– Wann, wenn nicht jetzt? [When, if not now?] published in the anarchist weekly Zündlumpen no. 64, May 8, 2020 (Munich)
– Sabotages against digital normality, published on May 12, 2020 on Sans Attendre
– Incendiary walks along the railroad tracks in Munich, April 17, 2020, published on Sans Attendre
– Burn, antenna, burn! – a small (non-exhaustive) chronicle of sabotage from April to May 2020
When, if not now?
In recent years, all the devices around us have begun to take on a life of their own. Modern televisions record the conversations of those around them, modern refrigerators do the stock management and even modern ovens are no longer limited to being an electric fireplace: they have internet interfaces that are supposed to enable them to be switched on from “on the road” and through which they exchange data with their owners and other curious people at will. With smartphones, most people have long since bugged themselves voluntarily and in all their movements. So it’s hardly surprising that more than a few people are also willingly taking Amazon’s Alexa spying program into their homes. And while “technology enthusiasts” are excitedly building their “smart home” cage, the state and a handful of technology companies have even more extensive plans and visions. Voluntary (self-)surveillance within one’s own four walls was yesterday: the “smart city” of today and tomorrow includes an impressive repertoire of sensor technologies to not only meticulously record and monitor who is where and with whom, but also to control the movements and actions of the city’s inhabitants with subtle and less subtle methods, to direct and manipulate them. On closer inspection, this also seems bitterly necessary, because in the increasingly misanthropic environments of today’s cities, in which the highest priority is given to the transport of human livestock to offices, shops and factories, as well as to the transport of goods to satisfy false needs, any subversive potential must be silenced, or better yet, integrated into this illusion of life before it spreads like an epidemic and causes irreparable damage to this beautiful, perfect world.
But how can an entire city be controlled? Where conventional methods of architecture, police work, psychiatry, prison society, schools, education, etc. reach their limits, information technology opens up new, previously unknown possibilities. And the controlled? They let themselves be sold (literally) as progress (which perhaps it is, but there is nothing inherently positive about progress), as a solution to their problems. Isn’t it convenient that Google Maps always shows you the fastest way to work? Isn’t it pleasant to use that e-scooter for the last bit of the way home, which is so conveniently on my way? And what about paying? Contactless payment in installments with your smartphone, splitting the bill via Paypal, and it doesn’t even occur to you to simply carry your purchases back out to the entrance and take to your heels. Who would think of such an idea with all the cameras?
Most of these “offers” are only possible if data can be exchanged everywhere and at any time. How else would Google know exactly where the traffic is congested, how would the far too many (but ultimately quite few) e-scooters get to where their customers are waiting for them? How should it be ensured that the necessary credit or credit line is available on the account for a payment transaction? That’s right: all this only works if the internet is available everywhere. And if I already have access to the Internet, I might as well take advantage of all the other services cyberspace has to offer. Never again do I have to waste my time. When I take the subway to work, it doesn’t cost me any more time: I can read the news, stream the latest episode of my favourite series, keep in touch with my friends via Whatsapp, take pictures for Instagram, and so on. And because it’s so easy, I never have to feel bored again. Every free minute I can look at my smartphone instead of getting lost in my thoughts. Sometimes, looking at this device even seems more exciting to me than a contact that takes place here, in reality – to touch, so to speak. Let’s not let boredom arise. But when I look back at the end of the day and see what remains of all this, it is only the emptiness that this activity leaves behind as an end in itself. I may not have felt boredom, but instead I have led a rather boring life. My life has become the epitome of a controlled existence. My actions have not only become predictable, they are no longer even mine. Is this what I once dreamed of my life to be? Working all day and watching Netflix or porn to unwind? A normality that is only interrupted by the release of dopamine on the occasion of incoming push notifications? But on a regular basis, sometimes even every minute …
Even the most enthusiastic advocates of the new “always-online” ideology have realised that this way of life cannot be the “real thing”. “Digital Detox” is one of the latest trends from Silicon Valley and refers to a kind of “holiday” from the use of all the consequently toxic devices. For a few days, a week or sometimes even a month, overworked users are supposed to take a break from smartphone and computer use and thus detoxify their bodies and minds from all the technological junk. But why take the poison in the first place? While governments, technology companies and their disciples are still experimenting with the right dose of this digital poison, for all the others the main question is: why should I let this poison be administered?
After all, none of this is my vision. And yet, looking around, I can clearly see the ways in which this vision has determined and will change my life today and in the (near) future. Even if I don’t carry around my own bug with the practical touch display, thanks to countless cameras and other sensors I can hardly take a step in this city any more without where I am going being recorded. Even if I haven’t welcomed the smartphone-independent private spying program “Alexa” into my home, don’t own any “smart” ovens, TVs, fridges, etc., it’s enough that my neighbour or my friends own such devices. Anyone who allows such a device to spy on their environment is, of course, also enabling them to monitor not only themselves but others as well. The technocrats’ calculation works: once they have managed to get a certain amount of spying devices into circulation, they are able to control all people, regardless of whether they (willingly) share their vision or not. In my eyes, this point has been long since passed. Faster and faster internet connections, better and better wireless networks have in the last few years led to an increase in the number of devices (and objects) spying on us: from streetlights to ovens. Everything seems to have eyes and ears these days. And the whole thing has only just begun. Today, those who want to or are not paying attention can have their heartbeat and other vital parameters monitored by watches and bracelets. In the future, at least according to the textile industry, our clothes will do it all by themselves. And that is just one example of how the number of things that spy on us will explode. Conventional wireless networks, which today mainly supply people’s smartphones with internet, are no longer sufficient. They are too slow and cannot address enough devices simultaneously.
That’s the reason for the development of 5G, but also why tech bigwigs like Elon Musk (the nutcase who wants to colonise Mars to make humanity a “transplanetary species” – no joke, that’s his motivation!) or Amazon boss Bezos and others are working on launching thousands of satellites into space to provide high-speed global internet coverage – and presumably spy on us in other ways as well. Several hundred of these space peeping toms are already watching us.
What some want to realise with satellites in space, others are planning with a terrestrial radio network on the ground. As a new mobile radio standard, 5G is supposed to bring faster internet for a multitude of devices. For example, 5G should be able to address up to around 100 billion mobile devices at the same time. That is an average of 12.5 devices per person walking the earth. And they should all be able to exchange data at 50 MBit/s to 2 GBit/s. Why? The pretence that the architects of our technological prison are concerned with bringing us the freedom and possibilities of fast internet and the blessings of technology does not fool us. If the tech industry’s masters were so concerned with our well-being, how is it that during the standardisation process of 5G, for example, as well as since the introduction of a nationwide wireless network, all health concerns have simply been pushed aside? Instead, those who have raised and continue to raise health concerns have been and continue to be called conspiracy theorists, even though none of the proponents of wireless networks has yet been able to prove (how could they?!) that they are not harmful. While many countries have constantly increased the limits for radio wave exposure in order to pave the way for new technologies that have been able to comply with them thanks to these adjustments, one must at the same time ask oneself why such limits exist at all if everyone seems to be so convinced that radio technology does not cause any health hazards. What is actually a minor matter for me (because worse than any health impact of radio waves – for me this is only a minor factor in the context of the harmfulness of civilisation – is the social impacts of their technology), nevertheless seems to be excellent proof of how indifferent the actors who are pushing so hard for 5G expansion and the expansion of the mobile network or a satellite communication network really are to the well-being of people, which they otherwise pl
ace so much emphasis on.
The irony of it all – I probably would never have been able to present it so succinctly without the developments of the last few weeks – reveals itself particularly where the 5G expansion is currently being pushed forward under the pretext of a “war” against the pandemic. While people are being locked up at home in the name of their own or an almost fascist-like “public health”, new radio transmitters are being erected in their neighbourhood, the influence of which on health must at least be considered unknown and which some medical experts warn against as weakening the immune system. With the more or less blatant aim of making the confinement more “bearable”, so to speak, and thus maintainable, because those who are pacified by (free) Netflix and porn offers, who are in this way increasingly alienated from their actual needs and desires and forced into the violent norms of a society of production and reproduction, are much less likely to rebel against curfews, contact bans and quarantines. “The Revolution will not be televised”, unfortunately, remains an all too true statement of an otherwise, in my opinion, far too overrated period. If classic television has now been extended by some ridiculous interaction possibilities through commenting and rating functions, this only perfects the pacifying function of the whole thing. If social media trollings, angry posting and even “subversive” films and TV shows serve to express one’s displeasure, why should people even take to the streets the anger that we are fed with a ridiculous illusion of freedom? Haven’t we already become part of this illusion?
Well, the good news is that many people seem to be becoming aware of this situation, perhaps they have always been aware of it, but now many seem to no longer want to be silent, no longer want to be pushed around and choose to attack instead of shouting out their disagreement into the infinite spheres of the digital where it eventually dies away (unheard). Almost daily I receive news that somewhere in the world a 5G radio mast, or any radio mast at all, has been torched, blown up, felled or otherwise destroyed. And even if the (democratic) press either tries to keep quiet about these attacks or to slander them as the work of some nutcase – what does that mean, I’d rather be considered a nutcase or a lunatic than be considered “normal” in this world – it is no longer possible to hide the fact that this is the uncompromising opposition of people who no longer want to let their lives be determined by states, companies or anyone else. Those who are tired of producing and reproducing, who are tired of being tamed, who want to live instead of vegetating.
“Every society […] will have its fringes, and on the fringes of every society, heroic and restless vagabonds will wander, with their wild and untouched thoughts, only able to live by preparing ever new and terrible outbreaks of rebellion! I shall be among them!” – Renzo Novatore
Sabotage against digital normality
Multiple sabotages of relay antennas and Internet cables have taken place in recent weeks, not only in France but all over the world. There are probably very different motivations, sometimes sketchy (conspiracy theory for example). There is also a shared awareness of the reduction of freedom through the development of new technologies and of the possibilities of slowing down the normal course of the existing order through sabotage that is within everyone’s reach. This was all it took for the intelligence services to start spreading the spectre of the ultra-left and the anarchist movement via the media, citing in passing a few comrade websites that publicise these sabotage actions.
The installation of 5G is the promise of the acceleration of the technological restructuring of capitalism. A new generation connection, more powerful, faster. The coronavirus epidemic has accelerated the process. Since the web is not material, but relies on a very material infrastructure (cables, antennas, cable carriers, data centres, power plants, etc.), 5G needs to build a new network of more powerful and more wave-generating base stations. Furthermore, 5G is designed for a new qualitative leap in the digitalisation of the world and the whole of life. It is planned for the internet of things (watches, scales, beds, fridges, etc.), autonomous cars, delivery drones, remote surgery, robotic and networked factories, etc. It’s more than just an accentuation of what already exists. In the language of research and development engineers, we speak of ‘disruptive technology’.
In concrete terms, the connected machines allow companies to know the productivity rates in real time in an individualised manner and therefore to permanently determine the gestures to be carried out by the employees. Incidentally, it is more difficult to rebel against algorithms than against the boss, the manager or the foreman.
The algorithm replaces the clock and the foreman. The connected bed allows you to know your sleep curve to optimise your recovery. The idea is to be more efficient, of course. In the process, you will receive suggestions for sleeping pills, mountain holidays, etc. There’s always money to be made. To give you an idea, saving a few nanoseconds for today’s financial flows by improving the Internet cables means saving a few billion euros. Time is money. The fact that everything is transparent, from food consumption via connected fridges to travel via transport smartcards, not to mention electricity consumption via Linky meters or waste production measured by ‘intelligent’ bins, will above all make it possible to anticipate behaviour in order to maximise the administration of the human herd.
Drones, connected objects, e-commerce, flash codes and intelligent cameras are already everywhere. In Saint-Étienne, the arms manufacturer Serenicity, under the guidance of the municipality, is developing a project to install sound sensors in the streets in order to detect suspicious noises: horns, broken glass, spray paint cans, etc. The aim is to help the police and the public to identify the presence of these sounds, and to help the police to intervene more quickly. The sensors send a signal to the police. The first phases of the project envisaged the use of drones that would have taken off automatically when a suspicious sound was detected, but this was eventually abandoned. The project is partly financed by the National Agency of Urban Renovation as part of the “Investment program in the future cities and sustainable territories”. Enough to make their shitty world last, in short. In May 2019, the project was postponed pending an opinion from the CNIL. Far from paralysing us, this surveillance can also strengthen our determination to act if we show a little ingenuity.
No fewer than 20 coordinated sabotages took place in the Paris region on 5 May on the fibre optic network, causing many employees to stop teleworking, several police stations to stop communicating, and several companies, such as the online poker site Winamax, to cease trading. Their system is everywhere, diffuse. That makes it vulnerable: internet cabinets on every street corner, cables in every sewer, base stations on every hilltop.
There will always be a few citizens who will promote alternative technology and condemn this kind of sabotage. But no, technology is not neutral and does not depend on the use we make of it! It creates its own world to which we have to adapt, like the workers caught up in the rhythm of the machine. It also creates a system in which progress and catastrophe are two sides of the same coin. Technology in itself contains potentialities that will inevitably be exploited. The knife can be used to cut bread as well as to stab one’s opponent. The train goes alongside the derailment, the plane with the crash, nuclear with the bomb, the digital with surveillance, etc. The question, as the Luddites saw it, becomes what kind of community do we want and from there to oppose any technology that is detrimental to it. There will always be people who try to break the normality, even when it takes the sometimes luddite appearances of technology.
Rebellion is life… including against the government of science.
12 May 2020
Munich: incendiary walks along the railway tracks…
Report from Munich: Fires at Deutsche Bahn facilities and the internet
Through contacts with employees of the Deutsche Bahn (German railway company), I have learned that the police and the press have minimised two events in Munich. On Friday 17 April, cables were set on fire along the railway line in Allach and Johanneskirchen. These sections are used for mainline and (sub)urban traffic as well as for freight traffic. In addition to signalling cables, the site was also used to store fibre-optic cables. Most of the time, these cables are located under concrete slabs along the tracks, while the fibre optic cables are marked by corrugations. The fires caused delays for Deutsche Bahn for several days, as it had to divert its trains. The consequences for the fibre-optic cables are not known, as they were covered up by the media.
Newspaper report, 17 April 2020:
Fire on railway installations – Johanneskirchen
On Friday 17 April 2020, at around 2 a.m., employees of Deutsche Bahn (DB) noticed a fire in the vicinity of Johanneskirchen station. They informed the federal police by dialling the emergency number. The DB employees were able to extinguish the flames themselves, so that no major damage occurred. According to the preliminary investigation, unknown persons set fire to cable ducts. Kommissariat 43 (state security offences) has taken over the investigation.
Newspaper report, 20 April 2020:
Fire on railway installations – Allach
On Friday 17 April 2020, between 1 and 3 a.m., a DB cable conduit was set on fire at Allach station. The damage caused by the fire was so extensive that the signalling systems between Allach and Karlsfeld failed and the line had to be closed. The incident subsequently caused severe traffic disruption in the area.
[Translated from the German by Sans Attendre, from an article deleted in the meantime by Indymedia, 26 April 2020].
Burn, antenna, burn! – a short (non-exhaustive) chronicle
Techno-fascists and other advocates of so-called “progress” have high hopes for digitisation in order to get people to accept the measures imposed on them during the “coronavirus crisis”, because digital life is said to be just as good as real life.
The massive expansion of digital supply includes the construction of thousands of new base stations that are supposed to revolutionise the digital world with the brand new 5G and enable the fantasies of a connected, smart and fully controllable world to be realised. But where these antennas are erected, there are always people waiting to burn them down again. So the opposition to the new 5G antennas, as well as to all other phallic symbols of technological domination, is spreading like wildfire. These rebels are called “conspiracy theorists”, and while some may have a few off-the-wall theories, a few hot fires against the cold world of technology never hurts. Here’s a small, non-exhaustive chronicle, drawn from demesure.noblogs.org, sansattendre.noblogs.org and attaque.noblogs.org :
Belgium
– Late in the evening of 18 April, an antenna of the operator Telenet was burnt down in Pelt, a small municipality in the province of Limburg, located a few kilometres from the border with the Netherlands. There is little doubt that this was a deliberate act, as the fence protecting the mast was cut away and remnants of an accelerant were found. As a reaction to this attack, access to the website giving the precise location of each antenna on Belgian territory was blocked by a password.
Chile
– In the early hours of 27 March, loud explosions shook the town of Contulmo in the southern province of Arauco [in the Mapuche region]. Anonymous hands placed explosives at the foot of a telecommunication antenna, which totally destroyed it. The blast also damaged a second antenna standing a few metres away.
France
– On 3 April, in Mandres-en-Barrois (Meuse), a relay antenna was sabotaged, depriving local residents of their mobile phone.
– During the night of 9 to 10 April, in the Salins-les-Bains area (Jura), two relay antennas located only a few metres apart were set on fire on Mont Poupet. They were used by Orange and SFR. Mobile telephony and the internet were interrupted for several days in various districts. In addition, eight cables of more than 50 metres in length had to be replaced. “This destruction is reminiscent of the destruction of the three relays located at Au Belu in Aiglepierre. The arson attack took place on the night of 7 to 8 April 2019, at around 2.30 a.m., almost a year ago to the day. In February 2019, shortly before, several mobile phone masts had been set on fire in a few weeks around Besançon”, the Jura prosecutor explained.
– At the end of the day on 13 April, somewhere between the departments of Gard and Lozère, a fibre optic cable was severed along a railway line, cutting off the internet and telephone network to more than 23,300 customers, including more than 900 companies and 400 professionals, for at least 12 hours. According to the operator’s precise count, 24,140 customers were unable to connect to 3G and 12,260 to 2G.
– During the night of 14 to 15 April, an Orange antenna was again set on fire in the Jura, at a place called “des Ruines” in Foncine-le-Haut. At least 1,500 telephone lines were cut for at least ten days. The fire mainly destroyed the power supply boxes and coaxial cables. According to the operator, “for several weeks, and in all regions, numerous acts of vandalism have been recorded against Orange infrastructures. “.
– During the night of 23 to 24 April in Belfort, a utility vehicle belonging to a company that installs fibre optics went up in flames. All the equipment and tools in the vehicle were burnt.
– On 26 April in Plaintel (Côtes-d’Armor), an Orange relay antenna was largely destroyed by fire. Between 1,000 and 2,000 mobile phone lines were cut in the vicinity.
– During the night of 29 to 30 April, in Annecy (Haute-Savoie), an antenna of the operator Free was set on fire. Flaming tyres were reportedly placed at the foot of the mast.
– Between 30 April and 1 May, in Saint-Marcellin (Isère), the technical premises of an Orange relay antenna were destroyed by fire. In the previous weeks, two other antennas had been sabotaged in the department, one in Estrablin (13 April) and the other belonging to the operator SFR in Chatte (29 March).
– On 3 May, around 2 a.m., two telephone towers were set on fire above the Ouvèze valley, between Le Pouzin and Privas, in the Ardèche. “Against the control society and the health dictatorship […] So what: stop living? I’d rather die! “
– During the night of 5 to 6 May in Toulouse, a relay antenna was set on fire on the eastern side, on the Pont de l’Embouchure. The arsonists say: “It was simpler than we imagined. Obviously we’re not the only ones boiling with rage and we’re happy about it.” At around 2 a.m., in Oriol-en-Royans in the Drôme, a TDF relay, managed by SFR and Bouygues Telecom, went up in smoke. The material damage is very significant. 19,000 customers of the two operators were left without mobile phones.
– During the weekend (9-10 May) in Brest (Finistère), a relay antenna under construction, located near the marina and Océanopolis, was completely destroyed, “charred by the flames”.
– On 12 May in Alby-sur-Chéran (Haute-Savoie), the TDF relay station located on the route des Chavonnets was deliberately destroyed by fire at around 11.30pm. “(…) the relay antenna and the chalet housing the TV broadcasting and telephone operator connections at its foot were totally devastated. The infrastructure is out of order, heavily impacting radio communications and DTT broadcasts in the area, as well as very high speed mobile and fibre optic coverage. “
Great Britain
– Britain is seen as the starting point for attacks on base stations (5G and others). The first incidents took place at the beginning of April and a total of 77 masts have since been burnt down – the majority of which were not equipped with 5G, but this has not stopped the media, government agents and ‘experts’ from spreading the idea that the mast fires are exclusively related to the theory that 5G causes the coronavirus. Over the Easter weekend alone, 20 antennas were targeted by fire across the country. In addition, there were reportedly 40 incidents of individuals physically and verbally assaulting Mobile UK employees.
Italy
– On 6 April in La Spezia (Liguria), a mobile phone antenna was burnt down. It housed GSM, 3G and 4G equipment from Telecom and WindTre, among others, before being burnt down. The fire also affected the equipment in the adjacent building.
– On 10 or 22 April, in Maddaloni, a town on the outskirts of Caserta (Campania), some of the inhabitants were left without internet and telephone service in the middle of a lockdown. Several 3G and 4G relay antennas of the WindTre and Iliad networks went up in smoke in the hills of Montedecoro.
– On the night of 29 April in Rome, the cables of a Wind antenna were set on fire near Tiburtina station. “Solidarity with the prisoners in struggle. Proximity with the anarchist prisoner Davide Delogu on hunger strike. Against the state and its measures. Against the technologies of control. To act is always possible”.
Canada
– On 1 May, at around 2am, a relay antenna in a commercial area of the western sector of Chomedey went up in flames, cutting off mobile communications to several thousand customers of Rogers and Telus. The damage was significant (at least 1 million dollars, or about 650,000 euros).
– On 4 May, two antennas were set on fire in the Laurentians, in Prevost and Piedmont.
– On 5 May, at around 3.30 a.m., in Laval, a pylon was burnt down in the Fabreville industrial zone.
– In total, 7 telecommunication towers were damaged by fire in a few days.
Netherlands
– On 4 May in The Hague, two base stations were set on fire between 1.30 and 2 a.m., one of which was used by security services (cops, military and firemen). During the previous week, three other masts were also burnt down. In all, since the beginning of April, more than twenty base stations have been sabotaged by fire throughout the country.
United States
On 1 May in Philadelphia, a base station was set on fire. The Bristling Badger Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack in solidarity with the anarchist Badger, who is currently on the run since being charged with similar attacks in Bristol: “We never want to go back to ‘normal’. We don’t know the difference between 4G and 5G. All we know is that we don’t want either […] The smoke that ensued is a signal to the comrades who are suffering persecution from the Scripta Manent trial in Italy… We stand with you! For freedom, for anarchy! “
anonymous
Translated by Anarchist comrade for Act for freedom now
Contents :