Anonymous Knocks Out Ministry of Sound Website

An anonymous reader writes "The latest DDoS attack from Anonymous has knocked offline UK solicitor Gallant Macmillian's website, the Ministry of Sound Website and their payment website. Macmillian is currently looking for several hundred identities of suspected file-sharers, accused of uploading artists under the Ministry of Sound label."

Comments

Offtopic, but I'm really curious

[zill]

Are there any laws governing what you can legally name your organization?

Can I register a corporation under the name "Federal government of the United States"?

Re:Offtopic, but I'm really curious

[arivanov]

Depends on the country.

15+ years ago the current Bulgarian prime minister business was called "First Private Police". That was in the first years after the fall of the berlin wall and funnily enough they were more efficient and less corrupt than the police proper. IIRC the ministry of the interior tried to sue them for trademarke infringment and failed. So they started stopping their cars for 2h checks every time they had to attend to an incident in progress, arrest their staff for nealry anything and so on until they forced a name change.

So it depends. The government has "its ways". Now are they going to apply them is a different matter

Re:Offtopic, but I'm really curious

[Anonymous Coward]

A long time ago (I guess around the time of Star Wars Episode I) my friends owned Microsith.com and ran it off a shared server that had various other projects from the group.

It looked pretty much like Microsoft.com at the time, except with lots of Star Wars references. It got a fair few visitors, including some from Microsoft, and we never received any lawyer letters. Of course we also weren't selling anything, not even advertising. No Google Ads back then.

Re:Offtopic, but I'm really curious

[imakemusic]

When Railtrack Plc - the company that ran the British railway system - was sold to Network Rail, the name Railtrack became available at Companies House. Some enterprising bloke registered Railtrack Ltd and proceeded to mess people about by answering their letters (PDF). Worth a read.

Not enough lulz, it is insufficient.

[Securityemo]

From a purely digital pyromania perspective (I am not a participant in this, but I like to watch things burn) it would be much more fun if the internal networks and personal computers of these organizations where infiltrated (and counterattacks mounted by hired crackers, of course.) Why doesn't this happen? Would we ever know if it had? (I think we would, actually, as long as the attack was detected.) Is it a question of competence or cowardice? These ineffectual DDOS attacks are getting boring. ;_;

Re:Not enough lulz, it is insufficient.

[Omnifarious]

What would be the most amusingly effective is to infiltrate the computers of these organizations and start running filesharing software on them handing out copies of stuff that you just know the MPAA, RIAA or some other organization is going to be really hot about.

Explaining to a judge how their filesharing was totally innocent even though their IP addresses were flagged would be really fun to watch. Also, in 3-strikes jurisdictions, watching their ISPs kick them off the net would also be huge fun.

Re:Not enough lulz, it is insufficient.

[mpe]

What would be the most amusingly effective is to infiltrate the computers of these organizations and start running filesharing software on them handing out copies of stuff that you just know the MPAA, RIAA or some other organization is going to be really hot about.

Would you need to? It's not like much evidence appears to be required to accuse a member of the public. Also the MPAA has already been caught "pirating" a movie and software (OSS which takes some serious effort to pirate).

Explaining to a judge how their filesharing was totally innocent even though their IP addresses were flagged would be really fun to watch.

How many such accusations go anywhere near a court.

Also, in 3-strikes jurisdictions, watching their ISPs kick them off the net would also be huge fun.

In such jurisdictions accusations which count as a "strike" have to be made by "annointed entities". Possibly they wouldn't do anything if both accused and accuser were both such entities.

Re:Fuck Anonymous

[MichaelSmith]

I'm with you on all points, but why are you so angry at Canada Post?!

Because they sometime deliver Child Pornography and so should be shut down.

Why bother with this?

[WindBourne]

This is stupid. It is just a gadfly and nothing more. They will simply swat it away.
Instead, it makes far more sense to run through their various servers and locate evidence of illegal actions taken on the part or in behalf of the publishing companies. The simple fact is, that crackers could do a real service by locating evidence of how many illegal actions these companies have taken (and yes, they ALL have ). Then get lawyers to sue these companies AND INDIVIDUALS. Once a few of them go to prison, I suspect that attitudes will change.