For longtime listeners of Parallax Views Barrett Brown needs no introduction. He's been a reoccurring guest on the program and is something of a legend for his rabble-rousing involvement in Anonymous. Now based in the U.K., after years of struggles in the U.S. including bouts with the FBI, Brown recently restarted Project PM, which dealt with investigating the cyber-military industrial complex (Palantir, HBGary, etc.), as well as starting Project Swartz (named after the late Aaron Swartz) and Project Hastings (named after the late Rolling Stone journalist Michael Hastings; who Barrett interacted/worked with). Brown believes that software technology can be used to assist dissident fighting powerful nation-states on the battlefield of global information warfare. He explains how Pursuance, his main project, is seeking to make this all a reality and discusses some of the problems activists face from federal law enforcement (the aim of Project Hastings is to assist activists and whistleblowers), how media incompetence and malfeasance needs to be called out (the aim of Project Hastings), and the possibilities for activits going forward in terms of information warfare networks that can be used to assist in the fight against corrupt nation-state and for democracy.

Bruno Tertrais, directeur adjoint de la Fondation pour la recherche stratégique