WTO ATTACKS WEBSITE, REAPS HUNDREDS OF OTHERS
As it meets in Qatar, WTO attempts to shut down
critical website;
group counters with site-stealing
software
Contacts: Jonathan Prince (jonathan@killyourtv.com)
Jean-Guy Carrier (jean-guy.carrier@wto.org) Verio
(copyright@verio.net) The Yes Men (info@theyesmen.org)
Software: http://www.theyesmen.org/yesiwill/
http://yesiwill.plagiarist.org/
http://detritus.net/projects/yesiwill/
Last Friday, Jonathan Prince, who owns the Gatt.org domain,
received a call from Verio, Gatt.org's upstream provider. The
World Trade Organization had just asked Verio to shut down the
domain for copyright violations, and Verio told Prince that it
would do just that if nothing was changed by November 13--the
last day of the Doha Ministerial, as it would happen. An
official email followed (http://rtmark.com/verio.html).
(Last-minute update: Verio's shutdown is currently expected
sometime after noon EST today--watch software sites above for
updates.)
"It's the war," says Prince. "Bush has popularized
zero-tolerance, and it's open season on dissent of any kind.
So just when they're meeting in Doha, the WTO has decided to
divert attention from its problems by attacking a website."
"Or maybe they really do want to make it so that protest
has as little place on the web as it does in Qatar," adds
Prince.
Oddly enough, the WTO has been aware of the parody website
since before the 1999 Ministerial in Seattle, when it issued a
public statement claiming the site misled visitors
(http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/pres99_e/pr151_e.htm).
Two weeks ago, the WTO issued another release
(http://www.wto.org/english/news_e/news01_e/gattdotorg_e.htm),
this one claiming that Gatt.org was harvesting e-mails, an
allegation reprinted as fact in some newspaper articles
(http://rtmark.com/pressgat.html).
While it may be puzzling why the WTO chose to issue a
second press release about Gatt.org two years later, it is
even more surprising that they are now taking concrete steps
to stop the critical site. In statements made just last week
to the French daily newspaper Liberation and to others, WTO
spokesperson Jean-Guy Carrier stated that "It's not our job to
use legal means against people. We appreciate dissidence and
honest criticism."
Why the sudden change of attitude?
"They got nervous, it's only human," said Elaine Peabody, a
spokesperson for The Yes Men (http://www.theyesmen.org), the
group that maintains the Gatt.org website. "The WTO remembers
what happened the last time they had one of these meetings [in
Seattle]. They felt like tackling something they knew they
could handle--and a satirical website fit the bill."
BATTLE HEATS UP
But the WTO could well have stepped on a hornets' nest. To
counter the attack, the Yes Men have are releasing today a
piece of open-source "parodyware"
(http://theyesmen.org/yesiwill/) that will "forever make this
kind of censorship obsolete," according to Peabody.
"Using this software, it takes five minutes to set up a
convincing, personalized, evolving parody of the WTO.org
website, or any other website of your choice," said Peabody,
who helped to develop the program. "All you need is a place to
put it--say, WTOO.org, WorldTradeOrg.com, whatever."
The software, called "Yes I Will!", automatically
duplicates websites as needed, changing words and images as
the user desires--with results that can be very telling. The
WTO site can be made to speak of "consumers" and "companies"
rather than "citizens" and "countries." Unleashed on the
CNN.com website, the software can simplify the reporting even
further by referring to Bush as "Leader," and the war in
Afghanistan as one between "Good" and "Evil"; a Time.com
article linked from the site then discusses "The Poor Way of
War". The parody site updates itself automatically as the
target website changes.
"The idea is to insure that even if they shut down our
website, hundreds of others will continue our work of
translation," said Peabody. "The more they try to fight it,
the funnier they're going to look."
"Such heavy-handed tactics work as poorly in cyberspace as
they do on the geopolitical stage," said Cooper Kharms,
another Yes Man. "At least Gatt.org was transparent: you could
tell what it was by reading a line or two. These other sites
may not be so obvious."
Prince thinks the software, while interesting, is not a
solution. "With their attack on Gatt.org, an unelected,
unaccountable organization is running roughshod over the USA
Bill of Rights," said Prince. "But every day they violate
people's rights in the Third World, or enable corporations to
do so. This time it's just closer to home."
For more on the legal basis of the WTO's attack, see also
http://dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=15296&group=webcast
RTMark's primary goal is to publicize corporate subversion
of the democratic process. To this end it acts as a
clearinghouse for anti-corporate projects.
www.theyesmen.org/yesiwill/
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