Hackers: Uncle Sam Wants You!

scraemondaemon writes: "A new TV public service announcement targets U.S. computer hacktivists with a blunt message: Uncle Sam wants you to help fight the war on terrorism. They demonize you and criminalize you and then ask for your help. What's a hacker to do?"

Comments

In the famous words of...

[The Slashdolt]

"Ask not, what your country can hack for you. Ask what you can hack for your country"
-The Slashdolt

Re:In the famous words of...

[atrowe]

They're not going to recruit anyone with that crap. They need to appeal the the hackers themselves. Something along the lines of "hax0rs, uncle sam wants j00!"

What's a hacker to do?

[Che Guevarra]

They demonize you and criminalize you and then ask for your help. What's a hacker to do?"

Be an American and fight for our survival. You think they'd have messed with 767's if they had nukes? This isn't a game.

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Platinum Dragon]

You think they'd have messed with 767's if they had nukes? This isn't a game.

You think they'd have done anything at all if the CIA, through Pakistan's ISI, hadn't trained them to be extremists? Like you said, this isn't a game - I just wish states and their "intelligence" arms would realize that next time someone involved with them feels like installing a military junta or training "freedom fighters" to "uphold policy". Nations in both East and West are guilty of this, and until these deadly cloak-and-dagger games of subversion and manipulation stop, there will be more incidents involving "blowback," where innocent civilians - like WTC employees, and women in Afghanistan - get caught in the crossfire of others who should know better.

And you wonder why people trust their governments less and less...

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Fifth of Five]

They were extremists already, we just toaught them to be more efficient and effective during a time (the Cold War era) when "the enemy of my enemy" was my friend. Shortly after the WTC/Pentagon attacks one of the previous administration's policy men (sorry, I don't remember who) hit the nail on the head when he said (paraphrasing here) that walking away from Afghanistan after the Soviet withdrawal was clearly one of the worst mistakes the west had ever made.

One would hope we learn from this...

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Guppy06]

"You think they'd have messed with 767's if they had nukes?"

Hell yes! The goal of these extremists is to destabalize the US and give their own forces a chance to set up what is essentially a police state across the Muslim world. Think of the Iron Curtain back in the bad old days.

Stratfor.com suggests that bin Laden and his peers feel that they can get the US out of the picture by dragging the US into another Vietnam-esque war, destabalizing the US government as Americans get pissed off once again at the meat grinder war a conventional invasion of Afghanistan would turn out to be.

The reason such an invasion of Afghanistan would be such a pain is because we need to borrow other countries' airspace (if not ground bases). A nuclear attack by these terrorists, on the other hand, would justify a nuclear response by the US on the terrorsits and their sponsor countries (legally if not morally). ICBMs don't need to travel through anybody's airspace but ours and the target's. We might be nice and borrow Pakistan's airspace just long enough to send over B-52s to drop leaflets warning civilians near targets to get out of the way, but that's it.

When it's all over, instead of taking over the Islamic world, there may not be an Islamic world for these people to take over.

These people may be cruel, but they're not stupid. They know they need a US hampered by it's own morality/decadence/sloth (depends on your point of view) than MIRVs raining down on their heads.

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Reality Master 101]

You think they'd have done anything at all if the CIA, through Pakistan's ISI, hadn't trained [globalresearch.ca] them [public-i.org] to be extremists [msnbc.com]? Like you said, this isn't a game.

It never has been a game. Why don't you look at why we did what we did, rather than use 20/20 hindsite? The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan for the purpose of eventually invading Saudi Arabia.

It's easy to criticize now, but it's hard to argue with the result that Saudi Arabia did NOT fall into Soviet hands, which would have been a disaster for the free world. How soon we forget the threat of Soviet expansionism.

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Redline]

Be an American and fight for our survival.

Rather odd to hear "Che Guevarra" say that, considering he was executed by the CIA in Bolivia in 1967.

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Platinum Dragon]

yeah, the world would just suck if the soviets had invaded saudi arabia... why exactly?

This didn't occur to me while mulling over RM101's post, but your post reminded me that a lot of the battling over the Middle East can be summed up in one word: "oil." A Soviet invasion of Saudi Arabia (assuming they made it through Iran and Afghanistan) would give them control over massive oilfields, also assuming they managed to win.

This would either have triggered an all-out, direct U.S.-Soviet conflict, or pushed the U.S. to find alternative sources of fuel and raw materials. In fact, there's an easily-available one that can be grown in the U.S. right now... but it's illegal, thanks to Will Hearst, DuPont, the Mellon Bank, et al.

Back to the Soviets... I'm not a fan of their regime either. I don't like imperialist nations, whether they claim to be socialist or democratic. The true colors of a nation come out in their treatment of smaller populations - and neither the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. did great in that regard during the Cold War. Arguably, the U.S. has tried to rebuild some bridges since... but those darn intelligence and military arms manage to keep futzing things up for everyone, under the guise of "national interests."

More later, once I feel like writing a direct reply to RM101.

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Reality Master 101]

Yeah, I guess the Soviet Union was just a misunderstood "alternative" system. The fact that they slaughtered 30 million of their own citizens is just a vicious rumor. All those stories of people being put into psychiatric hospitals when they "mental illness" caused them to doubt communism are just fantasies. I guess all those countries they invaded just welcomed them in.

How foolish that the ENTIRE WORLD was to believe that they were oppressing their citizens. Too many spy novels, apparently. I mean, who needs free press, free speech and other silly liberties when the government is giving you free bread?

And Hitler was just a misunderstood Libertarian who wanted to "free" the Jews.

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[RelliK]

Just want to correct the false statement. Soviet Union did not "invade" Afganistan. They went there to stop the civil war and restore the communist government. And where did you get the information that Soviet Union wanted to invade Saudi Arabia?

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[Reality Master 101]

And where did you get the information that Soviet Union wanted to invade Saudi Arabia?

I was reading an article recently, but unfortunately I can't find it. It had quite a bit of recent middle east history. It might have been Time or Newsweek, but I don't seem to be able to find it.

The gist of it was that the bases that we used in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War had been built after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. It went on to say that they were built because it was believed that Saudi Arabia was a target of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, I can't find a direct reference, so I can't back up the statement.

Re:What's a hacker to do?

[RelliK]

The gist of it was that the bases that we used in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War had been built after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan

Hah! That's true only insofar as the bases in Saudi Arabia were built for the purpose of attacking Iraq in the Gulf War, which chronologically was after Soviet Union had moved into Afganistan. It was also after Soviet Union had moved out :-) By no means was it a result of the war in Afganistan.

This is exactly what pissed off Osama bin Laden, BTW -- the presence of US troops in the holy land and their continued attacks on Iraq.

question

[WeaselGod]

Do I get Stock Options?

Re:question

[Lizard_King]

hmmm... laughed at this comment at first, but then something struck me. If the government is serious about finding legitimate hackers to help, they may have to offer some sort of benefit to them. Really, this is not a joke...the gov does not want an army of kiddies who don't know shit about computers and infiltration other than running other people's code. They're gonna want the best of the best (if they are serious about launching some sort of information attack). These people probably all have very time consuming jobs and may not necessarily want to start virtual freedom fighting for their country (grandiose assumption).

I guess my point is that the government may want to consider a benefit for someone who volunteers their time. I know that the righteous argument is that everyone should want to help/fight for their country, but we all know that this is clearly not the case. If we want the best, we may need to offer something in return

Re:question

[StikyPad]

The government's philosophy has been that if patriotism isn't incentive enough, you probably aren't trustworthy enough. If it takes money to get you to work for our government, then theoretically, money could just as easily get you to work for an opposing government or entity. That said, they do pay comparable rates of a job in the civilian sector, but don't expect to get rich.

you've won a new car!

[Choco-man]

simply come to the (insert local large public gathering place here) to pick up your prize!

a trick routinely employed by authorities to catch wanted criminals. they send out a mass mailing to wanted individuals stating they've won something fantastic, and all they have to do is show up to claim it. they show up, and their prize is an all expense stay in levenworth 8-)

of course, i'm sure our government wouldn't do something like this to hackers.

for the motivated, self starter, http://www.shamalbank.com/ is a bank with known bin laden accounts 8-)

not that i'm suggesting anything...

Re:you've won a new car!

[passion]

The bin Laden family is rich and large - at least 53 members in the business.

Do you have a black sheep to your family? I do, but he drives fast cars, smokes cigars, and lives alone. He isn't a rich raving lunatic with a chip on his shoulder.

Is the rest of the bin Laden family necessarily guilty? Perhaps you've been watching too much of the Sopranos.

Re:you've won a new car!

[Zathrus]

Actually, that tactic is often used to serve warrants. Not sure if it's ever been used to arrest people.

On topic, however, note that they don't appear to ask you to "come forward", they just ask you to not screw up the Net in retalitory attacks.

Oh, and finally, do you know that the bank in question has accounts owned by Osama bin Laden, or merely by the bin Laden family? The bin Laden family disowned Osama nearly a decade ago, froze most of his funds, and have done a great deal of good work, both in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Including a Israeli-Palestinian student exchange program to try and reduce misunderstandings and violence in Israel.

Re:you've won a new car!

[Andux]

Like I said in my journal, sounds like classic good-cop/bad-cop to me:

Ashcroft: "Hey, you! Yeah, you! Quit fucking with government websites, you little twerp! Do you want life in prison? Do you aspire to be a terrorist? Listen, you little bastard! If you think you can get away with this, you don't stand a snowball's chance in hell! I will find you, and I will bury you in the deepest hole–"
Cyberangels: "Please excuse him, he's having a bad day. See, we're having trouble getting intel on bin Laden and his pals. Maybe you can help us out here..."

Re:you've won a new car!

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

http://www.shamalbank.com is hosted at http://www.activeisp.com which appears to have the colo in London but the HQ addy on the contact page is in San Jose. Considering that Shamal Bank looks like a static site only, they're prolly on a shared host. I would highly recommend not attempting to take this box out, since you could be facing a number of criminal charges from both US and European companies. Besides activeisp.com is prolly pretty innocent. Shamal Bank's website was done by http://www.sudanshop.co.uk who also hosts at activeisp.com (on a different box -- merkur vs. neptun). If anyone wants to go figure out how many domains are pointing to these boxes, it would be nice to know how many lawsuits the motivated, self starter will be facing.

On the bright side though, this is most definately a W2K box as that is what activeisp seems to be pushing, so breaking in should be really easy.
Again, use your own time and tools to figure this info out for sure.... I can't be bothered right now.

Re:you've won a new car!

[snubber1]

except most criminals could get out due to this kind of arrest being called entrapment. Only if they are legimately giving away a prize may that do such a thing. I heard of some cops sending out free baseball tickes to one parcular game to a bunch of convicted DUI people with suspended licenses. Anyone who didn't show up in a taxi/bus/passenger vehicle (driving without a license) was arrested on the spot. All the other guys got to go to the game.

Re:you've won a new car!

[Ryan Amos]

The rest of the bin Laden family wants absolutely nothing to do with Osama. They disowned him years ago and took away what they could of his money. Osama bin Laden:Islam::David Koresh:Christianity. The bin Laden family is actually a respectible family who have done a lot of good, they just have one wacko cousin who gives them all a bad name.

They have actually returned to Saudi Arabia in fear of vigilantism against them. Probably a smart idea, even though they have and want nothing to do with Osama.

They ask hackers to help them.

[SpanishInquisition]

But they don't say how.
For all we know maybe they just want to test biological weapons on us.

Re:They ask hackers to help them.

[AaronStJ]

They ask hackers to help them.
But they don't say how.
For all we know maybe they just want to test biological weapons on us.

From the article:

"Cyberangels hopes to enlist politically motivated hackers instead to help with online intelligence gathering, such as tracking down computer criminals who attempt to attack the Internet infrastructure, said Aftab.

The organization is also seeking information on any terrorist groups that may have attempted to commission computer security experts to aid them, she said."

Seems pretty clear to me. Contact the cyberangels and offer your services if you believe you can help gather intelligence, or give them ayn info you may have on terrorists attemptimg to commission security experts.

It looks to me like they have contact info on their website

well, they actually don't want you

[Archie Binnie]

The largest part of the campaign actually seems to not be so much that they want your help, but that they want to politely ask you to not go an muck stuff up that you shouldn't...

Agreed

[geek]

Plus the Marines, Navy and Army have never to my knowledge demonized hackers, I believe that was all the DOJ's doing.

"retaliatory hacking " attack what?

[Lawmeister]

"Earlier this month, a German group known as the Chaos Computer Club publicly appealed to hackers worldwide not to engage in retaliatory hacking in the wake of the terrorist attacks."

Aren't the Afgan's essentially in the stone age? - at least that's what has been spun in the media to us all.

What potential targets would hackers have?

Re:"retaliatory hacking " attack what?

[Danse]

We can only hope you're right about that. But most likely the Afghans will end up being the innocent victims this time.

I'm in favor of this

[xTown]

Frankly, I was hoping that there'd be an opportunity for those of us who are old and/or out of shape to do something more to help the war effort than just giving blood. I can't shoot for beans, but I can run cables and configure routers and code and so on and so on. I'd love to do something meaningful.

Re:I'm in favor of this

[ZaMoose]

...Or suffer from scoliosis and some of the worst eyes in the world, but can code some mean admin scripts!

I can shoot, theoretically, 'cause I've played all the Quake games, and, according to Lieberman and crew, this qualifies me as a triple-A marksman.

Plus, I have extensive anti-terrorist training by way of all the Counterstrike hours I've logged. The gov't could just drop be into de_kabul and let me frag away!

Re:I'm in favor of this

[ZaMoose]

Errrm, "s/drop be/drop me/g"

Re:I'm in favor of this

[Rupert]

I think dropping Be on Kabul would be a bad idea. There are no rootkits for BeOS. How would we haXor Al Qeyda then?

Re:I'm in favor of this

[ZaMoose]

If we dropped enough BeOS CD's from a great enough altitude... we'd have shiny, deadly missiles with superior multimedia capabilites!

Plus, everyone knows, every bit of marketshare Be can grab is a good thing.

Re:I'm in favor of this

[ZaMoose]

No no no! That's what we don't want! Can you imagine the "Taliban rox0rs, US sux0rs" spamming of the AIM servers?

Wait a tick... Maybe it could be a good thing. Sure, those poor Afghanis think they're going to be able to call up AOHell after their 1000 hours runs out and cancel, but have you ever tried to get through to Tech Support? We'd cripple their financial infrastructure by way of recurring credit card charges that won't go away!

'Course, last I checked AOL wasn't accepting either rocks or opium as valid currency...

No mixed messages here.

[alhaz]

Go read the actual article. Fret not, they're still demonizing and criminalizing.

(They're asking 'hacktivists' to lay off)

good lord - this world today

[macsox]

six months ago i would never have imagined vint cerf appearing in an ad during a new buffy on upn telling me not to hack web sites in afghanistan.

funny how things change.

Easy to see why they're doing this.

[jd]

They want the best! If the best are given the choice of being locked up, or serving Uncle Sam, they're not going to take much convincing.

This is really the greatest recruitment campaign ever! If the Govt wants to let the hacker go, but doesn't want to risk them breaking into their former boss' company, label them a terrorist and have them serve 50 years. Before trial.

If the hacker is hired by someone else, then their current bosses are "harboring a terrorist" and have two choices - let them go, or go to jail themselves. Again, that's a no-brainer for most bosses.

Since hackers tend to be more into the craft than martyrdom, the consequences are painfully obvious. Every single highly-skilled computer geek under the sun will switch to working for the US Government, under duress and with their new boss under NO obligation to honor any kind of ethical standard. The risks of not doing so are just too high for most people.

remember Alan Turing...

[jptxs]

it's far from being the first time hackers have been called to serve in the way only they can. we can probably thank goodness for it too or guys like Turing would never had had the chance to invent these curious machines we're all so occupied with...

Re:remember Alan Turing...

[Matthew Luckie]

using this line of reasoning, the government and the church will then persecute us after we have become surplus.

Yes, spam the enemy!

[cruelworld]

After we haxor his boxen and root his servers and change all of their index.html files, then and ONLY then will Omar Bin Laden and his cohorts know they have been owned.

Their server farms and e-commerce terrorist sites that litter the internet cafes of Afghanistan will feel our rath. Our exploits will decimate their ftp sites and not a single router will go unpunished.

Re:Yes, spam the enemy!

[SuiteSisterMary]

Well, seeing as how this was a direct attack against a citizenry, as opposed to an attack against a country or a military, it does seem fitting for the citizenry to strike back....

Uncle Sam??

[karb]

Maybe I'm crazy, but usually Uncle Sam is representative of the U.S. government, or possibly the country. But I don't think most people associate him with the 'cyberangels', which, incidentally, sounds like saturday afternoon programming on UPN.

Rubicom for hacktivists

[perdida]

Well, I have said for a long time that the computer medium was just as "real" in a philosophical sense as any other territory. The people who wage battles on this territory need to decide why they use their skills to make political statements in "hacktivism."

Do they want to criticize the system which establishes the Internet on which they operate? To reform it?

Or do they want to transform it?

Hacktivism may involve what I call "Matrix" tactics soon - like the people in the Matrix, people who want freedom on the internet will have to evade universal identification and tracking systems that are put there by a central, all-encompassing authority in whose name the internet itself is maintained and operated.

That means, instead of throwing up a banner with some poorly written political prose, they will have to maintain entire alternate networks of communication to maintain their own freedom.

I fear that many people, seeing the true weaponry and force of the enforcement authorities arrayed against them (and ready to name them "terrorist") will drop into Uncle Sam's ranks.

I hope that more people will stick their foot in the door of technological freedom before it slams shut, and will keep it there for free communication.

Simple solution...

[TWX_the_Linux_Zealot]

"They demonize you and criminalize you and then ask for your help. What's a hacker to do?"

Simple... hold out for more money :)

This is an important step for white-hat hackers

[Starship Trooper]

Hackers, until now, have received nothing but bad press. They have been vilified and alienated ever since personal computing took off in the mid-80's. This negative portrayal was one of the major reasons the MPAA was able to win their case against 2600 and DeCSS: by painting the defendants as "hackers", the case instantly became upper-class versus no-class, a battle the upper class always wins.

It looks like this can change. If we hackers take up the United States' call for help, it will help garner the positive attention we need to get our views heard. While fighting terrorism, we will also be fighting the image of the "evil" hacker that has been ingrained in the public psyche. I urge you to take this major step. Once hackers become heroes, we will finally be able to stand up against Corporate Interest. Remember, image is everything.

Re:This is an important step for white-hat hackers

[Rkane]

## begin sarcasm ##
You nailed it, bud. The American Government has always been honest and true to what it says. Politicians never lie, so we know that every hacker will be free to go when this war is over. They would never jump on the opportunity to go after someone after that helped the U.S.!
## end sarcasm ##

Ironically, it isn't even Uncle sam that is putting out this message. In fact, the government has nothing to do with it. Even if you did become a hero, it would be in the eyes of the "Cyberangels"... and I'm sorry, but that just sounds too much like a cheap movie title where cameron diaz learns how to be an 31337 haX0r...

Re:This is an important step for white-hat hackers

[camusflage]

I'm sorry, but that just sounds too much like a cheap movie title where cameron diaz learns how to be an 31337 haX0r...

Shit, Cameron Diaz is there? Hacking, government job, and Cameron Diaz. Where do I sign up?!

It's not so much that they're asking for help...

[TheTomcat]

It's not so much that they're asking for help... more like "If you're going to spraypaint stuff, at least come to us, and we'll put you to work on a mural or something."

The write-up made it sound like Uncle Sam was putting together a crack commando unit of hackers.

Do they talk to each other

[TheStruuus]

Didn't they just bring up a bill that would consider hacking as terrorism? Do any of these people talk to each other?

Hackers are 'Terrorists' Under Ashcroft's New Act

-TheStruuus

Foreign Policy deja vu

[eknuds]

Wow, this sounds like our foreign policy.

Step 1: Fight those bad people.

Step 2: Hey, they could be useful to us.

Step 3: Let's give them tools and have them fight our war for us. Call CNN and let them know about these freedom fighters

Step 4: Hmmmm, they aren't useful to us anymore. Better call CNN and tell them to start calling them bad people again. At least we know who they are now.

Laughable!

[don_carnage]

Two hacker favorites -- USA Cable's Sci-Fi Channel, and UPN's hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- would be perfect places to air the spot, said Aftab, who is on the advisory committee of the Advertising Council, a nonprofit which helped put together the "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" public service campaign.

Wow. I'm in awe here people. They've got them there hackers pegged!

Thankfully, "double jeopardy" still governs

[alewando]

While the superficial similarities between rewarding spook hackers and punishing civilian hackers seem sufficient to establish gross hypocrisy on the part of the Federal government, it's in fact little different from the time-honored tradition of our military and other militaries which, for aeons, have hired people to commit the same act of killing that would be punished as murder if it had been committed by a civilian acting without state authorization. Big deal.

What's more, the Sixth Amendment's "double jeopardy" clause is still in effect (one of the few clauses with some teeth left in it after decades of judicial erosion). If the Federal government establishes an arrangement whereby criminal acts are committed by individuals acting under government aegis and with the encouragement of state agents, then those acts cannot be subsequently punished (apart from certain situations such as genocide and other circumscribed offenses). One only need remind oneself of Whitey Bulger (on the FBI's most wanted list) who has gotten the FBI into a bit of a morass by acting as an informant for many years and during those years receiving tacit permission from the FBI to commit all manner of offenses including murder. The egg on the FBI's face hangs pendulously, because the FBI is now without legal recourse to punish those acts.

That glib tone is unbecoming, by the way.

Re:Thankfully, "double jeopardy" still governs

[ecampbel]

The sixth amendment says nothing about receiving immunity from prosecution if your offences where committed while working for the government. It reads:

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

What you say sounds logical (you're obviously not going to be prosecuted for hacking into the computer systems of Afghanistan while working for the CIA), but the bill of rights is not what gives you this immunity. Finally, there are numerous examples of people being prosecuted for crimes committed while working for the government. Remember Oli North? Saying, "I was ordered to do it," is not always a valid excuse."

uh, hello

[olim]

I hope that screamondaemon is aware that the CEO of WorldCom isn't exactly representative of the US Government. The spot sounds to me like a bunch of network owners (those who have the most to lose from even friendly hacking) utilizing the national situation to further their own anti-hacking ends. "Please mister hacker, secure my system for free -- we all have to unite against terrorists after all."

On the other hand, I don't exaactly think that a bunch of vigilante crackers is going to do more good than harm, so I'm not really against the message of the ad.

Target audience

[StikyPad]

Two hacker favorites -- USA Cable's Sci-Fi Channel, and UPN's hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- would be perfect places to air the spot, said Aftab, who is on the advisory committee of the Advertising Council, a nonprofit which helped put together the "Friends Don't Let Friends Drive Drunk" public service campaign.

Buffy? You'd get better hacker demographics by advertising on AOL. Or Slashdot. Oh wait..

Wait a second...

[BIGJIMSLATE]

...I thought under the ATA, hackers WERE terrorists! ;)

Re:Wait a second...

[Rothfuss]

No...

If you are hacking for the Gubment, I assure you, you will be called a Freedom Fighter.

...and then they killed him.

[Joseph Vigneau]

Turing's work saved countless thousands of lives, and was instrumental in developing the theories of modern mathematics and computer science.

But, that wasn't good enough for the British, who later killed him for being a homosexual..

Re:...and then they killed him.

[ichimunki]

Not to mention that the air force is actively ousting out gays right now-- in spite of their other orders to discontinue many types of discharge to stem personnel loss.

Re:One word... Mitnick

[Rai]

somehow i doubt mitnick will be rushing to the frontlines of this campaign.

"not today, uncle sam, not today. i've dealt with you before. didn't work out too well for me."

What's a hacker to do?

[donutello]

They demonize you and criminalize you and then ask for your help. What's a hacker to do?

If this is a reference to the proposed measures against "hacking offences", then you need to re-read the laws that are being proposed. They are neither as bad or as radical as the Slashdot article about it like to make it to be.

As far as what's a hacker to do, it's very simple: Do your part to protect the lives of innocent people and fight the war against those who don't respect the rights of humans to live.

Its our time now

[fosh]

Let me just start by letting everyone know I live (and am currently typing this) from Manhattan.

I used to dislike cops. THey harassed me, the were disrespectful to me, and messed with my friends.

I take it all back. All of it.

I have a new respect for all police in New York City since the attacks on the world trade center. They, along with the firemen all risked thier lives to help get people out of the buildings as quickly as they could. But, as you know, the building collapsed, trapping thousands (literally) of New York's finest men and women, who selflessly gave thier lives to help the rest of us.

Now, when I see a police man on the street, I smile at him. He is ensuring my safety, and the safety of others.

Now, its our turn. Sure, the government may have "demonized" us before. But times are fundamentally different now. This is not about image, or public policy, this is about honest to god people. People's lives, thousands, mabey millions of people, are at risk. I for one will do ANYTHING, yes ANTHING, the government needs done. (And yes, if they have enough tech people, I will gladly go to the front line in Afganistan, or Iraq, or wherever).

It is now our turn to step up, and help defend our country.

Make no mistake, our society, our values, the very things that allowed us to achieve such levels of science and technology, is under attack.

Lets show those bastards they messed with the wrong people
--Alex Fishman

Re:Its our time now

[tester13]

As a resident of Brooklyn I can sympathize with your statement to a point. However, just because the police did a good job with this current tragedy does not mean that all their other behavior is acceptable. We still need to keep a close eye on those that are protecting us, as they have proven themselves in the past to be not responsible enough for us to ignore.

I caution you to avoid the urge to let things slide that should not. The police department may have acted well in this situation (and I assume they have), however very few residents will deny that their past abuses make them a completely trustworthy agency.

I urge you not to ignore the facts in the name of patritoism

Re:Its our time now

[mattkime]

About 24 hours ago I might have agreed with you. But now, I do not.

Last night I was walking through a park in Manhattan at 11 pm. I do this a lot, it clears my head. I saw an NYPD patrol car cruising through the park. Rather than run away or hide from them, I continued on my path as they approached. What did I have to hide?

They asked me to approach the car, I did. They explained to me that the park closed at 10 and that I was not supposed to be there. They asked for id, which I gave them. Then they explained to me that I would need to appear in court in about a month. I have to go to court because I was walking through a park, no reason more.

What will happen in court? I have no idea. The police claimed that I will probably just be told not to walk through the park anymore. If I don't go? A warrant for my arrest...for not appearing in court on charges for "Failure to Comply With Sign."

Yes, some members of the NYPD have done heroic things. However, there are at least two of them that have nothing better to do than to treat a harmless citizen as though a criminal.

This doesn't necessarily apply to my experience but I can understand that we need to tight up security in light of recent events. However, we are running the risk of a new era of McCarthyism, where we create criminals out of those who simply step out of line.

I did not meet two heros in a patrol car last night.

Re:Its our time now

[Rogerborg]

• I have a new respect for all police in New York City since the attacks on the world trade center. They all risked thier lives to help get people out of the buildings as quickly as they could

For which we all thank and admire them. It's a curious quirk of human nature that in a real crisis, a little switch gets thrown in our brains, and we put aside petty selfishness and start acting like real balls out heroes.

What we have to hope now is that we learn the lesson that the little stuff, all the petty bullshit and power plays, doesn't matter. Citizens, let the cops do their jobs. Cops, don't hassle the citizens for the little stuff.

Re:Its our time now

[nellardo]

Let me just start by letting everyone know I live (and am currently typing this) from Manhattan.

Me too. East 11th Street between First and Second Avenues. For those readers not so intimately familiar with Manhattan geography, that puts me a couple miles, perhaps, from the WTC (takes about 30 minutes to walk there). It also put my apartment inside the neighborhood Rudy Giuliani closed in the wake of the WTC attack.

I used to dislike cops. THey harassed me, the were disrespectful to me, and messed with my friends.

I had no such direct personal beef with cops. I'm white. Aside from tattoos (pretty common in my neighborhood), I don't especially stand out as a trouble-maker. I had severe reservations on police behavior, based on ethical profiling, the spurious War on Drugs, and other abuses, but this wasn't based on anything police did to me personally.

I take it all back. All of it.

I don't. I'm more scared of cops than ever before. Perhaps you live in a part of Manhattan where didn't have to show a police officer your ID simply to take a right turn on 14th street to walk home. The prospect of police being given that kind of power at all is terrifying.

I have a new respect for all police in New York City since the attacks on the world trade center. They, along with the firemen all risked thier lives to help get people out of the buildings as quickly as they could. But, as you know, the building collapsed, trapping thousands (literally) of New York's finest men and women, who selflessly gave thier lives to help the rest of us.

I'm reminded instead of a scene in Ashes of Victory by David Weber. This is the latest in the Honor Harrington series of sci-fi novels. Honor has recently broken out of the worst prison planet known, taking more than 400,000 prisoners with her. Starting out imprisoned herself, with no access to equipment other than two shuttlecraft and short her own left arm and left eye. The Queen of Manticore (Honor's boss) and her Prime Minister want to give Honor the highest award for valor that she can.

Honor declines. Because everything she did was her duty. It was her job. It was amazing and heroic and spectacular, but it was nothing more and nothing less than her duty required of her. It was her duty to escape if she could. It was her duty to help subordinates if she could. So she did.

I don't mean to denigrate or reduce in any way, shape, or form, the efforts rescuers have put into the WTC situation. But bluntly, the police and fireworkers did exactly what they were supposed to. They risked their lives, but that's what they signed up for. For a while, police recruiting posters in New York had a line to the effect of "Most people wouldn't take this job for a million dollars. Some do it for a lot less."

Their heroic actions in rescue efforts doesn't mitigate or excuse abuses or crimes of the past. Does pulling a corpse out of the rubble make it okay for a cop to shoot a black man whose "gun" was his wallet?

Now, when I see a police man on the street, I smile at him. He is ensuring my safety, and the safety of others.

I smile too, but only out of self-defense. No reason to give them a reason to harass me.

Now, its our turn. Sure, the government may have "demonized" us before. But times are fundamentally different now.

Not in the way you mean, they aren't. Terrorists have been around for a long time. Robin Hood was a terrorist. The fact that "weapons" of mass destruction are a heck of a lot nastier now doesn't change the ethical basis of terrorism and how to deal with it.

No, the way times might be different now is that Bush has what many people consider legitimate cause to impose the equivalent of martial law, all with Senate and Congressional approval and encouragement. The Office of Homeland Security is a name worthy of George Orwell and Stalin. When I was young, I read 1984. Then I lived through the year and chuckled at the Apple ads spoofing IBM as Big Brother. Remember those t-shirts about "Win95=Mac84"? George Bush 2001 = Big Brother 1984 is too scary to let me sleep comfortably. And the ATA and the Office of Homeland Security help make it possible.

Don't think the death of bin Laden will be anything more than proof that Big Brother Loves You. There will always be terrorists and if terrorists justify totalitarianism in the Land of the Free, that totalitarianism will only go away with revolution. No Senator ever got re-elected for repealing anything except Prohibition. Today's politicians (or their handlers) understand bread and circuses too well for that. Just a couple of months ago, Bush was bribing most citizens with $300 checks.

I'm getting a little heated now, so I'm gonna shut up. But the logic is there. Look at the history and expansion of the War on Drugs and the potential for the War on Terrorism is, well, terrifying.

Brook Conner, aka nellardo

Vint Cerf Radio Interview 9/25/01

[Cy Guy]

Vint Cerf was interviewed on NPR's Public Interest yesterday. You can listen to it in RealAudio here. He makes a great case for how the Internet was put its first real test of the original intention of using packet switching, which was to ensure a reliable method of communication in the event of an enemy attack here on US soil - and passed the test pretty well, with the exception of some of the major media sites being slashdotted.

He is joined by George Sadowski, Executive Director of the Global Internet Policy Initiative, GIPI.

Re:Vint Cerf Radio Interview 9/25/01

[dillon_rinker]

Interestingly, South Africa is not part of the United States and its communications capabilities (or inabilities) have NOTHING to do with the original goal of the internet. In fact, as a potential enemy of the US (no offense, but y'all have nukes and don't have US military posted on you, right? So by definition...) I'd suggest that making YOUR communications dependent on OUR well-being is a Good Thing (tm).

Re:Vint Cerf Radio Interview 9/25/01

[geomcbay]

With all due respect to his technical achievements, Vint is pretty full of shit.

The way network peering works (and the politics and money involved) at the highest levels is actually quite different than what they originally intended for the Internet. The only reason the Internet didn't come crashing down (at least in major portions of the country) is that the WTC, while a financial and business center, represents just an isolated leaf node on the Internet.

Had the terrorists slammed a plane into one of the major NAP centers, things would have been extremely different, with vast portions of the population denied access to vast portions of the Internet.

Of course, doing this wouldn't really be in the terrorists best interest..Loss of internet access is nothing compared to the loss of 6k+ lives, but Vint's argument is very weak because the circumstances involving the attack aren't at all related to an enemy purposefully trying to take out communication channels.

Be careful

[griffjon]

The FBI and CIA have been known to do turnabouts on hackers. Just ask Max Vision. The gov't fought long and hard to demonize and criminalize even the whitest hats of hacking, and Ashcroft's pushing to get them labeled as terrorist acts on top of that.

The DoD's had it's fair share of smudged histories. Be Alert. Keep your pistol handy.

Yes, you can be useful in combatting terrorism. Just make sure you know where the line is getting drawn and be on the correct side of it.

And realize that some of combatting terrorism may go against projects you've been supporting, like anonymous remailers, strong crypto for everyone, anti-censorship protections, and the elusive set of projects working to enable dissidents in countries such as China to safely communicate with the outside world. These and other tools can also be used by the bad guys, and will no doubt become targets.

Laughable indeed ...

[FreeUser]

Two hacker favorites -- USA Cable's Sci-Fi Channel, and UPN's hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- would be perfect places to air the spot

And in all seriousness, tonights premier of "Star Trek: Enterprise" would be the most suitable ... probably more computer literate people will be watching that show than all of SciFi and Slayer together ... at least for the first episode or two. Even then they will only be reaching a fraction of the hackers (in the traditional sense of the words) or network crackers (what they misguidedly call hackers), as geeks are at least as eclectic and diverse as any other group.

If they REALLY want to hit their demographic...

[-=OmegaMan=-]

Replace all those X10 popups with "WTF D00D PLZ DONT H4X0R ROFFLL!!!!" ;-)

Re:Hackers are terrorists?

[Fizzlewhiff]

Did you read the linked article?

A new TV public service announcement targets U.S. computer hacktivists with a blunt message: Uncle Sam wants you to help fight the war on terrorism.

But the spot, which organizers hope to begin airing nationwide next week on major networks, will warn that misguided patriotic efforts from software experts can hurt the cause.

"Computer attacks and hate speech do not contribute in any constructive way to dealing with the many problems our global civilization faces," said WorldCom senior vice president Vinton Cerf, who is scheduled to appear in the televised announcement.


In other words, they want hackers to help by not hacking.

They really are missing an opportunity.

[sheldon]

Buffy the Vampire slayer? What do they want the high school 3l33t hack0r3?

The perfect opportunity is tonight on UPN when the new Star Trek premiers.

Sheesh. :)

Re:Worst episode ever!

[SpanishInquisition]

When Homer went to college, his 3 roomates changed his grades by hacking into the school computers.

Re:Time to show them the truth

[zztzed]

1) Use those DDoS attacks on the Taliban and the terrorists. Block out their news, their proproganda. Stick it to their networks so they can't share information. At the same time reroute any pro-fundamentalist web pages to sites that promote more moderate approaches and demonstrate the stupidity behind radicalism. Show them the truth, at the same time you're snuffing out the lies.

DDoS? Hell, all you need is some scissors to cut the string linking their two tin cans together.

Re:Why Draft doesn't worry me (too much)

[StudMuffin]

If I was ever actually drafted to fight in a war, I know the DOD would rather have a talented computer programmer than another warm body in the front lines. Besides, it takes 3 years to train a soldier to do his (or her) job well.

Ummm, yeah. Right.

Be careful, here. US Marine Corps Boot Camp is 13 weeks, plus anoth 12 weeks of advanced infantry training. That's just over six months, start to finish. Training HVPI's (High Velocity Projective Interceptors) doesn't take three years at all. How is that possible, when the Army has a two-year contract for an Infantry position?

And, as a former Marine, I would state that any "talented computer hacker" who knows nothing about the actual operations of the military would be better off catching bullets than writing bugs.

- Hans

US Govt = Two-Faced?

[SilverThorn]

There was an article a few days ago posted here that the Justice Department wants Congress to pass John Ashcroft's proposed 'Anti-Terrorist Act' that would treat hacking as a form of terrorism.

Is it just me or does this sound like a stab in the back to provoke hackers into the open, then after they have done the work the US Govt would like them to do, jail them for breaking this so-called Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA)?

-- M

Re:Why Draft doesn't worry me (too much)

[jheinen]

You've never been in the military I take it? Let me fill you in. It don't mean squat what you know when you go in. Yes you could get lucky and they make use of your computer skills, but I've seen plenty of people with technical skills get plopped right in the infantry. I've even seen people sign up for technical training, receive it, and THEN get sent to infantry school. When you sign the contract, all they gaurantee you is training in a particular MOS (miltary occupational specialty). It does NOT mean that's how you will be assigned. If combat arms needs bodies, that's where you go. Three years to train a soldier? Where'd you get that from? You go from raw recruit to front line soldier in 12 weeks. And this is in the peacetime military, where the need for combat soldiers is not so great. In a draft situation, you're pretty much gauranteed nice comfy accomodations in a foxhole.

-Jeff

No Kidding...

[visualight]

Yeah, what's up with corporations thinking it's okay to act like some kind of authority figure? I'm getting kinda tired of it.

Anybody here work in advertising or media produciton? If you want to serve your country organize a "I Call Bullshit" ad campaign. So we all chip in cash and run ads to address all the misinformation put out by the spin doctors in the government. Fight fire with fire.

I've got 23 dollars to chip in.

reminds me of turing...

[klog23]

In WWII Alan Turing was recruited by the allies for his mathematical genius. He essentially saved the world from fascism, and afterwards he was demonized and led to suicide by a government that disagreed with his lifestyle.

Re:reminds me of turing...

[Martin S.]

...afterwards he was demonized and led to suicide by a government that disagreed with his lifestyle.

1) Actually he was not 'demonised' by the 'government', he received honours for his work.
2) It is much more acurate to say he was ostrocised by society & victimised by Police because of his homosexuality [that where ignorant of his contribution].
3) His Finnish toy boy lover was almost certainly a honey trap.
4) There is also a strong likelyhood that his suicide had as much to do with to post traumatic stress, as his prosecution.
5) His suicide may have actually been murder.

Hate is already all over the newsgroups.

[Mr. Flibble]

I regularly hang out in alt.2600, and I lurk in many other Newsgroups. Apart from the usual spam and trolls a new troll is breeding:

The Hate Troll.

A large number of posts are dominated by "Hack this Muslim site" or, "Hackers fight back against terror!" And of course these twits then list a site (which often has nothing to do with terrorisim, and often is hosted in the U.S... Not that the posters have discovered whois or nslookup yet...)

Fortunately the regulars (those who actually deserve the monoinker "hacker") ignore or flame the hell out of the poster. Not that that is an issue. The regulars can determine between free speech (freedom) and censorship (terrorism of words).

Unfortunately, the skript kiddies can't. Of course, this is the crowd that the advertisements are targeted towards. Not that it will help - the kiddies are incredibly thick skulled.

I just wish I could see the commercial (I don't watch T.V.) maybe it will show up on adcritic.

What do they want

[NitsujTPU]

The article doesn't say what they want people to do, and I havent found where they want people to do anything on the website. Perhaps some contact information? I've got free time if it's volunteering somehow.

Where Are the Maids In Waiting?

[Baldrson]

They have no idea what they're doing. A tournament of knights requires visible maids in waiting who are waiting to do more than pat the little geeks on the head for being good eunix.

However, after Operation Desert Storm and a wide variety of other opportunities for culling the male population of the Arab Middle East...

Be very careful

[Estragon]

The government has been known to do turnabouts. Just ask Osama Bin Laden.

Now, this is stupid.

[WasterDave]

OK, so a week ago we have the FBI complaining that /bin/laden has given up on his satellite phones and computers in favour of sending messengers on camels (or whatever, apologies for lame western stereotyping) since they can't be wiretapped. Now: Please r00t his servers for us.

Piss poor. And anyway, a whole bunch of people are going to want a whole load of legal protection for what they know before they will do this. I mean, spend the next six months breaking terrorists servers apart and in a years time when .Net takes it up the arse... well, they're going to know whose door to break down, aren't they?

But if anyone goes for this: good luck. I do have some pretty serious problems with piling into Afghanistan and blowing shit up; but no moral qualms whatsoever when it comes to merely trashing terrorists ability to operate.

Dave

Re:Now, this is stupid.

[snake_dad]

ls -la /bin shows a bit more than just laden (.laden?). So, /bin/laden is paranoid, and does not use technology in order to ensure his own safety. That does not mean that other people, groups or cells have taken the same precautions.

Wouldn't it be great if at least some of the other bad guys out there could be stopped and/or eliminated because of a couple of techs with uptodate knowledge?

I do agree about the legal protection part. Stranger schemes have been used to arrest hard-to-get people. I know, I saw it on Discovery :)

Do Slashdot editors even reads the links?

[Anonymous Coward]

The linked story makes it pretty clear (at least after the first sentence) that:

1) the organization doing the ads is not part of the US government

2) They're asking hackers to NOT deface sites, etc.

I guess I shouldn't be too critical of /., since Wired did provide the totally misleading info in the 1st sentence of the article...

Hi! How are you?

[sgt_getraer]

To: Osama Bin Laden
Subject: Hi! How are you?

I send you this file in order to have your advice

Re:so, what's this CyberAgenls?

[starlingX]

The CyberAngels are a branch of the ever-popular Guardian Angels vigilante group. When they formed, sometime around 1996-ish, they attracted a lot of attention because they drew a lot of concerns about individual's rights online and free speech. I don't remember exactly what the problem was, but for a long time they had a bad name with free speech supporters. I though they'd fizzled out and disappeared. But I guess not. A search through old EFF newsletters or something similar should turn up some info.

Why don't we wait until next week and see?

[jflynn]

If the ATA is passed as is and they start rounding up the strong encryption users, gnutella "pirates", and drug "terrorists", I'll pass, I think.

It they were hiring at the NSA or FBI it would be far more attractive. They could use some new blood from what they *say*. Joining a semi-approved vigilante organization is different. The alphabet agencies are somewhat well known for using and discarding people with plausible deniability, like Noreiga for example.

It's all whether they are really looking for people to protect the Internet, or to help them with the Big Brother program. Some of the provisions of the ATA are nonsensical -- they help the terrorists more than us. They are all very nifty domestic surveillance measures however. So I'm not following any leaders until this measure is finalized. If you want to protect the Internet what could be better, for now, than protecting your own systems?

The ATA makes it life in prison without chance for parole for defacing a web site. While I agree that action is illegal, I am not in favor of paying taxes to support the script-kiddies for life.

If you'd like to help them decide here's a petitition getting broad bipartisan support.

In Defense Of Freedom

It was a joke!

[megaduck]

At least, I hope it was a joke. There is nothing to attack in Afghanistan.. The Taliban banned the internet a while back because it permitted access to "immoral content". Afghanistan doesn't have an information infrastructure, much less one that connects to the big wide world.

Check out the .af domain sometime. Totally barren. That's what makes this whole thing so ridiculous.

Re:It was a joke!

[locust]

There is nothing to attack in Afghanistan

I don't think its Afghanistan they're after, but rather the networking resources that the terrorists use in first world powers. I wonder if there is a #osama channel somewhere? Seriously, with the ubiquity of internet access both for private individuals and students it stands to reason that a terror network would use the internet to communicate.

--locust

Re:It was a joke!

[Dolly_Llama]

Check out the .af domain sometime.

You might want to check out the af.mil domain. Those Afghans appear to have quite the arsenal of advanced aircraft and ICBMs. What's more, they're recruiting!

Re:It was a joke!

[Rogerborg]

• Those Afghans appear to have quite the arsenal of advanced aircraft and ICBMs. What's more, they're recruiting!

The primary effect of the US military buildup in that region so far has been to generate a huge surge of Taliban recruits.

There's a very simple lesson there. Think how the US would react to being bombed, sanctioned and threatened, then ask yourself why any nation on the face of the earth would react differently.

Very Good

[Wyatt Earp]

Like the poster said above about the Police in NYC. Times have changed.

In the past, it was us against them, because there wasn't an widely reguarded outside threat. Now there is.

So people can either keep bitching about the past and all the "injustices". Or they can realize that Now isn't like it was Before 9.11.01.

Times have changed. I've known for a while that the Taliban and Militantist Terrorist groups were bad, but I didn't know how bad. And the attacks on 9.11.01 wern't the final release, it's a step up.

So I'd say - let bygones be bygones and step upto the plate and help the Gov and Mil if they need help and you are willing. But don't bitch about what happened before, cause it was a different world.

The Anti-Terror thing in the House and Senate is already being ripped apart by the Committees, I doubt it'll get to a floor vote.

Token paranoid comment

[trauma]

This is similar to the police stings you hear about from time to time (at least in the movies) where known felons are contacted in large groups and told they have won some attractive prize; all who show up are promptly arrested.

Not that anybody will be arrested as a result of dialing 1-800-usa-hack to sign up, but if you think a job offer is going to be the result as opposed to an immediate phone tap and lots of extra attention on your ip address, you are sadly deluded...

Hackers Against Terrorism - HAT

[sheetsda]

"Hackers Against Terrorism"

Well, looks like we need to come up with another color. To me, this doesn't appear to fall under either BlackHAT or WhiteHAT activity. Perhaps Red/White/BlueHAT?

What's the real point?

[startled]

I don't mean to sound like a conspiracy theorist here, but what's the real point of this ad? It doesn't sound like anyone actually thinks it'll deter anyone. And on TV? Much more effective on-line. And there really aren't enough script kiddiez and whatnot to have a TV campaign make any sense.

The people who will actually be influenced by this are the ones who aren't very computer-literate. While the script kiddiez will scoff (or not even notice), there are far more computer illiterates (or semi-literates), and they'll be more easily swayed. Is this just another attempt at demonizing non-corporate computer types?

punnery

[Mercuria]

Actually, this is a worse joke than either of you realize... Bin Laden's organization is called Al-Qaeda, which translates to "The Base"...

Re:Worst episode ever!

[istartedi]

There was an episode where some guy was under a table at a meeting with a laptop, and information was passed through a complex network that included the artist formerly known as Prince. I can't remember too many details of that episode off the top of my head.

Two Birds

[Chris Y Taylor]

My advice is that as many people in the hacker community that can, should help out the old .gov people in winning this 1st war of the 21st century and/or help out the less technically inclined NGO's doing disaster response in NY and DC. It is the patriotic thing to do. It is the right thing to do, and that should be enough reason.

Many of these .gov groups are the same ones that have misunderstood and/or demonized technology and the hacking community in the past. So what. It's still the right thing to do to pitch in and help, even if you don't like some of the people who will be on the team. If hackers are magnanimous here, then maybe some of those old political adversaries could be educated and shown that hackers are not criminals (those would be crackers). This could be an opportunity to win the "hearts and minds" of some local .gov people in addition to the ones we'll be fighting for in Afghanistan, the Sudan, and Iraq.

But don't just take this opportunity to show .gov how patriotic and productive the hacking community is. Ask Dr. Gerald Bull about the hazards of doing favors for the gov't in secret. Joe and Jane Sixpack need to be won over as well. Buy a book on public relations for small organizations; befriend a reporter; do a little of that social engineering to make sure that when the media is talking about what groups are doing what to help out, they mention your work as well. I am not suggesting that PR should take priority over actually helping out, but rather that with a little extra effort this is an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. An opportunity that may not come again soon.

And besides, even if no one but you ever knows what you did... donating time and effort to help the war efforts and/or disaster victims is still the right thing to do.

Re:This might be just what the linux community nee

[t0qer]

This [wired.com] issue of wired

Where did that sentance say I was linking to an article, go out and buy a copy. BTW only charma whore's post as anonymous cowards. I take full responsibility for my posts, even if I know they will get modded down to -1. You sir obviously do not stand behind your comment otherwise you wouldn't have posted anonymously, therefore it is you that is the luser.

--Toq

Yarr matey

[interiot]

Finally, a case where the word "pirate" really applies.

The English tried this before... giving ships the right to be privateers, attack their opponents, and keep the loot. When the war ended, the government took back the permission, and pirates were born.

Re:Yarr matey

[HiThere]

And there's at least one example of a captain (and crew?) that was hung because the war ended while they were at sea, and they didn't get the word in time.

"Put not your faith in princes." -- R.A.H. (I believe ... he may have been quoting someone else.)

Quid pro quo

[JCCyC]

I'm not an USA citizen, but if I was, that's what I'd do: write an open letter to the Govt, saying I'd be happy to help if they (a) nullify the DMCA, (b) nullify the Sonny Bono Act, (c) abort the SSSCA and (d) FIRE ASHCROFT!

Publish on a Web site. Ask for signatures. Make clear that the signers DO mean to enlist if the above happens.

As I said, I'm not from the US, so it'd be weird if I made such page myself. Anyone who likes the suggestion, fell free to go ahead. The idea is hereby placed in the public domain.

Re:Quid pro quo

[kilgore_47]

The idea is hereby placed in the public domain.

Thats good.
Because I was worried you got a patent on political activism.
And that would fuck up my whole production. ;-)

What Brought This On

[Chris Y Taylor]

Exclusive: Crackers Prepare Retaliation for Tues. Terrorist Attacks
www.govtech.net/news/features/news_feature.phtml ?d ocid=3030000000002974
(take out the extra space between d and o)

Crackers Prepare Retaliation for Tues. Terrorist Attacks
www.newsbytes.com/news/01/170117.html

These stories from last week are probably what brought about this PSA.

The Return of Joe McCarthy

[hillct]

Hackers, come register at your nearest recruiting station, where you will be interogated and evaluated to determine thay you are not a terrorist, since J. 'McCarthy' Ashcroft's proposed legislation states that hacksrs are terrorists unless proven innocent.

Seriously though, the slippery slope arguent with regard to civil liberties is vary difficult to make, since based on that argument, organizations such as the ACLU and other organizations have had to defend all sorts of morally reprehensible (yet still legal) activities/things/people, to such a degree as to alienate a large portion of the population. This effect of having to act based on the slippery slope argument, has resulted in members of the news media recently making statements such as those on the ABC sunday discussion program This Week, which were to the effect (and not an exact quote):

There are some internet users who are concerned about the loss of the use of certain arcane privlages like the use of certain types of cryptography but most Americans won't be concerned with this.

These light treatments by the news media, of the civil liberties issues around the right to privacy, as manifested by the ability to use cryptographic mechanisms in communication, are inexcusable. Unfortunately, here I suppose I'm preaching to the choir.

--CTH

Slashdot's double standard

[regexp]

As others have pointed out, the U.S. government is not advocating cracker attacks; it's "Cyberangels."

How come when the "major media" get stuff wrong, it's due to pro-corporate bias and part of an evil conspiracy, but when michael or someone else on Slashdot publishes falsehoods, it's an honest mistake?

Which is it?

ohh..

[berk!feedme!]

The irony is strong in this one. Can anyone remind me when exactly we established Bin Laden used the internet?

better than being drafted...

[smirkleton]

Better step up and be patriotic, Hacker Squints of Slashdot. Better to be serving your country while sitting behind a monitor in an air-conditioned room than be drafted and sent out.

...I can just picture a special 3L1T3 squadron of slashdot users, sent out into the plains of Afghanistan. Everyone wheezing and gasping for breath before they even got out of the copter. Eyes darting around nervously for the nearest coin-operated soda machine selling Mountain Dew (which, if you must know, is probably in Jordan or Israel).

EXT - NAMELESS AFGHAN PLAIN - MORNING.

An Apache helicopter settles onto the barren plain. Out from it emerge three plain males. They wear an assortment of camouflage combined with curious t-shirts, with sayings like "I don't work here" and "will frag for bandwidth".

Geek 1: "(wheeze, wheeze) I thought...(gasp)...All that Quake...(gasp gasp)... Prepared me for this..."

Geek2: "...I haven't... (HACK! HACK!)... moved this much...(cough cough)... since I got off the couch... to get the UPS delivery... of BAWLS..."

JonKatz: "I just...(argh)...had an idea for...a follow-up series....(gasp)...to Voices From The Hellmouth Revisited: Part Ten...(cough gasp cough...)You guys want to... hear... it?"

Geek1: "Give me...that...damn...machine...gun. (cough cough cough)..."

JonKatz: "Alright! (cough gag) Wrong time..." (mutters into dictaphone) "...note to self. Idea...for commentary... Why today's geeks... (cough gasp cough) are unfairly stigmatized... (wheeeeeeze) ...as being insensitive... (HACK!)...to violence..."

Just as Geek1 begins to aim his machine gun at JonKatz, to put an end to his ravings once and for all, a crazed member of the Taliban comes flying over the desert horizon. He is screaming something.

The Geeks all stop and look at him. Terror strikes into their very hearts and souls. The words of their enemy shock them into utter panic.

Crazed Taliban Member: "ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! "

Geek1, Geek2, JonKatz: "Aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

The three begin to flee in the opposite direction, now heading directly into a minefield.

Crazed Taliban Member: "YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY TO DESTRUCTION! YOU HAVE NO CHANCE TO SURVIVE MAKE YOUR TIME! HA HA HA HA!"

Geek1 stops running, a serene expression coming across his face. He grabs Geek2's shoulder by his t-shirt, quietly, allowing JonKatz to continue to flee further into the minefield.

Geek1 (teary-eyed): "Take off every 'zig'."

Geek2 (smiling): "You know what you're doing?"

Geek1 (nodding through tears): "Move 'zig'."

Geek2 (embracing him): "For great justice."

The two geeks turn to face their adversary, brandishing their weapons with a newfound confidence and sense of purpose. JonKatz vanishes over the horizon, screaming wildly.

CUT TO...

How do we know this isn't a "sting"?

[Robber Baron]

You know the drill: They have a bunch of felons at large. Rather than try to serve warrants on them singly, they just send out a mailer. "Congratulations! You'vewon tickets to the Superbowl! Now all you have to do to claim your prize is show up at the stadium on such and such a date and get your picture taken!" And the dumb 'cons' fall for it every time... So go ahead, send them your resumes. Then they'll know where you live and can drag you in for questioning any time they want.

Besides, is this something you want to be supporting?

Some people just don't get it...

[cca93014]

As a Brit that has been living in the States for the last couple of months I've had the opportunity to experience the behaviour of the US media and the government first hand, and to be honest it makes me sick. Let's get a few things straight:

- America is the largest producer and exporter of weapons on the planet.
- America has the largest arsenal of nuclear and toxic weapeons on the planet.
- America is the largest producer and exportor of torture equipment on the planet.
- America is the largest producer and exportor of anti-personnel landmines on the planet.

America supports more oppressive regimes around the world than anyone else, as and when it suits them. A while ago they were supplying the Iraqis with weapons. Then they went after them. During the Russo-Afghan war, they were funding, supplying and even training the very afghans that are now described as 'evil'. 20 years ago they were called freedom fighter. Now they are deemed 'evil'.

Two weeks ago hacking was illegal. Now it's OK, just as long as it's not a .mil or a .gov.

Just because you are not shooting at someone doesn't mean your actions are peaceful. This is another attempt by the American government to whip up what is already a frenzy of 'They're evil! Get them!' sentiment.

If people had the foresight to try and work out *why* the events of the 11th happened, then maybe we could make some progress. As it is we'll be bombarded with the same old footage of disaster and death followed by Bush claiming that these people are 'evil'.

No doubt people will start port-scanning the few afghan/islamic websites that are around. Maybe while you are waiting you go to Amazon and buy The Plague by Camus. Oh, and switch of CNN.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Fnkmaster]

1) The US is the largest producer and exporter of sophisticated manufactured goods on the planet, not just guns.

2) When was the last time we used them on a civilian target? It's only happened once, and the vast majority of us would say we never want it to happen again. Terrorists on the other hand don't feel that way towards our civilians.

3) See point 1. This is a silly straw man.

4) See point 1 again.

The fact that companies in the US manufacture and export lots of stuff does not in any way legitimize terrorist attacks against our civilians. Colombian organizations produce and manufacture lots of cocaine that has resulted in lots of deaths around the world. I don't use that to legitimize killing civilians in that country either.

Eurotrolling has become absurdly common on Slashdot and its entirely uninteresting. Whiny leftist eurotrash drivel spewed all over the place does not make it any more correct. Come up with some real arguments next time.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[cca93014]

Your argument for mass-producing arms, chemical weapons, torture equipment and nuclear weapons is that you also make colour laser printers, automatic milking machines and fabricated car plants? Are you serious?

The fact that the US sells them on to whoever will pay the list price, irrespective of their social or humanitarian policy doesn't bother you? And you are accusing me of not coming up with any real arguments? That's pretty funny!

I wasn't in any way condoning what happened on the 11th, which is what you seem to be accusing me of. I was trying to shed some light on *why* it happened.

My 'whiny leftist eurotrash drivel', as you so delicately put it, is anti-torture devices, anti-landmines, anti-bombs and anti-guns. If you disagree with that then I suggest you take a look at yourself and your views and try to consider just why people outside of America dislike the country and some of the people that live there.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[The Mayor]

Hmmm...you've got a few statements wrong.

America isn't currrently producing nuclear and (if we believe our government, at least) toxic weapons.

America hasn't produced landmines in years.

Now, as for the part about working out *why* the events happened, I think our responses to date have shown an effort to figure out *why* the events happened. We're not going to carpet bomb Afghanistan (I think and hope...again, if we are to believe our leaders). We're going to do something that is more effective against the terrorists in a manner that will minimize the likelyhood of future terrorist attacks. That likely means toppling the Taliban, and supporting a secular government in its place, following up with tons of humanitarian aid. This sounds to me like the US is beginning to understand the threat, and what drives this threat.

I, quite frankly, am totally surprised. I have been pretty strongly anti-Bush until this conflict. Even now, I'd say I'm more pro-Powell than anything. But I have been thoroughly impressed with our government's handling of this situation.

As an American in the UK, let me say how amazed I have been at the compassion and solidarity shown by the Brits in this crisis. There are a few people that have been rather offensive. And a few more that criticized our certain heavy hand in the early days, only to turn around and criticize our lack of response now. You're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't, I guess.

Oh well. I'm just sitting here hoping this isn't the beginning of WWIII. Cheers, and peace!

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Absynthe]

Actually I was wondering where all the euro's had gone lately. I think silly ass chest pounding in uninteresting. I'm a long, long, long, way from a pacifist. As a matter of fact I'm a fairly brutal asshole when it comes to people who go after me and mine.
This does not mean I can just turn off my brain and quit thinking. Israeli's are crazy, they've been driven crazy by terrorism and do crazy things. The difference between them and us is that at least they know what they have done. They understand the causes and the issues. If you really believe we've only used military force against civilians once (I don't even know what you could be referring to) then you obviously don't keep in touch with reality.
I've got a friend in the 101st airborne who just got back from tours in Columbia and Korea. He was showing me his souvenier pics which included him standing over all kinds of different bodies with handwritten signs that said "11th confirmed kill" or whatever the number that it happened to be and the date. He knows damn well that there is no way to draw a line and come up with "that is a rebel" and "that is a civilian". He and I might disagree about foreign policy but we both understood the reality.
That's just one example that I can come up with where the U.S. military is killing civilians as we speak. That doesn't count the regimes that we give military aid to and tacit support.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[prizog]

Um, so we gave money to the Taliban, a theocracy which oppresses women, non-muslims, and people who fly kites (really!). That's supposed to be a good thing?

And Saddam doesn't need to commit genocide against the Kurds when he has the US-sponsored Turkish Air Force to do it for him.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Platinum Dragon]

2) When was the last time we used them on a civilian target?

Quite possibly, Aug. 20, 1998.

Colombian organizations produce and manufacture lots of cocaine that has resulted in lots of deaths around the world. I don't use that to legitimize killing civilians in that country either.

You don't. Your government doesn't seem to worry about that, though. Hell, they're paying a private contractor to do the dirty work!

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[bacchusrx]

When was the last time we used them on a civilian target?

Hm! How about Kosovo? Or Serbia? Or Iraq? What about the US involvement in Kenya or Afghanistan... or in Vietnam, Colombia, El Salvador, Somalia, or Haiti...? Let's of course not forget Japan.

The fact that companies in the United States manufacture and export lots of stuff does not in any way legitimize terrorist attacks against our civilians.

I don't think anyone has made that argument. The original poster's arguments had nothing to do with legitimizing terrorist attacks against American civilians.

His arguments went to the naïvety (or ignorance) in the American reaction to the recent bombings in New York and Washington D.C.

Your country was not attacked because it is a "beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world" but precisely because your country is seen to be the root of despair and suffering throughout the world--a cause of war and poverty for millions of people internationally.

Colombian organizations produce and manufacture lots of cocaine that has resulted in lots of deaths around the world.

Certainly not as many deaths as the American "War on Drugs."

Prohibition has caused more death and ruined more lives than so-called "drug abuse" could ever have. Drug prohibition leads to poor treatment of actual cases of abuse, jails otherwise innocent people--ruining lives & crowding prisons, not to mention that it creates and maintains a criminal black market.

Furthermore, American involvement in Colombia can certainly be considered "terrorist" activity--unless you're about a rather acrobatic leap in logic.

I don't use that to legitimize killing civilians in that country either.

First off--the original poster did not make that argument. Secondly, by your own argument, you ought to condemn your own country for its terrorist activities specifically in Columbia.

Your rebuttal, sir, is fallacious.

BRx.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Rogerborg]

• America isn't currrently producing [...] toxic weapons.

Try something like http://www.google.com/search?q=depleted+uranium+pr ojectiles+birth+defects+UNICEF

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Rogerborg]

• When was the last time we used [weapons] on a civilian target?

Directly and deliberately, I think Vietnam (but am open to suggestions). Indirectly, today. Iraqis and Kuwaitis are being killed by depleted uranium projectile dust and unexploded cluster munitions right up to the present moment.

If you have any kind of an open mind, please do some quick searches for this information before just writing it off as US bashing. The US people are the kindest and best in the world. The US government are the most evil stone cold motherfuckers in the world. Those statements aren't mutually exclusive.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[D Anderson n'Swaart]

This is the most ridiculous, blindly patriotic counter-argument that I have heard in a long time. I don't need to reiterate the points in the many posts above, which are largely independent of this particular "America is the largest producer of X in the world" thread. But I can end this silly argument right here. The US, which takes up less than a third the entire land mass of America, is the most powerful country in the world! Considering the resources it has available, and its GDP, I think its humanitarian efforts are shameful. What happened to those billions of dollars of surplus the country seemed to have at the end of the last (or second-last, iirc) fiscal year? It sure wasn't going anywhere near countries that could be transformed from bottom of the pit third-world to top of the pile first-world with that kind of budget (and no I'm not so naive as to think that giving a country a huge heap of money will solve their problems overnight, but it's hardly going to hurt to give them some aid, absolve them of some debts, since it's not like you need to suck any more of their resources anyway...)

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Martin S.]

- US Medical Sanctions has killed many times more people in peacetime than have died in conflict with the US since the second world war. Take a look at what is happening to the Iraqi people RIGHT NOW.

Only one person responsible for the horrific plight of the Iraqi people and that is Saddam Hussein. He has been ferreting the cash intended for food and medical aid to rebuild his military. Indeed it's only a matter of time before we have to sort out that problem again. Next time without pandering to the assorted peaceniks and bleeding hearts who are responsible for job only being half done in the first place. Indeed going by the figures they have more blood on their hands, 300,000 Iraqi people's blood.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Fnkmaster]

Read my post again. I said we've only used nuclear weapons once against civilian targets (Fat Man and Little Boy in Japan in 1945). Never used "toxic" weapons against explicitly civilian targets, though I'm sure there were civilians killed by some pretty brutal weapons in Vietnam (a fairly indefensible, brutal, awful incursion in the name of fighting communism, which was an indefensible, brutal awful set of regimes parading around under the veil of leftist ideology).

As for the rest of your post, I mostly agree - it's really hard to tell the difference, and civilian casualties are inevitable in any large scale military action (i.e. other than pinpoint special ops actions) - but are different from explicitly attacking civilian targets (Hiroshima, Nagasaki, which though they probably saved hundreds of thousands of American soldier's lives meet that criteria).

Then again, look at Dresden and London - the Germans and British/Allied forces firebombed each other to hell. The Germans legitimized the use of civilian targets in warfare, and this is why I say they were evil and deserved everything they got and more. Likewise for bin Laden and Al Qaeda - if you are willing to legitimize attacks on civilian targets, you are changing the rules of engagement.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Fnkmaster]

That was neither a nuclear nor chemical weapon we used. It was just a conventional warhead on a cruise missile.

Furthermore, that's not even a civilian target, it was a part of Al Qaeda, and a place they manufactured chemicals for use in chemical weapons. Furthermore, it was a precision strike, designed to minimize incidental civilian casualties. So shut the fuck up until you have a clue.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Fnkmaster]

Hm! How about Kosovo? Or Serbia? Or Iraq? What about the US involvement in Kenya or Afghanistan... or in Vietnam, Colombia, El Salvador, Somalia, or Haiti...? Let's of course not forget Japan.

We used nuclear and "toxic" (i.e. chemical) weapons? Funny, I never heard about that. We used conventional weapons, which I do not dispute and never did. You misunderstood my post and didn't read carefully the post I was responding to.

Your country was not attacked because it is a "beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world" but precisely because your country is seen to be the root of despair and suffering throughout the world--a cause of war and poverty for millions of people internationally.

That's your problem if you believe that. It's false, but I can't prove it any more than you or anyone else can. Give me a specific, credible set of facts to back up that claim, and I can give you a far more credible argument to the contrary.

Furthermore, American involvement in Colombia can certainly be considered "terrorist" activity--unless you're about a rather acrobatic leap in logic.

Oh, you mean we blow up civilians in Colombia? No, wait, actually we blow up men armed with AK-47s guarding drug shipments and cocaine plantations and the armed rebels paid off by drug producers to guard their interests. I am no more a fan of the War On Some Drugs than anybody, but that's not a credible comparison.

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[TWR]

That and to help secure cheap oil supplies for the US.

And explain Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. While you're at it, explain US troops in Haiti. Or Panama.

Must be those vast oil fields of West Africa, Central Europe, Hispaniola, and Central America.

-jon

Re:Some people just don't get it...

[Fnkmaster]

If you see my other post, I assumed it was obvious that everybody knew about Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that those were ill-placed civilian targets. Agent Orange - used in Vietnam, but was it used against "civilian" targets? Damned if I know how you tell the difference or can meaningfully answer that question. It was used as a deforestation agent to root out enemy guerilla positions. Not going to deny civilians may have died from it, obviously, but I don't think it was used as a weapon against them.

Depleted Uranium is not a radiological or toxic _weapon_ - that's a farcical argument. It's a weapon, and it can be toxic, but it is an armor piercing projectile weapon. It's used in anti-tank rounds, but not with the primary intention of killing civilians, and it's definitely not used in anti-personnel rounds fired at civilian targets. It may be toxic and it is clearly radiologically active, but there are far more effective "toxic weapons" out there if we wanted to use them on civilian targets. As you pointed out clearly, they seem possibly as likely to hurt our own soldiers from long term incidental effects as it is to hurt civilians in war-torn areas.

Re:Precedent already exists

[David Hume]

scraemondaemon writes:

Uncle Sam wants you to help fight the war on terrorism. They demonize you and criminalize you and then ask for your help. What's a hacker to do?

To which an Anonymous Coward responds:

Japanese Americans were poorly treated during WWII. They could have complained, and whined, but they volunteered for the military. A famous Army unit was most made up of Japanese Americans. They fought well and heroically on the European front. Their sacrifice and committment helped change American opinion of Japanese Americans.

I'm very glad you mentioned this, Mr. Anonymous. There are at least two possible responses to the U.S. government's request for help. One, the "scraemondaemon" response, is to whine about being "demonized" and "criminalized" at the same time bodies are still being dug from the ruble. Another is to act like you care about someone other than yourself, and perhaps even about your country, prove your critics wrong, and volunteer to help prevent a similar, or worse, terrorist attack in the near future.

One inspirational site describes the heroism of then Lieutenant, and future Senator, Daniel K. Inouye.

Other sites concerning the 442d Regimental Combat Team and the 100th Infantry Battalion include:

Asian - Pacific Americans & the U.S. Army

National Japanese American Historical Society - 442nd Research Page.

Service Battery.

Silent Warriors - Silent Heroes .

Katonk.com .

Similarly, one could emulate the hundreds of Muslims, Arabs, Iranians, Afghans, etc. who have responded to the request by the FBI for people who speak Arabic and other Middle Eastern languages ("The phones have just been ringing off the hook"). See also FBI targets Arab-Americans for recruitment; hundreds respond to appeal.

.

Or, as I said, one can whine about perceived slights while others bury their dead.

Last Issue of 2600

[SnicklesTheElf]

I saw a letter about this in the most recent (summer 2001, p. 52) issue of 2600. It is as follows...

"Dear 2600: I was going to send you an e-mail two weeks ago stating that we should channel many of our frustrations with the U.S. justice system toward our adversaries, i.e., China. All of us in the U.S. hacker community are still U.S. citizens. Let us not completely denounce our country. We can utilize our special skills in a constructive manner that is conducive to U.S. information warfare policy. Later, we may use this as legal leverage for future legislation. -ICFN PMP

*response* As one of many such messages we got from the Navy, let us remind you that hackers are not soldiers and are far too individualistic and free-thinking to buy into jingoistic nonsense, regardless of the source. You should seriously consider the effects of reducing hackers to the equivalent of some kind of weapon. It will only increase paranoia and fear. And we find it extremely telling that the authorities, the media, and apparantly a whole lof of people in the military feel it's OK to vandalize sites if it's done for nationalistic purposes."

(As an aside, there's an interesting picture of an Ewok holding a rifle behind the article)

It would seem quite hypocritical for us (typical /. posters), who are so against Big Brother poking his nose into our business to turn right back around and do EXACTLY the same thing to other members of the US public. I seriously doubt "fighting terrorism" involves busting into a secret (insert arabic country here) computer and taking vital military plans. Rather, it will involve spying on your neighbors and seeking internal 'threats,' probably in ways which violate the 4th amendment to the constitution.

It's called the CIA...

[Robber Baron]

Ironic. Heard news about John Ashcroft lumping hackers in together with terrorists in the new anti-terrorism legislation: so the US is now starting its own Corps of Terrorists?

What do you mean starting? Theyve had a terrorist corps for years...it's called the CIA.

Public Service announcement airing on . . . .

[jgaynor]

Two hacker favorites -- USA Cable's Sci-Fi Channel, and UPN's hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- would be perfect places to air the spot, said Aftab . . .

I can understand Sci-Fi but BUFFY??!! No discerning slashdotter watches Buffy unless its to see a LOTR trailer. Try Battlebots, Toonami or better yet - pay-per view porn.

Bull fucking shit

[NateKid]

If you let one bombing change your opinions about ANYTHING (other than stiffer package checks at the airport), Osama Bin Laden has completely won. The poiont of terrorism is to instill terror in civilians and in your case it looks like they've succeeded.

There were good cops and bad cops, and there still are. That hasn't changed even though the dangers of their profession has become more apparent to us. And, speaking as someone with a law enforcement background, I still feel that we shouldn't be scared into handing over the keys to our freedom. Yeah, a bunch of them died, but I'd say 95% had no clue of the dangers (except for some firefighters who work the building collapse units) that awaited them in that death trap. Yeah they risk their lives every day but they get paid pretty well to do it (after top pay over 60+/ per annum with great benefits) and, in the case of firefighters, get all the tang they can drink (I'm on the firefighter list myself and should be going in in a few months - maybe sooner now). So for the same reason we shouldn't profile all arabs as terrorists, we shouldn't paint all cops with the martyr brush. Many are good men and women, but just as many as before still have lubed up broomsticks. The heroism of some of them still does not give them the right to harrass you and your friends.

Who actually handles computer crimes, anyways?

[Ryu2]

FBI? Secret Service? I've heard both names... who has the jurisdiction for computer related crimes in the US, anyways? Or some other agency?

Do they take us for suckers?

[Rimbo]

In the grand tradition of governments and hackers as usual. They do everything they can to criminalize us and demonize us, and now they want our help. Will they reward us the same way the British government rewarded Alan Turing, by "treating" his homosexuality "disease?"

If you're a hacker, my suggestion to you is that you don't just help out of the goodness of your heart. Fair is fair: Demand just compensation, in the form of pro-hacker legislation and ditching the DMCA and the laws that are currently on the table. If they want hacker help, they're going to have to change the laws to be more hacker friendly.

It's that simple, folks. If they don't support you, you don't support them. If the USA really wants hackers to help them, the first thing the USA can do is to help the hackers.

Re:Hell, Why Not?

[n2dasun]

funny... I'm just getting started, and make a bit more than $30K.

Re:Why Draft doesn't worry me (too much)

[ldopa1]

Besides, it takes 3 years to train a soldier to do his (or her) job well.

The key word in that phrase is well. If you want to tell me that PFC Jack Hoff is an experienced fighting man, then I'll ask YOU to sit in a foxhole with him. Mind you, I'm not slamming Marines. The same hold true for all of the services. Flight training alone does not make an ace fighter pilot. It takes actual experience. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about.

Anyone can look up the length of training for any MOS (or Rating, if you're in the Navy). Some of them are 9 months (Navy Fire Controlman, for example, my rating). Go to any Staff Seargent or Master Chief and ask him if he (or she) thinks that someone straight out of boot camp and an occupational school is actually experienced. I can tell you right now that they will probably wet themselves laughing. That's where the term "Boot" came from to decribe an inexperienced soldier/sailor/airman.

And, as a former Marine, I would state that any "talented computer hacker" who knows nothing about the actual operations of the military would be better off catching bullets than writing bugs.

Now I think I know why you're a former Marine. How long were you in? What was your MOS? I'd bet (and I'm not flaming here, I want to know) that you probably didn't make it past E-4. I say this because any Marine over E-4 that has had actual combat experience and has lost brothers in the fighting knows that a warm body catching bullets doesn't do a DAMN thing except hose the operation and make people sad. Frankly, that's why Squids call green Marines "Bullet Sponges." Lesson #1 in combat: The first casualty of combat is the battle plan.

Obligatory Navy-Marine joke: Why are bananas and Marines alike? They both die on the beach in bunches.. (Rimshot)

Re:"In the famous words of..." I can see it now

[ackthpt]

"All your Al-Qaeda (the base) are belong to U.S."

Wrong

[Augusto]

The CIA didn't train them to be "Islamic extremists", they trained them to be guerrilla warriors.

They were chosen because they opposed the "godless" Russians, which happened to be our enemies too.

> cloak-and-dagger games of subversion and manipulation stop,

LOL. They HAVE stopped, that's why we didn't have "intelligence" on this attack and why we can't infiltrate Bin Laden. Actually, this whole mess is a justification to get back into dirty Cold War era "cloack-and-dagger" tactics.

Re:Wrong

[Augusto]

They were guerrilla warriors when they were fighting military targets, specifically the Russian invaders.

No, we didn't teach them to mow down civilians.

And yes, there's a big difference between fighting a foreign invader in your land and blowing up buildings full of innocent people.

BTW, none of the hijackers were Afghanis.

This and after Monday's posting

[mrBoB]

They must think we are stupid. Give the FEDERAL Government the evidence they _NEED_ to try AMERICAN CITIZENS as TERRORISTS?? Remember that post from Monday? It's not legal to allow a Government agency the right to do one thing when Citizens are liable under another law. Or did I miss something?

-Bob

What commercials?

[mclem]

My TiVo playback of the pirated DirectTV downlink (on my iPaq, running wireless in my bathroom) doesn't show any commercials.

:-) all around

Well if your me

[Skuld-Chan]

And you just got laid (heh heh) off from a .com or whatever you call it (www.rulespace.com) and just graduated from college you sign up :).

I'm insulted.

[Velex]

America this, America that. Isn't this the same Uncle Sam that creates messes like the DMCA and SSSCA? Isn't this the same Uncle Sam that's trying to keep us all from using GPG and copy files? And now this Uncle Sam comes crawling back to us hackers and ask for us to help him?

Go ahead and mod me down, but it has to be said. Uncle Sam is not the entity to be helping. He's become old, senile, and tyrannical. If it we up to him, all hackers would be in jail! So instead he's giving us a choice: work for me or get labeled a terrorist. I think not. I don't know about other Slashdot readers, but I've about had it with these shenanigans.

I don't care if Uncle Sam wants to hunt me down, but I'm keeping my 31337 5k1Llz to myself. If I get drafted I'll move to Canada or get a sex change. (Why is it that only males are drafted?)

Anyway, I'm pissed. Uncle Sam can shove it where the sun don't shine.

AOL CDs should be part of airline safety package

[Augusto]

> Now I know what to do with all those AOL CD's..

Next time you're in a plane, and some crazed fanatical "Holy Warrior" threatens you with a box cutter, take out the AOL CDs, distrubute them among the passengers and break them apart.

Voila, now everybody is armed with sharp CD fragments ready to impale the "Holy Warriors".

See, AOL CDs are very useful. Thank you AOL !

Re:Why Draft doesn't worry me (too much)

[sigwinch]

You've never been in the military I take it? Let me fill you in. It don't mean squat what you know when you go in. Yes you could get lucky and they make use of your computer skills, but I've seen plenty of people with technical skills get plopped right in the infantry.

Which is why you don't enlist in the Marines unless you really don't mind a personal visit to the front line. Instead you get a job at a national laboratory, defense contractor, intelligence agency, military base, university with a military research contract, or whatever. I think that's what the original comment meant. An extended campaign creates numerous non-rifle-totin' jobs.

Suspicious, neh?

[ForbidnDonut]

if they want to get busy doing good stuff, they should come to us and not try to take action on their own

Hmm...Last week they were calling hackers terrorists, this week they're telling them to identify themselves. Seems a bit suspicious to me...like you're going to be doing the aforementioned hacking from within a jail cell

wasn't there a movie about this??

[josepha48]

I know that there have been so many sci fi movies, but wasn't there a movie about something like this?

I know that there have been a lot of movies that have portraid hackers to be the bad guys, but there have also been some shows that portray them as the good guys. Independance day where he hacked the enemy and blew up the mother ship. The movie hackers where they saved the oiltanker. I think one of the big reasons that hackers got such a bad rap was that movie with mathew brodrick in it that portraid hackers as bad guys and the goverment was trying to lock them up, rather than getting his help.

Now being a war vetran myself (Desert Storm), I can tell you that if the goverment wants to recruit hackers then I'd say that is probably the best way to serve your country. You would probably not have to fire a gun, you could do what you like, and if htey are understanding and don't get in your way (hahaha) then you can pretty much write your own ticket at that point. Anyway I'd do it, if I were a hacker.

Ashcroft != Entire Government

[JohnG]

Everyone here keeps saying that last week THEY were trying to call hackers terrorists, and now THEY are trying to recruit them.
I think it is important to recognize the difference between Ashcroft and THEY.

It looks like more of a CEASE AND DESIST

[twitter]

"Computer attacks and hate speech do not contribute in any constructive way to dealing with the many problems our global civilization faces," said WorldCom senior vice president Vinton Cerf, who is scheduled to appear in the televised announcement.

Translation, "Script kiddies and trolls put down your keyboards." Not a bad thing to ask, and the appeal to patriotism is nice too. The message is consistent with others, such as making DOS attacks and cracks a terrorist offense with a real death penalty. "Doodz, you got the death penalty?", not to funny anymore and much less nice.

You don't really think the US government wants to hire out 10,000 script kiddies do you? What, with every CS teacher, National Lab researcher and defense contractor willing to jump right in the US has no shortage of computer operators. OK, they might use one or two. Warrez operators please report to the office of cracker mobilization right next door to the Imigration and Nationalization Free Refridgerator Service Office for Illegal Aliens.

Give it up, bitches! Turn off your crack bots and behave. Carry out useful and constructive protests instead. In the end, survival is cultural victory, so build up rather than tear down.

Hackers need to ask for policy changes first.

[Rimbo]

Bingo. Turing served a government that demonized him.

Hackers shouldn't provide the same blind devotion. If the US Government really wants help from hackers, the first thing the US Government can do is STOP DEMONIZING THE HACKERS! Drop the DMCA, drop the case against Dmitry, drop the new laws being introduce that criminalize the use of a computer for everything but shopping on eBay, and GIVE US SOME GUARANTEES THAT OUR FREEDOMS WILL BE PROTECTED!

If the US Government wants our aid, they need to make efforts to indicate their good faith towards us. And they have a LOT of catching up to do.

I'll be the biggest patriot you've ever seen when the Liberty this country is supposed to stand for is restored to me. It is Liberty that makes the country great, not the fact that it happens to be (out of some random chance) where I was born, live, and work.

Picture a recruiting poster...

[Giant Hairy Spider]

Now imagine the words, "Previous killing and/or mass destruction experience preferred."

Kevin Mitnick should offer his services

[Pseudonym]

Subject line says it all.

The quid-pro-quo may be necessary...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

As for things we don't agree with in politic we can always resume our quarrels after we beat the shit out of those motherfuckers who killed so many of our people.

I note that if crackers use their skills for information warfare they'll still be breaking the laws mentioned in the quid-pro-quo request.

Orders from officers or officials in the executive branch is no excuse for committing felonies.

So some of the requested actions may be necessary if the government wants to legally use the crackers in their efforts.

think again

[Technodummy]

NateKid said: If you let one bombing change your opinions about ANYTHING (other than stiffer package checks at the airport), Osama Bin Laden has completely won. The poiont of terrorism is to instill terror in civilians and in your case it looks like they've succeeded.

Some have said that allowing the attacks to change the way we think is wrong, and I think that argument is flawed.

People are more grateful for the good things they have and grateful for those who have survived. They are more aware of the world they live in, aware that vigilance is necessary and that freedom is not always easy.

Not learning anything from events is a backward step in evolution.
Humans attempt to learn, to improve ourselves, it's what we do.

And that includes improvements in airport security *and* gratitude replacing taken-for-granted attitudes towards the police.

fosh said: Sure, the government may have "demonized" us before.

Putting aside the past mistakes of the police when they ask for your help (showing that you in fact can help and are capable) is putting aside pettiness for something more important, something constructive.

Pettiness begets fighting and achieves very little.

Maybe not all cops are heroes, but very little in this world is absolute. Be grateful for the good things you have and do what you can to change the bad things, without becoming bad yourself.

If you want to improve the police force, do something positive like joining it and doing it right.

Armies of script kiddies

[hearingaid]

the gov does not want an army of kiddies who don't know shit about computers and infiltration other than running other people's code.

This seems intuitively obvious. However, I'm not sure it's true.

Just how many script kiddies are there out there? I suspect the ratio of them to serious security professionals is probably pretty severe.

While I wouldn't want to hand off responsibilities for securing systems to script kiddies, I can think that they could well be useful on the other side of infowar: taking down the enemies' systems. After all, script kiddies tend to be quite adept at acquiring tools... the possibility of using a large number of them as a kind of electronic human wave does have a kind of appeal.

then again, what would boot camp be like? I can just see it now... :)

Interest is Evil

[Chris Y Taylor]

That's odd, I was fairly sure that bin Laden's beliefs prevented him from keeping his money in banks, because they pay interest and interest is evil. I guess if he can pervert Islam into blowing up buildings with planes, he can have his money in a bank... but that does seem very uncharacteristic of him.

Uncle sam isn't in this...

[cabbey]

I don't know who pulled that uncle sam refference out of thin air, but I've been all over the cyberangels website, they *aren't* the government, just a standard non-profit organization. No where do they claim any connection to the government, which is what the figure head of "uncle sam" traditionally represents.

ActiveISP

[KjetilK]

Hehe, ActiveISP is a Norwegian ISP, and one with a Very Bad Reputation. The CEO said to a newspaper a couple of years ago "we're spending tons and tons of money on marketing, because in this market, you have to establish yourself within a year or two if you want to become rich, or your out. And I'm going to be very rich", or something like that.

They had a few persistent spammers too, that they didn't want to terminate. Spammers were good for their business. Then, a stupid admin there managed to tell a nanaeity "Fuck off, you shouldn't tell me what spam is!", but fortunately, they realize soon thereafter that being RBLed was even worse for business. :-)

Well, I wouldn't want to do business with these guys, that's for sure...

Hacker favorites?

[Caid Raspa]

Two hacker favorites -- USA Cable's Sci-Fi Channel, and UPN's hit show Buffy the Vampire Slayer -- would be perfect places to air the spot.

Saying TV==hacker_favourite is idiotic.

I threw away my TV in 1996, three months after 'checking out that net'. Books and the net are the channels I use for getting information. For entertainment: books, the net, coding, computer games and of course, real life(TM). TV is for people with 5-min attention span, hackers (I hope) have longer spans.

I hate to see how people build their 'living room' around the TV. Then they are in front of it like statues around an altar. Yuck.

Hmmm, what 'ist' will come next...

[browman]

Anyone noticed any similarities to the word "terrorist"'s use today when compared with the word "communist" about 20 years ago?

What's a hacker to do?

[Syberghost]

Get it in writing, with your name specifically on it, and signed the President, that's what.

Otherwise, you're gonna have to fight it as "entrapment", and good luck when the jury is made up of 12 people who were too dumb to get out of jury duty, and who's definition of "hacker" comes from typing the word in on AOL.

Alien Crossfire

[HiThere]

The term Cyberangels is the name of one of the groups in Alien Crossfire. I doubt this is a coincidence, but as to whether it means anything....

Ack! Don't hit them - they host me too!

[Dr_Cheeks]

OK, firstly a quick traceroute says that the site is hosted on a machine in Norway, not London - try Visualroute to see.

Next, Netcraft say it's an NT 4 box.

AFAIK, this is a shared host - if you knock over the box then you'll take down a whole bunch of sites run by people who're totally innocent (not to mention all the innocent people who bank with this company who'll be affected by such an irresponsible attack).

Having checked IPs, my site doesn't seem to be hosted on the same box, but I know I'd be pretty pissed if my visitors couldn't get to my site because someone had decided, with pretty tenuous reasons, to hAx0R the host machine. If you (understandably) feel a need to take action, please try to do it in a more productive manner.