UK Police Charge Suspected Anonymous Spokesman

An anonymous reader writes "Scotland Yard has tonight charged 18-year-old Jake Davis, who was arrested in the Shetland Islands last week, with five offenses including unauthorized computer access and conspiracy to carry out a DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) attack against the SOCA (Serious Organized Crime Agency) website. When announcing his arrest on Wednesday, police said that they believed Davis used the online nickname 'Topiary' and acted as the spokesperson for the Anonymous and LulzSec hacking groups. Topiary's final twitter message said 'You can't arrest an idea' just before his arrest."

Comments

Remember, remember

[Anonymous Coward]

the first of August?

Re:Remember, remember

[Anonymous Coward]

I sincerely doubt it. Wonder how easy it'll be for ol' Tope to remain relevant while he's being ass-raped in jail?

Anonymous - where the best LULZ are the unintentional ones. You got what you deserved, so much for your legion.

Re:Remember, remember

[Nursie]

Funny that, but prison rape isn't so much of a problem in the UK as it is in the great old US of A, where it seems to actually be encouraged as part of the punishment.

Re:Remember, remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny that, but prison rape isn't so much of a problem in the UK

Of course it isn't seeing as you're all a bunch of poofters.

That old "Lie back and think of England" bit wasn't something that was told to young ladies on their wedding night.. it was told to their husbands.

Re:Remember, remember

[smelch]

Prison rape is played up in the states. Of all the people I've talked to in and out of prison, you almost never see that kind of thing unless its consensual. They always play it as rape though because getting caught having sex with another inmate will get you a pretty hefty punishment, and definitely doesn't sit well with a lot of the other inmates.

Re:Remember, remember

[Anarchduke]

I think getting played up is basically the idea behind prison rape, dude.

Re:Remember, remember

[rtfa-troll]

Of all the people I've talked to in and out of prison

I guess you are American, and that means you know quite a few former prisoners because of this, but as the meme goes, the plural of Anecdote is not "statistic". Prison rape tends to happen to more normal / weaker prisoners in violent prisons. It is more common in state prisons than federal. It's also very area specific. The target group is unlikely to be a main group of friends of the average Slashdot reader. It's completely likely that it's happening and that the people that you know don't know about it.

Re:Remember, remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous - where the best LULZ are the unintentional ones. You got what you deserved, so much for your legion.

Errhm...what about the other 60.000 of us? (Currently and rising).

Re:Remember, remember

[evilviper]

Prison rape is more a popular plot device, and cultural running-gag than an actual problem in the US. Aesop's fables are probably the closest analogy.

Studies have shown the problem is, in fact, very limited: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-01-17-prison-rape_x.htm

   

Re:Remember, remember

[TheRaven64]

You say:

Studies have shown the problem is, in fact, very limited

And then link to a page that says:

The two-year study, commissioned by the U.S. Justice Department for $939,233, has come under withering attack from other experts. The department has not endorsed the study, saying Fleisher has yet to turn over his data for closer examination.

Re:Remember, remember

[Anonymus]

The two-year study, commissioned by the U.S. Justice Department for $939,233, has come under withering attack from other experts. The department has not endorsed the study, saying Fleisher has yet to turn over his data for closer examination.

Cindy Struckman-Johnson, professor of psychology at the University of South Dakota and one of nine commission members, said Fleisher's 155-page study is not in scientific form. She said there is no literature review, no raw data, and no in-depth explanation of his subjects or research methods.

So, when the Department of Justice gives you a million dollars, obviously you're supposed to lie and tell them what they want to hear, but this guy went so far overboard with it (essentially, nobody in prison is ever raped and anyone who claims they are is lying), even the sponsor will say "hold on a sec..."

Re:Remember, remember

[horza]

People in England don't quite have the same obsession with male anal sex as Americans seem to. I doubt anybody would get ass-raped in an English prison, and pretty much zero chance for somebody in a low security prison. Interesting Reddit article on coping in prison here.

Phillip.

Re:Remember, remember

[Anonymous Coward]

You're so cute. Does babby want a toy to play with?

Re:Remember, remember

[smelch]

Well seeing as how I've been in prison myself and did quite a bit of research on it, and spent a lot of time on forums where former and soon-to-be inmates post on topics just like this, I'll take my research over your assertions. And I'm not saying there is never any prison rape, I'm just saying it is exaggerated. A very low percentage of people in prison are raped, the impression a lot of people have is that it is almost inevitable. That's just not true, and from what you're saying we agree on this, so I don't know why you felt the need to act like I was wrong for saying it is played up, then going on to say it happens to very specific groups in very specific places. So, uh, how is that not played up when everybody always immediately jumps to "Ohhhh! Butt rape!" when they hear "prison"?

Re:Remember, remember

[Hylandr]

60. isn't a whole lot. When you can demonstrate that .001 of a person though, I will be truly awestruck

- Dan.

Re:Remember, remember

[smelch]

Always prompt, always satisfying.

Re:Remember, remember

[robthebloke]

Yup. England is a lot like Sparta (with a bit more rain)..... Now. Stand near my well and say that!
Madness? This is England!

Re:Remember, remember

[TehNoobTrumpet]

In many countries . is used like , in the USA.

Re:Remember, remember

[Hylandr]

You know, that hadn't occurred to me. I stand corrected.

- Dan.

Re:Remember, remember

[rtfa-troll]

Well seeing as how I've been in prison myself and did quite a bit of research on it, and spent a lot of time on forums where former and soon-to-be inmates post on topics just like this, I'll take my research over your assertions.

Absolutely fair enough, though you'll excuse me if, in the absence of a link to your research where we can analyse it and then learn from it, I don't take it as given.

Having said that, I think there are several factors here. Firstly we tend to discuss computer crimes here which are often stupidly classified together with things like terrorism and so can easily end up with non violent people being sent to places they shouldn't be. Secondly, lots of the people making the statements you are describing to aren't making them because they believe in them. They are making them because they are nasty people, so I will admit that they are "playing it up" in order to scare other people and make sick jokes. However, the fact that a bunch of sick people do that doesn't mean that serious campaigners aren't. Finally, these crimes are pretty nasty. The people who experience them and are willing to talk about it obviously talk about them lots. I don't think that that is "playing it up".

Re:Remember, remember

[Nursie]

Hey, thanks for that link, it was an interesting read (even if I don't fully empathise with or agree with him in a bunch of places).

Re:Remember, remember

[RockDoctor]

Well seeing as how I've been in prison myself and did quite a bit of research on it,
[SNIP]
So, uh, how is that not played up when everybody always immediately jumps to "Ohhhh! Butt rape!" when they hear "prison"?

Just as a matter of interest, what (in your knowledge) is the proportion of anal rapes to oral rapes in prison? Or is oral rape not considered as "rape" but a "lewd and libidinous assault"?

Re:Remember, remember

[evilviper]

The study was so long ago that most references to it are gone. Anything that says "yet" should be ignored.

JOIN THE CFAFI! STOP THIS MADNESS!

[For a Free Internet]

The Campaign for a Free Internet calls on all Free Americans to join us in stopping Italians from taking over our Nation's internet and turning it into an authoritarian, homosexual islamocommunist dictatorship! As TFA shows, the Italians and their allies are striking boldly at our most chyerished freedoms. There is no time to waste. Join the Campaign today, and get a free commemorative lunchbox!

Remember remember

[gale the simple]

the fifth of November.. Someone was watching too many movies?

Re:Remember remember

[siddesu]

I maybe watching too many movies too. These "conspiracy to commit..." charges are justified by some vague "threat of cyber warfare" and are usually based only on some forum postings or other expression of stupid, but generally well-meaning young people.

Yet those charges tend to carry stiff jail sentences and large penalties, most of the time quite disproportional to the actual damage done. The more I look at those farce actions of the police/governments about "internet crimes", the more they look to me like a solution in search of a problem.

Re:Remember remember

[gale the simple]

I was being a little facetious. Obviously, the current direction seems quite clear. I mean, when you think about it, once you are off a cliff there is only one way to go.. and besides,The Internet Threat (or TIT) is the new threat you can rally behind/scare people with. It is vague enough and gives you a good excuse to do just about anything.
If anyone here ever listens to Moody radio lately, you will know, that this is already happening. We have a new official enemy. I seriously wish I was joking.

Re:Remember remember

[The Dawn Of Time]

Yeah cause here on Slashdot we all know if the crime was committed with a computer, it's not really crime.

Re:Remember remember

[gale the simple]

Cute. But no. Your oversimplification barely justifies a response, let alone a detailed explanation of the rationale behind it.:P Try again

Re:Remember remember

[Anonymous Coward]

Which crime, posting something on teh Internets?

Yeah, serious business.

Re:Remember remember

[Anonymous Coward]

How the fuck did you get modded up?

Look, I realise that you people generally dropped out of your education aged 14 convinced that you were twenty times as intelligent as everyone else in your class and that you know everything already, but there's a few things your mighty intellects don't quite understand. I'll try and put it in simple bullet points.

* We live in a society with particular laws
* Like them or not, we abide by those laws, or we run foul of them
* DDoS is a crime in both the States and the UK, as is unauthorised access of a computer
* In the UK, these crimes carry a hefty fine, a year's imprisonment, or both
* Whether or not this guy from the Shetlands actually is Topiary and therefore ran the Twitter feed or not is irrelevant. If they're charging him then they believe they have enough evidence that he is guilty of crimes as laid out in the Computer Misuse Act. For that purpose, if he's Topiary he's implicated in a large number of attacks on sensitive computers. In this case, SOCA is particularly irritating the authorities
* The same goes for Ryan Cleary, who wasn't arrested for hosting an IRC channel but for offenses as defined in the Computer Misuse Act

If he's guilty of the charges he has absolutely no defence unless he can prove that he was just the spokesman. Since that's extremely unlikely (and the chatlogs that have leaked suggest that Topiary was rather more involved than merely as a mouthpiece, although chatlogs are trivial to spoof) he's done for.

Re:Remember remember

[Grumbleduke]

* DDoS is a crime in both the States and the UK, as is unauthorised access of a computer

Technically, DDoS isn't a crime in the UK - the offence that supposedly covers DDoS is the broader offence of "unauthorised acts with intent to impair, or with recklessness as to impairing, operation of computer etc." under s3 Computer Misuse Act 1990. I think the key word there is "unauthorised". While the recent Meltwater decision might say otherwise, it would seem odd if accessing websites was unauthorised by default, and there are some very interesting legal points in there.

Of course, we won't hear any of these legal points because the individuals won't be able to afford top lawyers, and will probably already have pleaded guilty; possibly to something they didn't actually do (as in some of the file-sharing cases). "Conspiracy to carry out a DDoS attack" sounds like either the journalists getting it wrong or the Police/courts making stuff up because they want more serious charges. However, the hacking stuff does fall under the CMA 1990, but has a maximum sentence of 2 years v the 10 years for the DDoS offence.

[For the record, Ianaly.]

Re:Yeah?

[Zandamesh]

woooosh

Do they have any evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

...that he even participated in the attacks? Afaik, there is no law against releasing statements with permission from an organization.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[hedwards]

If they're going the conspiracy route then no, likely just having knowledge and tweeting the success would be sufficient to drag him in.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[izomiac]

It seems odd to me to arrest the spokesperson. They're fairly easily replaced, and uninvolved in the actual activities (assuming common sense). They also let the authorities know who did what, which is invaluable for intel as to exactly how many groups you're fighting. So, I assume this was a political arrest. Going after their one lead just so they have something to show for their efforts.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[Nursie]

Maybe the logic is that he knows *something* about the group, whatever it is, and the best way to get it out of him is haul him far from home and trump up a bunch of charges. He's only 19 after all.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[Artifakt]

So, we're talking Britain here. There's still splinter groups out there from the IRA who also have spokespersons. There's people who blow up subway cars who have spokespersons. The idea here is to use a route that still protects the real core of damage causers, meaning your spokesperson doesn't really know all that much. Maybe one or more of those meatspace groups won't bother to call in and take 'responsibility' for the next atrocity and the British government will be left wondering just which group did it. A government that goes after spokespersons better have reason to think they can provide important, even vital data, or there's a big downside. Going after one for possibly knowing 'something' is simultaneously saying the group you are after isn't a real threat and you're confident your actions won't provoke them more than the info the spokesperson gives you is worth. Do you see any reason why the British government can make such a claim to its citizens?

Re:Do they have any evidence

[SomePgmr]

I don't know a whole lot about it, but I know there's considerable speculation that they've got the wrong guy. I guess they've successfully framed individuals that they don't like, and ended up not being who the authorities thought they were.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[Nursie]

Well firstly - there's no danger of Lulzsec not calling it in, they love publicity.
Secondly, no, I don't consider them a 'real' threat. They're not threatening lives.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[rtfa-troll]

Well; let's assume that "they" already have, from traffic analysis by GCHQ and their collaborators over at the NSA, a complete list of the guys "in Anonymous" (==real own IP & MAC address of anyone who has recently used LOIC + real own IP & MAC anyone who has ever /recently chatted on the IRC channel + real own IP & MAC of anyone who has posted on most of their discussion forums + reasonable ID of most people who have turned up for their demonstrations) together with information about exactly what involvement they have. They can't afford to arrest them all since that would give away the extent of their monitoring of the internet. Where would you start? What would be your order of arrests? I guess that the aim is to reduce the embarrassment. The only constraint is that you need a semi-plausible reason to investigate a given individual. Going for the spokesmen and the people who are releasing information seems to me like a logical start.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[c0lo]

Secondly, no, I don't consider them a 'real' threat. They're not threatening lives.

They are doing worse than that - they are threatening some life-styles: the ones of the politicians and corporate execs.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[DrXym]

...that he even participated in the attacks? Afaik, there is no law against releasing statements with permission from an organization.

That depends on the nature of the statements. If they can be construed as encouraging / assisting (inciting) serious crime, then yes absolutely he can be prosecuted under the serious crimes act. As indeed he has. It will be up to a jury to decide if he's guilty of the offence of course and I suppose his best hope would be in the police have trouble identifying him rather than some other "topiary" as the source of particular statements. If he was stupid enough to draft things on his PC and leave traces behind then he is fucked.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[Aceticon]

The modus operandi of government in the UK is "we must be seen to act, so do something, anything".

This applies as much to the police as with politicians, since in the last 10 or 15 years the police has progressivelly been politicised (with any high-level manager that didn't dance to the tune being sidelined) and they're usually called upon to be the tool that does the some kind of action for the cameras.

The outcome is that they cannot be trusted: have they got the right man? Have they got the wrong man? Who knows.

They got somebody and the media reported they're doing something, so the real objective of the operation has already been achived. Probably in 2 or 3 months time when this guy finally faces a court (the only part of the system that actually cares about finding out the truth, rather than convicting somebody) it's quite possible that he's found innocent (or maybe all they manage to pin on him is something minor) and they will quietly release him, since by then the media would have moved on.

As the recent News of The World debacle has shown, in the UK the press has a huge amount of influence and both the politicians and high-level management inside the police have been trained to quickly find somebody to sacrifice whenever the press demands blood.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[ledow]

"only 19"

Which means he's old enough to have sex (by three years in the UK), have children, marry, have a house, a mortgage, a credit card, a car, drink alcohol (18 in the UK), enter pubs, represent himself in court, sign legally-binding contracts (18), get loans, gamble, smoke and (most importantly) understand the standard police caution which states he's doesn't have to say anything and is entitled to access to a lawyer (even a free one appointed by the government if necessary).

This *MAN* isn't a kid. He's legally responsible and has been for quite a while. And I doubt the police would go to such public and extraordinary lengths if they couldn't pin a convictable offence on him already - especially when it involves the co-operation of many different police sections across country borders and legal systems (England/Scotland have different legal systems - the Shetlands are in Scotland).

My guess would be that he was caught either encouraging others to DDoS or as a major part of the DDoS itself and now they have charges they can squeeze him for names /identities of others involved (I would guess they have reasonable expectation that he knows or organised others, thus he was more of a "ringleader" than his mother would like to make out). Also, they probably want to seize his computer because he's more likely to have information about his own sources and contacts which could lead to others in the group (a private message / email from someone else discussing the attacks could be evidence enough to convict them upon, for instance).

Re:Do they have any evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

You won't make any friends around here talking sense rather than shouting FREE TOPIARY and THIS IS ILLEGAL and FUCK THE SYSTEM

Re:Do they have any evidence

[S.O.B.]

FREE TOPIARY???

Sounds like they just don't want to pay for their sculpted shrubbery. The plants just want to be free.

Re:Do they have any evidence

[Nursie]

At 18 or 19, I would have found the situation quite intimidating, meaning I'm guessing that he will probably fold under a bit of pressure and give the cops what they want.

That's all I meant. Not "He's only 19 so he must be innocent", not "He's only 19 so he's not responsible for his actions", not whatever other image you've built of my argument, just that at his age he is probably susceptible to pressure and the police probably know it.

Darn kids these days

[future assassin]

Back in the day we had fun stealing cars for joy rides and doing jewlery store heists. These days kids have fun attacking computers, much more victim less crime.

Re:Darn kids these days

[DreamMaster]

It really depends on the data. Remember that a large part of the protests against the Wikileaks release of Afghanistan info was the potential to endanger the lives of civilian informants. Such computer crimes as we see these days can have the potential to hurt a lot of people. Not that a terrorist couldn't also hurt a lot of people using a stolen car. It just depends on what's actually done.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Gadget_Guy]

Back in the day we had fun stealing cars for joy rides and doing jewlery store heists. These These days kids have fun attacking computers, much more victim less crime.

I think that Sony would disagree with you there. I doubt that the total value of your stolen cars and jewellery would add up to anywhere near what Sony has lost due to its recent hacks.

Re:Darn kids these days

[poena.dare]

I think that Sony would disagree with you there. I doubt that the total value of your stolen cars and jewellery would add up to anywhere near what Sony has lost due to its recent hacks.

I'll bet every person who was infected by a Sony rootkit or anyone who wants to mod or run a second OS on their Playstation will say it was just deserts.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Tasha26]

I guess there isn't really much to do in the Shetland Islands!

Re:Darn kids these days

[AHuxley]

"civilian informants"? I think they would be able to map out most local people having contact for cash ect....
If the night raids get too good in your area, you have an informant..
No need for complex computer files in areas where people are close .. the namers listed in any "free", "gift to the world" "download" databases might be traps ..
COINTELPRO was great at getting groups to replace their own top leaders with well placed gossip.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, deserts as in punishments.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically what we have here is the British coppers have found something to take the heat off them with the murdoch case the fact that the murdoch clan paid lots of coppers to keep stum an not investigate things to stop the truth coming out about just how corrupt the murdoch's actually are , They are very good at that were in the shit here lets find something else to make a noise on to divert attention away from it .

Like they should be routing out illegal immigrants and sending them back whence they came do they do they fuck as like it's too much like doing their job or they victimise the motorists for the simple reason they have a guaranteed income there where as they could actually be catching the true criminals that smack you on the back of the head with a baseball bat to nick your phone and wallet but of course that involves doing what they are supposed to be being paid to do instead of having a jolly .
This whole hacking thing is just a ruse to get away from doing their jobs so what frickin sony got hacked well maybe they actually deserved it PayPal got clobbered well they are rob dogs anyhow .

We have criminals stealing millions via hacking banks yet they never bother going after them it takes a bit of work and is not "In the News" so it's got no "Cred" you have your car broken into the pigs aint interested in doing anything too much hard work , you get a parking ticket they are on your case like you owe the world an fortune cus you told the parking operative to go fuck himself in the fast lane of the M25 during the rush hour then when you get the clearly airbrushed pictures that prove their charges (not) they get all shitty and goes to court on a date you have not been informed of and a location you have not been told any how you get the idea again it is a motorist not a genuine criminal they pick on cus there is money for them and cred with the greenie tossers, But ask the do do a proper job no

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time read the link you post; it's just desserts.

Re:Darn kids these days

[DrXym]

I'll bet every person who was infected by a Sony rootkit or anyone who wants to mod or run a second OS on their Playstation will say it was just deserts.

So you mean all 3 of them?

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Did YOU actually read it? The article explains why the phrase is "just deserts", not "just desserts".

Re:Darn kids these days

[DrXym]

Don't be ridiculous

Re:Darn kids these days

[KiloByte]

Wikileaks data was thoroughly vetted. And revealing the misdeeds and, even worse, incompetence, of both the government and the chain of command has a serious potential of saving lives, both of Afgani civilians (whom I don't really care about) and our soldiers.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is Sony et al claim they have security. That charade has been publicly exposed. Sony didn't lose money due to the hacks, Sony lost money because they didn't do due diligence on security.

We don't even have go to car analogy here - it's already been reduced to children's fable. These kids are showing the Emperor is Naked.

I can't manage to badmouth them for this. Having academics deliver papers hasn't done shit for waking people up, as customers or as corporations. These kids are just showing what's already wide-open and well-used by real criminals. Apparently this is what it costs to get notice. It's even looking like this might not be enough to really get things fixed.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Since you're not reading Snopes, maybe this will convince you a bit more easily. Unless you don't think the OED research their words thoroughly. (If you do, you're wrong.)

http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/50773?rskey=rXfMTJ&result=1#eid

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymus]

Next time read the link all the way to the end instead of just the first two paragraphs.

Re:Darn kids these days

[S.O.B.]

If all they did was break in and publish how they were able to do it then I would agree with you but they didn't stop there. They published the personal details of millions of customers including passwords and credit card info.

To use your analogy, to show that the "Emperor is Naked" you don't have to piss on the peasants.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me exactly how Sony was the one who incurred loss and not the millions of customers whose credit card information was actually stolen?

Sony lost the trust of their customers, of which I was one, who closed their accounts because of what those hacks exposed: an insecure system for handling and storing credit card transactions. Would you trust an online banking service that was hacked repeatedly? Would you bank at an ATM that you could walk up to and print out full account information for everyone who ever used it, whose security was based on hoping no one would actually try it? The bank calls and tells you whenever someone prints out a list, but they don't tell you if you were on it. In return for continuing to trust them and not closing your account, they let you pick out one of three style of a complementary ATM card.

Are there any other businesses you want to boohoo about that didn't make as much as their projection charts predicted because they couldn't make sales to informed customers? Jack-in-the-Box maybe? Blockbuster? Perhaps Mattel?

Re:Darn kids these days

[oreaq]

"It was estimated by internet security expert Dan Kaminsky that XCP was in use on more than 500,000 networks". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

Re:Darn kids these days

[shmeeps]

I think that Sony would disagree with you there. I doubt that the total value of your stolen cars and jewellery would add up to anywhere near what Sony has lost due to its recent hacks.

Perhaps, if Sony had actually done it's job and had some decent security, they wouldn't have lost anything.

That's like a dealership leaving all the keys in their cars with the front gate unlocked. You just EXPECT it all to get stolen.

Re:Darn kids these days

[cavreader]

So they had it coming? Forget about your animosity towards Sony in particular for a second and your arguments come pretty close to blaming the crime victim instead of the crime perpetrator. How you go walking through a neighborhood and checking to see if everyone has their doors locked and when you find one not locked they obviously expect things to be stolen so why not go in and help yourself?

Re:Darn kids these days

[TheCarp]

Sounds pretty much the way it is here in the states. You bitch about the police and people will tell you all day how "its a hard job", or "they keep us safe", or "Well if your wife was murdered... blah blah". Never mind that they spend most of their resources trapping people for minor speeding violations and other BS. Never mind that half the prison system is nonviolent drug offenders... and thats not even counting the constant churn of people who never make prison and just end up railroaded through probation.

The timing on this sounds about right, I bet they are all too happy to have something that will "look positive" about now, while their feet are in the fire.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

There is clearly a line thou on blaming the victim; people just disagree on where it stands and how the blame should be divided. We tend to agree on the easy stuff.

Victim's fault: Innocent person not dropping a weapon when facing a cop (irrelavent of if victim was deranged or mental)
Not Victim's fault: Innocent person not dropping a weapon when facing an attacker (irrelavent of if victim was deranged or mental)

Disagreements:
1) People leaving valuables in plain sight and leaving their door open
2) Ignorance as a defense for leaving tools insecure
3) Underage girls lying about their age or women getting drunk and stripping in bars
4) Drunk driver's passengers
5) Customers of shady businesses & scams
6) Drug users

The list goes on. Some of what Sony & others did was equivalent to #1 & #2 up there but with customer's data.

Re:Darn kids these days

[cavreader]

What the heck are you talking about? Just leaving valuables in plain sight is enough justification for stealing them? It seems like an awful lot of people are ready to turn a blind eye to any crime that happens to be committed using a computer and using excuses like "well after all it was insecure" or using some vague social protest rational to justify their actions. What is the difference between me running through my neighborhood and stealing my neighbors mail out of their mailboxes and hacking someones online e-mail account? The first action violates one of the oldest Federal Laws in existence while the second is blown off as inconsequential or just annoying. If there are 2 organizations you don't want to piss off in the US it is the IRS and the USPS. These guys make the CIA, NSA, and FBI look like fluffy bunnies when it comes to going after people they think are breaking their rules. I would prefer a holiday vacation in Guantanamo over an IRS audit.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

you got it bang on the nose

Re:Darn kids these days

[Ant P.]

your arguments come pretty close to blaming the crime victim instead of the crime perpetrator

Sony is both of these.

Re:Darn kids these days

[cavreader]

That might well be true but to tell you the truth I have never really cared one way or another in the specific Sony case. However I do have a problem with some of the justification arguments people have been supporting.

Re:Darn kids these days

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol yah but $ony dbags had it comin :)

Re:Yeah?

[rhook]

Fuck Anonymous, they all belong in jail. A bunch of self-glorifying script kiddies, that's all.

Says the Anonymous Coward.

You can arrest the person

[DreamMaster]

You may not be able to arrest an idea, but it seems you can arrest the person.

Re:You can arrest the person

[mat catastrophe]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/internet-abuzz-with-claims-that-uk-police-picked-up-the-wrong-topiary.ars

It's possible that they are tossing the police ringers.

Re:You can arrest the person

[Anonymous Coward]

and your health could be seriously damaged for a bad idea(even if it's not yours)...think on electronic harassment practices
A.

Re:You can arrest the person

[AmiMoJo]

It wouldn't be the first time. The UK police have no problem arresting people based on the flimsiest of evidence and then hoping they will crack during questioning. Unfortunately what tends to happen is that the person doesn't admit to something they didn't do and they end up dragging it out for as long as possible and then trying to bullshit their way to a conviction in court. If the defence lawyer is any good they get some experts in to refute the evidence, but unfortunately there is a tendency not to do that if the prosecution has already decided to use an expert witness because it is assumed that said witness will be impartial and objective.

Operation Ore is the most notorious example of police relying on clearly flawed evidence, but there are many others. In Operation Ore they received a large number of credit card numbers that had been used to pay for child pornography from US police and simply arrested all the card holders. They didn't bother to check if the card details had been stolen, they just rushed in and destroyed dozens of lives for a few easy headlines.

The only Omagh bombing suspect's trial collapsed because all they had was weak DNA evidence which matched him and a schoolboy in England. Barry George did several years in prison based on a single spec of gunpowder found on his clothes, which were stored in a room containing other garments with gunpowder on them.

Re:You can arrest the person

[Anonymous Coward]

There is a line from an old jazz song:

"You can't get blood from a turnip, but you can put a turnip in jail

Re:You can arrest the person

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly what I was thinking. You can't arrest an idea but you can certainly arrest a man.

Re:You can arrest the person

[xatm092]

"Behind this mask is more than a man, My. Creedy. Behind this mask is an idea. And ideas are bulletproof." ~V for Vendetta, about 5 minutes before he dies.

Today's lesson

[JoshuaZ]

Today's lesson: You aren't V. Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace. This isn't to say that they are perfect. Far from it. But the basic point is clear. Moreover, if either of the governments were so bad as to deserve fighting back then the method to respond would not involve hacking every single website you can most of whom are corporations which have nothing to do with anything. Sure it is probably fun to convince yourself that you are doing good, but your just a bunch of script kiddies who aren't being helpful while real activists spend their time and sometimes lives improving the governments and saving lives.

Re:Today's lesson

[gale the simple]

Nope, it is: "if irony were made of strawberries, we'd all be drinking a lot of smoothies right now."

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's lesson: You aren't V. Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace. This isn't to say that they are perfect. Far from it. But the basic point is clear. Moreover, if either of the governments were so bad as to deserve fighting back then the method to respond would not involve hacking every single website you can most of whom are corporations which have nothing to do with anything. Sure it is probably fun to convince yourself that you are doing good, but your just a bunch of script kiddies who aren't being helpful while real activists spend their time and sometimes lives improving the governments and saving lives.

Umm, evil? Maybe not, but indifferent, probably. As for anything else, we'll just have to wait for the historians to decide. Assuming we survive to read it, of course.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

That does not matter.
Do you think the riots which resulted in many death in other countries were the "right way" to do it? Probably not.
The point is that no other way works. You can't spend 30 years of your life trying to get a big political party and get shot down by your own guys after those 30 years. What you can do is protest. And if you protest, it's not going to be an email or a blog post, even not a public performance.
You protest with things that everyone is going to _care_ about.

Riots. Hacking high level web sites. Whatever else. At least, they don't kill people or destroy their lives - the government does that, daily, if you haven't noticed. That the proven way to change things, so far.

What I find the most sad, is such arguments as "real activists" "saving lives". It sounds like "and also they capture pedophiles" and such crap. They don't save lives. They also don't do shit. If you haven't noticed that either, the governments, corporations haven't changed, and never do, until a revolution rise. How long do your real activists need, 100, 200, 500 years? Please, get a fucking clue.

Revolutions started by riots, and other such acts,once again. Hacking is part of that, now.

Re:Today's lesson

[Khyber]

"Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace"

You haven't been watching their actions lately, have you? Teahadists and Republicrats alike essentially holding our asses hostage over non-existent fucking money, acting like the world fucking police, and trying to undermine the foundation of their governments for the profit of their friends.

Take your blinders off.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Going to get troll modded for this but whatever.

You agree that the governments are not brutally subjugating the populace. You agree they are far from perfect also.

Then you claim that if they were brutally subjugating the populace hacking, defacing, and dossing websites would not be the correct response.

I'm sorry but I think you just proved anons point and their methods (while claiming contrary). Anon is using defacing and dos attacks as a form of peaceful protest. I wouldn't condone them going much further at the current time but denial of service and high profile defacing in form of protest seems like the perfect response to freedoms, rights, and liberties being slowly eroded.

If you ask me, sure they are a bunch of script kiddies, but I am certain what they are doing is required with the current state of things. I also applaud taking action, now, and peacefully, before shit really hits the fan and people in the US / Britain are required to pick up arms to fight for real. (I think we all agree getting to that point would suck)

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

When a stupid script kiddie can hack in into serious data, it means its not safe in first place.
i wonder what the other "script kiddies" that did hacked before lulzsec but didn't did all the scandal are doing with the data right now.

Re:Today's lesson

[rtb61]

A DDos attack is hardly attacking a web site, in reality it is no different to temporarily obstructing a corporations main entry point ie. a misdemeanour in line with disturbing the peace. Those add on charges are just abuses of the law by the law. Seriously how fucked up and ludicrous is the idea of conspiracy to commit a misdemeanour as being a serious crime

This is just a measure of insane the idea of corporate profits over people's rights has become, where denial to view a digital marketing billboard with no permanent consequence is considered a serious crime, require hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on an investigation and pointless prosecution.

Today's lesson is the authorities have their head up their collective asses. News Corporation gets involved in hacking the computer phone network upon a massive scale, illegal wire tapping, bribery, extortion and blackmail, perverting the course of justice, political corruption, treason and where are the mass arrests, where are the mass raids, nahh, it's just a teency bit of phone hacking, let's pursue the person who blocked a digital billboard for a few hours the fate of the country depends upon it.

So yes it is reminiscent of V where the government pursue tiny infringements as major crimes whilst ignoring major crimes because it might affect corporate profits. So is protest appropriate, is it doing good, of course it is when it redresses the balance between corporate power and influence and real peoples rights. Lies in this world are currently killing millions of people, lies that start wars, lies that protect pharmaceutical profits, lies that keep the junk food industry going, lies that allow out of control pollution and lies that allow the poor to die due to lack of health care or proper diet whilst the rich and greedy wallow in luxury wasting the earth's resources and polluting beyond all reason.

How many people have to die every year due to a minorities greed for more power and money, how many million will it take for you to take notice and we are in the millions.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

You are one of them.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's lesson: You aren't V. Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace. This isn't to say that they are perfect. Far from it. But the basic point is clear. Moreover, if either of the governments were so bad as to deserve fighting back then the method to respond would not involve hacking every single website you can most of whom are corporations which have nothing to do with anything. Sure it is probably fun to convince yourself that you are doing good, but your just a bunch of script kiddies who aren't being helpful while real activists spend their time and sometimes lives improving the governments and saving lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat

"Árbenz instigated sweeping land reform acts that antagonized the U.S.-based multinational United Fruit Company, which had large stakes in the old order of Guatemala and lobbied various levels of the U.S. government to take action against Árbenz.[2] Both Dulles and his brother were shareholders of United Fruit Company.[3]" -Wikipedia

I think this idea that somehow the most powerful entities in the United States have nothing to do with how the country is run is wilful ignorance.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Yore being needlessly pedantic.

Re:Today's lesson

[The Dawn Of Time]

Yes! Stand up for free entertainment and the right to deface websites! Stop the fascists from stopping us from pointlessly being a pain in everyone's ass! We're entitled to be jerks!

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace.

Ironically, the parent poster was disappeared in the night by secret police for failing to use the word nor after neither. They're not fascists, but they are Grammar Nazis.

Re:Today's lesson

[phantomfive]

Sometimes I appreciate when people point out my spelling/grammar mistakes, if they aren't rude about it, because that is how I improve.

Re:Today's lesson

[gale the simple]

Wait.. being a jerk is what being an American is all about... I am confused ; ;

Re:Today's lesson

[DurendalMac]

Oh bullshit. This kind of skiddie hacktivism is what spineless yobs do when they're too scared to go out and try to make a difference in the real world. It's just another breed of armchair combat, and a pretty sorry one as well. If you want to make a difference then do something out in the real world. Most people can actually relate to that. Do it through a computer and far less people will give a shit. Those who think they do are deluding themselves into believing that they're actually doing something great from the basement. It's lazy self-justification. Get your ass out into your community and do something in the real world. Few people give a shit about your online community.

Re:Today's lesson

[phantomfive]

Teahadists and Republicrats alike essentially....., acting like the world fucking police

No, you're getting it backwards.....Democrats act like world police, with Clinton in Srebrenica and Obama in Libya. Republicans tend to go on evil-clensing quests: like Bush in Iraq and Reagan against communism.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

A DDos attack is hardly attacking a web site...

May your life be syn-full, and your connection obliterated while overwhelmed by a heaving pile of crap pouring into it for a few days.

Afterwards, you can tell us all again how it's not an attack. If you ever manage to bring your site back up, that is.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anarchduke]

quit hitlering people's grammar

Re:Today's lesson

[repapetilto]

Like what?

Re:Today's lesson

[Simply Curious]

I'm curious. It seems like a voluntary DDoS is nothing more than the digital equivalent of a sit-in protest. In each, there is a point to be made beyond simple, malicious destruction. In each, the underlying infrastructure is left undamaged. In each, the method of protest is to do as normal customers do, but more so, whether by sitting in the dining area for extended periods of time, or by requesting the site continuously for extended periods of time. Do you have any opinion as to whether this analogy is valid?

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, someone has to. Grammar has gone to the dogs as of late. Damn kids. Now get off my lawn.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

most of whom are corporations which have nothing to do with anything

Yes, exactly like the News Of The World which has been recently proven to have nothing to do with politics, police or citizens (British or otherwise) AM I RIGHT?

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Quit "Hitlering" peoples grammar.

Better ?

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe in a revolution. I believe in changing the mind of the people over time. I don't believe in this fake system called democracy. I believe in the small positive gesture of each individual. Recycling only works because every one does it. It does not work because the "government is on it", it works because we care. If you do things that pisses of the mass, you will get the mass against you. Hacking all those game developers was just plain stupid and does not send any message other than "You can't play your game now and we may have your credit card information!". Just like smashing the window of a man with a small shop does not send a message against "capitalism" or "globalization". It just sends that message that you're willing to piss off everyone.

I know it's hard to accept but you change the world by doing small gesture and hopefully, changing the people around you and hoping others do the same. When someone looks angry because they are having a bad day, instead of being pissed off at them for being angry, you smile and hope they'll see enough people smiling to turn their day around. You do volunteering of your time and help people who need it. If everyone did some volunteering work, maybe some problems would be fixed faster. Maybe we wouldn't still be dealing with poverty in this day and age.

Re:Today's lesson

[AlphaWolf_HK]

A DDos attack is hardly attacking a web site, in reality it is no different to temporarily obstructing a corporations main entry point ie. a misdemeanour in line with disturbing the peace. Those add on charges are just abuses of the law by the law. Seriously how fucked up and ludicrous is the idea of conspiracy to commit a misdemeanour as being a serious crime

That isn't a fair comparison. A company who does business solely through its website can't do business if the website is shut down. That would be akin to people protesting wal-mart by walking into the store, forcibly removing every customer from the store, and then forbidding entry. Except even that still isn't a fair comparison either, because wal-marts might have a hundred customers in the store at once, whereas big websites like these on the other hand have a hundred thousand customers at once.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

> Few people give a shit about your online community.
The police seemed to care.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Well you could start by picking up a goddamn picket sign.

Re:Today's lesson

[Nursie]

+1, how charmingly naive!

Re:Today's lesson

[AlphaWolf_HK]

I'm sorry but I think you just proved anons point and their methods (while claiming contrary). Anon is using defacing and dos attacks as a form of peaceful protest. I wouldn't condone them going much further at the current time but denial of service and high profile defacing in form of protest seems like the perfect response to freedoms, rights, and liberties being slowly eroded.

That's more along the lines of censorship, because you're impairing their ability to communicate; you're doing the online equivalent of shutting them up.

Protesting in this case would be putting up your own website, explaining your side of the story, and letting everybody else decide for themselves. The common saying doesn't come to mind, but I can paraphrase: If you let everybody speak, and let everybody listen, the truth will be known. You don't get to the truth by shutting the other guy up, that isn't how democracy works.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

So the US government isn't fascist and doesn't brutally subjugate people? Try not paying your taxes and then resisting being forcibly held against your will. The only reason you aren't shot to death or imprisoned is because you aren't resisting anything. Countries like Iraq are invaded over false pretenses resulting in monstrous death tolls all for the sake of US interests. Not your interests mind you, but the interests of those lining the pockets of the politicians supporting this crap. I don't think "hacktivism" accomplishes much but if you think the government needs to look like the one in V for Vendetta to be fascist then you are blind.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm guessing you are under 30 and smoke a lot of weed.

When you grow up and become and adult, we can talk about real, lasting change. None of which involves "riots", violence, fighting, vandalism, or other things you seem to enjoy.

Anarchy has never benefited a single country on the face of the planet.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like a voluntary DDoS is nothing more than the digital equivalent of a sit-in protest.

Except the entire point of a sit-in protest is to BE arrested, not to avoid it.

In each, the underlying infrastructure is left undamaged.

In most of the attacks so far, it's gone beyond just a DDoS and involved some light vandalism. The digital equivalent to graffitti, really.

In each, the method of protest is to do as normal customers do, but more so, whether by sitting in the dining area for extended periods of time, or by requesting the site continuously for extended periods of time.

Well not really. In a sit-in protest, the idea is to block access and disrupt the business using non-violent means. You don't do anything except take up space, often people will tie or chain themselves to objects to prevent easy removal.

Do you have any opinion as to whether this analogy is valid?

It's close. With a website, there isn't a distinction between the "facility" and the services offered at the location. In a sit-in the intent is to merely take up space in the facility, not to overwhelm the staff with additional work. So from a certain point of view, a DDoS is like taking up the entire dining area at a pizza place, but from another point of view, it's like calling in and ordering a million pizzas over the phone.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Republicans tend to go on evil-clensing quests: like Bush in Iraq ..

Sorry but isn't that THE best example of socialising the cost of war and privatising its profits? We paid the makers of Expensive War Toys.INC for the means of destr.. um, victory, and handed the same bunch of people lurcative rebuilding contract afterward. And gave them tax breaks.

Re:Today's lesson

[der_joachim]

If they had been on a quest against evil, they would have resigned.

Re:Today's lesson

[The Master Control P]

If you let everybody speak, and let everybody listen, the truth will be known.

To the tiny minority both smart enough to see through the bullshit and astroturfed lies and willing to spend the effort to do so. Remember the healthcare "debate" in the US?

As another saying goes, the best argument against democracy is a 5 minute conversation with the average voter. Also, "You'll have the vote of every thinking man, Adlai." Adlai Stevenson: "Thank you, but I need a majority."

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Today's lesson: You aren't V. Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace.

You've obviously never been in a U.S. prison before, nor have you been subject to torture, nor have you been beaten up by a police officer and subject to the Blue-wall-of-silence while the politicians give these people huge pay-raises, nor have you been a victim of a CIA funded death squad, nor have you been a victim of the War-on-Drugs, nor have you been a victim of the War-on-Pedophilia, nor have you been a victim of MK-Ultra, nor have you been a victim of corporations who hire goons to beat up unionists, nor do you watch the news.

Sure it is probably fun to convince yourself that you are doing good...

No offence, but it sounds like you were raised by a police officer, if you think that Human Rights activists risk their freedom for "fun".

It never surprises me when such outright lies and ignorance gets moderated up. Congratulations on being a Winner.

Re:Today's lesson

[Dan541]

Also with a sit in protesters people are accountable.
Not a bunch of cowards hiding behind their keyboards while they attack another entity.

Re:Today's lesson

[Bert64]

If you let everybody speak, and let everybody listen, the truth will be known.

However, the mass media is controlled by a very small group... While everyone may be able to speak, only the mass media will be listened to by any significant proportion of people and thus their agendas are furthered and everything else ignored.

If someone were to put up their own website explaining their side, how would anyone even learn of the existence of that site?

There is no way to be heard without money and power, and the only way to get money and power is to be a part of the current system and thus have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.

The vast majority believe what they hear on the media, and never bother to question it... If they heard an alternative viewpoint they might believe that too, but why would those who control the media ever publish a viewpoint that weakened themselves?

Re:Today's lesson

[Dan541]

A DDoS attack is also a violation of a persons right to free speech.

Re:Today's lesson

[TheGratefulNet]

I could not help but think of this woody guthrie quote:

I never stopped to think of it before, but you know, a policeman will just stand there and let a banker rob a farmer; or a finance man rob a working man. But if a farmer robs a banker, you would have a whole dern army of cops out a shooting at him. Robbery is a chapter in etiquette.

Re:Today's lesson

[risom]

Anarchy has never benefited a single country on the face of the planet.

I am not a fan of Anarchism as a political system, but that sentence is empirically wrong. In early 20th century europe there were at least two cases I know of, Ukraine and Spain, where Anarchism lasted for a while, and was pretty successful in economical terms. For Spain for example it's more or less proven that the anarchist period saw a sharp rise in worker productivity.
Both didn't last long in the grand scale of things, but their military defeat does not relate to them being anarchist regions - they were just small and didn't have a chance against their much more powerful enemy (Spain: The spanish fascist movement with support from other fascist movements from all over Europe; Ukraine: the Red Army).

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Or a gun.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Irony: Will it blend?

Re:Today's lesson

[DrXym]

Peaceful protest my ass. They're children taking down sites and then engaging in some post hoc ergo propter hoc justification for doing it. There is no point believing there is anything more to it than that because their isn't.

Re:Today's lesson

[AmiMoJo]

What alternative would you suggest? I have tried writing to my MP several times and either get fobbed off or nothing changes. Peaceful protest is pointless - 2 million marched against invading Iraq but where completely ignored. The only political party offering any real reform sold out the second they got into power. Corporations are even worse.

On the other hand violence does work. The Poll Tax protests were ignored until people starting throwing things and smashing stuff up. It had to be sustained for weeks though, not just a one-off.

The only non-violent thing that works is leaking evidence, such as in the MP's expenses scandal. Since most people are not in a position to leak information then hacking to get it is somewhat legitimised. Aside from anything else it lets us know which companies have a clue about security and can be trusted, and in several cases it has exposed law-breaking (ACS:Law, HB Gary, MediaDefender etc). I can appreciate the irony of hacking to expose law-breaking but if leaking data with no criminal intent is justified by the content of said data then acquiring it by hacking is not far off.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Protesting in this case would be putting up your own website, explaining your side of the story, and letting everybody else decide for themselves. The common saying doesn't come to mind, but I can paraphrase: If you let everybody speak, and let everybody listen, the truth will be known. You don't get to the truth by shutting the other guy up, that isn't how democracy works.

But in a real protest people would be forced to see your picket signs and hear your rally calls before they enter the building. The online equivalent to that would be highjacking a websites homepage so people can see your protesting before they enter the site

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

They already do exactly that. Hacking is just another facet of Anonymous.

But I guess you don't read about that on Slashdot since it's only tech-related news that only picks up the hacks and ddos they accomplish.

Go on youtube and search "Anonymous". You'll see that they're more than willing to invade meatspace.

Re:Today's lesson

[Phrogman]

The major purpose of Bush in Iraq was to advance US corporate interests and secure control over oil etc. The secondary purpose was to test new weapon systems and ensure vast sums of money were either "lost" or awarded to US military contractors and other companies. Most of the huge sums of money spent on the war went directly into corporate pockets.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

That's more along the lines of censorship, because you're impairing their ability to communicate; you're doing the online equivalent of shutting them up.

That's bull. They don't censor anything, they just shut down a server for a very limited amount of time in order to prove a point. They're not seeking to limit Paypals ability to express itself about, what, the daily offer and benefits of a Paypal-account? Intent counts, and it's ridiculous to compare that with Paypals intentional sockpuppetry to lastingly suppress Wikileaks on behalf of the US government.

Hypocrisy is NOT a logical fallacy; if it's severe enough it is certainly frowned upon, but splitting hairs about the absolute nature of free speech and censorship in this case is like blaming an electric car for pollution when there's a Hummer revving it's engines right next to it.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

If you ask me, sure they are a bunch of script kiddies...

There is at least one who isn't a script kiddie. There is at least one who isn't a kid, and there is at least one who knows what (s)he's doing.
Stay tunned.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Anon is using defacing and dos attacks as a form of peaceful protest.

Then why are my credit card details, home address and telephone number now in the hands of these criminals? ( I was affected by two of their "protest" actions).

Re:Today's lesson

[sgbett]

Ah, the the government approved form of demonstration! That'll learn 'em.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why do they have my credit card details, home address, telephone number, birthday and who knows what else. Do peaceful protests include stealing? Did [i]I[/i]wrong Anon?

I'm sorry but I think you just proved anons point and their methods (while claiming contrary). Anon is using defacing and dos attacks as a form of peaceful protest.

Re:Today's lesson

[misexistentialist]

The international police response seems to indicate that this type of internet action is pretty powerful. You are basically arguing that guerrillas are cowardly for not lining up in plain view to be mowed down by the establishment's enormous stockpiled wealth and materiel. Even the President of United States is never more powerful than when he is in his basement bunker.

Re:Today's lesson

[daid303]

But they have already brought change. They have shown digital data is not always safe, and that there is always an exposure risk. This has shown it's effects already in The Netherlands, where the public transport records are being kept for shorter periods now, and these records contain a lot of personal information, due to a new public transport system where you have a card which has your personal details linked to it.

I rather see that these records are not kept at all, and luckily they also have anonymous cards (which I have).

Re:Today's lesson

[Troed]

real, lasting change. None of which involves "riots"

On the contrary, that's the basis for most real lasting changes. Look it up. Women's rights movements, blacks, end of slavery, overthrowing kings etc.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

What about fishermen blocking harbors, preventing anyone from sailing in and out?

What about trucks and their drivers blocking access to oil refineries? Aren't they removing from millions of people the right to move because there are no oil left for the cars?
What if you need your car to work? To save lives?

It is indeed not a fair comparison, because they never will have the power to DDos a website that is used by a hundred thousand customers at once.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Who mentioned human rights activists? This is a conversation about LulzSec who, last I saw, claimed that

1) Theyr'e doing it for the lulz, which explains why they released innocent people's passwords and credit card details to the internet at large

and

2) They're doing it to prove some nebulous point about security for purposes they don't make clear

I must have missed the bit where Topiary said "Avast and level the LulzSec cannon at the swine who suppress our human rights!"

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace.

That depends on who you ask.

if either of the governments were so bad as to deserve fighting back then the method to respond would not involve hacking every single website you can most of whom are corporations which have nothing to do with anything.

Whether they "deserve" it or not is subjective. Whether or not their methods are the correct ones is also subjective.

but your just a bunch of script kiddies

A generalization as well as an assumption. But, really, if they can take down a website, what they are is rather irrelevant, I think.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that today's lesson? The events of today are perfectly consistent with evil fascist state that brutally subjugates the populace -- that isn't to say we live in such a state (we don't), just that the things which are occurring today are perfectly consistent with that hypothesis. It would be a counterexample if the opposite happened and this were ignored, but it might also be an example of a lack of concern for the rule of law or something. It would also be a counterexample if some group of right-wing nutjobs went after Topiary and the government stepped in to enforce sanity. Neither of those are happening.

Today's lesson is learn to do anonymity properly. Maybe tomorrow's lesson will be that the government of the US isn't all bad.

Re:Today's lesson

[rtb61]

I fail to see why you can not understand that a protest is meant to be disruptive and the substantive difference between shutting something down permanently versus a short term non-damaging temporary disruption, not too mention the idea of which takes precedence corporate profits or people's rights. Just to be certain, a corporation is not a person, it is a business illusion behind which to hide amoral douche bag behaviour and to be able to put the penalties for lying, cheating, stealing and even killing on the share holders rather than the people who actually make those decisions.

Re:Today's lesson

[Instine]

"Neither the British or US government is an evil fascist state which brutally subjugates the populace."

Guess you've never been kettled and charged by horses for taking part in a (up until that point) peaceful protest against the ideology of the ruling government? I have. It's life threatening, and has proven fatal on more than one occasion. And undoubtedly terrifying. This is state oppression of the population by any definition I understand.

Or been detained indefinitely without charge and sleep deprived, partially drowned etc... No I haven't but its not hard to imagine how that could also be seen as oppressive and terrorising and is now admitted by the US and complicity admitted by the UK.

Re:Today's lesson

[phantomfive]

The major purpose of Bush in Iraq was to advance US corporate interests and secure control over oil etc.

Corporate interests? Because the average, non-incorporated citizen doesn't have an interest in low gas prices?

Re:Today's lesson

[phantomfive]

Neither Hitler nor Stalin considered themselves evil, and yet they were.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

The major purpose of Bush in Iraq was to advance US corporate interests and secure control over oil etc.
think about that a little...how much oil have we secured?

Isn't it much easier to believe that we were trying to install a democracy? Because that's what we've accomplished...not that a few more have been cropping up lately too, so perhaps Bush was right after all.

Re:Today's lesson

[cpt kangarooski]

Are you saying that gas prices have gone down since we've been in Iraq? But the petroleum industry has been making record profits.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

Use your brain, and think of something effective.

Re:Today's lesson

[Khyber]

"Corporate interests? Because the average, non-incorporated citizen doesn't have an interest in low gas prices?"

Price of gas Before 9/11 - in TN, under $1.50/gal

Now, friends tell me (I moved to Cali) Gas is about $3.50/gal

Inflation ain't going up THAT fast.

Where's that low gas price, again? I don't see it.

Re:Today's lesson

[Khyber]

By securing *OUR* democracy there, we have essentially secured their oil supply for ourselves.

Re:Today's lesson

[phantomfive]

I feel like you have a point, but your point is either not clear, or is not related to my earlier post, which you replied to.

Re:Today's lesson

[cpt kangarooski]

In response to an earlier post claiming that the purpose of our war in Iraq was to advance the interests of certain US businesses and secure oil, you replied saying that even individuals in the US would like to see gas prices be lower.

I was pointing out that if one of the reasons to invade Iraq was to lower the price of gas, it has backfired spectacularly. But this hasn't particularly harmed the US businesses that the earlier poster thought were the intended beneficiaries of the war. This suggests that either lower gas prices was never an objective or that it came a distant second in terms of priorities for the Bush administration, which, typically, fucked it up.

In any event, I'd just as soon see our energy use reduced through greater efficiency and reduced demand, and more of our energy provided by safe, clean, domestic sources. Sadly, there seems to be little collective will in getting this done, or at least little evidence of it. If it takes continued increases in the price of gas to get us going in that direction, then I'm all for it, though I would certainly prefer to use whatever cheap energy we have left in a wise manner so as to get ready for the future, rather than to waste it on frivolous driving. But as long as we make the transition, I suppose it'll work out.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

It's close. With a website, there isn't a distinction between the "facility" and the services offered at the location. In a sit-in the intent is to merely take up space in the facility, not to overwhelm the staff with additional work. So from a certain point of view, a DDoS is like taking up the entire dining area at a pizza place, but from another point of view, it's like calling in and ordering a million pizzas over the phone.

Its more like having 20 people at the grocery store to fill the registers, pay entirely in pennies, and slowly count out the correct amount, then drop the pennies and start over again, so nobody can get through. But when Anonymous attacks, they also have people stealing other customer's credit cards while they are distracted.

Re:Today's lesson

[phantomfive]

Oh, right. There is a difference between 'securing oil' and lowering gas prices. There were clearly those in the Bush administration who were euphoric about the idea of creating a military base in Iraq from which we could control the entire region. Guess that didn't work out.

Re:Today's lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

That must be why everyone has heard of Anonymous and nobody has heard of the Black Bloc. Hey wait a second...

Who will govern the Government?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is it that the people are FORCED by elections to vote for how they will re-introduce themselves as subject to regulations and laws while the same vote causes a privileged person to receive a title of nobility to do things that the people are not allowed to do? So the Government is allowed to violate a actual contract without war, unable to abate an isolate incident by it's merits, yet the people are instantly painted as though being terrorists and insergeants if not tourists visitting a foreign land to tilt their collection utilities with so-many requests for service that the flood haults the service for not being able to accomodate that service at the requested rate?

Is this why the 14th Amendment is written that a Vote is a rebellion against the existing powers? Voting itself never rebelled against it's own legislation, but supplanted it more than anything would ever be considered a true Amendment to make something more correct and true, so in this regard would a Vote be looked-up as a continuation of Rebellion against the Crown of England for the United States? Consider that the Treaty of Trippoli gives evidence that the United States is not a Christian nation, yet the States of America are Christian nations? Why is it not the United States *are* Christian nation*s*, but it says that the United States is *not* a Christian nation? States of America is always plural, yet the United States is singular? WTF?

Because thats how to handle things.

[Chardansearavitriol]

Do what they always have. What all our governments always do: ignore the fact that people are commiting war crimes. Dont address the problems of real day to day worry. Instead, they seem much happier wasting resources to prosecute people who *are not bad people.* That gets left out too often. WAY too often. These are not bad people; not really. They didnt do anything wrong that actually matters. Sure, yeah, commited "crimes." Of course, in the real world, this crime amounts to...well, imagine a farmer. with 50 acres of land. Around one end he has a fence, saying "Private Property." at the other side however, wel, he hasnt gotten around to building that fence yet. So claerly he can murder anyone who comes passed this unmarked line. Its not Anonymous/whoevers fault that our governments have decided to be as ridiculously insecure in their data as is possible, in every area of every system. Corruption is rampant. War is being waged. Rights are being eroded. law enforcement becoming just enforcers. Criminals at the heads of multinational corporations destroying the world, cutting mountains into dust. Pollution filling our sky and our land and our water with crap. Even if you dont think climate change is real, surely you can see the problem in dumping things that kill people into our air. Its not like it has anywhere else to go. So right now, heres how it looks: The UK government and private citizens had their phones and computers hacked by Rupert Murdoch's media outlet. Crimes were hindered by their efforts to get the news from the phones. and what does the UK do? Focus on a "spokesman" for a group who probably hasnt actually commited a crime. Way to go, UK. Between Murdoch and that jerk in charg of BP, you clearly made the right choice: Arrest some guy no one knows who could never even begin to cause the sort of damage the real criminals do. These guys arent bad people, again, its really important: They are NOT bad people. The bad people are the ones arresting people for nonsense reason, are the ones who ripped off the global economy. are the ones who started andengaged in illegal wars. Not this group. But you can bet they'll do everything to get attention away from Murdoch's monsters and the corporate pirates running us into a wall. How many Murdoch outlets do you think will cover this and never again mention, yo know, the horrible crimes they commited, like torture. Like letting mercenaries act as mobile soverign territory. No, this is not what matters. What matters is some guy from some group whos name most people cant even pronounce because he allegedly decided to be a spokesman for a group. So, my advice to the UK and all others is as follows: Stop being whiny jerks ,stop ignoring the issues and STOP SHOOTING THE MESSANGER. Sheesh. (Please to note: when I use general terms like "to the UK" i am intending my words to be directed at the agencies in question, not over the UK as a whole; that would be silly and wrong.)

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[bakarocket]

You really have to work on shortening your revolutionary slogan. Try something catchy like "Corruption Shmorruption!!" or "Stupid Government, We Hate You!"

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_flag

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[phantomfive]

This post is exactly an example of someone who has become a parrot for the latest political memes, without doing research to find out how the world actually is.

Note the example he picks of an 'evil' oil company: BP. Of course everyone knows why, and before that the political meme was Exxon. But why do you ignore the full-on corruption, crime, and murder, of oil companies that are truly evil, like Gazprom? It's because you only have a shallow understanding of the subject.

Likewise, it is easy to get mad at Murdoch (since no one likes him anyway), but are you aware that many UK newspapers were doing the same kind of thing? The story there isn't about Murdoch, it's about a corrupt political/police system in the UK.

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[ShakaUVM]

>>Likewise, it is easy to get mad at Murdoch (since no one likes him anyway), but are you aware that many UK newspapers were doing the same kind of thing?

Hell, the NYT *defended* their use of hacked phone data to get stories.

Murdoch is getting run through the grinder mainly because he's Murdoch.

>>This post is exactly an example of someone who has become a parrot for the latest political memes

Does it surprise you that it was an 18-year old? =)

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[nedlohs]

Gazprom is Russian and he likely cares about things involving his country not somewhere half way across the world.

Murdoch owns lots of media in the US, and hence his companies doing bad things in the UK is of far more relevance on slashdot (a US site) than corruption in the political/police system in another country.

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[phantomfive]

Sure, maybe that's true, or maybe he parrots the latest political memes lol

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[rtfa-troll]

As a first stage; breaking it into paragraphs and grouping the statements into related logical units within those paragraphs would probably help too. I tried to read it and started getting a headache. Chardansearavitriol; I think you are missing the paragraph marker. Remember slashdot comments are HTML. You need a

at the start of each paragraph.

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Does it surprise you that it was an 18-year old? =)

Yes, it does- by the age of 18 most people understand what a paragraph is.

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[ShakaUVM]

>>Yes, it does- by the age of 18 most people understand what a paragraph is.

Not if they use Twitter. Then you only can construct your thoughts in pithy, quasi-related sentence-paragraphs.

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[horza]

How on earth did parent get modded up? He is like the other crazies that claim if we don't help Sudan then we shouldn't help Libya. So if you don't take on every "bad guy" in the world simultaneously then there is no point doing anything at all? If he knows about Exxon and they are doing bad things then he can highlight it. If somebody else knows more about Gazprom then they can highlight that. You aren't judge and jury about what other people can protest, why don't you do your own protest against Gazprom?

Phillip.

Re:Because thats how to handle things.

[phantomfive]

I'm sorry, you seem to have misunderstood. I was not implying that we should take, or not take action. My point was that the GGP was an ignoramus. If you find yourself agreeing with him/her on every point, do a self-examination, for you may also be an ignoramus.

His name was Jake Davis

[Anonymous Coward]

It's time for a "Fight Club" sequel/remake/reboot, possibly combine it with some "Hackers" and a liberal dose of "Bullworth". Maybe the guys who organized "Steal This Film" could get the ball rolling....

Re:God

[webmistressrachel]

What does this mean? Please, someone send me a cipher!!!

This time again

[Anonymous Coward]

spokesman

Evidence suggests wrong person

[rickzor]

http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=22280
Evidence such as previously leaked information, IRC logs, and the age, identity and location of the suspect arrested suggest that they caught the wrong person.

Re:Evidence suggests wrong person

[DarwinSurvivor]

You know, I have found it rather convenient that every single "Anonymous" person they have "caught" has been JUST over the legal age (18-22).

Re:Evidence suggests wrong person

[Timmmm]

Did you actually read that IRC log? Worse. Double-bluff. Evar. Choice quotes:

[removed]: S'up Daniel
Topiary: s'appening [removed]

Topiary: anyway I trust you so yeah
Topiary: we can keep this between us
[removed]: Wont say a word bro

Right.

Re:Evidence suggests wrong person

[gknoy]

It may be that they don't bother with people that are underage, or wait until they are no longer underage before trying to pin them with charges?

Re:Evidence suggests wrong person

[Anonymous Coward]

unless previously "leaked" information was a diversion.

Re:Evidence suggests wrong person

[synapse7]

Maybe they didn't, maybe they did. http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/08/lulzsec-spokesman-in-court-after-police-find-750k-passwords-on-his-pc.ars Who knows...

get a rope

[gearloos]

nuff said

Too young to hide?

[hcs_$reboot]

It seems those people are arrested thanks to the IP address they were using at the time.
Are they too young to know Tor and the like?

Re:Too young to hide?

[Dan667]

I remember reading tor is not perfect and you can poison / man in the middle it pretty easily.

Re:Too young to hide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tor will successfully hide your IP from every node except your entry point. However, by inspecting the actual data, you can sometimes learn something about the origin of the packet. Just because an envelope has no return address, that doesn't mean you can't figure out who sent it by reading the actual letter.

Re:Too young to hide?

[Anonymous Coward]

anon irc blocks tor exit nodes

Re:Too young to hide?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tor does quite a good job of hiding your IP address unless the majority of Tor nodes are provided and controlled by the people who want to track you. Then it's trivial for them to track you.

What idea?

[phantomfive]

You can't arrest an idea'

What idea are they pushing? I thought they just liked hacking sites that have weak security.

Re:What idea?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a secret. I could tell you, but then I'd have to.... er, never mind.

Re:What idea?

[muffen]

Thats the idea!

Joshua...

[Anonymous Coward]

So you think that PayPal's decision to block access to the WikiLeaks defence funds (donated by thousands of people worldwide) was "helping to improve the government"...?

Re:

[taiwanjohn]

Played up or not, it is a problem.

Re:Yeah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck Anonymous, they all belong in jail. A bunch of self-glorifying script kiddies, that's all.

Says the Anonymous Coward.

AC != Anonymous

The real Anonymous doesn't work like that...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do they really think that they caught the right guy?
http://technolog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/28/7187828-lulzsec-rumors-was-the-real-topiary-arrested

Granted it doesn't matter if they did. There are no leaders of anonymous, and any spokesmen really only speak for themselves. Hell, i could hop on irc and 4chan and declare myself leader of anonymous and start issuing commands.
My guess is 10% would do what I say because it seems like the fun thing to do at the moment.
20% would take my command and expand on it well beyond what I intended.
20% would insist on a different target and maybe a different method of attack.
10% would actively work to sabotage the efforts of everyone already listed.
10% would also declare themselves the leaders and issue their own commands.
And the rest would just trade underage furry porn.

The thing that most people fail to understand is that these groupings will change at the drop of a hat. there's no consistency and no order ant they like it that way. (well, a percentage of them do)

2/b/ !2/b/

[Anonymous Coward]

Best said in the 1600's..

"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there's the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

Re:Yeah?

[ozmanjusri]

A bunch of self-glorifying script kiddies, that's all.

Just like old times hey?

I wonder if he'll turn out the same way as Mendax did.

POWER VACUUM!

[idbeholda]

Just like the last several times, another will take his place. I neither condone or condemn the actions of these groups, but I would like to point out the facts as they've unfolded.

Modern day "Zorro"

[mcrbids]

Remember that movie a few years back, "Zoro" with Antonio Banderas? (If not, it's probably up on Netflix Instant Play or a torrent someplace)

The movie was all about the "passing of the guard" - a new, younger man taking the role of "Zoro", the anonymous masked crime fighter of the previous generation. It's a good movie, so I recommend it highly. But it also does a passable job of showing the difference between an identity and an idea.

I'm guessing that there are, in fact, a half dozen or more actual people who have had the identity of "Topiary". They may have shared the pseudo-identity concurrently, so, who did what?

I'm getting out the popcorn and getting ready to watch the show!

Re:Modern day "Zorro"

[Larryish]

It would be funny if all the proponents of Anonymous and Lulzsec started using the name "Topiary" when signing up for forums, etc.

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

Re:Yeah?

[rainmouse]

Hopefully the guy he's bunking with will have just as big a hardon for V for Vendetta, maybe he'll go gentle on him the first time.

It must be pointed out yet again that only in the USA, do people suddenly turn gay as soon as the bars slam shut (if American pop culture can be believed which in itself is an obviously ridiculous notion).

The guy is from the Shetland Isles. Anyone has been to Shetland or even just seen it on a map must be wondering how he can commit cyber-crimes with an internet connection slower than a second class postal stamp in a village that likely only recently gained electricity and running water.

Re: 'You can't arrest an idea'

[ibsteve2u]

No, but you can declare that corporations are people and their wealth is free speech and drown that idea in an ocean of propaganda...

Right,

[SmallFurryCreature]

So you can only protest against a government once it has opened the gas-chambers? Some might say it is a bit to late. In fact some people claim that the right to protest and even cause inconvience by doing so is the sign of a healthy democracy. A sign of a failing democracy is usually people going "oh it ain't quite a nightmarish hellhole yet, so lets all just lay on our backs until it is".

Freedom, your attitude towards it sucks.

Why are most of these evil hackers teenagers?

[Froeschle]

Lately it seems that most of the hackers getting caught are not even 20 years old, many of them still juveniles. Is this because it's juvenile behaviour and there are less adults out there doing the same type of thing or are the older (more experienced?) hackers just a lot more careful to not get caught?

Re:Why are most of these evil hackers teenagers?

[subreality]

Part 1:

Everyone starts out ambitious and idealistic. But sometime in your mid-20s you get saddled with car payments, medical bills, and a Lawn. Just keeping your job and trying to maintain a little free time to watch some TV is all you really aspire to. American culture is broken, and that's about all that's left of the American Dream.

I'm not speaking about everyone of course, but demographically, any free spirit you had that survived through school gets promptly crushed when you get a job.

Part 2:

Teenage hackers come in a range from Stupid to Smart. The Stupid ones get caught because they do Stupid things. By their mid-20s, all the real losers have been weeded out and you're just left with the ones who can use discretion, conceal their identities, and keep their trap shut.

Re:Why are most of these evil hackers teenagers?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'll find the single biggest advantage juveniles and other younger people have is:

an abundance of time.

When I was in grade school, I had way more time than I ever knew what to do with. The same was true --to a lesser extent, granted-- in college. If you find yourself with next to no capital with which to mount an effective offense against those whom you perceive as evil, unjust, or else in the wrong -- then instead capitalizing on your copious amounts of time becomes a tantalizing prospect.

And yes, part of it is surely the older ones being careful not to get caught. I learned the hard way as a kid that the school admin who "appreciated" my assistance with securing the network *actually "appreciated" my open willingness to be the fall-guy for whenever shit hit the fan. I wasn't too keen on donning a white hat afterwards.

Extraordinary rendition

[Anonymous Coward]

This is completely crazy. They guy was in Shetland, in Scotland, and the Met Police flew up from London in a light aircraft, landed, raided his house and flew him out on the same aircraft to London, England. He was arrested in one legal jurisdiction and is being held in another. This is like the FBI flying from Washington DC to Oregon, arresting someone, and flying them straight out to Washington again. It's not legal. Add to that that in Scotland he can only be held for 24 hours without charge but in England he can be held, it seems, indefinitely with court approval and you have an extraordinary rendition. The human rights court is going to have a nightmare with this one, and the UK is alreadytearing itself apart due to the incompatibilities of one sovereign state having two seperate 'sovereign' legal systems.

Anyway, I asked for an answer from the Scottish First Minister. He's already fighting with the 'federal' UK government over this.

Free @Topiary!

Re:Extraordinary rendition

[Anonymous Coward]

Moron alert!

Have you ever considered that a chief of police in London can pick up up a phone and call the chief of police in Inverness (who run the Northern Constabulary which has jurisdiction on the Shetlands) and inform him that they have evidence that could lead to the arrest of a criminal in the Shetlands on charges relevant to the national interest, and they wish to arrest him? That the chief of police in Inverness will then grant the Met the permission to land on the Shetlands, apprehend him, and fly back to London?

And if you don't think that SOCA counts as national interest then you're doubly a moron. I can imagine the responses you'll give; things like "SOCA don't act in my interest. They only act in the interests of the government and the corporations," and that only makes you triply a moron.

Use your fucking head. Moron.

Re:Extraordinary rendition

[m50d]

If all it takes to get around Scotland's 24-hour limit for detention without trial is a claim of "national interest" then it's a pretty empty protection.

Re:Extraordinary rendition

[OverlordQ]

This is like the FBI flying from Washington DC to Oregon, arresting someone, and flying them straight out to Washington again. It's not legal.

Hint, the F in FBI stands for Federal. They have jurisdiction everywhere in the US on Federal crimes. You're seriously deluded if you think the FBI can only arrest people in Washington DC.

Re:Extraordinary rendition

[TheCarp]

Welcome to the Internet. You look a little lost. Are you new here?

Re:Extraordinary rendition

[Anonymous Coward]

he's severely deluded if he thinks the british police constabularies seal their borders and never let a policeman from another constabulary over it. he's severely deluded if he thinks that inciting and participating in an attack on soca was going to be overlooked by the british authorities. he's deluded if he actually thnks there'll be a constitutional crisis because the met were granted permission by the northern constabulary to land a plane on the shetlands and arrest a suspect.

i think he's severely deluded.

Re:Extraordinary rendition

[Anonymous Coward]

You appear to be confused about the Shetlands and the legal systems of the UK, Scotland & England.

If the crime was committed in England, there is absolutely no issue over someone being arrested in Scotland and taken there. Happens all the time for all kinds of investigations and crimes. Equally vice versa.

The UK is not a federation, it is a devolved state, so comparisons with the United States are misleading.

There is nothing excessive or unusual about flying in and out of Shetland. It is one of the primary methods of getting about a group of remote islands.

The UK is not "already tearing itself apart due to incompatibilities of one sovereign state having two seperate 'sovereign' legal systems". It's managed just fine for hundreds of years with exactly that.

Re:Extraordinary rendition

[Anonymous Coward]

wow. another idiot and another couple of pieces of stupid modding. /. is really down the fucking shitter. i've no idea if it's always been there or not but it certainly is now.

Let's guess what happens next

[DrXym]

His mum will come running out proclaiming he's so precious he shouldn't be prosecuted, how he has aspergers. Blah blah blah. I wonder if the lulz are worth it when these dickheads get caught and prosecuted.

Neighbour

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess they arrested neighbor of the real guy. But this one deserves some amount of jail time due to using public wifi at home.

SOCA?

[DryGrian]

SOCA (Serious Organized Crime Agency)

Is this really an organization? In other words, are they srs?

Re:SOCA?

[ledow]

It is.

It always makes me wonder what kind of organised crime *isn't* serious.

Re:SOCA?

[Ash-Fox]

It always makes me wonder what kind of organised crime *isn't* serious.

Stuff like feeding the poor is illegal in certain British counties. Those aren't considered serious crimes.

Re:SOCA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ticket touting is probably considered non-serious, along with much of the copyright infringement stuff. It's certainly organised - large networks of people - but do we really care if fake perfume is being sold down the market? No, not really....

Re:Shared the same identity

[TaoPhoenix]

Semi off topic, but I emailed Samzenpus here and I got replies back from

From: "Robert Rozeboom"
and
From: "Bob Roberts" (This sender is DomainKeys verified)

Re: 'You can't arrest an idea'

[Anonymous Coward]

Conspiracy theories! .... or wait...

help me understand

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm mystified by the media coverage of the lulzsec/anonymous. How come no one is talking about the fact the latest anonymous leak redacted names of prisoners as a sign of solidarity but exposed names of informants and witnesses as punishment for being 'snitches'? How come this is a bigger story than the fact the names, addresses and SSNs of cops were leaked? SO MANY QUESTIONS.

Budlighty

[Anonymous Coward]

Bud loves top

Where are the classy Mitnick-like stories?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, that's just a script kiddie getting caught. How lame are these guys? I'm old but I do remember the Mitnick pursuit and arrest and all it's gray shades: nothing was black and white in that affair.

IIRC the FBI had to camp for days, if not weeks, seeing which lights at which house/appt in a neighbourhood matched the online activity of Mitnick, because they knew that in the "last mile" the hacker was probably hijacking someone else's network. And sure it did. And he got caught.

But at least there was some class in that entire story.

Here what do we have? Clueless teenagers getting busted like the script kiddies they are. These dudes know jack sh!t about security nor about anonimity. The only ones more pathetic than these Anonymous & Lulzec members are the ones tracking them when nobody asked. Talk about the one-eyed leading the blind or something.

It's lame. So lame.

Bring us real hacking stories.
 

How was it a war over oil

[Quila]

When we get pretty much no oil from Iraq?

The first Gulf War was over oil. The second one was Junior finishing what Daddy didn't have the balls to finish. Family pride is a stupid, but not unprecedented, reason to go to war.

Got the wrong guy

[GameboyRMH]

This guy was framed by the real Topiary as revenge for impersonating him. See:

http://www.dailytech.com/Exclusive+British+Police+Duped+by+LulzSec+Into+Arresting+the+Wrong+Guy/article22280.htm

Re:Got the wrong guy

[rtfa-troll]

Or maybe Daniel was framed by th3j35t3r; I think I'll wait for the forensics on the Scottish guy's hard disk before I decide. Thanks. This being the UK there's a fairly good chance we'll get to see at least the results of that instead of getting some stupid plea bargain excuse for justice. In any case, if you dig through a few more articles, the locals thought the guy "might" be German, which actually matches quite well with him being Swedish, which actually contradicts one of the main pieces of evidence in the DailyTech article..

Re:I blame Obama.

[Gripp]

There are indications that they have the wrong guy: http://www.dailytech.com/Exclusive+British+Police+Duped+by+LulzSec+Into+Arresting+the+Wrong+Guy/article22280.htm

which wouldn't surprise me as making things point to some other likely suspect is exactly what i would do if i were performing acts like hacking the CIA....

I LIKE IT (well said, 4 the most part)... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Especially this part:

"This kind of skiddie hacktivism is what spineless yobs do when they're too scared to go out and try to make a difference in the real world. It's just another breed of armchair combat, and a pretty sorry one as well. If you want to make a difference then do something out in the real world. Most people can actually relate to that." - by DurendalMac (736637) on Monday August 01, @12:14AM (#36943634)

They really SHOULD be doing more "good" than they have (only decent thing these LulzSec &/or Anon folks did was warn the NHS about their admin passwords being exposed, but, they did NOT abuse them vs. NHS - I have to give them that much)... & MOST of the "attacks" they have done?

Not that tough (especially DoS/DDoS & even SQLInjection's easy enough to find to take advantage of)...

HOWEVER: They HAVE pointed out where the problems are that need fixing!

(That, in fact, is the ONLY "good thing" I have to say about any hacker/cracker or even malware maker - though they may NOT "like it", it's truth (I'd say the same thing to Satan - that God allows his existence to "test us", & he's God's "tool" too, like it or not)).

I just try to find "Good" in "the Bad" & avoid the UGLY is all...

Anyhow/anyways:

Perhaps this IS their "area of expertise" & that's where every one of us SHOULD be trying our best to help make the world in whatever way, shape, OR form, better!

(In whatever that is one's GOOD/BEST at - Be it engineering, computing, lawmaking, you-name-it... this is where you stand the biggest chance of doing so is why because you're good @ it!)

Yes - Imo @ least? THIS is how CHANGE, good change, starts & radiates imo (a "pay-it-forward" type of thing, hopefully compounding & expanding, via "geometric progression")).

Hence why I don't FULLY agree with your next statement though:

"Do it through a computer and far less people will give a shit. Those who think they do are deluding themselves into believing that they're actually doing something great from the basement. It's lazy self-justification." - by DurendalMac (736637) on Monday August 01, @12:14AM (#36943634)

You CAN make a difference there too.

For instance, my brother is a U.S. Military Officer... he tells me the "Virginia Farm Boys" & "FEEBS" absolutely HATE geeks (sometimes, with good reason, ala Anonymous &/or LulzSec)...

AND, he's been "hit" many years ago (1996-1997) by computer hackers @ home, & he told me:

"They ought to be hung by their balls!"

I agreed, to a large extent in fact... Especially the kind that REALLY cause problems (stealing vital information, or monies, from others OR institutions).

So, back in 1997 (after he got "hit")?

I was already doing it on IRC anyhow, but I discovered "the web" & forums, & put this out:

To "immunize" a Windows system, I effectively use the principles in "layered security" possibles!

http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22HOW+TO+SECURE+Windows+2000%2FXP%22&go=&form=QBRE

I.E./E.G.-> I have done so since 1997-1998 with the most viewed, highly rated guide online for Windows security there really is which came from the fact I also created the 1st guide for securing Windows, highly rated @ NEOWIN (as far back as 1998-2001) here:

http://www.neowin.net/news/apk-a-to-z-internet-speedup--security-text

& from as far back as 1997 -> http://web.archive.org/web/20020205091023/www.ntcompatible.com/article1.shtml which Neowin above picked up on & rated very highly.

That has evolved more currently, into the MO

Re:carychen

[Anonymous Coward]

If necessary, please http://www.goelectronstore.com/

If necessary, please this forum.

Re:Today's lessons for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently the truth of the above post is too much for the moron or brown-shirt that modded it down. Self-delusion of the non-existance of fascism on a national scale - hmmmm - where have we seen this before?