KTub8

Digital Solidarity
platforms that support a wide range of complex
interactions. The providers range from the corporate
media of self-communication with mass user base, to
hackers who run infrastructures for a much smaller
groups of skilled users, which are largely beyond the
control of third parties. The most spectacular examples
are WikiLeaks and The Pirate Bay which are still
operating despite years of persistent attempts to shut
them down. Overall this patchwork infrastructure is
extremely differentiated. While most people might use
the commercial elements most of the time, they do not
use these exclusively. It’s not unusual to have an account
on Facebook and on The Pirate Bay. Developers and
skilled users can string different elements together as
equired. This infrastructure enables not only new forms
of informational co-operation, but also of financing
(crowdfunding) and material production (shared tools,
open hardware manufacturing, 3D printing). While
the maintenance of infrastructural elements, with the
associated requirements of availability and stability, is
often a complex task in itself, the technical knowledge
to do so is also fairly distributed, and since much of it is
open source software, usually accessible to anyone with
sufficient interest. By now, almost all large scale cooperative
movements have their own technical working
groups that configure and extend the infrastructure of
co-operation, resource sharing, financing and, to a lesser
extent, are also already manufacturing or customising
these to their own needs.
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