LulzSec Target the Sun After Phone Hacking Scandal

nk497 writes "LulzSec have come out of retirement to target Rupert Murdoch's News International, hacking the website of The Sun, redirecting it first to a spoofed page reporting his death and then to Lulz's Twitter feed. 'The Sun's homepage now redirects to the Murdoch death story on the recently-owned New Times website,' the hackers said via Twitter. 'Can you spell success, gentlemen?' The hackers also started to post email addresses and passwords they claimed were from Sun staff, and said to have accessed a mail server at now-defunct News of the World."

Comments

Is this what it has come down to?

[McFortner]

So, because they did something ethically wrong and against the law it's OK to do the same to them? I thought we had gotten beyond the whole "eye for an eye" thing.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're black hats, it's what they do. When some kid at school is acting like a total dipshit to everyone else and the authorities don't care, the solution is not to ask him politely to stop. The solution is to give him a black eye, then ask, then give him another if he refuses.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[FyRE666]

I fail to see how adding a redirect to their homepage and posting some phone numbers is on par with hacking a dead girl's phone and deleting her voicemail. Plus all the other reprehensible shenanigans the NotW staff were up to (and if they were doing it, there's a fair chance other areas of the empire were doing the same.)

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[Groo Wanderer]

When you have bought your way out of governmental oversight and any possibility of legal repercussions, how else does one get punished for flagrant illegal behaviour. What you are seeing is the people fighting back against a system that has been thoroughly co-opted by those with more resources. It is classic guerrilla warfare, and more power to Lulzsec for doing it.

It also made me smile, so win/win.

            -Charlie

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[causality]

So, because they did something ethically wrong and against the law it's OK to do the same to them? I thought we had gotten beyond the whole "eye for an eye" thing.

Until we decide that corporations should be second- and third-class citizens compared to breathing human beings, you can expect more of the same.

It's a serious mistake to blame vigilantes as though they happen in a vacuum. That kind of thinking has been tried for a very long time now and it has gotten us absolutely nowhere. It doesn't solve anything. Vigilanteism is the least of things it fails to address. It doesn't change anything. It provides more of the same problems we've always had.

Instead you need to look at the conditions of the environment, the steps that were taken to make them that way, and how they bred the desire to do such things. That's if you are actually interested in really working towards a solution for what you perceive as a problem, so interested in fact that you're willing to put aside the gratification of condemnation and try something that might work.

The root of the problem is that a corporation can do things that would cause any individual person to suffer some serious prison time. The equivalent of "prison time" for a corporation would be to freeze their assets and stop them from doing any business whatsoever for a set period of time. You may say "okay Causality but what about the rank-and-file workers who would be financially harmed by this?" To that I say, maybe that would make people more reluctant to work for known assholes like Rupert Murdoch and maybe that would be a good thing for everyone.

Just as a loan officer has to charge higher fees for risky loans, let Murdoch pay his employees above the standard rate to compensate them for the risk that his asshattery might get them shut down. That would be more like making corporations pay some of the social costs their tactics inflict on the world around them.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[causality]

They're black hats, it's what they do. When some kid at school is acting like a total dipshit to everyone else and the authorities don't care, the solution is not to ask him politely to stop. The solution is to give him a black eye, then ask, then give him another if he refuses.

While I would place emphasis on the "authorities don't care" part, you're absolutely right. There are people with whom you cannot reason. In fact, they hate reason because reason would tell them to change their ways and they're addicted to the gratification and feeling of superiority they obtain from being that way. That kind of egomania is the only sort of (pathetic) life they have.

It is not your fault if someone will not cherish reason. That is their decision; let them reap what they sow. It does not make you a bad person to do what is necessary (but no more) to handle someone like that. It is in accordance with how they have chosen to live. In the case of a bully like in your example, it may in fact be a turning point in life that will end up being the best thing that ever happened to them. It would amount to giving him, albeit a harder way, the correction and guidance that his parents (or more likely, parent) so thoroughly failed to deliver.

After doing what needs to be done, then there is opportunity to take the high road and have an attitude of "sorry it came to this, but you had it coming." Gloating and being glad it happened would just make you a bigger bully who will eventually run into one who is bigger still. That path won't reform anyone. So yes, you're absolutely right but it has to come from a certain level of understanding. The real mistake is to coddle a person like that out of some misguided sympathy (what the unwise think is compassion) because they interpret it as weakness, as submission, and they'd be right.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[lattyware]

This is because of the phone hacking thing? I just thought this was because reading The Sun is roughly equivalent to torture.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[causality]

Not in the US where those rednecks still have barbaric punishments like the death penalty for being retarded.

Yeah yeah, I know I'm replying to a troll, but...

He isn't on death row for being retarded. Saying that makes me question your mental abilities. He's on death row for murdering a 17-year-old. The fact that his IQ is 68 doesn't make the victim any less dead or his family any less bereaved at having to bury their child.

There are good arguments against the death penalty. The fact that so many people on death row turned out to be innocent (i.e. because of DNA evidence) is one of the most rational. After all, you can release someone who is in prison but you can't raise the dead. The logic here is quite straightforward. However, your emotional rhetoric and willingness to distort truth as you have done is only going to weaken your position.

There are no shortcuts to actually making a solid case about a worthy subject. No, you haven't discovered the first.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[causality]

When the government ceases to mete out justice this is what happens. Get over it. If you don't like it please fix the governments so we don't need to do this ourselves.

Thank you, kind sir or madam, whoever the anonymous figure may be. To me, what you say is the most intuitive thing in the world but for some it is a hard doctrine. They are stuck in a crime-and-punishment model that fails to account for why certain crimes happen in the first place. It's the same reason we have a War on Drugs instead of an expectation of responsible use.

I'm trying to model and expound this kind of understanding. I'm trying to contribute such that the conversation addresses the higher levels of how and why these things manifest, rather than the low level of how undesirable they might be. Therefore, it's nice to hear from someone else who understands this.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[CheShACat]

Well, no, firstly Lulzsec will have done it "for the lulz" not for "an eye for an eye". They also had beef against The Sun after the Ryan Cleary arrest, and The Sun's appaling coverage of it. Any other reason one might throw into the mix is just gravy.

As a viewer, one can find the whole episode deliciously ironic without needing to take either side of the moral argument.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[phantomfive]

. The equivalent of "prison time" for a corporation would be to freeze their assets and stop them from doing any business whatsoever for a set period of time. You may say "okay Causality but what about the rank-and-file workers who would be financially harmed by this?"

No, I would say, the people responsible should suffer, not a company that is a non-sentient being. You seem to have a weird idea of what a corporation is. People have already been arrested for the hacking scandal, which is good. Rupert himself may not be, but sometimes guilty people go free. It happens.

Corporations are not first-class citizens in any legal jurisdiction I know of. 'Corporate personhood' is a legal metaphor that you, and others, have vastly misunderstood.

Imagine if the corporation got punished for all crimes that a person did in the name of the corporation: then I could start a corporation, rob a bank in the name of the corporation, and the corporation would be punished. That would be idiotic. Furthermore, it would be making a corporation more of a person than it is now, which you claim to oppose.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[rsborg]

Corporations are not first-class citizens in any legal jurisdiction I know of. 'Corporate personhood' is a legal metaphor that you, and others, have vastly misunderstood.
 

Really? Have you not read about the Citizens United case, that effectively gives Corporations the freedom of speech (and by neoliberal accounting, freedom of bribery)?

Imagine if the corporation got punished for all crimes that a person did in the name of the corporation: then I could start a corporation, rob a bank in the name of the corporation, and the corporation would be punished. That would be idiotic. Furthermore, it would be making a corporation more of a person than it is now, which you claim to oppose.

Let's extend your metaphor and say that the corporation hired someone to commit some crime. Should the corporation go unpunished? Sure the crimedoer will catch jail time if (s)he is caught, but the one who made the decision to go ahead with the theft should also get punished. Right now, with the corporate veil this hardly ever pursued... plus given Corporations often have lots of money and live forever, they could literally buy their freedom or push the punishment far enough in the future to avoid real consequences.

Re:Is this what it has come down to?

[delinear]

Exactly - in the UK we've already seen this goes to the top of both the government (Cameron being close friends with Brooks et al) and the police (who at the very least failed to properly investigate a crime, even if you rule out outright suppression of facts). When the police, the media and the government all appear to be colluding, what expectation of justice can the people realistically have?

Re:Way to go

[Dunbal]

Doesn't matter if anyone gets prosecuted. Damages are $8 billion and counting, and News Corp is about to lose its credit rating. No court in the world could dish out this sort of damage.

Re:the ends do not justify the means

[spongman]

i'd agree with that except it's clear that there is NO rule of law here: the police have shown themselves to be incompetent/complicit in this case.

Re:Anonymous and LulzSec are really funny

[datsa]

Righteous lawlessness stinks out loud.

I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, Murdoch's righteous lawlessness is far more damaging than LulzSec's, and a lot less amusing.

Re:Very definitely wrong

[shutdown -p now]

Underground Railroad was made in defiance of rule of law, as well. Law is not always a good thing. Sometimes it punishes innocent and protects crooks on a scale so large that it is not worth defending.

Not saying that this is that case...