The
ARMY
of
REDRESS
MARCHES
AGAIN
COLIN WILLIAMS
In the early decades of a new century
of generating effect as an end in
wrought within a context shaped by
an established, once expensive and
itself, rather than embrace a new and
expensive overseas wars fought against
privileged technocratic elite found
improved means of creating the effect.
an opponent with a diametrically
its prestige and power, if not its very
They defended the way that a thing
oppositional worldview held with a sense
means of existence, challenged by
had previously been done rather than
of revolutionary zeal and according to
the introduction of a radical new
accept change.
which human society required a radical
technology that it neither understood
reformation. A context further shaped
nor controlled. This new technology
by rising food and raw material prices,
placed the power to produce directly
into the hands of the hitherto unskilled.
It democratised a crucial area of
MASTERY OF THE
SKILL
economic activity, at the same time as
it lowered the costs of production, at the
same time as it increased productivity.
The claims to social status and the
command of elevated economic
privilege enjoyed by the old elite were
predicated entirely on their closely
guarded mastery of complex and
sophisticated technology. To use the
established technology required great
OF
USING THE OLD
TECHNOLOGY ITSELF
generate greater effect in less time than
the skilled.
Mastery of the skill of using the old
technology itself became a practice
to be defended; regardless of the
wider benefits to be obtained from the
new, and regardless of the necessity of
generating the desired effect that was
supposed to have been the object of
the exercise in the first place. The old
elite focused on a doomed attempt
at the defence of an obsolete means
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revisions to the system of taxation and
a sustained period of accelerated
technological innovation across the
broad canvas of human affairs. Those
who mounted a futile attempt to resist
the spread of the new technology, who
attempted to defend their own status
BECAME A PRACTICE
and to preserve obsolete machines
TO BE
those who saw great benefit in a world
DEFENDED
skill and expertise, not so the new. The
new technology enabled the unskilled to
spiraling national deficits, wholesale
and systems, did so at the expense of
reshaped by the new technology, and
so were ultimately outlawed. Some
were executed whilst others were
Inexorably, inevitably, the disruptive
and transformative effects of the
new wave of technology destroyed
the old elite who perished despite
desperate, fierce and well-organised
resistance. The new technology was
enthusiastically embraced by the
controlling minds of the institutions of
the nation, of business and of wider
society who were in desperate need of
innovative and enabling responses to
profound and rapid transformations to
macro-economic and social conditions.
These transformations were themselves
transported.
This one time technocratic elite,
these defenders of an established
pattern of thinking and behaving,
the self-appointed guardians of the
true and proper social and economic
relationships between technology
and humans saw themselves as the
defenders of values and practices worth
defending because they were good.
These were people who felt compelled
to the use of force and violence by
circumstances beyond their control; they
TO BE A LUDDITE IS TO BE ONE OF HOBSBAWM’S
SIMPLE MINDS.
IT IS TO BE A VICTIM
TO BE
OF FUTURE SHOCK,
INCAPABLE OF PLAYING
A FULL AND MEANINGFUL PART IN THE
TECHNO-GLORY OF
MODERN SOCIETY.
were, in their eyes, legitimised in their
as “simple minded labourers” who
narrative payload, is deployed in the
organised and premeditated violation of
“reacted to the new system by smashing
exercise of power every bit as much
the social contract because they were
the machines they thought responsible
as kinetic energy. This indeed is the
seeking to right a great wrong. They
for their troubles”. This sense of the
essence of soft power.
were not merely defending themselves
Luddites as mindless and unthinking
and their families from penury and
enemies of technology has grown,
Luddite has also, inevitably and as a
starvation; they were prosecuting a
developed, and amplified throughout
direct function of its use as a trope by
moral cause.
our culture, and it now saturates the
the self-appointed technocratic elite
narrative of the human relationships with
of contemporary enterprise and formal
Accordingly, these people called
technology in general and computers in
computing, become a contested term
themselves the Army of Redress. They
particular.
within an oppositional discourse in which
crafted an archetype to stand as their
to espouse Luddism and to be a Luddite
leader. A fictive construct who was
Luddite has become a synonym for
is to defend the human against the
as immune to capture by any of the
those opposed, or unable, to accept
machine. It is to promote the virtues of
thousands of soldiers sent to deal with
the relentless advance of ever more
a sustainable and simple life over those
the Army of Redress, as he was resistant
sophisticated technology, and in
of the complex and destructive matrix
to static definition. They became the
particular computers, into every facet
of modernity. It is to be in favour; of the
soldiers of General Ludd, the subjects of
of every dimension of human existence.
artisan over the industrial, the bucolic
King Ned. To the establishment of the
Luddite has a deeply pejorative
over the bureaucratic, the rural over
day they were dangerous and violent
associative pattern of meanings. To be
the urban, the pastoral over the post-
criminals whose acts of wanton sedition
a Luddite is to be one of Hobsbawm’s
modern. However, the oppositional form
were outlawed by the Frame Breaking
simple minds. It is to be a victim of future
propagates the common sense of the
Act of February 1812.
shock, to be incapable of playing a full
trope just as it contests it. In each of the
and meaningful part in the techno-glory
contesting discourses, the technocratic
We have been taught to know these
of modern society. It is to be primitive,
elite are on the side of computers; the
people as Luddites. Their context was
backward, incapacitated by ignorance
others oppose and fear them.
that of the early Industrial Revolution
and an obstacle to progress; an enemy
and the Napoleonic Wars.
of the greater good. Luddite has
Located within the technocratic elite of
become a narrative trope, a package
enterprise and formal computing, We
Luddites have not been judged
of integrated self-referential explicit and
the community of Information Assurance
kindly by historians. Eric Hobsbawm’s
implicit meanings, deployed extensively
professionals and cyber security experts,
view stands as representative of the
in the established and emerging
deploy the trope of Luddism as readily
historical commonplace. In The Age
discourse around the nature and shape
and unthinkingly as we deploy that of the
of Revolution, the first of his three-
of the socio technical phenomenon
User. Indeed, for Us, the two tropes are
part history of the nineteenth century,
we are increasingly referring to as the
closely intertwined with each other and
Hobsbawm characterises Luddites
cyber domain. Discursive energy, with
integral to a discourse in which We possess
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INFORMAL IT IS THE IT OF THE HOME AND OF THE MOBILE
IT IS CHEAP,
EASY TO USE,
AND
EXPERIENCE.
POWERFUL
LIBERATING.
a unique, if not secret, knowledge
lurk in every nook and cranny and under
and of the absolute imperatives for
about how computers should work
every bed in the cyber domain. We
security. This is how IT should be done;
and a privileged status that enables
have deployed the trope of the User as
according to Us, We are experts and We
Us to dictate how They, the Users,
the Other; We are defined as not Them
know how to do things properly. The
should interact with Our systems. In
and We control and define Them on
consequence of Our wisdom is that in
Our discourse, the Users are subjects
Their behalf.
the enterprise formal computing delivers
to the objects of Our systems and, at
The Users however, experience a daily
a now ancient computer, subject to
best, stupid if not the manifest enemy;
duality. In the enterprise, IT is expensive,
zealous application of the rules of least
the insider threat. Moreover, They
cumbersome, inhibitive, old and
privilege and stable state, running an
are ignorant of the benefits of Our
inefficient. Systems designed on Their
unpatched, obsolete and unsupported
technology. They neither understand
behalf render Them as subjects; and
Internet browser on top of an equally
nor embrace technology, change and
as subjects render Them subservient
unpatched, obsolete and unsupported
innovation as We do. Driven by fear,
to rules and procedures that actively
operating system, all in return for an
uncertainty and doubt, they seek to
impede the achievement of Their core
annual charge per desktop of several
defend the established pattern. They
objectives. As rational actors, the Users
thousands of pounds.
place shortsighted self-interest above
are compelled to break the rules of the
the objective necessity and manifest
system; over time rule breaking becomes
Informal IT is the IT of the home and of
benefits of Progress.
not merely excusable, it becomes a
the mobile experience. It is cheap,
rewarded and therefore a repeated
easy to use, powerful and liberating.
Any attempt They make to resist or
behavior. The experience of formal,
Here, They are in charge and They
subvert the rules of Our systems proves to
enterprise IT, is in essence, appalling. The
have embraced Their technology
Us that They are unfit to be trusted with
User is told that the price and the costs
with a velocity and vigour that has
the control of Our systems; that They do
(in every sense) of this experience are
petrified Us. They live in a world We
not understand security; that they have
the inevitable, necessary and desirable
do not understand. A world in which
no comprehension of the dangers that
consequences of a managed service
technology has become democratised.
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A world in which mastery over the
to legitimacy and the strength of the
the NHS thus condemning the system to
means of generating effect has become
mandate of the digital democracies
continued use of insecure and inefficient
abstracted into insignificance compared
will be further amplified by turnout rates
paper-based systems. These same
to the generation of the effect itself. Not
that we have long ceased to even
voices drove a culture within which
for nothing does Samsung use the strap
aspire to. Regimes hostile to our way of
police forces failed to share intelligence.
line “designed for humans” to promote
life will be elected through democratic
Our modes of thinking about and
the Galaxy S3. They, the Users, have
process manifestly more secure and more
practicing security have become an
powered Apple, Android and Samsung
representative than ours have been for
active impediment to our ability to
to positions of market dominance
decades.
exploit the power of the cyber domain,
and have, on the way, eclipsed the
at the same time as they have become
once uncontested economic might
Replacing our archaic paper-based
an asset to the power of our adversaries
of Microsoft. In an article on the 8th
voting system with a fully digitised
to do likewise. Moreover, We, not Them,
February 2013, the Financial Times
democracy would go a long way to
have become the single most significant
estimated that the combined values
countering our growing democratic
cause of adverse outcomes because
of cash and marketable securities for
deficit and the need to do so has
we continue to insist on a systemic
Apple, Microsoft and Google were,
become urgent. The renegotiation
construct in which human behavior
respectively; $137.1 bn, $63.8 bn
of the Social Contract is already
is marginalised and abstracted; a
and $48.1 bn. Samsung for their part
underway and the lead is being taken
construct in which the human is subject
obtained estimated revenue from the
by Anonymous as they petition the US
and not object. If we continue to design
sales of smartphones and tablets in 2012
government to recognise DDoS as a
and implement systems knowing that
of $60 bn, an estimated increase of 100%
legally permissible expression of the
rational human actors must break Our
on their 2011 sales. Samsung shipped an
democratic right of protest in the cyber
rules in order to accomplish Their equally
estimated 400 million ‘phones in 2012.
domain. We have been tragically
rational and correct goals, then We, not
Neither Apple nor Google nor Samsung
silent in Our response to this. The cyber
They, bear the burden of responsibility
depend upon the enterprise formal
warriors of our future must be as adept
for what then follows. The fact that Users
computing market. They are the D in
at scripting narratives and counter
write passwords down is now Our fault,
BYOD. They are reshaping the world of IT
narratives as they currently are at
not Theirs.
in their own image because of the loving
scripting code. Proving that we are
and eager embrace of Them, the User.
fit and competent to safeguard the
One of the most important questions
From within this experiential dialectic it
human experience of the cyber domain
that now confronts Us is simply this:
is probable that an entirely new form of
means proving in practice that we can
who are the real Luddites of the cyber
computing will, over time, emerge.
solve the problems of enabling digitised
domain? Is it Us or is it Them? As We
The following exemplar serves to illustrate
democracy. If we fail, others will take
fight the onslaught of BYOD, as We
the wider consequences of the now
our place.
castigate the ignorance of the wetware,
catastrophe of formal IT.
Since 1945, the turnout for UK general
elections has been in steady decline
and with it the legitimacy of the
democratic mandate. We have a
paper-based voting system that is
intrinsically and structurally insecure
and, as recent prosecutions have
evidenced, vulnerable to fraud. Recent
as We glory and revel in spreading
fear, uncertainty and doubt, as We
WE
SHELTER
BEHIND
DIGITAL
MAGINOT LINES
events in North Africa have shown
celebrate the power of the adversary,
as We shelter behind digital Maginot
Lines and hunker down in Cold War
bunkers, as We defend the (long gone)
world We once thought We understood
and could control, as We daily witness
Our elite status ebb away from Us and
as We stare petrified, immobilsed and
uncomprehending at the complexity
that nascent democracies can, and
Hitherto, the most strident voices against
and sophistication of a technological
will continue, to return results that
the introduction of digital democracy,
wonder We helped to create, do We
grant democratic legitimacy to those
the strongest opponents of online voting
not march to the comforting echoes of
with worldviews hostile to the liberal
have been Us; the community of security
General Ludd’s drums?
democratic underpinnings of the
experts. Every attempt at innovation
nation state. Sooner rather than later
in this area has been met with a flurry
The Army of Redress is indeed on the
emerging democracies will deploy
of dire warnings and predictions of
march again; and this time it’s Us.
the cyber domain as integral tools of
catastrophe from the assembled host
the democratic process. This will result
of those with the expert and secret
in voting systems demonstrably and
knowledge. These same voices
indisputably more secure than their
opposed the introduction of digitally
analogue antecedents. The claims
signed and encrypted patient records in
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