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Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker The Exploit Electronic Mediations Katherine Hayles, Mark Poster, and Samuel Weber, Series Editors 21 The Exploit: A Theory of Networks Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker 20 Database Aesthetics: Art in the Age of Information Overflow Victoria Vesna, Editor 19 Cyberspaces of Everyday Life Mark Nunes 18 Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture Alexander R. Galloway 17 Avatars of Story Marie - Laure Ryan 16 Wireless Writing in the Age of Marconi Timothy C. Campbell 15 Electronic Monuments Gregory L. Ulmer 14 Lara Croft: Cyber Heroine Astrid Deuber - Mankowsky 13 The Souls of Cyberfolk: Posthumanism as Vernacular Theory Thomas Foster 12 Déjà Vu: Aberrations of Cultural Memory Peter Krapp 11 Biomedia Eugene Thacker 10 Avatar Bodies: A Tantra for Posthumanism Ann Weinstone 9 Connected, or What It Means to Live in the Network Society Steven Shaviro 8 Cognitive Fictions Joseph Tabbi 7 Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet Diana Saco 6 Writings Vilém Flusser 5 Bodies in Technology Don Ihde continued on page 181 The Exploit A Theory of Networks Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker Electronic Mediations, Volume 21 University of Minnesota Press Minneapolis London Ideas in this book have been previously published in different form in the following essays cowritten by the authors: “Protocol and Counter - Protocol,” in Code: The Language of Our Time, ed. Gerfried Stocker and Christine Schöpf (Linz: Ars Elec - tronica, 2003); “Protocol, Control, and Networks,” Grey Room 17 (Fall 2004); “In Defiance of Existence: Notes on Networks, Control, and Life - Forms,” in Feelings Are Always Local: DEAF04—Affective Turbulence, ed. Joke Brouwer et al. (Rotterdam: V2_Publishing/ NAi Publishers, 2004); “Networks, Control, and Life - Forms,” in “Virtual Communities: Less of You, More of Us: The Political Economy of Power in Virtual Communities,” ed. Jason Nolan and Jeremy Hunsinge, SIGGROUP Bulletin 25, no. 2 (2005), http: // doi.acm.org/ 10.1145/ 1067721.1067722; “The Metaphysics of Networks,” in Censoring Culture: Contemporary Threats to Free Expression, ed. Robert Atkins and Svetlana Mintcheva (New York: New Press, 2006), reprinted by per- mission of the New Press; “On Misanthropy,” in Curating Immateriality: The Work of the Curator in the Age of Network Systems, ed. Joasia Krysa (New York: Autonomedia, 2006); “Language, Life, Code,” Architectural Digest, September– October 2006. Copyright 2007 by Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Published by the University of Minnesota Press 111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401 - 2520 http: // www.upress.umn.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Galloway, Alexander R., 1974– The exploit : a theory of networks / Alexander R. Galloway and Eugene Thacker. p. cm. — (Electronic mediations ; Vol. 21) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978-0-8166-5043-9 (hc : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8166-5043-8 (hc : alk. paper) ISBN: 978-0-8166-5044-6 (pb : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-8166-5044-6 (pb : alk. paper) 1. Social networks. 2. Computer networks. 3. Computer network protocols. 4. Bioinformatics—Philosophy. 5. Sovereignty. I. Thacker, Eugene. II. Title. HM741.G34 2007 303.48'3301—dc22 2007014964 Printed in the United States of America on acid - free paper The University of Minnesota is an equal - opportunity educator and employer. 12 11 10 09 08 07 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents On Reading This Book vii Prolegomenon: “We’re Tired of Trees” 1 Provisional Response 1: Political Atomism (the Nietzschean Argument)—Provisional Response 2: Unilateralism versus Multilateralism (the Foucauldian Argument)—Provisional Response 3: Ubiquity and Universality (the Determinist Argument)—Provisional Response 4: Occultism and Cryptography (the Nominalist Argument) Part I. Nodes 23 Technology (or Theory)—Theory (or Technology)—Protocol in Computer Networks—Protocol in Biological Networks— An Encoded Life—Toward a Political Ontology of Networks— The Defacement of Enmity—Biopolitics and Protocol—Life - Resistance—The Exploit—Counterprotocol Part II. Edges 103 The Datum of Cura I—The Datum of Cura II—Sovereignty and Biology I—Sovereignty and Biology II—Abandoning the Body Politic—The Ghost in the Network—Birth of the Algorithm— Political Animals—Sovereignty and the State of Emergency— Fork Bomb I—Epidemic and Endemic—Network Being—Good Viruses (SimSARS I)—Medical Surveillance (SimSARS II)— Feedback versus Interaction I—Feedback versus Interaction II— Rhetorics of Freedom—A Google Search for My Body— Divine Metabolism—Fork Bomb II—The Paranormal and the Pathological I—The Paranormal and the Pathological II— Universals of Identification—RFC001b: BmTP—Fork Bomb III— Unknown Unknowns—Codification, Not Reification— Tactics of Nonexistence—Disappearance; or, I’ve Seen It All Before—Stop Motion—Pure Metal—The Hypertrophy of Matter (Four Definitions and One Axiom)—The User and the Programmer—Fork Bomb IV—Interface—There Is No Content—Trash, Junk, Spam Coda: Bits and Atoms 149 Appendix: Notes for a Liberated Computer Language 159 Notes 167 Index 183 On Reading This Book It is our intention in this book to avoid the limits of academic writ- ing in favor of a more experimental, speculative approach. To that end, we adopt a two - tier format. Throughout Part I, “Nodes,” you will find a number of condensed, italicized headers that are glued together with more standard prose. For quick immersion, we suggest skimming Part I by reading the italicized sections only. Alternatively, you may inspect the diversions and intensifications that form the main body of the text. Part II, “Edges,” continues the experiment with a number of miniature essays, modules, and fragments. In this sense, we hope you will experience the book not as the step - by - step propositional evolution of a complete theory but as a series of marginal claims, dis- connected in a living environment of many thoughts, distributed across as many pages. vii This page intentionally left blank Prolegomenon “We’re Tired of Trees” In a recent e - mail exchange with the Dutch author and activist Geert Lovink, a person whose work we admire greatly, he made an interest- ing claim about the locus of contemporary organization and control. “Internet protocols are not ruling the world,” Lovink pointed out, challenging our assumptions about the forces of organization and con- trol immanent to a wide variety of networks, from biological net- works to computer networks. Who is really running the world? “In the end, G. W. Bush is. Not Jon Postel,” said Lovink, contrasting the American president with the longtime editor of the Internet network protocols.1 Lovink’s claim that Internet protocols are not ruling the world strikes us as a very interesting thing to assert—and possibly quite accu- rate in many respects. The claim establishes one of the central debates of our time: the power relationship between sovereignty and networks. We interpret Lovink’s claim like this: informatic networks are indeed important, but at the end of the day, sovereign powers matter more. The continual state of emergency today in the West, in the Middle East, in Africa, and in many other parts of the world is a testament to how much the various actions (and inactions) of sovereign powers 1 2 Prolegomenon indeed matter quite significantly. But is it really the case that net- works matter less? And what kinds of networks—Postel’s informatic networks, or the guerrilla networks of global terrorist groups? And what about sovereign powers who leverage the network form? Is the Ameri can government a network power? The United Nations? Political discourse today generally slips into one of two positions: the first, often associated with the American state and its allies, maintains that “everything changed” with the fall of the Soviet Union, with the rise of the networked post - Fordist economies, and with September 11, 2001; the sec- ond, more associated with the critics of global empire, contends that the new millennial era is simply “more of the same.” To thumbnail our conversation with Lovink, one might associate him with the second position and us with the first. But this only reveals the complicated nature of the debate. America’s neoconservative hawks often leverage the first position, using history’s sharp cleavages as ammunition for more aggressive policies both foreign and domes- tic. And the reverse is true, too: it is the continuity of history—the “more of the same”—that fuels the American rhetoric of freedom, exported overseas just as it is exported to future generations. So on the one hand, there has been a great deal of attention through popular books, films, and television programs to the slipups and other contro- versies surrounding American foreign policy (in which everything from Fahren heit 911 to Abu Ghraib plays a part), heralding a growing crisis in Western sovereignty at the hands of various networked forces that seem to threaten it. But on the other hand, there is also a more cynical, business - as - usual stance, in which Western policies to- ward regions like the Middle East are seen as yet another, albeit crude, extension of American hegemony inaugurated decades ago in the after math of World War II. One position tends to blame a particular administration for the state of things, while the other simply sees a repetition of a pattern that has been in place since World War II. While the first position tends to place excessive emphasis on a particular administration and leader, the second sees a progression, aided by Democrat and Repub- lican alike, that has long been invested in the resources and political Prolegomenon 3 opportunities that the Middle East affords. While the first position says, “everything is different now,” the second position says, “it’s the same as it ever was.” Both positions concur on one point, however.
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