This is a warning to all of us, including revolutionary forces, who have accepted the Internet as an indispensable part of our lives and our struggles.
The computers, the Internet and technology do indeed have a progressive history.
The original computers were invented by the working class – blacksmith and weavers, before being appropriated it by aristocrat businessman.
One wonderful example of connected computer technology for socialism was the short-lived Project Cybersyn within the short-lived socialist experiment in Chile in the 1970s.
However computers were first harnessed to do real work by the racist, capitalist American state in 1890.
The Americans then, as now, were obsessed by thought that black people, poor people, Chicanos, immigrants, socialists and the “genetically impure” were taking over.
So the invention of the Hollerith calculating machine was a godsend – allowing them to measure, track, create laws and police actions against these groups.
The Hollerith Company soon became IBM, and when Hitler was elected to power in Germany they formed a deep and profitable partnership with the Nazi state.
IBM and the Nazis demographically captured the entire German population, marking out racially inferior sectors for future treatment.
As the Nazis started building concentration camps, IBM put prisoner management machines (with IBM technicians) in each of them.
The tattoos put on Auschwitz prisoners arms were serial numbers for IBM systems.
During World War 2 a bomber war took place between Nazi Germany and the US/UK Allies.
This had a huge high tech element as the two sides engaged in a radar cat and mouse game over Germany’s skies.
This high tech war was what created Silicon Valley (which was at that stage a Microwave Valley) thanks to the US military funding practical research in a complex of university and companies.
After the war the Nazi scientists were transferred to the US military-industrial complex where they helped create the first national cybernetic early warning radar system.
This was the American military first supercomputer-powered electronic global surveillance system.
But it was too centralized, and tracking enemy bomber planes was obsolete: worldwide revolution was sweeping Asia, Africa, Latin America and American cities but the military had no early warning system for that.
In 1968 the “Mother of all demos” in an International Computer Conference in San Francisco demonstrated the astounding computer technology which the military Advanced Research Project Agency has been developing.
This included technologies that wouldn’t be introduced to the public for decades later such as video conferencing, collaborative document writing, graphic design, video games etc.
Simultaneously ARPA had invented the ARPANET, which would be privatised in 1994 as the internet.
ARPA ran a series of overlapping high tech projects in the American war on Vietnam.
Aside from poisoning the country with Agent Orange, they also ran a project called Igloo White which involved covering the country with hidden radio sensors (microphones, vibration, even urine detection) while flying radio receiver aircraft above transmitting back to a top secret “James Bond villain” military base in Thailand to call in airstrikes whenever enemies were detected.
They also provided the “computerised genocide” technology behind the Phoenix Program, which was the CIA’s organized kidnapping, torture and murder of 40-80,000 Vietnamese community leaders.
The Igloo White technology was immediately transferred over to the US-Mexico border, and today is the backbone of the “Smart City” technology packages being sold to city governments around the world.
The Smart City allows tracking of unwanted groups, such as the homeless, from City command centers while also privatising vital city functions into the hands of powerful tech companies.
Since its invention in 1969 as a military communication platform then its privatization in 1994 and now today as a deeply embedded part of our lives – the internet has grown and developed into a new kind of weapon.
Thanks to social networking, the military can build profiles of each of us in a more complete way that has ever been dreamed.
On top of this they can also create media micro-narratives that are sometimes “alternative to”, sometimes compliment traditional Mainstream TV and newspaper media.
This is very important for the Color Revolution technology which the US has been developing for decades, perhaps since the counter-culture of the 60s.
The “faces” for an upcoming Color Revolution are selected and given digital activism and media training via NGO networks, before “going viral” and getting large numbers of followers to their platform.
The “Revolution” is given branding by PR specialists, then constant attention by Mainstream Media followed by Hollywood.
The Mainstream Media will of course “accidentally” miss the sabotage and terrorism which the other set of Color Revolution activists are trained in.
However when victims of the “Revolution” terrorist campaign post evidence on social media their accounts will be banned or (hidden so no one sees them).
Simultaneously the large cyberwarfare units of the Imperial military intelligence will run digital psy-ops while also directly targeting the industrial, communication, electrical grid, financial systems etc of the target country to maximize the impact of the Color Revolution.
It is important to understand that every element of the technology you use for communication is compromised and controlled (as well as invented) by the military: from the computer chips to the operating systems to the microphone to the apps to WiFi to services like Google and Facebook.
All of these give full access to your data to the US national security state, and there is no technological way to prevent this.
We need to understand that the Internet is enemy territory and adjust our behavior as such.
We haven’t yet developed a way for revolutionary forces to get the benefits of internet technology while immunising from the deep dangers, so we encourage people to research, discuss, understand and change behavior.