The Institute for Applied Autonomy was an activist group of anonymous artists known for employing technology in protest.
[1] The Institute for Applied Autonomy was founded in 1998 as an informal research collective around the central theme of contestational robotics.
[2][3][4] Its Mission statement was to "study the forces and structures which affect self-determination and to provide technologies which extend the autonomy of human activists.
[6][7] In 2003 they took part in the Cartographic Congress organised by the University of Openess in London[8] Their project TXTMob, a registration system for cell phones to allow protest groups rapid, anonymous communication,[9] was used during the 2004 Republican National Convention.
[11] In February 2008, the New York City Law Department issued a subpoena directed to the programmer of TXTMob, asking him to reveal users of the service and contents of messages sent during the convention.