Zapatismo has infected the political body of Mexico's 'perfect dictatorship' since January 1, 1994. This is a polyspacial movement for a radical democracy, based on the Mayan legacies of dialogue, which rips into the electronic fabric of The War Machine, not as cyberwar but as a virtual action for real peace for the real communities of Chiapas. As of September 1997, reports of the Mexican military training and arming paramilitary groups with the intent of moving the 'low-intensity' war to a higher level began to circulate among the Zapatista Network. It took the massacres at Acteal to focus the world on something that was already known - the constant tragedy of late-capitalism.




As manifestations took place around the world in remembrance of the Acteal dead on January 1 and 2nd the Mexican military, with the full support of the PRI government, began to move to the next stage of the war against peace. As the West stumbled about in celebration of a new year, the first report reached out across the net and slapped us awake once more with the vicious and brutal reality of the neoliberal agenda.

This time Zapatista networks responded with a new level of electronic civil disobedience which extended beyond the passing of information and e-mailing presidents. On Sunday 18th January '98 a NetStriking for Zapata (from the Anonymous Digital Coalition) e-mail came in with the following instructions:

In solidarity with the Zapatista movement we welcome all the netsurfers with the ideals of justice, freedom, solidarity and liberty within their hearts, to sit-in the day 29/01/1998 from 4:00 p.m. GMT (Greenwich Mean Time) to 5:00 p.m. GMT in the following five web sites, symbols of Mexican neoliberalism: Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, Grupo Financiero Bital, Grupo Financiero Bancomer, Banco de Mexico, Banamex. (see Crash Course for details)

This virtual sit-in not only brought the possibilities of direct electronic actions to the forefront of the Zapatista networks, but initiated a more focused analysis of what methods would really work. Someone brought up the issue of net traffic, Internet Service Providers (ISPs), and small international pipes. Reloading the Bank's web page will not clog up the bank's web server, but just overload the ISP's pipe.

If the goal is to target these banks specifically and not to create general data traffic problems for Mexico, then we should consider tactics that effect those Banks' internet activities directly. You might participate in an e-mail storm. Send thousands of e-mail messages to the bank. This has some advantages:

1. E-mail forwarders (sendMail process) will efficiently use net bandwidth and not hose other 'civilians'.
   
2. E-mail takes up disk space on the bank's server. Sending tens of thousands of large e-mails (with attachments of course) sucks up tons of disk space as the messages have to be held until someone reads them.
   
3. Someone has to read the e-mail. If someone here writes a java app that can put together unique subject lines with banking related terminology, someone at the bank will have to wade through all the bogus e-mail to get to real business related mail messages. This is my favourite part, it actually disrupts business. After a short while the bank will shut down their e-mail account, at least temporarily.

Here are 3 further examples which effect the banks more than the internet.

1. The most efficient and effective way is to find out who provides internet service to these banks. Then the hard part; contact someone who works at the bank's ISP and convince them to 'interrupt' the bank's service for an hour. An easy 'fake problem' for the willing network engineer. However the 'good netizen' approach would be to contact the bank's provider(s) and convince them to stop doing business with the bank. I admit that's a long shot!
   
2. Flood the banks with e-mail. The ISPs who route the bank's e-mail will eventually tire of their lines being saturated with the bank's traffic. In such cases, ISPs typically block the traffic from using their lines.
   
3. Take advantage of the bank's security paranoia. Without creating a true threat or committing a crime, the savvy techie could make them think there's a possible security problem. The bank would have to close their own internet access while they figure out what's going on. My friend wouldn't tell me how to do this· But where there's a will, there's a way.

On February 4th, as these discussions were taking place, a group of Mexican digital activist hacked into a government homepage on the internet and placed pro-Zapatista slogans on the front pages of the site. Soon afterwards a Ping Actions program arrived to hit Mexican banks and Chase Manhattan Bank on February 9th. It is difficult to know right now how much of a disturbance these acts of electronic civil disobedience cause. What we do know is that neoliberal power is extremely concerned by these acts. Since January 1st '94 the analysis of the Zapatista Electronic Movement has been a prime target of the Military and Intelligence research agenda.

For now all we can do is continue to forge ahead and always remember that all of this electronic activism is about supporting a real community in search of a real peace. A community that has been calling for a world the makes all worlds possible.

Zapata Vive!!

Ricardo Dominguez [rdom@thing.net]