Slashdot Mirror
Operation Payback and Hactivism 101
Orome1 writes "While individual acts of hacktivism are inconvenient, something else happens when hacktivists group together — they commonly perform a DDoS attack. Techniques have advanced to automate the process, making the attacks more powerful and thus more able to bypass security controls — the effect, however, remains the same. Let us take a look at the recent Operation Payback which has gained notoriety in the past few months."
Stop calling it HACKtivism?
Amongst nerds (which is pretty much whoever is following it on this site) - to 'hack' does not meant the same as 'to crack'.
And calling DDOSing 'hacking' is wrong on both definitions of hack. Especially if the client is just a script kiddie using a program which s/he doesn't know (or care enough) to work out what its doing exactly.
The DDOS Wikipedia Entry is much more informative than this article, I would suggest reading it instead.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
It is not DDoS or cyber-war it is cyber-picketing. It used to be that when you had a disagreement with a company people picked it and disrupted its business that way. Well, welcome to the 21 century you can now picket the business from the comfort of your own home.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
I don't know about that...Their intentions are sound (preserve freedom of speech), even if their methods are crude. Then again, if no one hates you, you're doing it wrong...so...yeah.
Living With a Nerd
Is it freedom of speech if you don't let the other guy talk?
I bet that's the same thing the people in power said back in the '60s...
- These characters were randomly selected.
Whomever coined the word "Hactivism" has a DDoS with their name on it, as far as I'm concerned. Hate, hate, hate, that word. It's neither hacking nor activism.
In what way has Anonymous prevented their targets from talking? It's not like the only way Paypal or Mastercard have to communicate is through their website.
Living With a Nerd
The problem is this "hacktivism" is doing far more damage than good because it easily allows the politicians to say "We need an internet kill switch". The overwhelming majority of people don't give a damn about wikileaks one way or the other. It's a side show on the 24 hours infotainment channels, that's all. The main reason being that what Wikileaks is doing has little to no effect on people's daily lives. Especially when most are more concerned with the job/family/economy. Instead they see these "attacks" as nothing more than a group of vandals. Nothing more and when authorities want tougher laws to deal with these "vandals", the public shrugs and says...."alright".
And attacking the public facing websites...okay that may work with Amazon or Paypal. But to Mastercard or Visa? So long as I can still use my Visa Debit card or Mastercard at the gas pump or grocery store, it's not like I notice.
That being said, if they did target the processing systems of mastercard/visa, I'm pretty sure that would be the golden goose the politicians have been waiting for to really clamp down on control of the internet because then you are messing with people pocket books.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Dude, It's 4chan. Have you ever been on /b/?
Here is what happens: Anon comes in with a novelty idea, /b/tards join in "just for the lulz". Then, new Anon (oldfag Anon is a cold, merciless beast. newfag Anon is the conscious, moral, cause-oriented joke of the internet) puts a tag on it and says they are doing it for X. I mean, some said they did the Habbo raids to fight racism. They also said they did project chanology to protect the victims of Scientology. Bullshit, they did it for the lulz.
Of course, DDoSing, Raiding, IRL stalking, etc, are fucking funny, and if it happens to overlay with a good cause, even better. Let them have fun, and bring them down while they are at it.
But in this case, it's pretty obvious that Anon had nothing to do with Amazon Europe going down. Anon is nothing but a bunch of script kiddies, and they don't have the sophistication nor the combined bandwidth to bring down Amazon with a ddos attack.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
DDos attack = slashdot Effect.
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them.
As advocates of Democracy and transparency, let's break the law and act in secret to take down big companies, which in turn hurts small businesses who use these payment services. Let's also inconvenience random shoppers. Let's create all kinds of random collateral damage to make a point about supporting transparency by supporting a completely secretive organization.
Sorry, I'm not buying it.
I was just at the Oklahoma City Bombing Memorial and museum. One of the more interesting aspects of it was that the people motivated to bomb the federal building (and kill infants in the nursery) were upset at the government. They felt the most effective way to change the government was a terrorist attack. The two responsible were caught. One will serve life in prison while the other was executed. They didn't change government, but they did forfeit their lives.
Conversely, families of vicitms banded together, formed a group and went to Washington D.C. to ask for reform in how the death penalty is handled in federal cases. They felt the best way to support Democracy and affect change was to use Democracy itself.
That is such a novel concept.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
So you're saying that they lack the ability to seriously interrupt the business of companies like Mastercard, Amazon or Paypal, that if they did it would be counter-productive due to inciting a response from the Government and that all they do, is generate publicity by attacking the public faces of the companies. Given the first two of your propositions, doesn't the third one actually make a great deal of sense?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Oh please.
100 people can sit in at a lunch counter, shutting down service, and it's considered activism and protest.
100,000 organized people could easily shut down 1,000 restaurants, or bank branches, or other retail storefronts by the same behavior. Again, activism and protest.
100-500,000 people can jam up the phone banks to Congressional offices and we call it a "Virtual March on Washington." And nobody suggests it doesn't qualify as activism and protest.
All of these count as activism. Yet when an unknown number of people voluntarily download an item to their computer to participate in a "virtual march" on the website of a bank, or the RIAA, or Paypal, or Scientology, somehow it's not activism?
The major difference is whether the participants are willing or unwilling. In the case of most botnet-based DDoS attacks, the participants are unwilling; their machines have been hijacked and often they don't even know they are participants. In the case of LOIC, they are all willing. They purposely downloaded and installed the software. They can leave it running or only turn it on at specific times. They can easily uninstall it if they believe it is being used in a way they don't support.
What is going on is not a "cyber attack." It is a virtual protest march.
Is it freedom of speech if you don't let the other guy talk?
This. 1000 times this.
I find it interesting that some people on Slashdot consider them "freedom fighters" of a sort, trying to preserve freedom of speech, when some of the same group have actively tried to interfere with Tumblr and Facebook merely because they didn't like the kind of people who posted on them.
As someone upthread said, these aren't freedom fighters, they're thugs. Just because their targets at the moment include businesses you don't like, doesn't make them less so.
How do you figure? It what way were Paypal or Mastercard prevented from saying what they had to say?
Are you implying that they only communicate through their websites?
Living With a Nerd
They never targeted the public facing website for Paypal. It was the ssh port and the api site that they went after. They weren't targeting your ability to visit Paypal.com, they were directly targeting the ability to make a payment.
You forget, this is the United Corporations of America! We'll tie you down with a Bass Pro Fishing Shop-branded rope and give you 30 lashes with a Wal-Mart branded whip. After it's all done, we'll just put some Neosporin on there, prop you up on an Ikea couch, and let you indulge in that wonderful cultural pasttime known as "watching television", where you will be informed of other great products and services!
Living With a Nerd
No. It's not. It's a bunch of people that's speaking out the only way they can be heard. They've voted with their dollar, they've probably even voted with their VOTE, and yet things haven't changed, so it comes down to this.
Yeah. Like they could totally go into the closet and whisper their opinions to the cockroaches. No need to be able to talk to the people who want to listen to them.
Get some maturity why don't you?
Freedom of speech involves freedom from retaliation. If you choose not to do business with them, that's great. But if you prevent others from doing business with them then you've crossed the line.
If they "just" put in a kill switch, we would get off lucky. An attack that knocks a major credit card processing company off the Internet (and thus keeps people from being able to do transactions) would get Congress to be cranking out bills in record time. Think USAPATRIOT act, where Congresspeople had to sign the law or be considered weak on terrorism.
Instead, what we would see if "anti-cyberterrorism" treaties being passed with the same wording as ACTA, but because it is for "national security", it would get people signing without a second thought.
End result: Bye-bye Internet, hello Compuserve v2.0. We have a deal after 9PM -- only $5.00/hour while viewing our premiere Web pages ($9.99 an hour if viewing other content) , receiving E-mails is only 99 cents per message, and sending is only $1.99 per message. Don't forget to visit the new CB channel while you are at it.
They weren't preventing anyone from talking, they were however doing what they could to disrupt business.
You know, under normal circumstances I'd be very against what those acting under the "Anonymous" label have done, just as many on Slashdot are right now. But these are not normal circumstances. We have a government - correction, we have an establishment, because this is an unholy alliance of government, big business, and big media, all of whom are covering up and even assisting with each other's crimes, that's gone rogue. And not just mildly rogue, it's an establishment that's fraudulently launched wars, kidnapped, tortured, raped, and destroyed. There are literally tens of millions of direct victims of this government, and hundreds of thousands of people victimized to the point of being tortured, raped, kidnapped, or killed.
Two years ago this country reacted to what little was getting out by electing someone who had claimed to be against this (and made it a big part of what he supposedly stood for) since he first hit the national spotlight in 2004. And his actions on taking office? To continue virtually every aspect of what made the previous administration so evil, in some cases going further.
Meanwhile, when there's even a hint that some of the truth will come out, the establishment has lead Denial of Service attacks of their own, with the major credit card companies abusing their monopoly to make it harder for such acts to be funded, and Amazon.com going as far not merely to disconnect Wikileaks, but to spread smears against them, smears they're continuing to spread today.
So I'm ambivalent about the hacker attacks. Frankly, I think most of the "victims" deserve it - in fact, they deserve much worse. In a decent world, we'd see:
Be very clear about this: these organizations are doing what they're doing for no other purpose than to assist a rogue establishment in preventing the people from knowing the about the crimes it has committed. They're helping in a campaign to prevent people from knowing that the government, and the media, lied about the wars they started. They're helping in a campaign to prevent people from knowing that, for example, private contractors can rape and kill with impunity, that the government will continue to give them money after they've done so, and that the media will, just by being asked, not report upon it, or if it does, bury it where it will not be seen.
This is what is being hidden. This is what people like Jeff Bezos are more than willing to be a part of.
And I'm supposed to be upset about a bunch of frustrated "hackers" trying to bring down their web servers? Why? They're not engaging in violence, they're not preventing anyone from speaking, and the "right" options - the ones everyone are supposed to use before breaking the law - have been denied in the worst way possible. Democracy was tried. The law isn't even available.
I'm not going to encourage anyone to assist with the DDoS attacks, and not going to engage in them myself. But I simply cannot condemn them. And frankly, if Jeff Bezos or the directors of the major credit cards were in front of me right now, I'd spit on them.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Guess what, the Taliban calls you a "spoiled brat acting like thugs".
Iran calls you that.
North Korea calls the western world that.
It makes it a lot easier to hate the other side if you give them a derogatory name and belittle them.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It is not DDoS or cyber-war it is cyber-picketing.
It used to be that when you had a disagreement with a company people picked it and disrupted its business that way. Well, welcome to the 21 century you can now picket the business from the comfort of your own home.
Picketing is a public act. DDoS is not. There is an essential difference. The media orchestration that we have seen over the last few days around DDoD lend me to think me that if there are a few teenagers behind these attacks, they are manipulated by those who want to influence public opinion in the direction of a kill-switch as one poster has mentioned above, and in the direction of measures to rein in on the Internet.
It is all too easy for provocateurs to do as they please, as these actions are anonymous. But the media go on reporting on this ascribing these actions to "a movement in support of Wikileaks". We don't know that, they don't know that.
But I would observe that while the millstones of Mastercard et al may grind slowly they grind exceedingly fine. As my old Lutheran school teacher used to tell us about other stuff...
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
"Freedom of speech involves freedom from retaliation. If you choose not to do business with them, that's great. But if you prevent others from doing business with them then you've crossed the line." Assuming that we're starting with a level playing field. Mastercard, Visa, Paypal, and Amazon are all able to buy Congressmen. Regular people can't. Our government is so corrupt at this point, there's really no recourse for regular people who have to go up against these corporations with more rights and privileges than actual people.
I don't respond to AC's.
PayPal, Visa, Amazon, and MasterCard are all saying that they do not want to do business with Wikileaks.
Anonymous is pretty much running nothing short of a protection scam on them.
"Yea you better do as I say or else..."
Some people say the government is doing the same thing and they very well may be.
Isn't trying to force an action by extortion wrong?
I got no problem if one wants to protest by not buying from Amazon, PayPal, Visa, or MasterCard but DOS attack on them is an attack.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
So change freedom of speech to freedom of association.
The Anonymous thugs are out to stifle freedom of association. Amazon should be free to associate or disassociate as they please.
If you can't associate freely you can't speak freely because who you are speaking with (or not with) will draw retribution.
Please. Making a DDoS with a simple program relates to Hacking like Kicking garbage cans out of frustration relates to making really good and creative political demonstrations.
Even if i do not consider myself a hacker, i think think that the following rules apply for most hackers:
a) Hacking is creative, finding interesting ways to do and know interesting things, and communicating them.
b) If its used for a purpose, make sure the purpose harms nobody. Always try to be useful.
c) don't make hacks available in a form that stupid idiots can use them without understanding - that is to protect them from harming themself and others.
d) Dont mistake your knowledge for power or superiority to judge over others. That would be the same as the superiority of the robber waiting in the dark alley.
e) asymmetric warfare is often used by terrorists. Make sure you are careful when you can create an ethics based on the assumption that fighting an asymmetric war is justified.
f) DDoS are something which should be prevented. They have been used by Russian hackers to take smaller countries web offline. They have been used by spammers to kick ant-spam and malware websites out of the net. They have been used to kick out political activists. DDoS are a weapon working best against small institutions. A small NGO maybe cant afford 1000Euro of Traffic costs. Amazon redistributes their cloud and thats it.
"The problem is this "hacktivism" is doing far more damage than good because it easily allows the politicians to say "We need an internet kill switch"."
If you think that the politicians need a reason to do this, then you're living on another planet. The politicians will do whatever the Big Corporations tell them to do. To say that the people shouldn't fight back for fear of repercussions is laughable.
I don't respond to AC's.
I don't think the article had any more information than the summary. The article read like a middle school research project. The discussion on the topic is only slightly more interesting...
I'm sure the kids on 4chan/b/ are enjoying the attention...until they find out the "hacking" kit they installed just uploaded all of dad's financial information.
Wikileaks did it to themselves.
Instead to sticking to the leaking criminal activity or human rights violations, leaks decided to just release everything they were given without regard to consequences.
They are now actually aiding countries like China and Saudi Arabia by exposing all the US information and opinions on them.
Good job leaks.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
I'm just happy that someone on /. *finally* (in the second paragraph of the post above) used the word "rogue" instead of "rouge".
Yeah. Like they could totally go into the closet and whisper their opinions to the cockroaches. No need to be able to talk to the people who want to listen to them.
So they don't have Twitter accounts? Facebook accounts? Or, you know...access to the fucking media?
Living With a Nerd
Oh no, they were directly targeting www.paypal.com for awhile but later shifted gears as their collective strength was way down compared to when they were hitting Mastercard and they weren't having any real impact hitting www.
I know what you mean, I always see red when people do that... ;-)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
"Freedom of speech involves freedom from retaliation. If you choose not to do business with them, that's great."
But choosing not to do business with them *is* retaliation.
Mastercard and the other companies affected have the right to choose their customers. What these "hactivists" are doing is not preserving freedom of speech, it's an attempt at bullying.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Isn't this true of any protest though, online or off? As soon as the protest becomes effective enough to actually have any real impact, measures will be taken by someone to put it to an end. The only protests that can be allowed are those which achieve nothing.
Paypal and Mastercard removed a Wikileaks funding aparatus. Amazon refused to host the Wikileaks website.
So, who was it again that was denying freedom of speech?
Anonymous is attempting to hurt their pocketbooks, not their ability to speak freely. Think of it as a form of forced boycott of these companies and the companies who rely on their services. If it becomes apparent that the actions of the service provider result in diminished capacity or reliability, the clients will go elsewhere.
"Lame" - Galaxar
Nice post. Bezos shouldn't be singled out any more than Eric Schmidt, though.
WTF happened to Schmidt? He has been making a living out of appeasement talk the last few months... When he speaks it becomes clear that he thinks other people are like him, that they will cower in fear when the watchers start waving around their illicitly acquired secret files.
Dear Eric: That isn't what's going to happen.
Lucky for Mr. Schmidt he has clearly been thinking a lot about this subject. Maybe he can help the government model some sane reactions that the public can employ for self-defense in the future, when sanctioned rendition and torture are not legally available options.
Anyhow, squiggleslash, your mouth is too able for spitting on people. Keep talking instead.
Uhh. Isn't the U.S. government 'strongly suggesting' that Amazon not cooperate with Wiki Leaks. I think we can all agree that freedom of speech and freedom of association should be protected. But it appears to me that Big Brother, is playing it's hand and 'leaning' on the corporations that want to do business in the land of the free.
"Uhh Hey Amazon.com, you REALLY don't want to do business with those scoundrels at wiki leaks do you? Say how do you like the U.S. postal system. How do you like the fact that the internet purchases are not taxed?"
This issue is not freedom of press / association, it is who is Actually playing the heavy hand and stifling these principals. If it were purely up to Amazon, I think they would be happy to take the money wherever it came from. But it isn't. Part of growing up is the need to make money to support others. That means compromises will be made a living and keep doing business, but don't call those compromises a 'courageous moral decision'
While I have some sympathy for the feelings that have inspired these attacks I think the whole idea (if there is actually such a thing), is flawed. Protecting freedom of expression, freedom of information and freedom of the press by making information and services inaccesible is contradictory at best. On the other hand I don't see how the more literal "denial of service" attacks by Amazon, Visa, Paypal, Mastercard against Wikileaks can be defended (if they can be I haven't seen such a defence from any of them anyway).
There must however be more creative and legal ways to mount mass protest against these corporate entities that go beyond just terminating your private use of their services. Some possibilities come to mind: writing tons of emails complaining about their decisions to all company related email adresses you can dig up and mass posting reviews on Amazon criticizing their decision for instance. I'm sure I'm missing lots of interesting ones but you get the point.
The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
It's sad that the above post has languished at 0 points and not been modded up. If I had the mod points to give, I'd give.
At first paypal was blabbering that they cut wikileaks due to 'violation of tos', and there was no political pressure involved. (probably liebermann warned them to say that). A few days with anonymous, they came around to openly say that they did it due to political pressure. A few more days, they decided to release the wikileaks funds they were holding ...
you cant say it didnt work.
Read radical news here
What people don't realize is that they don't have any power at all.
Not as individuals.
By and large, the vast majority of people are dumb sheeple that do as their media overlords tell them. Which forms a positive feedback loop that keeps the politicians and corporations in power.
Challenging that would require an organized resistance movement to turn the tide. Which would promptly attract persecution from the govcorp complex. There would be a few martyrs along the way, for sure. Martyrs that if they were smart would have to have been willing to create a better world with no hope of actually being part of it.
See the above post about cyber-picketing. If you do something wrong as a business, don't complain when people can't come into your store.
Amazon first. Wikileaks didn't host at Amazon until their Swedish provider collapsed under the DDOS they were experiencing. So they moved to Amazon and brought the DDOS with them. Regardless of any government action, it's not that shocking that they kicked them out. Just like you'd kick someone out of your restaurant if they walked in the door and took a shit in the kitchen.
As far as Paypal and Mastercard go, who knows what's happened there. Again, ignoring the government aspect of things, it's been reported (and not disputed) that Julian opened a bank account using fictitious information and he also provided a false address to the British courts, what do you think the odds are that he provided correct information to Paypal and Mastercard? Both of them are companies that are trying to do business and they have to operate within the various regulatory environments they are subject to. Allowing people to use false information on the accounts is a violation of those rules. If Julian and Wikileaks feel that there has been some malfeasance they have legitimate means of recourse.
Finally, there is a huge difference between not associating with someone and preventing them from doing associating with others.
A silly point.
If a thug threatens harm to me or my family for saying something they don't like, that doesn't mean I can't still talk.
But I'd still say you're directly affecting my freedom of speech.
Hell, they could even develop their own space program and go to the moon and beam their message back from there...
Either you just don't get it or you are posting in bad faith. Either way, you're not worth any more time.
This looks like another case of "we wouldn't be having this conversation if it weren't on the internet." The media have consistently characterized Anonymous as "hackers" and "cyber-terrorists" which are way, WAY more malicious than what they actually are, which many people on slashdot have accurately described. If they are anything, they are picketers: the internet equivalent of teenagers with posterboard: yes they are not fostering delicately managed discourse, and yes they are interfering with the operation of "legitimate businesses" but neither are they unjustified or even transgressing against acceptable protest protocol. However, the media paints a fantasy of these hardened e-criminals jacking onto the net stream to funnel pure information directly from the cyber vaults into the unsuspecting infosphere. This is another case of an "the intertron will steal your credit cards!" hysteria, which
Have you ever noticed that the people arrested at major summits for violent action are rarely beefy paramilitary types? Have you ever heard the rumor that the brain is the most sensitive erogenous organ in the body?
Next time try seizing on the positive or diffusing via relational observations that might help the poster broaden their style. You never know when you are speaking to a Dedicated Member on the Internet.
In case you haven't noticed, D.M.'s are popping up everywhere - try grokking the trends in violence on children in Asia against the backdrop of regional integration into global markets over the last twenty years. Figure out where suicide bombers come from. You should start thinking more; emoting less.
The Internet is serious business. Just ask DHS.
Your post lacks redeeming qualities and suggests a lazy thought process. Luckily this condition is rarely terminal if the poster survives long enough to grow the fuck up. For today, you are simply full of shit.
Go suck a dick.
Visa and Mastercard are a duopoly. They don't get to decide "who they do business with", because the decision they make is actually "Who you are allowed to do business with".
Amazon has every right to not do business with Wikileaks. It doesn't, however, have the right to terminate service on a whim without notice. Nor, more importantly, does it have a right to smear Wikileaks when explaining its actions.
Frankly I don't give a rat's ass about Paypal.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I donno if the JavaScript LOIC at http://www.calgarc.com/jloic.html has their current list of targets, but it's default target list is :
http://www.moneybookers.com:80/
http://api.paypal.com:443/
http://verified.visa.com:80/
http://www.mastercard.com:80/
You'll notice two are front facing sites, which the buisness may use for "speech", but not necessarily. And the other two are API urls that are never used for "speech".
Yes, I'd agree they should replace the front facing urls with api urls, obviously that's more effective, and completely avoids trampling on anyone else's right to speak.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
If Julian and Wikileaks feel that there has been some malfeasance they have legitimate means of recourse.
'legitimate means of recourse'. you mean the small guy without money against the wall of lawyers? fair justice is long gone. 'the rich get richer, and the poor go to prison'
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Really, I didn't trample on your ability to speak. I just killed your family because of what you said. That totally isn't affecting your ability to speak freely.
As far as Paypal and Mastercard go, who knows what's happened there. Again, ignoring the government aspect of things, it's been reported (and not disputed) that Julian opened a bank account using fictitious information and he also provided a false address to the British courts, what do you think the odds are that he provided correct information to Paypal and Mastercard? Both of them are companies that are trying to do business and they have to operate within the various regulatory environments they are subject to. Allowing people to use false information on the accounts is a violation of those rules. If Julian and Wikileaks feel that there has been some malfeasance they have legitimate means of recourse.
I would like to point out that all of those accounts had been open for months, if not years, prior to the cables even being announced, much less released. You don't find it the least bit odd that those companies just happened to investigate this after the most powerful governments in the world had their dirty laundry put out for all to see?
Living With a Nerd
How is it silly? Amazon, Paypal, and the like are large enough to have access to every communication tool ever developed by the human race. I don't think slowing down or taking down their website for a couple of hours is going to prevent them from expressing themselves.
Think about this: when one of those companies has important information to tell people, where does it appear first: in the news, or on their homepage? Neither. The answer is both.
Living With a Nerd
I would imagine the response would be:
"Maybe you should talk to North Carolina about taxes first and we'll see what we can do."
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Amazon gave notice and why. 24 hour notice andthey stated that wikileaks violated theTOS. If you don't like theterms of service then don't use the service.
MasterCard and visa. Do very little business from their own websites so why even bother?
Paypal is paypal and a bank that isn't a bank. They need to burn anyways
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
What's not to get? Amazon and Paypal have access to dozens of ways of communicating a message, in some cases (depending on where you are located), they have ways of communicating messages FASTER than putting them on their front page.
I still fail to see how temporarily disrupting one of dozens of ways for a corporation to communicate with the public can be construed as "disrupting free speech." That sounds like the kind of thing you'd hear on Hannity or Olbermann...as in, complete bull.
Living With a Nerd
Picketing is a public act. DDoS is not. There is an essential difference.
Yes, the difference is that picketing rarely gets one arrested, while DDoSing activates all of the police and military power of the federal government. There's a hell of a lot more to lose by participating in a DDos than picketing.
I don't respond to AC's.
Perhaps it's because if you picket legally you won't get arrested. It's a difficult concept but legal protests are legal as long as they continue to obey the relevant laws. Of course there's more to lose when engaging in an illegal activity. The Anonymous thugs aren't heroes that should be lionized. They can't be bothered with an actual protest because they are too busy smashing windows.
How does one protest Mastercard, exactly?
I don't respond to AC's.
He’s still talking. Nobody can hear him.
It’s no different from the counter-protests which are arranged to drown out and crowd out the Phelps crowd when they try to picket military funerals.
Somehow I doubt that the same people calling these script kiddies “thugs” and telling people that what they’re doing is illegal!!1one would also demand that the Patriot Guard Riders were put in jail for their actions...
positions itself to physically shield the mourners from the presence of the Westboro protesters by blocking the protesters from view with their motorcade, or by having members hold American flags. The group also drowns out the protesters' chants by singing patriotic songs or by revving motorcycle engines.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
You misunderstand: anyone who does business with the enemy is a legitimate target. They should consider themselves lucky they've not been targeted with bombs. Yet.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
Start a facebook (or whatever is popular) campaign.
Cancel your Mastercard credit cards and tell them why you are doing so.
Don't use services that use Mastercard systems and explain the reason for not using someone's service.
Are you also against civil rights protests that interfered with businesses? Like sit-ins against restaurants that didn't serve black customers?
It's the same kind of thing. The government apparently isn't interested in making companies act fairly to minority customers, and the minority isn't big enough to cause significant damage through passive actions like boycotts. So you're left with vigilante justice or just ignoring it and moving on.
I don't know how I feel about it but I am very curious if people who oppose this DOS attack are also against civil rights sit-ins, which are exactly the same, and being done for the same motivations (even if you don't agree with them).
The civil rights sit-ins are not the same as the temper tantrum being thrown by Anonymous.
The cause of the civil rights protesters was just. They did break laws to achieve their aims. They also knowingly accepted the very likely (unlike the script kiddies' very unlikely chance) of arrest or worse. Their willingness to sacrifice added to the cause. Remaining peaceful (largely) when confronted with violence added to the cause.
Anonymous is in it for the lulz and the destruction.
I doubt it is just "for the lulz" (I feel stupider for typing that), I'm guessing that some portion of Anon does care. They probably care a bit more than you think, since there are probably targets out there that could get even more "lulz" with a bit less risk or work. Looking around, there is a ton of media, IRC channels, forums, and such supporting Operation Payback, or Leakspin, or whatever the hell their calling it these days.
There is no rule stating that you can't find amusement in protests. Go to some modern protests, or view some footage of protests in the '60s, there was almost a carnival like atmosphere. People enjoyed it. You don't have to be serious faced, completely devoted zealot to have a meaningful protest. You can find it fun as well. It might even be better, since to be human is to garner more sympathy (how much sympathy do we have for raving, utterly devoted, religious zealot protesters?), and it makes a better mockery of whoever your protesting. Your having fun inspite of their nasty behaviors.
Rebellion has always been playful.
I would never argue against doing things you believe in AND getting your "lulz" from it, I would rather you go protest laughing. Everything is better when there is some humor, and element of joie de vivre involved. There is a difference between being serious about something, and being just plain creepy.
I do have some distaste over anything 4Chan, and specifically /b/ does, but I think thats mainly just a generational, or cultural thing and really has no relevance on much of anything.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Freedom of speech involves freedom from retaliation.
Exactly, and wikileaks doesn't have it because of the kind of people that were DDoSed.
Make no mistakes however. Websites is a minor way of Mastercard or Paypal to comunicate or to make business. Hell, I bet hundreds of journalists actively contacted them to allow them to communicate. So saying the aim of these attacks were to censor them is really a strange claim. These DDoS were a mere annoyance, a small protest in front of their HQ building. The most damage was PR.
A line has been crossed when a journalism website was hit by illegal pressure from governments. I think it is fair that protestors cross another line. The ball is in the governments side now. Escalation will now be their responsibility.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Why do corporations have freedom of association? How about corporations with authorized monopolies, like the power company or the cable company?
To me there's a difference between the type of business where one human is serving another (like a racist self-employed taxi driver who refuses to drive black people around) and one like Amazon hosting where a computer is doing all the work and people are barely involved. Same with Mastercard/Visa/etc.
Also it seems like there's a basic problem with applying free speech to electronic communication. This DDOS presumably isn't just sending random data to certain ports, but making legitimate or semi-legitimate requests to affect CPU/memory as well. It's being done by individuals over recognized protocols and connections that have been paid for by real people. Is that not free speech? Seems like criticism of Anonymous is like criticizing Westboro Baptist Church when they go around yelling at funerals. They're disruptive and abusive.. but so far it's protected.
I'm also curious if there's a distinction between an attack involving a botnet where each computer is acting without the consent of its owner, versus one where thousands of people team up and voluntarily join one. Or if there's not even a botnet, but thousands of people clicking refresh on a homepage or leaving garbage comments on a form or whatever. Would you treat all of those as DDOS attacks?
doing far more damage than good because it easily allows the politicians to say "We need an internet kill switch".
I haven't made my mind yet but this might also be a good thing. It's better they do it sooner than later, without having prepared the public enough to prevent any counter movement. There are two outcomes they will settle for, either people become so dumbed-down that you don't even need to kill the Internet-as-we-know-it (in which case you do it anyways) or people become so repressed that they would actually support such an act.
Now, if they do it now, we might have a big enough movement to create an Internet from scratch, without any direct or indirect (through ISPs, etc.) attachments to world states. Even the wireless routers we already have, plus a few fast long-distance connections, should be enough to create a world-wide mesh network, albeit slow.
Why can't bullying be used to preserve free speech? How about if the "bullying" has absolutely no physical component, but is completely electronic, i.e. pure speech itself?
Why do companies have a right to choose their customers? I'm not saying they don't, but what is your philosophical basis for that? I'm sure it leads to all sorts of interesting, unintended situations.
it's been reported (and not disputed) that Julian opened a bank account using fictitious information and he also provided a false address to the British courts
He did not open a bank account using fictitious information. He used his lawyer's address because he did not live in Switzerland yet. And I never heard about him giving a false address to the British courts?
This isn't a civil rights protest. This is a bunch of script kiddies throwing a temper tantrum. Really Visa and Mastercard sites are mainly used by end users to do things like check transactions. Taking it down didn't hurt their bottom line at all. This is simple vandalism and not activism. The civil rights protesters stood up for what was right and a lot of them went to jail.
The the 4chan script kiddies are doing is digital hiding out in the bushes and throwing eggs are cars and spay painting graffiti.
Vandalism != to protesting.
MLK and Gandhi didn't do anything anomalously.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Nope. It's freedom of speech when you don't let somebody donate money to a particular group of people.
Picketing is a public act. DDoS is not.
That’s incorrect. Your online identity is known. People’s real identities have been found using that information and they’ve been charged with crimes for it.
And even if it wasn’t illegal, as it ought not to be (no more than any real life protest is illegal), that simply shows an inability of the online community to enforce consequences for this sort of action.
For instance, if some of the major players banded together and designed their servers to share IP addresses in real-time during a DDoS, the attackers might suddenly find that Google, Hotmail, etc. refused to acknowledge connections from their IP address, making their internet connection fairly useless until they stopped flooding the DDoS target and their IP expired from the blacklist (which could be set to occur in several hours or even less, as long as they had stopped actively participating in the DDoS).
But that would require actual work on their part to find a solution to address their problem and fix it. It’s much easier for them to just yell about how the DDoS attackers are criminals and bring the hurt on a few of them to discourage the rest a la the RIAA playbook.
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
You're either being deliberately provocative, deliberately obtuse, or just plain puerile.
These attacks are being executed by a group of sheep who give interviews to news outlets and throw out handy unthinking catch phrases like "information wants to be free" and "we demand complete transparency of information" while failing to see the hypocrisy in saying "shh, no, you can't use my name, I'm too scared". They're cowards, vandals, and hypocrites, and what annoys me the most is they claim to speak for me even if I don't realize or accept it.
They like to play up their image by pretending to be supremely skillful hackers when all they're doing is blithely and naively granting control of their computers to a faceless name on the web who says they'll only use that control to attack the evil corporations.
Yes, I'm annoyed, and it really surprises me I haven't seen more condemnation here. I posted on an earlier story that the average man in the street would see this, rightly or wrongly, as being cyber-terrorism which is directly linked with WikiLeaks and would see that as a negative against the overall message (whatever the hell that is; even that hasn't been communicated in a succinct and coherent manner that's made it out to the public). And lo and behold, that's exactly what was being put forth on all the news shows over this weekend.
Bunch of idiots. If you believe this is a valuable thing that WikiLeaks has done (and I don't), then they've done a better job at destroying the public acceptance of any legitimate leaks than any official US retribution.
Visa, MC and Amazon didn't "choose" not to do business with Wikileaks. They have been "asked" to do so, and presented with the alternative to piss off Wikileaks or the US governments, they choose the (presumably) smaller problem. Note that they were not required by law to cease business with Wikileaks or that the government had any (legally backed) reason to require them to cease business. It was just "convenient" for the US government. They just "wanted" to cut off Wikileaks from its resources.
Visa, MC and Amazon were not required, neither by law nor convention nor any other reason to comply with the "request". They just did because it can be beneficial to do the US government a "favor". Especially if it doesn't really cost you anything.
The only thing the DDoSs did is, they made it cost something. And hopefully companies will from now on be more considerate when doing "favors".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
A thug putting pressure on them to do as they please... just to make things clear now, you mean Anonymous or the US government? Both tried to "persuade" them to do their bidding, and neither had any legal reason to do so.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Bunch of idiots. If you believe this is a valuable thing that WikiLeaks has done (and I don't), then they've done a better job at destroying the public acceptance of any legitimate leaks than any official US retribution.
Wait...so you're saying releasing cables showing that diplmats are talking smack about countries they're negotiating with, that military contracters are hiring child prostitutes, or proving that certain countries are working with others to help them obtain nuclear materials doesn't count as a "vaulable thing"?
Christ, what DO you consider valuable? Let me guess...keeping corruption buried from the public?
Living With a Nerd
Freely? Are you kidding me?
Do you really think Visa and MC woke up one morning and found out that "Hmm. We suddenly don't like Wikileaks anymore." And Amazon, Paypal and that Swiss bank the name of which I keep forgetting, all had the same idea all at the same time? Boy, talk about great minds thinking alike.
They didn't "freely" decide to stop doing business with Wikileaks. You may rest assured that they were "asked" to freeze the funds and stop dealing with Wikileaks. Note that they were not required BY LAW to do so. If they were, I'd be fully on your side. There is no law that requires them to cease business with Wikileaks. They were just "asked" to cease business and figured that it doesn't matter, so we better do what the US gov wants, even though there is zero legal reason to comply.
Simply allowing this to happen means that whoever just happens to be in power in the US can basically decide who may and who may not do business, with whomever. Is that what we want? A government that may dictate who may and who may not buy, sell or otherwise trade? Not based on laws but on whim?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I don't know if it is true but I've read in some media accounts that these attacks have in some cases prevented these companies from conducting their regular financial transactions with customers.
Anyone know if this is true? If it is true Anon. is doing a lot more than preventing these companies from sharing info via a website..
Some 16 year old in Europe has already been arrested over the anon. ddos attacks - at least I read it in the paper..
Scat analogy ftw!
More like destroying some cash in a bank and then leaving a cell phone behind so the bank staff can call the cops and/or press.
Picketing is NOT about denying access to something, it is about persuading people not to go in. Picketing is non-violent, and non-disruptive. The idea is to call attention to a problem, and to hopefully persuade others to not do business with a place. If you are forcibly stopping people from going in, that's a blockade and that isn't legal.
If you think I'm an asshole, you are within your rights to picket my house. You can stand outside, not on the property, with a sign and let people know, including people who come to visit. However, if you try to block me from entering my house, the police will come and remove you and charge you with a crime. You can't prevent me from going where I want.
Now occasionally protesters do blockade a business as a form of protest. Guess what? They get arrested for that, and they KNOW they will. It is a form of civil disobedience and they understand the consequences.
This is not picketing, it is blockading and it is illegal.
Just like you'd kick someone out of your restaurant if they walked in the door and took a shit in the kitchen.
No, it's like kicking someone out of your restaurant if a health inspector came in and told you they would give you a bad report otherwise. But thanks for your shitty analogy, BadAnalogyGuy has been falling down lately.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Freedom of Speech applies to government interactions with the public, not business interactions with the public.
Please can this meme die. Free Speech refers to the ability to disseminate ideas without fear of persecution. In the USA, constitutionally protected free speech applies to the federal government, but that is not the limit of free speech. The US constitution does not enumerate your rights, it enumerates the powers of the federal government, explicitly denying them the right to interfere with free speech but not implicitly giving everyone else the right to do so.
What does Freedom of Speech have to do with whether a corporation chooses to host someone?
Very little, as long as it's a single corporation that doesn't have a monopoly. The problem is when it is impossible to exercise free speech without some form of corporate assistance (because all of the required infrastructure is under corporate control), and no corporation will assist you.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
How so?
How is the right to eat at a certain restaurant "more just" than the right to publish freely?
Okay if you're right that they are purely in it for the lulz than you may be right, but come on, can't you see through that as a defense mechanism to not feel bad when they fail and not be called out for hypocrisy on other high-horse issues?
I mean seriously. Is it a coincidence that Anonymous is supporting Wikileaks, but not the KKK? Why not DDOS the NAACP in the name of the KKK? That's more lulz worthy if that's REALLY the goal.
It's a difficult concept but legal protests are legal as long as they continue to obey the relevant laws.
And as long as the relevant laws continue to say that the protest is legal. Does the company you’re picketing have lobbyists?
Distributed Denial of APK: It takes 15 seconds to reply to him anonymously, but wastes tons of his time if we all do it.
This isn't a civil rights protest.
Of course it is. If it's just a random attack or vandalism or a temper tantrum, is it purely coincidental that it involves companies that screwed Wikileaks and may have bowed to government pressure in doing so? Why isn't toysrus.com being DDOS'd?
But I'm sure one day that will happen. The response to harmless attacks is to belittle them and not change anything.
You remember what our lovely freedom-loving government and press said to Terry Jones, right? "Publicly burning the Koran is like shouting fire in a crowded theater because people may die from the consequences. It endangers our troops and our security interests. etc etc." (Actually, it was very similar to what is being said about Wikileaks, but that's another issue.) Hell even a US Supreme Court Justice got on board with that sort of criticism.
Now Anonymous doesn't get the respect that terrorists and radical Muslims do. They are "kids" with "temper tantrums" etc. Well okay.. do you know what you are asking for with that?
I'm sure groups like Anonymous will never come to that, because at heart they are good people who don't *want* to go around killing innocent people. It's just sad to me that we as a society negotiate with terrorists and laugh at peaceful people.
The civil rights protesters stood up for what was right and a lot of them went to jail.
Different times, different methods. Why go to jail if you don't have to? How does that make your cause more or less noble?
that article was sooooo boring... I didnt know we had 10 year olds and grandmas reading slashdot....
you know you can fry stuff putting things into things that dont like the things you put into it...
This presents a problem when you wish to send a message to Mastercard, Visa, and Paypal. Take those three out of the equation and you are very rapidly running out of options to buy anything on most sites.
"It doesn't come down to this at all. They could write to their democratically elected representatives, they could write to newspapers, they could organize rallies, or contribute to blogs, or start a visasucks.com style site, or hand out flyers, or vote for any propositions which punish Amazon or run counter to its interests. "
Are you joking?
I don't respond to AC's.
Well, not anymore I guess. I don't have another family for you to threaten to kill!
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
I keep seeing posts saying Assange or the Anon crowd are just like the US government, because they're not giving out all their information, and this makes them hypocrites.
It's sickening that people can't see the difference between an individual and a government.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
You are completely insane.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Bull.
Civil rights protests where to change laws. To change the laws people showed that they where willing to break those laws in a way that didn't cause harm.
First of all they didn't have sit ins at dinners. That sat down and tried to be customers!
They didn't block others from being customers!
That is one of the many problems with this world. People try and draw conclusions based on history they don't even know.
What 4Chan is doing more along the lines of the Watts riots.
It is also absolutely dumb to expect a company to stand up to the government they need to work under. To use your own words "why go to jail if you don't have too?"
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Horse shit. I've protested, I've marched, and damn it I knew what I was getting in to. I was ready (but not expecting) to be on the news with my face and name. I was NOT anonymous, delibrately so, and with all those consequences. I was ready for my name to point to a news article about that protest, where I was quoted.
Now, none of this happened, But I was ready and willing for it to happen.
Protest isn't supposed to be easy. In fact, it cheapens it if it is. If I download a program, run it in the background, then go back to watching TV or jacking off - how is that morally equivalent to people spending many hours of their life calling phones? Or more so - getting beat up or hosed down for standing up for yourself and your skin color?
But these "hactivists" don't understand WHAT they're doing, they don't understand WHY, and they think it's a joke and don't expect to get caught. Those disqualify this breed of vandalism three times over. If they understand what they were doing, the instructions would be more than "go to this website, download this, and type in paypal. lulz". If they understood why, they wouldn't be doing it - at least not Amazon. What, so Amazon is supposed to host Wikileaks despite the DDoS it was getting? That's like if I took a shit in your car, and some guy on the street beat you up for kicking me out. And they're fully expecting to never get caught - look at that idiot in Europe who was astonished to find out that his computer was sending PACKETS with his ADDRESS!
I basically support Wikileaks, mostly because it convinces me that things aren't that bad. Our operatives shouldn't be making stupid mistakes, but our government really should be protecting them. Holy shit, there are civilian casualties in a war? Pakistan is two faced? Stop the presses! Wikileaks hasn't leaked anything new to those of us paying attention to the world.
But these "hacktivists" are absolutely not protesting. They're clicking a button, grabbing a Coke, and playing XBox. By calling them protesters, or even activists, you cheapen what real protest is. Staring down a gun barrel for daring to protest Vietnam, and having a bit of lag on your MW2 because you ran some program you don't understand for reasons you don't understand - those are absolutely not the same thing.
I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
No I am being completely serious. 4chan is a bunch of kiddies that does stuff like DDOS, griefing etc. for lulz. If they actually cared about the issues they pretend to espouse there would be numerous more legitimate routes of protest.
Civil rights protests where to change laws.
Sure, but they did so by targeting businesses, who were themselves just following the law. http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-02-01-sit-ins-civil-rights_N.htm
First of all they didn't have sit ins at dinners. That sat down and tried to be customers!
They didn't block others from being customers!
Of course they blocked others from being customers. That was the whole point. They sat in seats until they were served, but they were never served, so the restaurant or store would have no (or fewer) customers that day.
It is also absolutely dumb to expect a company to stand up to the government they need to work under. To use your own words "why go to jail if you don't have too?"
True. So this is a case of fighting unfairness with more unfairness. Maybe that doesn't work, but it's not like it's making the situation worse either.
Threats, property destruction etc, are clearly illegal. Angry letters and noisy protests are not, even if they happen to "disrupt business."
Many protests involve preventing others from doing business with a company.
Organizational boycotts are one.
Or protests can crowd the streets, make it difficult to enter a place of business, or just make doing business an unpleasant experience with hundreds of people waving placards outside.
I am a freelancer who gets paid entirely through Paypal. These attacks may occasionally make it difficult for me to access my money, the same way a loud crowd outside my bank would inconvenience me.
But that's not crossing any bullshit "line." The site will probably be up again in an hour or two.
Now, if they stole all my money from my account, or somehow got it permanently frozen, THAT would be crossing a line.
"The problem is this "hacktivism" is doing far more damage than good because it easily allows the politicians to say "We need an internet kill switch"."
If you think that the politicians need a reason to do this, then you're living on another planet.
They never need a "reason" to introduce things, but they at least need the public to not be outraged. If they think they won't face retaliation from a voting public, they'll go for it. If the worst they'll get is the 'meh' that they usually do when it comes to issues like these, they'll go for it and let the courts strike it down if they can't get away with this.
Really it isn't making things worse.
1. What about the people who's businesses depend on PayPal, Visa, or MasterCard?
2. What about the customers that just want to do their shopping?
And are you so foolish to think that innocent people that are getting financially hurt over this "unfairness" are going to support wikileaks and the protesters or they are going to support more governmental crack downs on such stupid vandalism?
Like I said it is the Watts Riots or the Zootsuit riots and not a useful protest.
It is harmful, dangerous, and frankly just downright stupid. Wikileaks now looks like the villian and is blackmailing the world.
And to put in completely in perspective on just how childish and harmful this vandalism is... Assange doesn't even support it!
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/12/10/assange-distances-wikileaks-cyber-attacks/
Yes I know it is fox news but they did do a telephone interview with his lawyer.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
of persons. And while they are legally, in the US at least, that doesn't mean they deserve those rights.
A blog about stuff.
You have the right not to be murdered, stolen from, maimed or silenced, but asking to never be inconvenienced is the height of entitlement.
I am a freelancer who gets paid through Paypal and spends money with a Visa debit card. I am inconvenienced by DDoS attacks.
I am also a citizen who understands that sometimes a price must be paid for freedom. I have protested, signed petitions, voted... and nothing has happened. If anything, things have gotten worse. My petitions have been overwritten by paid astroturfers and phony corporate funded PACs. My vote has been overwritten by companies willing to spend billions of dollars of advertising, and to a lesser extent by the two-party democracy system. My protests have been ignored.
I am not alone in this frustration. I am willing to have people take it a step further (I'd take part in the attacks if I had my own computer, but unfortunately I have to share, which would put others at risk). Not to violence or destruction, but ends that do make it more difficult to do business.
If a little personal inconvenience is enough for you to hate a protester, maybe you should examine your own system of morality rather than theirs.
Hurr durr, and that's why they're targeting their corporate web page, and not their payment services (maybe apart from paypal, which runs both on same systems). Thank you for showing that you have no clue what you're talking about. GG BB QQ.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
(maybe apart from paypal, which runs both on same systems).
You really think that they they are being selective or that the payment network is just out of their reach?
And they where hitting paypal and that could hurt a lot of people and as I posted even Assange doesn't support it.
Please this is simple and harmful vandalism. Nothing more that a few script kiddies pretending that they are some kind of freedom fighter. Next week 4Chan will attack some company that only offers none fat milk in their coffee.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
I'm confused, which they are you referring to.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
What if 100,000 Scientologists shut down Wikipedia? is that still activism?
Yes, because the question isn't whether the action is "activism" (clearly it is), it is whether that activism is good or bad. That's up to individuals to decide.
My opinion: some of the stuff on Wikileaks should be publicly available and some of it shouldn't (I think the world can live without knowing
I think that there should be enforceable laws against releasing classified information--the internet may not make that practical anymore (remains to be seen). There should be just enough of a legal and practical deterrent that it requires effort and sacrifice in order to release classified info--so that it will only be done when enough people feel strongly that it is a moral imperative (remember, people get arrested at sit-ins and they do it anyway, but only when they really care about the cause).
It is all too easy for provocateurs to do as they please, as these actions are anonymous. But the media go on reporting on this ascribing these actions to "a movement in support of Wikileaks". We don't know that, they don't know that.
Yeah, I'm sure Operation Avenge Assange is completely unrelated to Wikileaks.
Actually, no, I don't. Shocked? As others have mentioned, none of that is a surprise. Much of it is reprehensible, but essentially all that's been done is to weaken especially fragile diplomatic relations. That is a bad thing.
I wish people would recognize that international relations are delicate and the real world is not black and white. Is it easier if I rephrase it - "the goodies are weaker and the baddies are stronger"? Yes, I know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but it seems to be about all some people understand.
No, what makes them hypocrites is not the difference between an individual and a government. Rather, they make themselves hypocrites by placing themselves on a high pedestal in (i) demanding complete transparency (yes, they do), and (ii) comparing themselves to civil rights protesters who actually had the guts to stand up for something. These asses aren't; they are explicitly refusing to have the courage of their convictions, instead hiding behind naive and hoped-for anonymity. That's sickening. That's a slap in the face to real heroes, like Rosa Parks, Desmond Tutu, and Kate Sheppard.
"How do you like the fact that the internet purchases are not taxed?"
Just because you're evading the taxes doesn't mean those taxes don't exist. You as the consumer are responsible for paying those taxes to your home state (little s) not the State (big s, federal level).
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/article-29919.html
The federal government doesn't collect sales taxes. They derive their revenue through the IRS on the other end when the money comes into the hands of the eventual consumer. Then they again get another portion of the income, not revenue, of whatever business sold you its goods or services. Basically, you're delusional if you don't think the federal government is getting its share of every purchase multiple times over.
Corporations should not be afforded the rights of persons.
Sorry but that's nonsensical. The enjoyment of the rights of a person is the sine qua non of the corporate form. What you meant to write is "corporations should be outlawed."
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Freedom of speech involves freedom from retaliation.
Such as having the methods of funding your organisation cut off at the request of state?
If you choose not to do business with them, that's great. But if you prevent others from doing business with them then you've crossed the line.
But they've crossed the line in the first place. In a market where Visa and Mastercard form a virtual duopoly, they have both made the call to refuse to provide their usual service between a lawful payer and a lawful payee. If you have a competitive market, that doesn't matter, the payer can simply seek out someone else's service. However in the RL, this in effect amounts to Visa and Mastercard making decisions about how their we spend our money. That's a line, it ought not be legal for them to cross.
It is all the worse that the control exerted over our personal expenditure is aimed precisely at shoring up the power of the state by undermining freedom of speech and transparent government.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Guess what, the Taliban calls you a "spoiled brat acting like thugs".
Iran calls you that.
North Korea calls the western world that.
It makes it a lot easier to hate the other side if you give them a derogatory name and belittle them.
I say to them: "takes one to know one"
Be seeing you...
Please this is simple and harmful vandalism. Nothing more that a few colonists pretending that they are some kind of freedom fighter. Next week those Bostons will attack some company that only offers tea instead of coffee.
Fixed?
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terro... erm I mean script kiddie.
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
I don't know if it is true but I've read in some media accounts
[citation needed]
that these attacks have in some cases prevented these companies from conducting their regular financial transactions with customers.
Anyone know if this is true?
It would be nice to think they did, but I doubt it. It doesn't seem to be getting much of mention (yet) in the professional security reporting.
If it is true Anon. is doing a lot more than preventing these companies from sharing info via a website..
Yes they would be imposing a cost on companies who are corruptly swapping favors with politicians. Unfortunately the cost is unlikely to persuade these companies from behaving any better in the future.
See the above post about cyber-picketing. If you do something wrong as a business, don't complain when people can't come into your store.
As with real life picketing, you can annoy potential customers, but you can't superglue the shop's doors shut.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You misunderstand: anyone who does business with the enemy is a legitimate target. They should consider themselves lucky they've not been targeted with bombs. Yet.
If you've decided that the US government is your enemy, then get ready for a miserable life. Or cover your tracks really fucking carefully.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A line has been crossed when a journalism website was hit by illegal pressure from governments. I think it is fair that protestors cross another line. The ball is in the governments side now. Escalation will now be their responsibility.
There's a huge difference between annoying Amazon or Paypal and pissing off the US government. It's not a fight I'd enter badly prepared.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Just because you're evading the taxes doesn't mean those taxes don't exist. You as the consumer are responsible for paying those taxes to your home state (little s) not the State (big s, federal level).
Out of curiosity, does anyone ever get prosecuted for evading these taxes?
(I am not American).
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If you believe this is a valuable thing that WikiLeaks has done (and I don't)
The phrase in parentheses is unnecessary, we all guessed that already. So I don't see why the pro-Wikileaks actions of Anonymous bother you so much, they're not claimning to speak for you at all.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
When I'm really drunk I see rouge elephants.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Of course, DDoSing, Raiding, IRL stalking, etc, are fucking funny
Not inherently, it really depends on the target.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Spot on. We had riots in London last week by students protesting against increased tuition fees. They started out peaceful but turned violet when people realised no-one was taking any notice.
Over a million people marched against invading Iraq but the politicians ignored them. Not a single news program broadcast a speech from the G20 protests and they were again ignored by politicians. Even going back to the Poll Tax when people were just protesting the government ignored them. It was only once they turned violent that they had to pay attention and sure enough eventually the Poll Tax was scrapped.
If there is a line it is a very fuzzy one. Democracy fails by not listening to people; Even at election time it is more about positioning and attacking the other guys than about actual policies, especially since everyone knows that any election promise is worthless. You also don't get to choose which ideas you want, you have to vote for a single party and a single manifesto. Issues come up between elections that are not covered by manifestos too. People feel powerless, and while I generally feel violence is not a good way to resolve things it does appear to be the only way to make any kind of half-way effective protest these days.
Anonymous is just a bunch of ordinary people with no power to change things legitimately. By DDOSing popular sites (actually just the payment processing parts) they made front page headline news. Think what you want of their actions but at least people know their views now and apparently a lot of them joined the cause because of that.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You're the naive one for suggesting they are doing this for any reason except the lulz. There is no activism here, just a bunch of kiddies using wikileaks as a convenient excuse to launch a DDOS attack.
Yes, actually, they do. If you've read the Operation Payback manifesto and some of the media interviews, that's exactly what they claim, and the supercilious and smug attitude annoys the hell out of me.
I think this is a pretty good read.
I'm sorry, the media that rich people own? How fast did we forget about the massacres in Darfur? Libya? How about Rwanda? These things, although they are far more important than 'America's Top Model', don't get reported on because they're inconvinient. Remember, this is the same media that doesn't have the balls to question anything, anymore. We just have talking heads that will go along with anything, without looking for the corruption. We won't have another Watergate scandal because no one will be informed it happened. And if you're defending the companies' right to freedom of speech, I've got two things: They're not people, and they are killing freedom of speech.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Again, assuming anything about an Anon is wrong. Newfags and oldfags are pointless nametags created by bored Anons to fuck with newfags, because it just doesn't matter. People will do what they want, when they want. It's not like everyone that's an oldfag is a monster of a human being, and anyone new is a shining example of humanity. They're all just people, and anyone who thinks having been around the past four years makes you intrinsically better is just an elitist. Don't make assumptions about the group other than that they're disorganized to the point of anarchy, and you can motivate some of them to a common goal with the right words like you could in any anarchaic situation.
There is no -1 Disagree.
Yea and some people think the Klan has the right idea. They are also wrong.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Yea and some people think the Klan has the right idea. They are also wrong.
You're doing it wrong, you're supposed to say "the nazis" there.
*sigh* what is the world coming to when people can't even Godwin properly? :(
Anyway, your argument have the same logic as :
Yea and some people think Mahatma Gandhi had the right idea. They are also right.
and thus that is a valid rebuttal. Now, can you get some actual, original arguments going? You're starting to lose the entertainment value here.
BTW, want some fun fact?
Citation Wikipedia
Writing on the subject of immigration in 1903, Gandhi commented: "We believe as much in the purity of race as we think they do... We believe also that the white race in South Africa should be the predominating race."
During his time in South Africa, Gandhi protested repeatedly about the social classification of blacks with Indians, whom he described as "undoubtedly infinitely superior to the Kaffirs"
Quite the enlightened hero indeed. And some more fun, about the Boston Tea Party:
That evening, a group of 30 to 130 men, some of them thinly disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the three vessels and, over the course of three hours, dumped all 342 chests of tea into the water.
They were even disguised as indians! Truly just barbaric thugs that didn't believe anything in what they did!
(Sidenote, I wonder if it's still possible to get "+5, Troll" moderation?)
It's The Golden Rule: "He who has the gold makes the rules."
Yea and the 4Chan gang are heroes for hacking Gawker and compromising all those passwords? They couldn't even take down PayPal or Amazon. So they are nothing but a gang of ineffectual thugs.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Really? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Red_Cracker
Generally no, unless you happen to live in the Great State of North Carolina, and even then I am not sure. When I was getting ready to leave the state, there was a big fight brewing. The brick and mortar shops were were whining about unfair competition, and making large contributions to the state legislature, . So North Carolina passed / may have passed a law requiring the collection of sales tax. I know Amazon was fighting it and threatening to boycott the state. I am not sure how it all played out. There is no law that I know of requiring you to pay sales tax for items purchased on-line (unless you live in that state).
-It used to be the criminals who ran the booze, the numbers rackets, Not its the government. My State actually wants you to get drunk and waste all my money playing the lottery.
-Adam Sandler