Meanwhile, in a different corner of the city, a small group of hackers, artists, and activists—or "hacktivists"—met to catch their breath, organize political materials, and of course check their email. They chose a venue unknown to the police, the Eyebeam center for media art on West 21st Street. They also chose their own security system, one that would protect the integrity of their sensitive computer communications.

They chose Carnivore.

Carnivore is an efficient data collection and analysis system used to monitor all forms of Internet communication. It is a premium service of Radical Software Group (RSG), the all-star collective of computer artists hand selected from cities around the world. Like the FBI software on which it's based, Carnivore is a non-invasive spying tool that collects email and web traffic from its local environment. Because Carnivore was installed last weekend in the same building where the hacktivists were checking their email, RSG was granted a unique perspective on the use of digital communications inside the protest zone.

During the weekend of demonstrations the following organizations used the Eyebeam facilities: Las Agencias (http://www.lasagencias.net/), The "bike writer" group from MIT (http://architecture.mit.edu/~atmarcus/bikewriter/writer.html), Bureau of Inverse Technology (http://bureauit.org/), Institute for Applied Autonomy (http://www.appliedautonomy.com/), RTMark (http://rtmark.com/), and The Yes Men (http://theyesmen.org/). It is not known how long each group used the facilities. Some simply visited, others used it often. However, once inside the Eyebeam surveillance zone, one hundred percent of the hacktivists's Internet communications were monitored by Carnivore.

Data collection itself is worth nothing without appropriate analysis. Thus, Carnivore offers superior diagnostics created by the world's leading software artists. For example Mark Napier, a New York artist, has released an analysis tool for Carnivore called "Black and White" (http://www.potatoland.org/blackwhite/). He used this tool to calculate the overall truth or falsity of the hacktivists's data. After several days of monitoring, their data was found to be %37 true and %63 false.

Another diagnostic is called "Trigger Words." This tool records the frequency of sensitive words—words such as "nuclear" or "White House." After several days of monitoring, the hacktivists maintained a fairly mainstream communications vocabulary. For example, while the word "anarchy" was used 3 times, the word "freedom" was used 64 times. "Hate" scored a high 75, however it was outranked by "hope" with 138 instances. Several rare or unusual terms were also employed by the hacktivists at at least once during their weekend of web use. These include: kiwi, Fukuyama, and ninja (used 29 times!). Complete statistics appear at the end of this message.

If you are in search of an effective data collection and analysis solution, please try Carnivore. From schools to cybercafes to corporate offices, Carnivore brings meaning to information. Analysis tools are now available from Cory Arcangel/BEIGE, Mark Daggett, Josh Davis, Entropy8Zuper! and others. For more information, visit http://rhizome.org/carnivore

DIAGNOSTIC TOOL
Trigger Words #2 (a Carnivore Client)

LOCATION
Eyebeam Atelier, 540 W. 21st Street, New York City

DURATION
Start time: 13:57:28 Jan 30, 2002
End time: 23:11:23 Feb 2, 2002

ANALYSIS SUBJECTS
Las Agencias (http://www.lasagencias.net/)
The "bike writer" group from MIT (http://architecture.mit.edu/~atmarcus/bikewriter/writer.html)
Bureau of Inverse Technology (http://bureauit.org/)
Institute for Applied Autonomy (http://www.appliedautonomy.com/)
RTMark (http://rtmark.com/)
The Yes Men (http://theyesmen.org/)

TRIGGER WORD USAGE
————————————-
Meta 2226
Sport 1151
Cards 975
Chan 826
York 611
Keywords 547
Global 446
Rsta 397
Privacy 369
Erco 326
Tools 282
Virtual 275
Ssor 258
Electron 240
Market 239
Import 232
Package 198
Secure 198
Rail 173
D-11 165
SHAPE 164
Society 161
Mexico 157
Bank 143
Rita 143
Hope 138
Vale 138
Solo 114
SORT 112
Passwd 106
Force 104
Guest 103
Chelsea 98
Jack 97
Mole 96
Angela 89
Contacts 87
Zone 87
Unix 86
Blocks 85
Osco 82
Edition 77
Hate 75
Government 73
Tiger 73
NTIS 72
Football 67
Dictionary 65
Consul 64
Freedom 64
Garbage 64
Qrss 59
Tokyo 58
Virus 56
JAVA 52
Austin 50
Quarter 50
Taiwan 50
Evil 48
Fish 47
Mega 46
Fake 45
Archives 44
Alex 43
Chosen 41
Mania 40
President 40
Resta 40
Smith 40
Cocaine 38
Police 38
South Africa 38
RENS 37
Golf 36
Centro 35
Dead 33
Executive 33
Jasmine 32
Texas 32
White House 32
Credit card 31
Honor 31
Harvard 30
Replay 30
Face 29
Ninja 29
Reno 28
Bronze 27
SERT 27
Nike 26
Bach 23
Beef 23
Buzzer 23
CIDA 23
Gorilla 23
Starr 23
Codes 22
Floss 22
Atlas 21
MSNBC 21
Gatt 20
Panama 20
Military 19
Basement 18
Schloss 18
Asset 16
Illuminati 16
Morgan 16
NASA 16
Threat 16
Aladdin 15
Soros 15
Trump 15
Spook 14
Anonymous 13
Dolch 13
Flame 13
Jackson 13
Rubin 13
Siemens 13
Advise 12
Debugging 12
Kiwi 12
ISEC 11
MISSI 11
NAIA 11
Porno 11
ISSO 10
Mace 10
Toad 10
AT&T 9
Cowboy 9
EADA 9
Stanley 9
DERA 8
ISPE 8
ISTA 8
Rhost 8
Submiss 8
CUSI 7
Fraud 7
JICA 7
Marx 7
Moore 7
Sweep 7
USSS 7
ASIS 6
CISE 6
Clone 6
Embassy 6
Lynch 6
Nuclear 6
Pixar 6
Platform 6
Stephanie 6
Unclassified 6
Baldwin 5
Captain 5
Goldman 5
Iris 5
Morse 5
Nash 5
Smuggle 5
Active X 4
ASIO 4
Bess 4
Cable & Wireless 4
Explicit 4
Gamma 4
LATA 4
Monica 4
Nitrate 4
Roswell 4
SAFE 4
SARA 4
Shelter 4
SLIP 4
Anarchy 3
Badger 3
CCSS 3
Daisy 3
Delta 3
Investigation 3
Larson 3
LITE 3
Maple 3
NIMA 3
Nowhere 3
NSES 3
PCMT 3
Playboy 3
Recon 3
SAAM 3
Tajik 3
Vanuatu 3
Advisors 2
Agfa 2
BECCA 2
Bluebird 2
CBOT 2
Csim 2
DDIS 2
Elvis 2
Embassy 2
IDEA 2
JICC 2
JOTS 2
Montenegro 2
Nuclear 2
Pirg 2
RAID 2
Razor 2
SORO 2
Spoke 2
Sweeping 2
Talent 2
USCODE 2
Varon 2
Yakima 2
Analyzer 1
Armani 1
ASTS 1
BIOL 1
Blackjack 1
Bootleg 1
Burns 1
Canine 1
CCSC 1
Chatter 1
Competitor 1
Dort 1
Encryption 1
Fetish 1
Forschung 1
Freeh 1
Fritz 1
Fukuyama 1
Goodwin 1
GOTS 1
Grom 1
Gulf 1
Hackers 1
HALO 1
Indigo 1
ISAF 1
IWIS 1
Kosovo 1
Lacrosse 1
Lander 1
LLNL 1
Loch 1
Locks 1
Mantis 1
Merlin 1
MOSAIC 1
NCSA 1
NLSP 1
NSAS 1
Ortega 1
OTAN 1
OTAT 1
Peapod 1
Press-release 1
Reflection 1
S511 1
Salsa 1
SARD 1
SART 1
Schengen 1
SFPD 1
Sneakers 1
SSCI 1
STEP 1
T2S2 1
Telex 1
TSCM 1
Veggie 1
VFCT 1
WWSV 1
Yukon 1
ZNI1 1

http://rhizome.org/carnivore
http://www.potatoland.org/blackwhite/
http://www.lasagencias.net/
http://architecture.mit.edu/~atmarcus/bikewriter/writer.html
http://bureauit.org/
http://www.appliedautonomy.com/
http://rtmark.com/
http://theyesmen.org/