In "Forsaken Geographies

What William Gibson calls "legitimate operators" in his 1984 sci-fi novel, Neuromancer.

In his work on modernities, Arjun Appadurai makes a distinction between what he terms mediascapes or arenas for the circulation of information, and ethnoscapes or spheres where individuals circulate. However, the arena of the network functions not simply as a platform for the circulation of information or signs, but as a place for the circulation of individuals and the formation of new ethnicities, also, hence my preference for the term ethnoscape. See Appadurai, Modernity at Large

Malcolm Waters argues that in a globalized culture, different and disparate ethnicities and communities are forced to position and define themselves in relation to one another within a unified, global configuration. What differentiates this relationship from that which exists between the network and the unconnected is that they are not unified into a singular, global configuration, and as the network becomes a dominant force in global power-relations and exchange, and as individuals turn to it more and more for validation and a sense of belonging in the post-global age, the less visible, less powerful world of the unconnected is relegated and forced to define itself, or be defined, on the outside and beneath this dominant ethnoscape.

Quite interestingly, while cultural activists and advocates of the Net are quick to point to "successful" representations of less privileged communities on the network such as Commandant Marcos's use of the Net to globalize the cause of the indigenous people of Chiapas, Mexico, what is rarely broached is under what moral authority such representations are made, and what ethical questions are raised by salvage ventures such as the Chiapas campaign and Commandant Marcos's Guevarian messianism among the indigenous people. Some might want to draw a line between the Marcos net campaign and the declaration of war against Iraq and China in July 1998 by an American hackers' group known as the Legion of the Underground (LoU). According to LoU, their plan to hack into and destroy the communications infrastructure of these two countries was in support of human rights and victims of human rights violations. It took the critical intervention of seven other hackers' groups to discourage LoU in its self-delegated mission by pointing out that this kind of cultural or political activism on the Net (now known as hacktivism), when taken to irresponsible extremes, could have unintended but devastating consequences on innocent victims. In the case of Iraq such an attack could have paralyzed what is left of the country's already beleaguered public health system, leading to the deaths of hundreds of women, men and children. Yet the fundamental principle is not particularly different, namely assumption of the right to represent or self-delegate on behalf of a group-in this case the supposedly oppressed masses of Iraq and China-without consultation or consent.

In "Desiring the Involuntary", Jonathan L. Beller writes about "involuntary forces" possessing the ability to "break the integrity of the subject," an expression that most aptly describes the potential impact of the network on the inherent agency or subjectivity of individuals and communities who cannot connect. See Beller in Wilson and Dissanayake, eds. Global|Local. Duke University Press. 1996. 197.

See Weekly Mail & Guardian, Johannesburg, 19 April, 1996

ibid.

See Okwui Enwezor, "Refraiming the Black Subject"

Though we cannot possibly deal here with all the numerous other examples of this situation, one may point out quickly that such violations are perhaps most evident with one of the most powerful enterprises on the Network, pornography. A good deal of the pornographic material traded or exchanged on the Net belongs to a category known as "user posts", some of which comprise of genuine images of unsuspecting individuals photographed in private or compromising circumstances and transmitted on the Net. Sometimes pooled under "voyeurism", many of these are obtained through discreet, mini-cameras planted in such unlikely places as the floors of public elevators or in public conveniences to capture compromising images of unsuspecting victims. There is no gainsaying the gender bias in this preoccupation. Often, too, the market for pedophiliac images is serviced by such devices. Again, the unconnected are more vulnerable since they have no means whatsoever to detect such infringements on their person. The fundamental ethical problem of encroachment on individual privacy that these practices raise does not in any particulars differ from that raised by another practice which is equally enabled by the Network. Here I mean the invasive use of web-cams in new media art where artists photograph or video-record unsuspecting individuals on street corners, public transit terminals, even public conveniences, and transmit the images on the web. Though some may consider it moot, it is my contention nevertheless that such practices may not be excused on grounds of creative license.

For a brief investigation of the persistence of the literary or textual mindset in general approaches to hypertext and cyberspace, see Michel A. Moos's reading of Marshall McLuhan, "McLuhan's Language" in Moos, ed. Media Research

Of course, physical contact and exchange in themselves may not constitute guarantees against the violation of the Other, as history indicates. However, it seems to me particularly frightening that the very concreteness of such contact, its shortcomings and uncertainties notwithstanding, should be replaced by severance and withdrawal into the virtuality of symbols, of signs taken wonders. One may also point out that in those historical instances when contact bred tragedy rather than understanding-slavery, colonialism, the conquest and decimation of first nations-there was little exchange in evidence, the same absence of exchange that increasingly characterizes the relationship of the networked to the unconnected.

This figure is credited to Oliver Smoot of the Information Technology Industry Council (ITI).

In "Imaginary Homes, Imagined Loyalties

Marshall McLuhan, "The Agent Bite of Outwit", Location, 1, 1, 1963, 41-44.