In 1999 , the secretive paramilitary organization , Delta Force , was deployed toSeattle , Wash. to appease protest at the World Trade Organization ’s summit . The police and the National Guard had their bridge player full with protestors who displayed the uncanny ability to function as a group . The dissenters , in what come to be cognize as the " Battle for Seattle , " were linked together via wireless gadget likecell phonesandtext messagingthat allow the grouping to work as a whole – and to reply to warning that the authorities were advance . The Seattle protestors in 1999 were among the humanity ’s firstsmart crime syndicate , so name because each soul in the group uses engineering to obtain data on where to go and what to do . This ability to stay on top of current result make smart mobs extremely effective .
forward-looking protests like this one inspired source and futurist Howard Rheingold to coin the terminal figure impertinent family . Rheingold jaunt around the world studying this behavior and realized that what he witnessed was the emersion of a new kind of civic disobedience , one in which mob use the very technology used against them to their advantage . This is calledsousveillance– watching from below [ source : Steffen ] . This type of notice uses readily available engineering science like handheldcamcordersto plow the lens on those who commonly are the I view . The bystander filming the beating of motorist Rodney King by theLos AngelesPolice Department in 1991 is an instance of sousveillance .
In Rheingold ’s volume , " Smart Mobs : The Next Social Revolution , " the generator conclude that the survival of objection in the twenty-first hundred depended on shrewdly employed technology . Fortunately for protestors , the twenty-first century has low-cost consumer electronics in aces . Applications likeTwitter , weblogsand the societal structure that ’s given rise toWeb 2.0all aid in the spry spending of data from one source to many . Thanks to things likeopen source cod , final neutralityandhackers , engineering has become " democratized " – the public constantly finds and share new elbow room to apply engineering .
It is this democratization of technology that set the stage for the growth of smart mob . Find out more about these mathematical group on the next varlet .
Smart Mob Communication
" As it stands now , no city onEarthcan’t be shut down by 10,000 serious swarming contestant , " writes author Alex Steffen . " Well trained in civil disobedience , linked bycell telephone set , e - mail , and onlinemaps … protesters can flow across an urban landscape with a upper and coherence that leaves certificate power scrub their heads " [ author : Steffen ] .
Swarming is the functional word in Steffen ’s description ; it is this characteristic that seduce a mob a smart one . By being linked together via technology , member of smart family can receive Christian Bible the police are on their way to a protest site , and go away chop-chop – only to reorganize in another area . As long as the constabulary are n’t privy to the communications the mob receive , the grouping should be able-bodied to remain one whole step forward .
A throng of people protesting together in a located arena is an easy butt for containment . But if all of the protesters pick up a simultaneous content to quickly diffuse , the corporate organism that is a protest can dethaw into its single parts . The dissent becomes just some people who may or may not cognise one another nonchalantly saunter business district .
Smart rabble are get down to have an shock on worldwide politics . In 2001 , Filipino President Joseph Estrada was drum out from power due in part to smart pack linked bytext messagesand organise public protests against him [ The New York Times ] .
While the wise rout that unseat Estrada search to remove a corrupt official from power , there is also the potency for a benighted side to smart pack . They can pose as much danger to humankind as they do an advantage . Rheingold writes " I on purpose used the word ' mob ' because of its dark resonance " [ source : Edge ] . While smart mobs can mastermind peaceable protests and create helpful networks for get together and disseminating info for public consumption , they can also stage terrorist attack and bloody coups .
Does this warrant the transition that Rheingold fears the public will be forced into – from using come out technology for new applications – to being forced to habituate devices in the manner for which they ’ve been created by a heart and soul group that controls technology ? In other words , does the potential for the abuse of emerging technology for evil outweigh the potential welfare of the enlightenment it can also channel ?
One of the many quotes for which Benjamin Franklin is famous may supply some brainstorm into this dilemma : " They that can give up essential autonomy to obtain a short temporary refuge deserve neither shore leave nor refuge " [ source : Ashcroft ] .
But by Howard Rheingold ’s definition , smart mobs need n’t have any variety of agendum – insurgent , dark or otherwise . They can only be chemical group of people outside of industry or corp who are link together via technology to achieve a coarse goal , or even just to have fun . show about some variation on the smart mob theme on the next page .
Smart Mobs for Fun (and the Common Good)
betimes in the twenty-first C , a smart mob tendency crop up in major cities around Europe , Asia and the United States . Inexplicably , manifestly unionise grouping of the great unwashed began showing up in seemingly random station and act in odd ways .
In Rome , a smart pack converge on a ledger computer memory ; the member insisted that shop class employee help oneself them receive nonexistent books . InNew York , a group formed a sassy rout and run into up at a toy memory , trembling in care on the level before a giantroboticdinosauron display . And in London , a group of smart mobbers showed up at a piece of furniture store and test out the couch . While relaxing , the members were each instruct to call a champion to distinguish their experience without using the letter " o " [ source : BBC ] .
Smart mobs like these are sometimes considered a variety of public presentation artistic creation , or at least a harmless buffoonery . Prince William , Prince of Wales has his own experience with this variety of smart mob . During 2002 , every move the prince made was textual matter messaged to a mob of more than 100 girls , who swarmed William anytime he step outside [ source : The New York Times ] .
The key to impudent mobs is their organization . While member may not have ever meet before they converge on an area , they are machinate via World Wide Web land site like Flock Smart , where they can recover detail on locations and instructions . Members of smart mobs in the loosest version of the definition need n’t go anywhere to participate , however . you could participate in a smart rabble within the confines of your own home .
An oft - cited example is a chemical group of technical school - savvy drug user intimate with satellite image single-valued function who created a Web site following Hurricane Katrina . fly New Orleans resident were able to log onto the situation to find out , in real time , what was happening to their region or if it had survived the storm [ source : Directions Magazine ] .
Another example is the @home electronic web movement , which leverages a smart crime syndicate – or rather , the power of their figurer – in a phenomenon bang as partake in computing . The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence Institute ( SETI ) offersSETI@Home , a program which allows exploiter to download SETI body of work unit for analytic thinking on habitation computers when they ’re not being used for other employment . This allows SETI to analyze monumental amounts of information assemble by radio telescopes around the universe . Stanford University’sFolding@Homeproject is exchangeable . Rather than look for alien sprightliness , however , this program seeks to uncover cures for diseases by developing a better sympathy of how proteins work .
By downloading an @home program program and allow the program ’s creators to utilize the power of your computer , under Rheingold ’s definition , you too can consider yourself a member of a smart mob . You are connected to a connection of hoi polloi you never met , using technology in a room that attain a coarse destination .
For more info on technology and other related topic , confabulate the next page .
