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Tech

Hacking Is Occupying Is Hacking

The hacks of #Occupy are more than just a protest - they're changing the art of protest.
Lara Heintz
Κείμενο Lara Heintz

The raid on the Occupy stronghold of Zucotti Park left laptops smashed and wifi towers missing. Questions about the NYPD’s aggression may come down to lawsuits over property damage.

While “stuff” or “property” isn’t everything to the Occupy movement, neither is technology. Even thinking about the movement as an app or an API, as Alexis Madrigal recently did, doesn’t require an emphasis on the technology as much as it requires being able to recognize OWS as not only a physical occupation, but one that existed in meta space as well.

Still, there’s no denying that hacking the national political dialogue wouldn’t be quite the same without the clever real-life hacks of the movement’s tinkerers. Hackspace may be something that exists in dialogue but what, specifically, does that mean? Here are some of the cutting-edge hacks and clever grassroots technologies that have helped Occupy Wall Street, or #Occupy, transform the art and science of revolution.

Read the rest at Motherboard.