The exploit : a theory of networks

206 Pages·2007·2.288 MB·English

by  Thacker, Eugene, Galloway, Alexander R

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 Room17 (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:/ /d oi.acm.org/1 0.1145/ 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- 2 520
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- b y- s tep 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- m ail 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