McGill University, March 3rd

Gabriella Coleman, an assistant professor on New York University's department of media, culture and communication, and a fellow at the institute for Advanced Study, couldn't be coming to McGill at a better time.

An anthropologist, Coleman studies the ethics of online collaboration and institutions, and the impact digital media are having on political activism, from political protests to the vigilante whistleblowers of Wikileaks. She's writing a book called Coding Freedom: Hacker Pleasure and the Ethics of Free and Open Source Software.

On March 3 at 5:30 p.m., she'll be at McGill's Arts building, where her topic will be Geek Politics and Anonymous: From the Offensive Internet to Human Rights Activism.

Coleman will focus on the ostensibly leaderless protest movement known as Anonymous, credited with using digital tools to push such recent power swings and cosmic shifts as protests during the election in Iran, denial-of-service attacks by Julian Assange's Wikileaks advocates and the hacking of Hosni Mubarak's website.

To get a sense of the kind of stuff Anonymous has been up to, check out this YouTube video about a protest against the activities of the Church of Scientology.