ABSTRACT
This thesis examines the history, development, theory, and practice of distributed denialof service actions as a tactic of political activism. DDOS actions have been used inonline political activism since the early 1990s, though the tactic has recently attractedsignificant public attention with the actions of Anonymous and Operation Payback inDecember 2010. Guiding this work is the overarching question of how civildisobedience and disruptive activism can be practiced in the current online space. Theinternet acts as a vital arena of communication, self expression, and interpersonalorganizing. When there is a message to convey, words to get out, people to organize,many will turn to the internet as the zone of that activity. Online, people sign petitions,investigate stories and rumors, amplify links and videos, donate money, and show theirsupport for causes in a variety of ways. But as familiar and widely accepted activisttools—petitions, fundraisers, mass letter-writing, call-in campaigns and others—findequivalent practices in the online space, is there also room for the tactics of disruptionand civil disobedience that are equally familiar from the realm of street marches,occupations, and sit-ins? This thesis grounds activist DDOS historically, focusing onearly deployments of the tactic as well as modern instances to trace its developmentover time, both in theory and in practice. Through that examination, as well as tooldesign and development, participant identity, and state and corporate responses, thisthesis presents an account of the development and current state of activist DDOSactions. It ends by presenting an analytical framework for the analysis of activist DDOSactions.
