The Transductive Botnet: A Theory and History of Hacktivist DDoS Attacks

• In Event: Shame, Hackers, and Nonhumans: Control and Resistance in New Media

Abstract

This article offers a reading of Internet-based activism or ‘hacktivism’ as a phenomenon that cannot be confined to the instrumental use of information technologies. It focuses on a subset of hacktivism—the distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack for political ends—that aims at making an Internet host unavailable to its intended users. Since the early 2000s these attacks have been increasingly conducted by means of botnets—networks of infected computers that send bogus requests to a target website without the consent of their users. While the liberal tradition would hardly consider this unknowing form of participation as political, the article argues that botnets have a political capacity to engender new sets of actions and relations. Such capacity is analyzed from two distinct theoretical angles, which borrow from the philosophies of Gilbert Simondon and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. These two conceptual frameworks are brought together through an analysis of the political economy of botnets, their technical functionalities, and their problematic use for political ends.

Author

• Marco Deseriis, Northeastern U