Comité Liquidant Ou Détournant Les Ordinateurs (C.L.O.D.O.)

CLODO Communique following attack on Philips Data Systems (1980)

9 April 1980

      Translator note

      AUTHENTIFICATION

      WHY THIS COMMUNIQUÉ?

      WHY THIS SABOTAGE?

      WHO ARE WE?

Translator note

CLODO (Committee for liquidation or subversion of computers) was a collective of machine-arsonists responsible for around a dozen attacks on computer sites between 1980 and 1983 in Toulouse and Paris. Their targets were multinational computer firms and governmental data processing sites. The present text was sent to the newspaper French Libération 5 days after CLODO had set the files and computers of Philips Data Systems and CII-Honeywell-Bull on fire.

AUTHENTIFICATION

Ask Albert Louys, the director of Philips Data Systems in Toulouse, to explain himself:

WHY THIS COMMUNIQUÉ?

We don’t see the point of press releases when actions speak for themselves. Unfortunately, some have have carelessly claimed an attack of which they are not the authors.

We support the organisation Action Directe, like we do all those who practice direct action against authority, but the communiqué previously sent to AFP is fake. We did not take any files, so there will not be any publications or ‘revelations’.

WHY THIS SABOTAGE?

As you will have suspected, we are IT workers, and are therefore well placed to understand the current and future dangers of IT and telematics. The computer is the preferred tool of the dominant. It is used to exploit, to file, to control, to repress. Tomorrow, telematics will establish ‘1984’; the day after: the programmed man, the man-machine…

This is what we are attacking, and will continue to attack. Our sabotage is only a more spectacular version of those attacks performed daily by us or by others.

WHO ARE WE?

We’re asking this question not to make it easier for the cops, but to clarify the obvious:

We sign: Comité Liquidant Ou Détournant Les Ordinateurs. (C.L.O.D.O.)


The communiqué appeared in Libération on 9 April 1980 under the headline “Le Clodo revendique l’attentat de Toulouse”.