobilising against the G8. Its figurehead was Vittorio Agnoletto, subsequently elected as a member of the European Parliament for Communist Refoundation. In the post G8 debate, some members of the GSF (and others) blamed more radical demonstrators for the violence, a posture which generated enormous amounts of bad feeling.
2.5
#Covered in glossary: sniffer party:
Web Farm aka Server Farm aka Co-location Facility; offers hosting facilities to site operators, either on their own servers or through the installation of a server on their premises, which are often designed for security and equipped with high speed connections to the internet backbone.
2.6
Preliminary injunction: an order made by a court in a case prior to a full hearing on the merits. Theoretically it should be granted where failure to do so would result in irreparable damage to the plaintiff. Notionally the grant of such an order should not have any bearing on the outcome should the case come to trial.
Service: In network computing a service refers to applications and capabilities offered to users. Examples would include email, chat, file storage, web hosting etc.
2.8
Indymedia Server Seizure 2004: In October 2004 servers hosting Indymedia sites in Italy and Switzerland were seized by the FBI. Incredibly the computers involved were located in London, although property of a US company, Rackspace, and the FBI explained the seizure as being based on a request by Swiss and Italian criminal investigators. The transnational seizure was enabled by Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty request which are designed to enable cross-border criminal inquiries.
SSL certificates: Secure Sockets Layer, the old name for Transport Layer Security. This is a cryptographic protocol that enables a client and server to communicate with one another securely. The web site uses certificate signed by reputable third party to establish its identity. This certificate is actually a public key and is thus linked to a private counterpart. This use of key pairs to is referred to as asymmetric cryptography and relies upon a public key infrastructure where trusted third parties endorse keys of reputable users.. Once contact is established in this way, one-time keys are exchanged and are used to secure all subsequent communication.
See also glossary entries on Certification Authority, Cryptography
In symmetric cryptography a single key or cypher is used by both parties to encrypt and decrypt. In asymmetric cryptography a public key is used to decrypt and a private key to encrypt.
2.9
Certification Authority: Glossary?
No Border; A network born in 1999 to show solidarity with migrants and freedom of movement and fight deportations from the EU.
2.10
#Covered in glossary: GPL
Bollini SIAE: These labels sold by the SIAE must be affixed to all CDs, DVDs and Bluray disks for sale, purported proof that they are legitimate product.
Port: in computer science, the process of porting refers to the modification of software necessary in order for it to function on a different operating system to that for which it was originally coded.
#Covered in glossary: Creative Commons
FTP: File Transfer Protocol is a method for the uploading and downloading of files between a client (user’s computer) and a server (machine hosting files online).
RSS: Really Simple Syndication, a collection of standards for web feeds. This allows updated information from one website to be published in headline form on another site or sent to a client application called an RSS reader. In each case RSS obviates the need for a user to actively visit the originating web site in order to view their most recent publications.
Social Network: Services whereby individuals can create a user profile and then construct a web of relations with other users.This web can then function as a conduit for the circulation of messages and media between users, with a group, or the public at large. These services can be centralised or federated. In the former case all the information passes through a central server infrastructure owned by a corporation (Facebook, Twitter). Federated social networks use a common protocol to allow independently operated systems to interact with one another and provide the same functionality, Diaspora is an example.
Blog: abbreviation of weblog, an online diary form popularised since 2000 in various forms notably by platforms such as Blogger and Word Press.
Alberto Grifi was an independent filmmaker and documentarian. His films chronicle key moments of the 1970s counterculture from the free festivals to the antipsychiatry movement.
2.11
#Covered in glossary: Jabber
3.2
Wikileaks: Founded in 2006 by Julien Assange and unnamed others, the site describes itself as “an uncensorable system for untraceable mass document leaking”. Despite the presence of wiki in its name, wikileaks is not a wiki-style site open to user modification. In recent years it has moved to a system of journalistic co-production, acting as a source for raw information which is then collaboratively explored with established journalism organizations.
Examples of laws uniting disparate constituencies: ACTA in Europe, SOPA in the US.
3.3
Freedom not fear: International campaign for freedom of speech and against surveillance. http://www.freedomnotfear.org/
#Covered in glossary: EFF
3.4
Interrogazione Parlamentare: A Parliamentary protocol enabling one or several deputies either to acquire information from the government/minister on a specific fact or a point of policy.
Mirror: A mirror is a copy of a website made available on a separate party’s server. Mirrors are often created by supporters of a threatened website who fear the risk of the original being closed down by legal action or direct technological attack (as is the case with a distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) similar to a netstrike).
3.5
#Covered in glossary: Tor
Identi.ca Twitter micro-blogging tool. Conceived as an alternative to proprietary walled-garden services, identi-ca was based on StatusNet until 2013 and is now build off pump.io, a more general purpose framework for federated social networking.
‘Our laughter will bury you’, ‘Sara una risata che vi seppilira’ in Italian, is a slogan coined by 19th century anarchists in the face of state oppression. For many years it has been the legend on a famous poster printed by Soccorso Rosso (Red Aid) which shows a turn of the century worker being arrested by the police with a smile on his face.
3.6
Casa Pound: Fascist organisation which appeared in 2003 with occupation of a building in a district of Rome otherwise known for its high immigrant population. Defining themselves as ‘third millenium fascists’ Casa Pound has organised its own campaigns around housing, against the banks,and on educational reform. To a significant extent they have sought to contest fields which normally have been viewed as the territory of the left. This modernised and superficially radical approach combined with smart branding has enabled Casa Pound to spread throughout Italy, and there are now social spaces aligned with them in many towns and cities. Where the far right has some influence on local politics, they have also benefited from their sponsorship, as was the case in Rome during the period of Francesco Storace’s administration.
#Covered in glossary:data retention directive; add info on new decision
Add a note on any subsequent developments in case?
4.1
Technics check the Marcuse!
1. Sole and Baleno were two anarchists who committed suicide whilst under investigation for a series of attacks on the high speed train system (TAV), for which they would be posthumously exonerated. Baleno killed himself in prison, as did Sole some months later in a community where she was placed whilst awaiting trial. Silvano is the only one of those accused still alive. Enrico, president of the community and a friend of Sole, killed himself some months after her.
2. Technics here refers to the broad range of useful arts. Technology is understood as technique developed in the framework of industrialization. *Check against the Marcuse distinction above?
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3. A Japanese artistic movement at the turn of the twentieth century. Usually it is presented as “pictures of the floating world”. I really like an artist named Kuniyoshi who appears to have been somewhat flash and had a tattooed back. During this period, the Japanese tattoo as we imagine it today spread as a minor and somewhat extreme artistic form of Ukiyo-e. It was not tightly linked with the Yakuza, the Japanese Mafia, something which would happen only later after the second world war.
4. The Zengakuren were the student movement in Japan around 1968. In October ’68, in cooperation with some workers, they occupied Shinjuku station, a sort of symbol of westernized post-war Japan. Three days of street-fights followed, then 1968 ended, 1969 began, and with it that void which is contemporary Japan.
