The Coming Swarm: DDOS Actions, Hacktivism, and Civil Disobedience on the Internet

The Internet has not only changed society as we know it, it also often reflects various aspects of society. But, it is in those nebulous gray areas between what happens in person and what happens on the Internet that important battles are being waged every day. And, one of those battles is the right to electronic protest.

The Coming Swarm is one person’s attempt to redefine DDoS actions as an electronic act of civil disobedience, assuring Internet activists have a right to protest in the absence of a public space on the Internet. (After all, you can’t protest on the sidewalk outside an online store, can you?)

A number of hot-button issues come into play here, including the actions of the Internet group, Anonymous, often hypocritical government intervention, the failure of laws to keep up with technology, and so-called “slacktivism” versus the glamorized history of the Civil Rights Movement.

Impressively, Sauter covers all of these topics and more in fewer than two hundred pages, crafting a cogent, convincing, and impassioned defense for a new frontier of social protest. The Coming Swarm poses a lot of questions that will only grow more important with time.