Anonymous Takes Down DOJ, RIAA, MPA and Universal Music

First time accepted submitter EW87 writes "Shortly after a federal raid today brought down the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers aligned with the online collective Anonymous have shut down sites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group and the RIAA. 'It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,' Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon."

Comments

wow

[dnahelicase]

it's begun!

Re:wow

[drwj01]

You mean, "begun the clone wars have." I wonder if this is going to be the first of many instant responses to actions like this.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

And David Cameron's just called for more worker control of the means of production.

Gentlemen, gather your breadcrumbs and pretend you have a slice of control! If that fails, a distributed nipping at the heels will do!

Re:wow

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Please define "it" for the rest of us. Because to most, "it" appears to be "anything that the people of anonymous take a fancy to this week".

Re:wow

[Mashiki]

Yeah that's my thought. To be honest, if anonymous thought that jamming turkey basters in their dicks would stop scientology they would probably do it. Then rave about how it worked, while posting pictures.

A new meme would be started, and Goatse.cx would have a new challenger.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Project Mayhem.

Re:wow

[genjix]

Do not stand for this flagrant abuse of our farcical democracy!

Megaupload has been forcibly closed by the FBI. In a sickening undermining of the people’s will, they are making an example out of an historic, legitimate, useful and well-known website. This is a prophetic glimmer of the coming war against pure free speech- the internet.

This happened once before. Here in the UK, the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) is a censoring system for the internet. In 1996, the Metropolitan Police started requesting the banning of illegal content by ISPs in the UK. With veiled sly threats they asked that ISPs engage in ‘self-enforcement’ rather than forcing them to enforce the law on them.

Most of the ISPs complied except Demon internet. Demon was a British ISP that contributed to the Open Source community, ran several IRC servers and were pioneers of their time. They objected on the grounds of it being “unacceptable censorship”. A few days later, a tabloid expose appeared in the Observer newspaper alleging that the director of Demon was supplying paedophiles with photographs of children being sexually abused.

Then the police let it be known that during that summer, they were planning a crack-down on an unspecified ISP as a test-case (translation: making an example of them). Between the threats and pressure, the IWF was formed- a supposedly voluntary organisation but in fact a fake-charity and a quango. The IWF is a disgraceful secretive group with an awful corrupt history and no public oversight.

Now we see the same tactic has been used against Megaupload. They are using the threat of violence to coerce companies, how the British police did to create their own laws. The SOPA legislation did not go their way, so they have resulted to immoral tactics of repression.

From ACTA which is decided behind closed European chambers, the DEA which was pushed through undemocratically at alarming speed before elections, evil La Hadopi and now SOPA/PIPA in the US, there is nowhere to run. The nepotists are determined to push through these legislation. At all costs. This is not about piracy- it never was and will not do a thing. It is about control.

We have built a tool. For all their false talk of democracy we have for the first time in history reached this epochal moment. Self determination. If they truly believed in democracy, we could have a direct-democracy tomorrow. The tools exist. Instead we see this flagrant deception. It has become acceptable for politicians to cater to the greatest common denominator. We let them off the hook on the truth like Cameron pretending to be pro-NHS or Obama pretending to be Christian because it is for voters. Since when did it become acceptable to lie! Now today we see this limp-wristed hand wringing by the US president about how he will veto SOPA. Oh shut up.

Was it Gordan Brown who said that voting levels were dangerously low in the below-30s because youngsters today are apolitical. He wanted mandatory attendance for voters. No, we are not apolitical, we are sick of your lies and deceit. This generation is probably more political than any generation in history. In the 80s, only 5% of people in the US were members of organisations. In the 90s, 70% of Americans belonged to some kind of organisation. People are mobilising and prescient of issues.

Libel law is atrociously bad in the UK. Payouts are 10 times greater than in main-land Europe and you get a situation where billionaires use law firms like Carter-Ruck to keep news publishers (which are poor) in court and bleed them dry. Time magazine did an undercover piece of reporting and was sued for libel. They won the case but it ended up costing them $1 million. That’s effectively a fine of $1 million for undercover journalism.

Of course when the law is broken, what do we do? Make more laws! That is why California has brought in anti-SLAPP legislation.

Patent law is so stupid and I won’t even go there.

Copyright is fascist. I find it revolting that

Re:wow

[Samantha Wright]

The war against the enemy: our true enemy, of which we have been ignorant for too long! Behold, the face of ultimate evil, the MPA!

Re:wow

[dangitman]

Do not stand for this flagrant abuse of our farcical democracy!

If it's farcical, then surely abuse of it isn't a big deal? Kind of like making fun of a clown.

Re:wow

[dnahelicase]

"it" = the next wave of the "we are stopping piracy in defense of America" vs "screw you guys - you aren't as good as us - we'll take down your site to prove it"

The same war everyone has been having since Napster. These takedowns won't stop piracy. Site takedowns won't cause any harm to the lobbying organizations. Both sides will use the acts to fuel their respective fires.

In the end, the internet gets less open - the industry loses out on innovation because they are fighting - and the "costs of war" mean nobody wins.

However, it doesn't seem like the real pirates or the music/movie industry loses either - just the general population.

Re:wow

[ackthpt]

Do not stand for this flagrant abuse of our farcical democracy!

If it's farcical, then surely abuse of it isn't a big deal? Kind of like making fun of a clown.

It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist. Just another side of the Machine, from my perspective.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

...not if they are psychopathic killer clowns.

Re:wow

[John Courtland]

If there's a constant in this whole shitstorm mess it's that the clear winners are the lawyers.

Re:wow

[Zaphod The 42nd]

Is this a test, Sir?

Re:wow

[squidflakes]

Damn them and their desire to control all shipping traffic in and out of Singapore! DAMN THEM!

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

MegaUpload has a few legitimate uses, but from what I can see the piracy on the site far outweighs any legitimate uploads. Any legitimate uses seem like a way of pointing and saying, "See! Not everything on our site is pirated."

If they respond in a reasonable time frame to take down requests, and ban users, and maybe even the IPs of the users who continually upload infringing material, then it probably shouldn't matter, they're complying with a reasonable set of laws.

If they're slow about taking down infringing content, and don't bother banning users who continually upload said content, then it's probably legitimate that the site got taken down. Further, it seems like rather than a DNS block and cutting off their money, the FBI worked with the judicial system of the country MegaUpload resides in.

I'm not privy to the details of the case - like how quickly they responded to take down notices - but it at least seems like this is going through legitimate channels to track down 'rogue' sites.

Re:wow

[Zaphod The 42nd]

It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist.

All that proves is that MegaUpload was providing value to people.

Re:wow

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist. Just another side of the Machine, from my perspective.

That's because when such sites are few in numbers, any one of them will have a lot of users. The more of these will appear, the less revenues any one of them will get.

Re:wow

[ackthpt]

It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist. Just another side of the Machine, from my perspective.

That's because when such sites are few in numbers, any one of them will have a lot of users. The more of these will appear, the less revenues any one of them will get.

The barrier to getting into that kind of business is pretty low. Interesting the little play on creating a corporate veil, holding company, to shield the owner. I figure the feds puncture that one in record time.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the music/movie industry is booming right now, higher than ever, it is silly for themm to clim the interne tis hurting them. On the contrary it simply makes them look greedy. "Yes we've set record sales in 2010 and 11, but it's not enough dman it. We want more! Stop the downloads."

.

Re:wow

[gman003]

Dammit! The revolution is starting without me!

Re:wow

[Fluffeh]

I wonder if this is going to be the first of many instant responses to actions like this.

I wonder the effectiveness of these actions. I mean, how long can a DDOS be sustained? If they started really hosing systems in these retaliatory attacks, would the net effect be in their favour or against it? I mean, to me, this retaliation smirks of "Stop messing up our playground!" but the actions are merely name calling, I wonder the outcome if bloodied noses were created in the counterattack.

Re:wow

[Derosian]

Copyright in itself is a fine idea, it is just that in the American system it has been perverted and corrupted.

Re:wow

[hedwards]

"It" the thing that has begun.

Re:wow

[Rinnon]

It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist.

All that proves is that MegaUpload was providing value to people.

Making money hand over fist doesn't always mean you're providing value to people. The RIAA still makes money hand over fist. Do you think they provide a lot of value to people? You can make tons of money off of the Stock Market as a day trader, are you providing value to people? I'm not saying MegaUpload WASN'T providing a valuable service. I'm just saying MegaUpload making money is not an indicator they are providing value to anyone.

Re:wow

[ediron2]

After cringing at your turkeybaster idea, would that meme by any chance involve your sig, turned upside down?

--ow owwowowow.

Re:wow

[dangitman]

If it's farcical, then surely abuse of it isn't a big deal? Kind of like making fun of a clown.

It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist. Just another side of the Machine, from my perspective.

I was referring to the "democracy," not Megaupload. If the OP thinks democracy is so farcial, then why the strident outrage about it being abused? Also, it was a joke.

But to be serious, the tragedy here is that moderate supporters of democracy and humanism are attacked on both sides - from the corrupt abusers of power on one side, and the extremist brick-throwers on the other. We don't really want either to run society. Does anybody believe that if Anonymous had significant power, they would be any less corrupt than the military-industrial bull-boys?

I guess acting reasonably just isn't edgy enough to get any attention.

Re:wow

[DrVomact]

Please define "it" for the rest of us. Because to most, "it" appears to be "anything that the people of anonymous take a fancy to this week".

Yeah, "Anonymous" is a bunch of vigilante thugs, as far as I'm concerned.

I have to wonder: if you're part of an anonymous group, then you don't know who else is a member of your group, right? So you can't very well disavow any action done by someone who says they're "Anonymous". It's just another guy wearing the same silly mask as you are--how do you know he's not a member of your group? For that matter, how do you know you are a member of the group? If "Anonymous" were serious, and if it were really a group, it would work out a way so that their actions can be authenticated as being those of the one, true "Anonymous". I'm sure they will welcome suggestions by the highly qualified (and mostly anonymous) members of this community.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The RIAA still makes money hand over fist.

Hey man, they lose money all the time, have you seen their accounting records?

Re:wow

[Dan541]

and still Anonymous achieves nothing for their effort.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"All that proves is that MegaUpload was providing value to people." - by using someone else's content.

Re:wow

[HornWumpus]

Whoosh.

The MPA is a very effective anti-pirate organization.

Re:wow

[Mad Leper]

You Sir are full of crap

"...they are making an example out of an historic, legitimate, useful and well-known website. This is a prophetic glimmer of the coming war against pure free speech- the internet."

A flagrant lie on your part, the site was run by known criminals who not only profited from distributing copyrighted material, but even stole said material from their own customers who used the site to store personal files.

Try ars technica for the real story, http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

Megaupload is/was run by scum, but they appear to be your kind of scum, so I guess that explains your self righteous indignation over the bust.

Re:wow

[duguk]

It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist.

All that proves is that MegaUpload was providing value to people.

Making money hand over fist doesn't always mean you're providing value to people. The RIAA still makes money hand over fist. Do you think they provide a lot of value to people? You can make tons of money off of the Stock Market as a day trader, are you providing value to people? I'm not saying MegaUpload WASN'T providing a valuable service. I'm just saying MegaUpload making money is not an indicator they are providing value to anyone.

While I see what you're saying, people were choosing to pay Megaupload - no-one chose to pay the MPAA for their services.

Re:wow

[fishbowl]

"It" is the beginning of a precedent whereby Sony, Universal, or Disney, when caught violating a Creative Commons license, can expect to have its assets seized, its operations shut down, and its executives arrested, jailed and charged with "piracy."

"It" is also a precedent whereby you can claim $500 million in losses that you don't have to report to shareholders, insurers, or the IRS.

This could lead to seriously awesome unintended consequences of chaos.

Re:wow

[Dishevel]

Just wait till parents can not order Disney crap for their kids online. Wait till Disney Worlds SCADA systems get taken down and has to shut down for a week.
They can do more than name calling.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

All that proves is that MegaUpload was providing value to people.

So I assume you'd see the same parallel with drug dealers?

Just because it provides "value" to somebody, doesn't make it correct.

Re:wow

[HornWumpus]

Not to get to far into your rant. But direct democracies suck balls as forms of government.

Two wolves and a sheep and all that.

Constitutionally limited democracies work. That requires process, courts and as much as I hate to admit it, fucking lawyers. I just think lawyers should be constitutionally prevented from serving in government. Otherwise they construct a system where mostly shysters benefit.

Re:wow

[Grishnakh]

The MPA is a very effective anti-pirate organization.

If they employ Gurkhas like they do in parts of Singapore for security services, I'd say that's a big understatement.

Re:wow

[artor3]

but I am mad.

Well, you got that part right.

Sheesh dude, I don't know whether you need to get off the drugs or on them, but something about you is definitely off kilter. Half the stuff you claim makes no sense. Megaupload wasn't shut down in retaliation for SOPA. Obama isn't "pretending" to be a Christian. Young adults generally are apathetic about politics. Only 5% of Americans were "members of organizations" in the 80s... huh? Copyright isn't "fascist" (please consult a dictionary). Parasites are people who want other people's works for free, not the people who worked hard on something and don't want everyone to just come by and take it.

Yeah, there are some bad things with copyright law, but as shown yesterday, we can fight against those. Don't go sinking into an abyss of despair and anger over it.

Re:wow

[artor3]

I could steal your car and sell it, and that too would "provide value to people". You need a better argument than that if you want to actually come across as rational and not just rationalizing.

Re:wow

[Grishnakh]

Honestly, I don't give a rip how they made money, even if it was all from blatant piracy. To me, the problem is that the US has no legal authority to arrest people living and working in a foreign country, who have never set foot in the US, no matter what they did. I don't care if they were grinding up kittens and using slave labor; it's the responsibility of the country they're in to police their activity, not the US arresting them for breaking laws in a country they've never been in.

If you (plural, general) disagree, then you need to fly yourself to Iran and turn yourself in for breaking their laws, as I'm sure you've broken some of their laws. And you need to send your wife and daughter to some village in Afghanistan to be stoned to death for not covering themselves in public.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like the MPAA/RIAA then.

Re:wow

[mug funky]

new keyboard?

Re:wow

[Grishnakh]

Irrelevant. They're located outside the US, therefore US law does not apply to them. If you disagree, you need to fly yourself to Iran to be charged with breaking some of their laws, as I'm sure you have.

Re:wow

[mug funky]

that's entirely missing the point though.

they're anarchists, internet tough guys, hackers on steroids. it's a swarm of locusts.

Re:wow

[ackthpt]

Copyright in itself is a fine idea, it is just that in the American system it has been perverted and corrupted.

Which is the American system.

The trick is to make it work for you long enough to get away with it or make enough money to influence legislation to work on your behalf.

For a little fun, try guessing where we'll be in terms of these 'rights' in another 10 years.

Dateline Russia: US forces have launched missiles on most major Russian cities and beachheads are established in the Baltic and along the Pacific, with the plan to push on to Moscow as soon as possible as the Hollywood Backed Government of the United States strives to overthrow the unjust Russian Regime which dared to declare 'Fair Use' with every incident of Copyright Violation.

Re:wow

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

Not really. There aren't that many cases, and most of them aren't for much money. They can also be fairly inane. There are a few who benefit from being a part of the legislative process, and I suppose small number of real entertainment lawyers (e.g. at the big publishing houses, in hollywood, and in a few other industries), but for the most part lawyers only come up against copyright cases pretty rarely.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the Judean Peoples Front to me...
Or was that the Peoples Front of Judea?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with the life +70, and when Mickey Mouse's time is up again it'll probably be life +140. The seemingly infinite stretch of copyright IS sickening.

That said, the original intent of copyright still seems fair to me. Now, I'll gladly argue with you if copyright should be fore the original 14 years, 25 years, life of the author, life of the author +25, or 50 or 75 years, etc. I'll even argue that one should be able to bypass DRM without running afoul of the law, or even that one should be able to access a non-DRM version of the content one purchased, even if it's lower quality, at least in the case of movies or music. Difficult to do for books.

I will not agree that copyright should be abolished. I won't agree that everybody should get all content for free the moment it's released, or even before it's released. If this REALLY was the way things worked, and it was legal to have NAPSTER like services running 24x7 for all content, I'm pretty sure that people would stop producing the stuff. Yes, musicians can do live shows, but most content creation, at least for the first iteration of something - say the first Harry Potter book - is a pretty big risk. If the moment you release it anybody can own a copy of it without having to go through shady back rooms to download it, what incentive is there for somebody to produce such a work in the first place?

I won't disagree that all the **AAs are overreaching, immoral corporate bastards, but the way they went about this - involving the country's law enforcement that this business resides in seems to be the right way to go about things. If they can't even do that, then I really expect more and more SOPA like laws.

Re:wow

[Fallingwater]

More importantly: MU is visited by millions of people, gets shut down, causes problems to said people.
Now I'm not american so I dunno about the DOJ, but who ever goes to the *AA websites? How is their enforced lack of presence from the net a damage to the corporations behind them? What's the point, other than "waahh, waaahh, stop messing with our toys"?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

... but for the most part lawyers only come up against copyright cases pretty rarely.

You do realize that may lobbyists are lawyers, right?

Re:wow

[Culture20]

no-one chose to pay the MPAA for their services.

Sony did.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, not long ago "it" was a kiddie-porn ring, today "it" is another group of scum.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

If only the fed would "puncture" criminal corporations like Time/Warner, Sony Music or Universal.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

To be honest, if anonymous thought that jamming turkey basters in their dicks would stop scientology they would probably do it.

From the Wikipedia about basting: "This is a type of cooking usually recommended for dishes that generally taste mild, but are served with sauces that provide complimenting or overpowering flavor to them."
No explanation necessary, I hope.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

While I see what you're saying, people were choosing to pay Megaupload - no-one chose to pay the MPAA for their services.

The MPAA's members are the six major U.S. motion picture studios: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Universal City Studios LLC; and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

The studios are most assuredly paying for MPAA's services - and passing those costs on to CONSUMERS.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I, too, could make a lot of money by selling "used" laptops on ebay. Providing value to the people because these laptops don't cost as much. All while reaping pure profit for myself. I think you're on to something.

Re:wow

[Binary Boy]

They were not arrested by US agents - they were arrested by New Zealand law enforcement at the request of US agents. So there's absolutely nothing unusual there. Likewise, the seized servers were in Virginia. Whatever you might think of the case itself, your outrage over the method of the arrest is a little misplaced - we have mutual extradition agreements with many countries.

I don't know enough about the site to have an opinion; but if a foreign national, living in a foreign country, stole my identity and ran up charges on my US-based credit cards, tapped out my US-based bank, I would sure hope that US law enforcement (assuming they investigated and agreed there was enough evidence to prosecute) could get the cooperation of the government of the foreign country where the thieves lived and have them extradited for trial here.

And again, before anyone jumps down my throat, I'm not commenting on the merit of the case, or comparing piracy to thievery, or whatever. I'm simply saying that as per the international cooperation, there's absolutely nothing unusual here, and I would hope not. This is why we have extradition agreements.

Re:wow

[AngryDeuce]

So I assume you'd see the same parallel with drug dealers?

Yeah, honestly, I would. The only reason why they make the money they do is because drugs laws are retarded; they ruin the lives of simple users, do nothing to stop actual drug use or the cost of drug use on society, and foster organized crime. Even in places where the penalty for possession is death or life imprisonment, people get caught smuggling drugs constantly.

If they legalized drugs and regulated them, they could take the criminal element out of the equation, put the proceeds towards treatment as opposed to incarceration, and actually make people's lives better, but the DEA and CIA make far too much money off of drugs and the war on drugs for that to ever happen.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot the link to piracy or did I just kill the subtlety?

Re:wow

[cynyr]

why would MU ban an IP? those change users all the time, and are really in no way representative of a user. In fact several can use the same one at the same time (wiki: NAT).

Anyways, even if MU does get used mostly for IP infringement, it shouldn't mean that the DOJ can just shut the site down. Is/will there be some sort of due process in NZ for MU?

Re:wow

[UnknownSoldier]

I believe what the gist you are trying to say but failed too articulate, IMHO, is that ...

Authority without Accountability is never a good idea in the long run.

Anonymous are a bunch of little shits* who think they have some power - which they do for now. Their belief is the "end justifies the means" except they haven't (yet) learnt the lesson that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." We'll see how much of an influence they have in the coming years ...

The "problem" is copyright is not respected by the youth =) Which I say Good for them!

* Not all civil dis-obediance is bad.

"If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable." ~Louis D. Brandeis

Re:wow

[Samantha Wright]

Nah; you're looking too hard. The Maritime Port Authority is the first Google hit for "MPA", a typo in the submission title. :)

Re:wow

[jamstar7]

Irrelevant. They're located outside the US, therefore US law does not apply to them.

You know that and I know that and I suspect the MAFIAA and the US government also know that, but how do you get the US government to admit it without having to spend time in Gitmo?

Re:wow

[xaositects]

After finding that the words 'them', 'claim', 'Internet', 'is', '2011', and 'damn' were part of copyrighted works, the FBI has begun a strict crackdown on their usage, hence his obscuring them.

"Couldn't have gotten far in life without saying 'is'!"

Re:wow

[Anthony Mouse]

There aren't that many cases

There never are. If there are ever "that many cases" then the entire justice system will collapse -- look at the War on Drugs. We can't afford the first one, much less another one like it.

But lawyers do more than litigate. Want to guess how many cumulative lawyer-hours have been spent world-wide complying with the DMCA takedown process? First it has to be implemented on every website. So you take the time it requires for one website and you multiply it by tens of thousands. Then every investment bank and venture capitalist has to evaluate the measures taken by each website to factor it in when deciding whether to invest in that company, both to evaluate whether the company will incur legal liability and in determining whether the act of complying with have an effect on the business. (For example, they have to consider whether there exist competing foreign websites where users can be expected to flee if fraudulent take downs are issued repeatedly by abusive content holders against the site complying with US law.) Then the content industry lawyers have to do their side of the same process, figuring out how to issue as many fraudulent take downs as quickly as possible without getting slapped by the courts. Then the lawyers at the various websites (as well as the EFF et al) have to evaluate whether any facet of the industry's brazen disregard for fair use and due process can be mitigated in any way (even if it never leads to litigation). Then the lawyers at the investment banks and VCs have to reevaluate their initial estimates once they realize the actual level of abuse that occurs, etc.

The world-wide bottom line is probably somewhere in the millions of lawyer-hours.

Re:wow

[Travelsonic]

Don't internet tough guys get defined by talking tough and being in real life all bark no bite? Taking down websites en masse like that, being able to hack and disrupt websites, and DOING so doesn't sound, to me, like the definition of ITG.

Re:wow

[xaositects]

splitters

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's a constant in this whole shitstorm mess it's that the clear winners are the lawyers.

That is why I wonder why Anonymous generally only targets websites for non-internet-based companies/organizations. If they targeted the law firms representing the MPAA/RIAA and others then they could likely be more effective. Shutdown said firm's marketing (web sites, directories, social media profiles, etc.) and communication (e-mail servers), leak confidential data about clients, manipulate their online image, corrupt databases, and cause general mayhem.

The MPAA's website is undoubtedly hardened and non-essential, so the effect is mostly just embarrassment, but a smaller company would suffer greatly from skilled attackers... potentially even being destroyed. It's like playing Red Alert. If confronted by a Mammoth Tank and three Heavy Tanks you never focus fire on the Mammoth, as the Heavy Tanks will pummel you before you eventually kill it. Or, in classic fantasy RPGs, you focus on the mages, not the tanks.

Always attack the weakest of your opponent's offensive forces first. Heck, do this a couple times and many lawyers wouldn't associate with them for fear of the career-ending libel associated with the Internet's ire.

Re:wow

[joshtheitguy]

that's entirely missing the point though.

they're anarchists, internet tough guys, hackers on steroids. it's a swarm of locusts.

I could be wrong but did you mean to say "they're anarchists, internet tough guys, script kiddies on Code Red Mt. Dew. it's a swarm of locusts."?

I can't say there aren't a few individuals with some talent amongst Anonymous since they have done some fairly sophisticated stuff but all I ever see in my head when Anonymous is in the news is a few reasonably skilled hackers leading whole bunch of weird, 4chan dwelling script kiddies running LOIC as Pawns.

Or maybe it is just me.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

the likelihood of you being introduced to musicians you enjoy is directly proportional to the assurance they have of their talent being rewarded

if only their talent was actually rewarded - it is generally assumed that the record label shareholders are the ones being rewarded, and if you make them a billion dollars they'll give you a mcmansion

If this is prevalent on an industry-wide basis, no musicians get promoted, all you get is the contrived fluffy garbage we hear today.

so if we're only getting "contrived fluffy garbage" today anyway (which i agree that we are) then how is protecting labels more going to improve this? record labels don't give a shit about the nature of the music they publish, just that it makes them money, and the amount of money is beginning to have less and less to do with number of album sales and more to do with marketing revenue. record labels manufacture "pop stars", not musicians

I stand to benefit a lot from SOPA once money starts being invested in music again

now who's being ignorant?

Re:wow

[SETIGuy]

"it" appears to be "anything that the people of anonymous take a fancy to this week".

Are you new here? That is exactly what "it" is. The purpose of some portion of Anonymous is exactly what that portion of Anonymous says it is today. But they probably aren't talking to you. Tomorrow some portion of anonymous will decide to do the same thing, or something else. Pray that some portion of anonymous doesn't decide that making your life difficult would be teh lulz.

And that's why Anonymous will still be here tomorrow. There are no "leaders" to arrest. Because everybody speaks for Anonymous, nobody speaks for Anonymous. Anyone who tells you why Anonymous does something probably wasn't there when the decision was made.

Re:wow

[Marc Madness]

First rule of Project Mayhem: Don't ask questions!

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm so glad these sites are supporting the protest against SOPA and PIPA by blacking out their sites as well. :D

Re:wow

[Libertarian001]

And I thought the post you were responding to was ignorant. You really believe that term extensions and crackdowns are due to the pirates? You really believe that overkill is better than nothing? Newsflash -- You are part of the problem.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a farce because it is abused, not the other way around. Some poor wording, but I am sure you understand.

Re:wow

[SETIGuy]

I don't know enough about the site to have an opinion; but if a foreign national, living in a foreign country, stole my identity and ran up charges on my US-based credit cards, tapped out my US-based bank, I would sure hope that US law enforcement (assuming they investigated and agreed there was enough evidence to prosecute) could get the cooperation of the government of the foreign country where the thieves lived and have them extradited for trial here.

You don't have enough money for US law enforcement to care about someone in Ukraine stealing your identity. Seriously. International law enforcement is for the corporations to use. Not you.

Re:wow

[Mashiki]

Great. That's yet another ruined keyboard. heh

Re:wow

[SETIGuy]

Constitutionally limited democracies work.

Name one.

Re:wow

[Rebelgecko]

At least some of their servers are in the U.S. That doesn't make what's happening OK, but it makes it *slightly* less outrageous

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Overkill is better than nothing

Indeed. Anything less than the liquidation of the music industry and all its collaborators is unacceptable. How did you expect us to react?

Re:wow

[Anthony Mouse]

the likelihood of you being introduced to musicians you enjoy is directly proportional to the assurance they have of their talent being rewarded.

No, it isn't. Some works would be produced without any government incentive. If enjoyable music was produced in direct proportion to the government incentive, there would be none produced without a government incentive, which is contra to reality. Moreover, it would mean that you could increase the monopoly indefinitely and continue getting an indefinite proportional increase in good music, which is likewise untrue: If you provide enough incentive that an artist is already producing as many works as he reasonably can, additional incentive will not produce additional works. Providing too much incentive can even cause excellent artists to decide that they have sufficient wealth that earning more would not noticeably improve their quality of life, and then choose to retire to the beach rather than producing more works.

If this is prevalent on an industry-wide basis, no musicians get promoted, all you get is the contrived fluffy garbage we hear today.

Contrived fluffy garbage is not created by a lack of incentive. It is created by the nature of the market. It will always be more profitable to market one album that sells ten million copies than to market a thousand albums that each sell on average ten thousand copies. The only albums that will sell ten million copies are contrived fluffy garbage. So that is what the marketing companies promote.

The way you eliminate the garbage is by increasing competition. You have to break the cartel, and antitrust clearly isn't interested in doing it. If instead of having a couple dozen albums heavily promoted by a small handful of labels, you had a couple hundred albums moderately promoted by a few dozen unassociated distributors, the distributors would promote "good" music because each promoted album would be expected to make fewer sales (tens of thousands rather than millions), which would mean that an album without widespread appeal but that would still sell the expected number of copies would be just as desirable to the label as the latest pop crap. But the only way you break the cartel without antitrust is by the existing players dying out and being replaced by more, newer, smaller entities. Which is what the internet enables, if we can prevent it from being destroyed for long enough for the dinosaurs to die off.

The MAFIAA has the lobbying power to get laws written, and they will be written in direct proportion to the aggressiveness of short-sighted pro-piracy advocates like yourself, since they lend excellent argument for tougher copyright laws.

The MAFIAA does not require anti-MAFIAA rhetoric in order to bribe Congress. Piracy is not the reason for the laws they want, it is just the excuse. The reason they want the laws is to destroy prospective new competitors to their traditional distribution cartels. Take away piracy and they will only find a different excuse.

They're rich assholes with deep government connections, and you're openly advocating the failure of their business. How did you expect them to react?

Well, to be perfectly honest it would be quite nice if they would react by going out of business and being replaced by newer, smaller, less corrupt entities that provide the same service more efficiently and leaving the lion's share of the profits for the actual artists.

Re:wow

[DragonTHC]

well my how the tables have turned, Now DoJ is the girl who kicked the hornet's nest.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Irrelevant. They're located outside the US, therefore US law does not apply to them. If you disagree, you need to fly yourself to Iran to be charged with breaking some of their laws, as I'm sure you have.

So if I drain you bank account it's ok as long as I'm not in the same country as you?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it has..

Re:wow

[swabeui]

You bring up a good point. Nobody visits those sites so it is really no big deal for them to be down. I think a more effective method would be to attack their customers. Get their customers to drop them and they lose their money.

Re:wow

[HornWumpus]

Would you like me to add more 'very's?

Also be aware that the distinction between 'pirate' and 'Indonesian navy/coast guard' is very blurred. I bet the MPA earns it's pay.

Re:wow

[MaskedSlacker]

The world-wide bottom line is probably somewhere in the millions of lawyer-hours.

Which at the standard exchange rate is only five or six man-hours.

Re:wow

[DrVomact]

I believe what the gist you are trying to say but failed too articulate, IMHO, is that ... Authority without Accountability is never a good idea in the long run.

Cheez, you want me to be articulate? What a hard audience; in any case, I only do that for money. But as a special one-time favor, I will attack you articulately without charge: your confusion of "authority" with "power" is a solecism.

What I said was pretty much what I meant: there are logical difficulties with any claim that one belongs (or does not belong) to an anonymous organization. (OK, I should have defined "anonymous organization" as "an organization none of whose members are known to each other or to any outsider".) To elaborate, I think that "anonymous organization" is problematic in a way similar to "anarchist government". Of course, philosophical objections have never prevented people from saying things like, "I am a member of the Anarchist army" (e.g. the one that fought in the Spanish Civil War), or "I am a member of an anonymous group". That's because most people don't think like philosophers—they are neither sufficiently obsessive nor perverse.

And—do I really have to say this—I wasn't being entirely serious. Please forgive me for not being more amusing.

Re:wow

[Anthony Mouse]

Only if you're measuring by souls rather than the traditional dollars.

Re:wow

[ScentCone]

Your ability to operate on profoundly contradictory premises, to belittle people who live under actual fascism, and your spectacularly transparent whining in the interests of getting artists to work for you for free is quite something. Direct democracy? Getting rid of patents? Praising millionaire rip-off artists as heros, while loathing people who actually create things? Yeah, you're a piece of work. Please just go away. Preferrably back to grade school where you left off.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"waahh, waaahh, stop messing with our toys" is something that is expressed among equals in the playground. The government is not a citizen's equal. It is a force which always has vastly greater power than a citizen, and that power is often abused, as is the case with censoring digital communications. The DDOS message is an act of protest in desperation, but it is one which should be admired as courageous and free-spirited and not trivialised by comparing the protesters to children.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"It" is the beginning of a precedent whereby Sony, Universal, or Disney, when caught violating a Creative Commons license, can expect to have its assets seized, its operations shut down, and its executives arrested, jailed and charged with "piracy."

"It" is also a precedent whereby you can claim $500 million in losses that you don't have to report to shareholders, insurers, or the IRS.

This could lead to seriously awesome unintended consequences of chaos.

Laws are for the little people. Good luck finding a lawyer capable of defeating those in Sony, Universal and Disney's army, and also good luck in not getting a Judge owned by them.
Read the MAFIAA cases against people - the evil bastards often ruin people's lives. If there was any justice in the Department of Justice we'd have quite a few members of the MAFIAA in jail. Face it: laws exist to protect rich people and corporate interests; expecting it to be any different is not only naive but can cost you more money than you'll make during your whole life.

Re:wow

[RichM]

So there's absolutely nothing unusual there.

Which is sad, really.

Re:wow

[couchslug]

"it's the responsibility of the country they're in to police their activity"

Which they will cheerfully do when they are a client government which benefits from US military protection and other goodies.

Re:wow

[AmiMoJo]

In the end, the internet gets less open - the industry loses out on innovation because they are fighting - and the "costs of war" mean nobody wins.

Historically forcing sites offline by legal means have always lead to increased copyright infringement. People see it as a personal attack against their actions and beliefs (i.e. file sharing is okay) and so are even less inclined to give the bastards doing it money.

It also spurs development of new technologies that can't be taken down and which hide the user's identity. We should thank the RIAA/MPAA for improving privacy and security for all of us and ensuring our supply of free content is secure and invulnerable to legal attack.

Re:wow

[DinDaddy]

They were not arrested by US agents - they were arrested by New Zealand law enforcement at the request of US agents. So there's absolutely nothing unusual there.

Unless they had committed acts against New Zealand law, there is something unusual about it.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Time for a class action for the bastards!

What about all of our legitimate, personal data that was on the site that we have now lost access to, without so much as a "by your leave" ?????

How dare they arbitrarily inconvenience millions of people who legitimately own their own content on the site????

Re:wow

[Fluffeh]

The government is not a citizen's equal. It is a force which always has vastly greater power than a citizen, and that power is often abused, as is the case with censoring digital communications.

No, I disagree with that statement in this context. In the real world, yes, the government is more powerful than most people, but not in the cyber world. The fact that governments are so inneffective at getting what they want across is proof of this. If you asked me today who has more clout online, the US government or Anon, then I say it is Anon that holds the power. They might be hamstrung by outside influences, and they certainly don't have much ability to lobby for government etc, but in the wild, small animals who pack a big enough sting are left alone.

The only thing that I think is stopping Anon really show how much of a stinger they have is a lack of organisation.

If anything, I think that this whole thing will just create even more darknets.

Re:wow

[simoncpu was here]

it's begun!

It is tiem.

There, fixed that for you!

Re:wow

[anagama]

The only problem with this is that all those ankle biters and their parents are going to blame Anonymous, not Disney.
 
Still, it is nice to see the man get some payback, even if counter-productive.

Re:wow

[wanzeo]

Who is going to bring the charges? Who is going to pay for years of red tape in court? An individual?

Even comparatively powerful nonprofits like the EFF don't have the resources to follow through on a copyright counterattack. Even if they did, it would simpy be retaliation, no more effective than a halfhearted DDOS for bringing about any real change.

That is why the campaign against SOPA/PIPA is so important, right now represents one of the few times we the people actually have a say in the copyright matter. And if they do pass, in any form, we have lost. I would expect the Patriot Act to get repealed before SOPA would.

Re:wow

[phreakv6]

new here?

Re:wow

[walshy007]

Lawyers wind up becoming judges and are rather influential, there is no incentive to make the law system simple enough for the common man, because the more complex it is the more they benefit.

Largest conflict of interest ever.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

His name is Robert Paulson!

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the rest of yous do so much more than anonymous to stand up.

Re:wow

[Thing 1]

However, it doesn't seem like the real pirates or the music/movie industry loses either - just the general population.

Exactly. If they would provide a convenient way to watch it (Pioneer One is a great show, a bit slow to start, but the finale was rather watchable, and the torrent downloaded in under 10 minutes) that one could obtain and keep, instead of Netflix, Hulu, Youtube etc where it's constantly streaming, even if you're watching the same video several times (Party Rock Anthem) -- so much so, that AT&T just raised their rates for new subscribers.

Sell the file for a reasonable price.

And that includes the tiering effect; if old movies are $1 each, and you're trying to sell the new CGI explosion-fest for $60, then there will be a segment of the population who would have paid $2 through $59 who will consider downloading without paying.

That's simple economics. And I loathe to say that; it's really simple physics.

Re:wow

[KermodeBear]

I'm not certain that a DDoS on the MPAA's website would have the effect of embarrassment. It seems more like a victory; "Look, our measures are effective, otherwise they wouldn't be so upset."

Re:wow

[Pentium100]

Even so, it's OK. The few skilled hackers probably couldn't do as much without the script kiddies taking on the easier tasks.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

How was he making all that money, I wonder. I mean, is it all from advertising and such? If it is, it hurts my head trying to understand how the content producers can't figure out how to provide us with known high quality copies of the content, DRM free (just like the pirate sites), for a small nominal charge or free and not make money as well. If the place "stealing" it and giving it away for free is making money, why can't they?

I'd certainly pay a small amount to download a TV show or a movie, but I do mean a _small_ price, from the studios or a network to help support the production of more shows...and they'd still get advertising money...after all, the pirate sites were.

As is, I will NOT buy DVDs. The content isn't worth the price. Oh sure, there are movies and tv shows I'd probably love...but there is SO much content out there that its really easy to find something else to watch on Netflix streaming...which probably works out to around the 'small price' I was mentioning above.

Same with music. I'm a huge music fan, but there isn't much I'll buy anymore. Spotify has a ridiculous amount of music (as do other music services). I could easily get by with the free version but I upgraded to the $10/month package to get to have full access on all my devices. This is awesome. You can mark any song or playlist on Spotify as an "offline playlist" and it syncs those playlists to your device...and these are songs I don't own. I think the limit of songs is something like 3,000 at one time and you can change them whenever you want. So for $10 a month all my devices are now media players with my choice of 3,000 songs that I can choose from a music library MUCH larger than I could really ever pirate (and I was horrible back in the day on the mp3 groups on usenet). Yeah...I'll take that.

Sorry, didn't mean to astroturf for Netflix and Spotify...but they are what I use right now...and the $20 a month or so that I'm paying provides me enough content that I could happily never illegally download any content again.

Hell, I wish there was something like this for eBooks (I do have a Kindle). I suppose library eBook lending is going that direction but I'd happily, again, add another $5/month or so to my entertainment budget if, like with my music and streaming tv / movies, I could have access to a large library of eBooks that I could pick and choose from as much as I wanted.

Yes, there are the objections that you don't really own anything, they can stop the service at any time and then you're just out of luck...and I'm OK with that. I'm not viewing my $25/month (if the eBook thing existed) as an investment in a thing I'll have in the future...its $25 budgeted towards entertainment.

What do you do about people who can't afford that much per month? I dunno...hell, just let 'em watch it for free. If they can't afford the $25/month, you weren't going to make anything off of them anyway...and you're providing the circus, bread is cheap, and everyone will stay dumb and happy and easy to govern.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Still the coincident makes a great pun.

Re:wow

[chrismcb]

"It" is also a precedent whereby you can claim $500 million in losses that you don't have to report to shareholders, insurers, or the IRS.

How can you claim losses without telling anyone? If it didn't happen, and you don't tell anyone, did it really happen?

Re:wow

[TheGratefulNet]

If they employ Gurkhas

I don't think they'd relish that at all!

Re:wow

[TheGratefulNet]

disney 'pirated' almost all its themes.

how can I favor one criminal over another? how can I?

Re:wow

[TheGratefulNet]

They were not arrested by US agents - they were arrested by New Zealand law enforcement at the request of US agents.

really? you argue based on that?

"the US 'asked us' to help out."

yeah, right. asked.

if you think that, go ahead and think that.

you'd be wrong, though.

Re:wow

[Zaphod The 42nd]

Don't compare copyright infringement to theft. It isn't. This wouldn't be stealing a car, this would be building a car in your back yard by looking at my car and stealing the engineering design instead of doing the math and designing a car from scratch yourself. The engineer misses out on a possible sale and his tiny percentage of the profits, but you're not taking anything from anyone, and if you wouldn't have purchased one in the first place, then you haven't even taken away a sale.

So you too need to come up with a better argument.

I didn't say it proved they weren't doing anything illegal. I was merely saying that THAT detail in of itself, that the CEO is profiting, is not in ANY way evidence of wrongdoing. By that logic, you could find every successful business in America guilty. (well... they might be.)

Re:wow

[Yev000]

All actual criminal acts provide value to someone. You need a better argument than that if you want to actually come across as rational and not just a lawyer.

Re:wow

[inasity_rules]

Please people. Do not screw with industrial control systems. They are interlocked (hopefully in hardware as well, but not always) for safety. Messing with them can actually kill people. And lets hope they're not connected to the net at disney world. I hate copyright abuse as much as the next guy, but do you really want to start terrifying and killing kids on disney world rides? That is so messed up. Its one thing to hit a RIAA website, another to screw with something powerful that you don't really understand.

Re:wow

[rastos1]

Authority without Accountability is never a good idea in the long run.

Spot on. The political system in US needs an overhaul.

Anonymous are a bunch of little shits* who think they have some power - which they do for now.

You misspelled 'politicians'.

Re:wow

[Asic Eng]

So if someone in a foreign country accused you of having violated a law of that country, would you consider it ok if you were extradited there? So you have to defend yourself far away from your friends and family, in a legal system you are not familiar with, maybe even with a court which operates in another language.

I think this is an extreme burden on the accused, and can only be justified in rare cases, it should not be the normal case.

Re:wow

[gnawingonfoot]

It shows that they can be touched, that the MPAA, despite however much power they may hold financially and politically, still can't even protect their own website. It's symbolic justice for those of us who would wish to see these bully organizations stood up to every once in a while.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Strawman argument. We don't have extradition treaties with Iran.
 
Also, the servers were located in Virginia. But hey, you're post got marked insightful, so don't let facts get in the way. Keep posting your opinions as fact!

Re:wow

[Captain Hook]

I think Anon have a quicker temporary interruption ability, but they can't take a site offline indefinately like the government can.

The governments problem is that an alternative site can be up and running before it's even managed to arrange a court date for those they've arrested but that is not a power which is attributed to Anon, it's just the environment in which everyone operates.

Re:wow

[cbhacking]

So, let's stack the deck your way.

Let's assume that there is no NZ law supporting copyright (false).
Let's assume that there is no NZ law against apropriating the electronic data of other for your own use without consent (false).
Let's assume that their business was entire conducted in NZ (false, heck, servers were confisacated in the US).

But, for the sake of argument, let's assume all of those are actually true instead. Ready?

You still lose. The whole point of extradition laws is that you agree to transfer people who are found to be criminals by another government to that governemnt's control. Iran is a stupid counterexample; we don't have an extradition agreement with them. Many countries have limits to extradition - for example, some will not extradite their own citizens to the US for crimes which the US permits capital punishment. There might even exist countries which will only extradite people who have also performed criminal acts in their current nation (by that nation's standard).

In any case, those special exemptions to reality that I made for you above? They don't actually apply.

Re:wow

[rioki]

Simple, follow the money!

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Preaching about pure free speech and universal truths. A naive person may get you as immature. But I know what you are in fact. A drama queen without any practical goal or purpose - you must be a journalist (AKA whore). You are no better than the other whores you are quick to blame (politicians).

I have an advice for you: insert two fingers in someone's anus, dig up some fresh excrements and present it to everyone as the most important thing in life and how that excrement is the most scandalous thing ever and how it will ruin the entire life on earth.

Prostitutes making speeches about essential moral values. Hilarious.

Re:wow

[inasity_rules]

Is it necessary to break these particular eggs? Is it sane? And is it in your best interests? Think for two seconds about the consequences of your actions.

Re:wow

[Xest]

"Whatever you might think of the case itself, your outrage over the method of the arrest is a little misplaced - we have mutual extradition agreements with many countries."

It's not misplaced, these extradition agreements were set up under pressure from the US to allow extradition of terror suspects and so forth after 9/11.

Now the US is using them to extradite for things that aren't even illegal in the home country, and arguably not even in the US either.

This is why in the UK there's so much uproar about the extradition treaty being one-sided, in theory it's actually not, but in practice it is because whilst the UK only asks for extradition of, for example, American citizens who have committed murder whilst in the UK, or joint British-American citizens who have committed say fraud, whilst in the UK, America is requesting extradition for British teenagers who have run websites deemed legal in Britain.

The fact is, America is abusing the system well beyond what it was intended for.

"I would sure hope that US law enforcement (assuming they investigated and agreed there was enough evidence to prosecute) could get the cooperation of the government of the foreign country where the thieves lived and have them extradited for trial here."

Why would they have to be extradited? why couldn't they face justice in their home country?

There is something unusual here, just like there's something unusual with the case of the guy from Sheffield in the UK last week - these people are facing extradition despite doing nothing illegal in their home country, to the point that even the police in their home country saw no point pressing charges. In this particular case there's a big problem - the extradition treaty does say the act must be illegal in both countries, yet here in the UK we've had an idential case (the Oink case) where the guy was found not guilty of any wrongdoing, yet this case was completely ignored by the presiding judge in favour of a completely different, but largely irrelevant case that did justify extradition - obviously there is something fishy going on there, it may be incompetence, or it may be corruption, but something is not right- I wouldn't be surprised to find it's the same in these other cases too.

For what it's worth, in that case the FBI was personally involved, they were present when the kid's computers were seized at his house. I'd be amazed if the FBI wasn't present during these nesw raids too, so sure they may not have power of arrest, but they were certainly at the scene dictating what they wanted in at least this one case.

Now you can argue it's the fault of the host countries for allowing this, and I'd agree to an extent, but the reality is America does have power in the world and there are only so many things you can piss it off over before you risk suffering economic isolation. When America abuses it's power like this it can be hard for countries to say no. With America's power comes responsibility, but it's abusing that right now.

Re:wow

[Tom]

No, it proves that Megaupload could extract money out of people. The idea that money == value is a romantic idea from the very early ages of capitalism.

Re:wow

[Tom]

"It" is also a precedent whereby you can claim $500 million in losses that you don't have to report to shareholders, insurers, or the IRS.

Don't give them ideas. Next you know, they really write their fantasy numbers off as losses and the entire movie industry stops making movies and starts living off tax returns.

Re:wow

[Xest]

As a slight aside, there was an interesting documentary on TV last night in the UK about Russia's relationship with the West, and it's post soviet issues with Russia's ultra rich oil barons.

I found the documentary interesting, and it put a different perspective on things that have happened between the West and Russia over the last decade or so. They had a number of Russian politicians including Putin himself, as well as people like Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice interviewed for it, so much of what was said was said with some pretty solid authority.

It spoke of 9/11 and mentioned that when the US went to Defcon 3 as a result of that, Russia reassured the yanks not to worry, that they wouldn't see it as a reason to also increase their military alertness level, and in fact said they'd cancel all military exercises to show support for the US's response to the event. When it became clear the US was going into Afghanistan Russia also sent signals to the ex-soviet states on Russia's border that Russia wouldn't be offended by those nations allowing America to access Afghanistan from their territory - Russia effectively okay large US military deployments in nations on Russia's border. These are all things that wouldn't even be dreamt of during the cold war. There was also an interesting mention that the Taliban actually approached Russian border guards with Afghanistan to say the Taliban was willing to work with the Russian's against the Americans, and quite amusing, the Russian response to the Taliban was literally "Fuck off." - this despite the fact America had done exactly the same against the Russian's only 20 years earlier.

But the Russian's then wanted to test how two sided the relationship was and asked about the potential of being invited to join Nato, as an opportunity to show that there really was a blooming two way relationship, but it was at this point Russia was told "we don't invite people to join NATO, they have to ask" - after what Russia had done it saw this refusal to make exceptions as quite an insult, and IMO understandably so - this was a massive lost opportunity to build bridges. The situation then deteriorated as America decided to build their missile defence system along Russia's border when America claimed it was for Russia's benefit to against for example Iran, but America refused to host part of it within Russia's border if that was the case.

But there was another facet to the documentary which I also found interesting, it was that of how post-USSR breakup, some Russian's got rich by taking all the oil fields, because Russia's business laws post breakup just hadn't covered all the loopholes. One of the guy's in question complained that he had done nothing wrong under the letter of the law, he'd merely exploited loopholes to seize this oil, and effectively the thinking in Putin's government was in stark contrast to the West in this respect- whilst in the West we'd say (as we have with the bankers) "Well, they technically did nothing illegal by the letter of the law, so I guess we'll let them walk away with those billions", in Russia the view was more "It doesn't matter if you've technically done nothing wrong, you admit you know what you did was morally wrong regardless, and so we're taking action".

Of course I'm not saying Russia is right, perfect or anything - I've obviously avoided the negative actions of Russia regarding their actions in Chechnya (which the US supported), and the issues surrounding democracy, or lack of, but these two issues highlighted some interesting points to me.

The first is that America threw away some massive chances to build bridges with Russia which would've let to impressive political stability and solidarity across the world, simply because of it's own sheer arrogance. Russia was forced to realise that it didn't matter how much it gave the US, the US was only interested in Russia when it benefited to the US - it's an inherently selfish nation that isn't interested in two way relationships to such a degree that it's massively shorts

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

"I don't know enough about the site to have an opinion; but if a foreign national, living in a foreign country, stole my identity and ran up charges on my US-based credit cards, tapped out my US-based bank, I would sure hope that US law enforcement (assuming they investigated and agreed there was enough evidence to prosecute) could get the cooperation of the government of the foreign country where the thieves lived and have them extradited for trial here."

Ha ha, good luck with that. Even if someone stole a hundred thousand dollars from you I bet you'd have no fucking chance at getting the perp extradited. Where do you even start with something like that? Local police? Try to get the bank to do it for you? Yeah, good luck.

We approached local police because a friend was defrauded out of AU$5000. To most people in the world this is a very significant chunk of money. They quite literally told us they would not be able to help.

Re:wow

[rchoetzlein]

Its not about the DDOS itself. Its about the media response generated by a DDOS attack.. When the news picks up that the FBI was shutdown, it makes waves. Of course, an interruption of a whole day is significant, but the effects of public exposure last weeks if not more.

Re:wow

[rchoetzlein]

If anyone has connected an industrial control system to a public website, that's you're problem right there!

Re:wow

[inasity_rules]

I would imagine a combination of social engineering and physical access can bridge that particular gap. But sometimes engineers get lazy and do stupid things like forgetting hardware interlocks. I have seen SCADA systems connected to the raw internet (without even a firewall). Just because it shouldn't be done doesn't mean it isn't.

Re:wow

[Patchw0rk F0g]

new keyboard?

Nope. Just excited. Blowws ogff somme steeam, tyou knoooooow?

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Please keep your public disobedience nice and respectful. Doing things like putting a bumper sticker on your car are far more acceptable.

Re:wow

[delinear]

There is nothing funny about clowns.

Re:wow

[coastwalker]

Well it appears that the elite end of Anonymous are revealing themselves to be anti social criminals. I was fine with a little irritating disobedience from the concept of Anonymous raising the temperature of the debate. But I think that the concept is now in deep decline and I hope that we get most of the dangerous ones in jail as soon as possible. The worst thing about their current behavior is that it threatens to justify SOAP in the eyes of the public and "Anonymous" should go to jail just for that. I do not think that freedom of speech is in any way similar to the right of spoilt teenage American boys to steal mindless entertainment products. Grow up, get a job and earn your right to consume the trivia you think is important. Meanwhile the rest of us grown ups have important philosophical and political arguments to be had about the way the world is run. Sod off anonymous, we are tired of playing with you.

Re:wow

[gtall]

"The "problem" is copyright is not respected by the youth =) Which I say Good for them!"

Yeah, let Linux be copyright free, that'll show them money-hungry rich....err....what?

Re:wow

[dskzero]

You DO realize that the content was not the value, but the storage?

Re:wow

[Neil Boekend]

There is a difference between taking out conveniences (or even disabling work) and risking deaths of innocents.
If you want public acceptance (wich is what anonymous should want) messing with industrial control systems is not the way to go. If one kid dies because they have messed with the control systems it will be used to the full extent of the public outrage (Not withstanding that if a kid dies for another reason and Disney is able to pin it on anonymous they will do so.).

Re:wow

[Neil Boekend]

Nah, that must be wrong. No MAFIAA lawyer can have a soul. As such it would equate to zero souls (or zero soul-hours)

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

The rides at Disneys theme parks are NOT in any way powered by SCADA. I know this because I know the guy (and yes it's actually just one guy) that designed, built, installed and maintains the control systems. They're not online in any way except in a rare few cases in a closed physically separate private network within the ride itself. In order to service them you need to be on site, no exceptions. In case of failures that require his attention they will fly him in.

I haven't just heard this - I've actually been to the park in Anaheim and seen the systems. I've seen the pictures (of the inside) of the Disney private jet they sent for him, and the ditto chopper (he lives in California and they needed him in Orlando). I've seen his beyond-VIP access card that allows him access anytime, everywhere, unsupervised even with a guest (me!), no questions asked, both at all the parks and at Walt Disney Imagineering, possibly the most sensitive place in that business empire as that's where new ideas are tested a long time before patenting and similar. The people at WDI had never actually seen one of those access cards in real life as there's maybe 10 of them out there total - worldwide, and it was so much fun to see their faces when he flashed it.

Oh, and all ride systems are beyond secure. The emergency stop buttons will shut it down because it will bypass all control systems and access the hardware directly if the ride in any way can pose a danger to people. It will also tell the control system to stop but it will most likely do that anyway because it will detect the direct hardware access as a mechanical failure. Non-mechanical rides for instance will not have this feature - the emergency stop will here just shut down projection systems, audio etc. and switch on the work lights.

Re:wow

[thedbp]

I submit to you that no one would die who otherwise would not have eventually.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Please people. Do not screw with industrial control systems. They are interlocked (hopefully in hardware as well, but not always) for safety. Messing with them can actually kill people. And lets hope they're not connected to the net at disney world. I hate copyright abuse as much as the next guy, but do you really want to start terrifying and killing kids on disney world rides? That is so messed up. Its one thing to hit a RIAA website, another to screw with something powerful that you don't really understand.

Kids that believe in Disney are not protected. It is for Disney to recognize that the internet is not a place to maintain a private network.

Re:wow

[inasity_rules]

I submit to you that no one would die who otherwise would not have eventually.

So(if we grant your submission), then the loss of life equates to a loss of people's time. Still unethical. Try again.

Re:wow

[Anthony Mouse]

No MAFIAA lawyer can have a soul.

Certainly not. But recall that we also end up consuming the time of lawyers at the EFF and certain tech companies, and some of them have souls.

Re:wow

[Bob the Super Hamste]

They work up until the government decides that the constitution doesn't actually have any limits on government power. The US has entered that phase and depending on what your personal views it probably started somewhere between 10 and 150 years ago

Re:wow

[inasity_rules]

(if this was a tasteless joke, though, I'll whoosh myself. Several beers since I posted originally.....)

Re:wow

[tomthepom]

No. The purpose of extradition treaties is to prevent fugitives from escaping justice by leaving the country where they committed a crime, but there are obvious issues of sovereignty and jurisdiction. Extradition treaties will always include requirements that;

- The country asking for extradition has to have some claim of jurisdiction over where the crime happened.
- The crime must be a crime in both countries and with similar punishments.

So no, if New Zealand didn't have a copyright law they would absolutely not extradite one of their citizens to a country that did. New Zealand citizens living in New Zealand are not subject to US law. And even New Zealand citizens that break US law while in the US wouldn't be extradited unless there was a similar law on the books in New Zealand.

Re:wow

[ifrag]

but the DEA and CIA make far too much money off of drugs

They do? So where is my tax cut? Clearly they don't need funding from my money if they are making so much.

Re:wow

[UnknownSoldier]

> You misspelled 'politicians'.

LOL. Touché =)

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

For values of "work" equal to "resolving problems with debate and paperwork instead of violence, as has been the human experience for 99% of history;" America, Canada, England, Australia, NZ, France, Germany, etc., etc., etc.

For values of "work" equal to "no corruption and everybody's happy," HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAno.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Who is going to bring the charges? Who is going to pay for years of red tape in court? An individual?

Even comparatively powerful nonprofits like the EFF don't have the resources to follow through on a copyright counterattack.

When it happens, just make a Kickstarter account and step back in amazement. You will never see bigger $ figure as long as you live.

Re:wow

[geoffaus]

Maybe the megaupload/TPB ppl should move their servers to Iran - im sure the Iranians dont have a problem with people messing with the Americans like this - Its surprising that the Iranian government isnt setting up these sort of sites themselves.

Re:wow

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

I would be surprised if the DMCA take-down process has incurred much--it's a pretty straightforward safe-harbor provision, IIRC, not remotely complicated from a legal standpoint. It has probably cost more on the programmer/web developer side.

Re:wow

[SimonTheSoundMan]

http://xkcd.com/932/

Re:wow

[desdinova 216]

if this was not a test it would have been followed by official instructions or news

Re:wow

[mcgrew]

I doubt seriously that Disney's ride controls are connected to the internet. Afaik nothing is much different at Disney World now than when I worked there in the early eighties. And the engineers there (Disney calls them "imagineers") are pretty damned sharp, I can't see them doing much very stupid when it comes to engineering -- mechanical and electrical, at least.

However, your "social engineering" is a bit frightening. The engineers there must have never taken any psychology courses, as evidenced by a mishap on a new ride when I worked there.

One of the perks of being a Disney employee is you got to ride the new rides before the general public -- Guinea pigs. They had a new roller coaster in Frontier land that was supposed to be a runaway mine train. I rode it , and WOW. It went sixty miles per hour (about 100kph). If you ride it, it's only 20 mph. What happened was one stupid employee decided to stand up in the car as it went into a tunnel, and the idiot obviously thought that the rock ledge would move out of the way. It knocked his head completely off! See, there IS a cure for stupid! They reduced the speed after that particular accident. Pity there are so many idiots, that was a hell of a ride!

If you visit the Haunted Mansion, keep in mind that someone died there! Makes it a lot more fun. One idiot tourist decided to get out of the car to get a closer look at the witch head hologram, not realising he was a hundred feet off the ground.

Twelve people died building the EPCOT "golf ball" (I forgot its real name). Disney nor any other corporation gives a rat's ass about your safety unless it costs them money. Corporations are by nature sociopathic. Everything they do is designed to garner more profit.

But still, driving there from Kissimmee is more dangerous than any of the rides, even if the SCADA systems get hacked. People in Florida drive like the dumbasses they are. So if you want to hack Disney's SCADA, go ahead. The death toll won't rise much.

Re:wow

[mhajicek]

Temporarily denying public access to DOJ, RIAA, MPA and Universal Music web sites /= "Takes Down DOJ, RIAA, MPA and Universal Music".

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

So extraditing based on copyright violations is acceptable to you? Does this mean if I spit on the side-walk, or cross the street illegally, I'm liable to end up in a Ruritanian Prison camp [because, presumably, it's illegal in both countries]? That's insane!
The fact that there was a multi-national effort to go after copyright, and that the nations involved ever took such a request seriously, is the mind-boggling bit.

Re:wow

[Dishevel]

Nobody wants danger.
What is wanted is to have it shut down.
Do not need ride controls. Need power distribution, water systems and the like.
I do not want ride to kill kids and go haywire. I want them to stop.
I want Disney shut down. I want NBC Shut Down. I want Time Warner Shut Down.
I am declaring them rogue companies. The House and the Senate have gone rogue as well. they no longer represent us.
Shut them down. Stop the flow of cash that they are using against us. While I am on the subject.
Stop taking your fucking children to Disneyland. Stop allowing them to watch their movies. If you can not tell your children no then let a real parent adopt them.

Re:wow

[rtb61]

'Anonymous' is not a group it is simply am activist promotional meme. People choose to engage in an activity in the name of 'Anonymous' or not. Whether some choose to behave in a digitally disruptive manner or publicly protest is up to them as individuals. No person who does something in the anonymously in the name of 'Anonymous' is responsible for the action of any other individual.

Any claim that 'Anonymous' are vigilante thugs is completely ludicrous, firstly as by far the majority of people who have conducted activist activity in the name of 'Anonymous' had nothing to do with the temporary digital disruptions of digital billboard service and secondly no physical violence of any kind or description was conducted.

As for Barret Brown the supposed operative for 'Anonymous' his activity has more to do with profiting from a book than any activist activity he has anonymously? participated. Any person who claims to be in a position of control or authority within 'Anonymous' is to say the least misled or more likely just being misleading.

'Anonymous' is not a group regardless of anything claimed by any individual, nor are there subgroups. 'Anonymous' is just an concept of participating in activism where self promotion is not the goal, as has to often become all to obvious and destructive, simply the promotion of political change, of the rights of individuals, of a set activist goal. With participation in any specific activity down to the choice of the individual.

Re:wow

[mcgrew]

If one kid dies because they have messed with the control systems it will be used to the full extent of the public outrage (Not withstanding that if a kid dies for another reason and Disney is able to pin it on anonymous they will do so.).

I worked at Disney for five years. If a kid dies there, they'll do everything in their power to hush it up, starting with offering a big settlement and NDA. If the press gets wind of it, then is when they'll lay the blame at whoever is easiest to blame. But most of these incidents don't make the paper. Did you know a kid died in the Haunted Mansion? An employee got his head knocked off when they were testing Frontierland's roller coaster (they used us as perfectly willing guinea pigs)? Did you know that twelve construction workers gave their lives for EPCOT? I learned of all of these and more working there, but very little afterwards except the occasional heart attack on Space Mountain or other ride, which actually enhanses their revenue (kids like danger).

Re:wow

[MagicM]

People see it as a personal attack against their actions and beliefs (i.e. file sharing is okay) and so are even less inclined to give the bastards doing it money.

Much like how people in Iraq see U.S. soldiers in their country as a personal attack against their actions and beliefs and are more inclined to take actions that the U.S. doesn't agree with.

Newton was right. It's all just about reactions.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

While I don't deny that a number of the points you raise about copyright have some qualities that ring a note of truth, you are also ignoring some significant points that have a large effect on the matter. Copyright was created to protect the creator of a product which they rely on for their livelihood. 70 years is the timeout on a copyrighted object, so it can then be used for public reproduction. Imagine the extreme economic shift and possible collapse that would occur if copyrights were abandoned: not only music, film and literature industries would be drastically effected, software and IT industries as well. When there is no longer a pure ownership for a product, how will the creators be able to support themselves with it? The effect overall will be a drastic decline in talent and effort currently employed to improve and advance innovative ideas and provide them to the public. The person who could have created the next evolution of software will instead become something else that will actually enable them to earn a living. It may be a false assumption on my part, and I will concede the leap in logic, but it should be noted that the US was on the forefront of each of these industries during their creation (with the obvious exception of literary publishing) and this was in large part due to the fact that our capitalist society creates a haven for those who wish to create and own a legacy. Capitalism is the foundation of the US, and it supports the individual, and is not fascist in any stretch of the imagination.

Re:wow

[inasity_rules]

On this side of the world, corporations are forced (by law) to care so much about safety that you need induction and training for working at extreme heights to program a PLC in a substation on a mine with both feet planted firmly on the ground(Can be bypassed with social engineering... :) ). Sometimes I even wonder if the American way is better or not...

In any case I am glad to hear that these things were built properly. Even if you can't cure stupid without terminating the subject..

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet the first time you downloaded a song or a movie instead of paying for it gave you a mental nudge that you were taking something that you were supposed to pay for. Let's call it what it is. Taking something that you are supposed to pay for to receive (and using language like theft, piracy, copying are all semantics here) is hurting the owner/creator/seller of the thing you have taken.

If you want to take all of Hollywood's money away, then say so. If you want them to keep making movies and music and software for less money, then ask them to. See what they say. I'm sure they can continue to perform just as well with only the money from movie theater sales and live concert performances. I don't know about software though, they are kinda basing their whole business on computers...and if any kid with a DVD drive can copy and upload software to the web for free, then I don't see how they can get a business model to work with that rampant loss going on unrestricted.

Using the free speech and 'it's imaginary zeros and ones being copied' argument is just an excuse to allow yourself to be morally ambivalent about the fact that you are taking food out of someone's mouth who worked hard to get it.

That being said, I've done it, and I'm not going to defend it with dogma about progressive IT ethics.

Re:wow

[DaleSwanson]

"Hackers on steroids" is a reference to a Fox news report from years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DNO6G4ApJQY

Re:wow

[DrVomact]

'Anonymous' is not a group it is simply am activist promotional meme.

The word "meme" has been used in such a way that its meaning has become elastic to the point of being void. I take you to be saying that the notion of a group called "Anonymous" is something that has been floated by certain people to obtain media attention. If so, I agree, and admit that it's silly of me to attack an imaginary organization created for purposes of propaganda. So permit me to amend my statement: the people who have recently been conducting DoS attacks, hacking various web sites and data servers for political reasons and who are not associated with any government or corporate entity are vigilante thugs. (The ones associated with real organizations are thugs loyal to their particular organization.) You're quite right, precision in thought and writing is important, and I am always grateful when people force me to be more articulate.

People choose to engage in an activity in the name of 'Anonymous' or not. Whether some choose to behave in a digitally disruptive manner or publicly protest is up to them as individuals. No person who does something in the anonymously in the name of 'Anonymous' is responsible for the action of any other individual.

Maybe so, but creating an imaginary organization can have real and adverse legal consequences. It could provide a pretext for criminal conspiracy charges under RICO. A court might have very limited sympathy with the defense's claim that the organization in which the defendants publicly claimed membership really doesn't exist. I'm not saying that this is right, I'm saying this is a potential onerous legal consequence. Also, the nebulous nature of the Anonymous "organization" creates very obvious opportunities for action by agents provocateur of the government or other interests. If the government wants to discredit the stated beliefs and actions of individuals who are associated—at least in the public mind— with "Anonymous, then the available methods are obvious. You are naive anonymous children.

Any claim that 'Anonymous' are vigilante thugs is completely ludicrous, firstly as by far the majority of people who have conducted activist activity in the name of 'Anonymous' had nothing to do with the temporary digital disruptions of digital billboard service and secondly no physical violence of any kind or description was conducted.

What is a "billboard service"? Perhaps you are referring to recent DOS attacks against certain web sites. I agree that these are completely trivial publicity stunts. When they—whoever they are—disrupt, for example, electronic communications and services actually used by the Department of Justice in its operations, then we would be talking about "cyber warfare". However, it is entirely possible to be thuggish without engaging in hand-to-hand violence. Some anonymous group (notice my judicious use of the lower case "a") recently hacked Stratfor, and compromised the private data of many of its subscribers. I was one of them. (Stratfor offered me a deep discount for a one year trial, but I didn't renew—they charge far more than their service is worth.) As a result of this data breach, the bank has cancelled my credit card. They've given me a new one, but now I have to figure out all the automatic bill payments I had set up with that card, and convert them to the new account number. I also get to worry about what else is going to be done to me with whatever data was compromised by these thugs. The email address was a one-of, so that's not a serious problem, but still an invasion of my privacy.

I call them damned thugs. I don't know who the cowards are, but I call them thugs. And now I get to worry about the possible retribution that my statements may attract from them.

As for Barret Brown the supposed operative for 'Anonymous' his activity has more to do with profiting

Re:wow

[Mashiki]

Because the rest of yous do so much more than anonymous to stand up.

Actually yes I do, AC. If you knew my real name. You'd know I'm very well known in Canada in both the law, business and privacy circles for fighting for individual and rights and freedoms, and the protection of privacy. As well as opening canada to more foreign business opportunities. So we can have more competition.

Unlike them AC, I don't deface a website and tear down a virtual poster. Nor do I stand up and protest outside of a building making nonsensical rants. I work within the legal framework of the country to make changes.

Re:wow

[Anthony Mouse]

I don't disagree that the amount of programmer time consumed is substantial, maybe even outweighing the lawyers, but that isn't because of any lack of work for the lawyers.

The problem is that just implementing the take down process isn't the half of it. As soon as you do, you start getting notices -- and a huge number of them are totally fraudulent. A company can just throw all their customers under the bus by blindly executing all of the fraudulent take downs, and many of them do. But even that doesn't get you out of bringing in the lawyers, because periodically one of the fraudulent take downs becomes the subject of public outrage and you have to ask the lawyers about the legal risks of reinstating the material in a way that could cause you to lose the safe harbor in order to weigh it against the PR cost of looking like a lazy censorship-endorsing jackass. And if you want to avoid that PR cost preemptively rather than having to respond after the fact, it would cost even more, because you would have to send facially questionable take down requests to the lawyers for their review. (Granted I'm not aware of anyone who actually does this, but that's kind of proving the point: The cost of the lawyers is so high that it's prohibitive -- website operators are more willing to kick their customers in the tender bits and suffer public outrage than pay the lawyers to minimize the number of mistakes, because the cost of the latter is that high.)

Justice down? I think not.

[pseudorand]

Justice down? Sounds like Justice is alive and well to me.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[tmosley]

Just barely. The boys in Congress are tag teaming her with the MAFIAA boys and the executive branch.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[Dan667]

Why? Did the Feds finally crack down on Hollywood Accounting?

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[Threni]

"Justice, though, is at best one of those words that make us look away or turn up our coat collars" - JD Salinger.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[eggstasy]

Here's some "accounting" for you:

MPAA has 6 members: Disney, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and these three, with a yearly operating income of...

Sony Pictures - $300 million
Paramount - $300 million
Warner Bros. - $845 million ... Google - $10.381 billion

Now THAT is what I call voting with your dollars :)

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[teknx]

I mistakenly read your post as Hollywood Acting. A crackdown is still needed, either way.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly. Has everyone forgotten that RIAA lawyers have the top spots at the Justice Dept.? They've had the competition outmaneuvered for many years now. They didn't get to the top of Hollywood by playing nice.

I bet a lot of companies could get shut down, especially Hollywood companies, if they were being audited by the Feds. Probably should get audited, too.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever I hear someone referring to a particular government agency as "the feds", I imagine them to be a division comprised entirely of Kevin Federlines.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[northerner]

And how much tax did Google pay on that?

2.4 percent = $249 million

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-21/google-2-4-rate-shows-how-60-billion-u-s-revenue-lost-to-tax-loopholes.html

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that''s bullshit. They just announced earnings today, and the effective tax rate was 20%+.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[phantomfive]

I don't think the Feds care about Hollywood accounting. As long as they get their share in taxes, they don't care if the artists get nothing. And that is as it should be.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

What if you add Apple?

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[AmiMoJo]

Suddenly I want Google to be evil and buy some politicians. Preferably the ones previously owned by the MAFFIA.

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[eggstasy]

Apple - US$ 33.790 billion

Disney - US$ 8.043 billion
20th Century Fox - $324 million
Universal - $3.1 billion

Re:Justice down? I think not.

[Khopesh]

Hm, you seem to have omitted those on Google's order of magnitude...

Fiscal Year 2011 Operating income in USD (according to Wikipedia):

• Disney: $8.043 billion
• Fox Entertainment Group (owns 20th Century Fox): $2.9 billion (parent company News Corp is $4.5 billion)
• NBCUniversal is owned by Comcast (51%) and GE (49%), so estimate at .51*6.104+.49*15.166 = $10.5 billion
• Sony Pictures: $300 million
• Paramount Pictures: $300 million, but owner Viacom, full-in on movie/tv content, is: $2.13 billion
• Warner Brothers: $845 million (parent Time Warner is $26.9 billion)

Let's low-ball it and assume lower interest loosely based on members' divestments outside of TV/movies or even outside of the named MPAA members:

• Disney: 50% - $4 billion
• Fox: 60% - $2 billion
• Universal: 10% - $1 billion
• Sony Pictures: 80% - $250 million
• Paramount: 80% - $250 million
• WB: 60% - $500 million

That totals $8 billion. Now pit that against Google, whose $10.4 billion operational budget isn't much higher. If Google goes on the offensive, they'll have to back down pretty quickly once it's clear that MPAA members fighting to stay in business will dig deeper into their reserves than a company with very little skin in the game (relatively speaking; youtube is what percentage of Google's operation? especially if you cut out cute cats and crotch shots?).

Wow. They did dare!

[godrik]

I guess the war has now begun. Taking down the department of justice is a clear start of all hostility. I am not sure I agree with them. But they have stuff in their pants!

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[DesScorp]

I guess the war has now begun. Taking down the department of justice is a clear start of all hostility. I am not sure I agree with them. But they have stuff in their pants!

And when they're in prison, they're going to have stuff in the other side.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

The DOJ's website, not 'the DOJ'. Also, they've done this before...

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the war has now begun. Taking down the department of justice is a clear start of all hostility. I am not sure I agree with them. But they have stuff in their pants!

And when they're in prison, they're going to have stuff in the other side.

Yeah, hackers who take down the DoJ site have NO way of covering their tracks. LULZ!!!

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Literaphile]

Wow, they took down websites... good for them. Last time I checked, none of those organizations actually rely on those websites. Take down the DoJ site with a childish attack? Sure, go for it. But it's not like that will actually affect the day-to-day operations of the department itself.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but the DOJ look like complete idiots if they can't defend their silly site against such a 'childish' attack

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

In their pants, perhaps. In their heads, increasingly unlikely...

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Look like complete idiots"... to who? Kids on forums like you? Grownups will condemn these silly DDOS attacks (if they understand them at all), and it does not help any cause... and to people who actually understand network infrastructure (capacity planning, attack mitigation)? They know this shit can happen to anyone, even precious Google. It doesn't make anybody "look like complete idiots", it's just angry children with botnets who want attention.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[sdguero]

If I had tekn down the DOJ website I'd have stuff in my pants too. It'd be brown and stinky.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Then there is still work to be done!

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[eggstasy]

Good luck finding enough prisons to arrest 50 million "pirates" :)

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[jamstar7]

Already in place. They call it 'the United States of America'. What with all the hoops to jump through coming into place restricting entry and exit, it might as well be a prison.

Sure, some of the pirates might escape to Canada or Mexico, but a couple platoons of Rangers should suffice to bring them back, then they get stuck in 'prison', the 'jails inside the jail'.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Gideon Wells]

My state had a judge sentence kids to a private prison that made donations to him. Pennsylvania.

You see 50 million "pirates". The military complex and privately run prison system sees 50 million scapegoats that just paved the golden road to profits.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is Anon we're talking about. You know they enjoy that kinda thing.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[locopuyo]

Why do you think they set up FEMA concentration camps all over the US?

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[AngryDeuce]

Yup. The Kids For Cash Scandal. You want to read about something fucking disgusting, read about that. If a judge can be corrupted like that, how could our legislature not be corrupt? They're getting millions of dollars a year from people like that...

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[rastoboy29]

Can we please stop equating taking down a website with taking down the entity it represents?

Taking down a website doesn't do jack (except register a note of protest, of course).

But it's really not very serious.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

> I guess the war has now begun. Taking down the department of justice is a clear start of all hostility. I am not sure I agree with them. But they have stuff in their pants!

And this is what *AA really wants. There must be some champagne rolling right now.

"- Look, this is what we're up against!"

Besides, it's ineffective, because SOPA/PIPA are aimed at taking down sites. It's kinda like they're already working.

What we need is to take back the legal means, because now your representative is no longer yours: it has been taken.

You're SOL and they going to get you using the law, which is absurd, because the law should serve people not be a tool for domination.

Answer with your vote, first. Remember the name of those who betrayed the public and make sure these guys get unemployed in the next election. Don't do this personally, instead organize yourselves and create a movement to announce their names at he best moments.

Second, knock on everyone's door, to get support from friendly organizations and to make it clear for those sold out representatives they'd better mend their ways or seek a new job. These fellows usually have no shame, so appealing to their conscience might be useless... but they know a bad reputation will hurt their prospects, so they'll feel they're losing something.

Other than that, my US friends, brace for impact, because from now on is an accelerating descent with bad brakes. And some people are worried about what might happen!

I say: look to what already has happened! Look what the US was just 20~30 years ago... how could everything get spoiled so bad in such a short time?

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Aryden]

Leave Rangers out of it.... send in the marines, they aren't really that great for much else.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear!Hear!Hear!

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not like that will actually affect the day-to-day operations of the department itself.

It will affect the day-to-day operations of the DoJ just a little bit. They'll have a couple of meetings to hold discussions about the DDOS attack and come to a decision on how hard they want to go after those responsible after the FBI tracks them down and takes them into custody.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Tastecicles]

That's not the one where the prison claimed money from the State for kids it claimed were inmates there but were actually buried in the woods out back, is it?

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[lightknight]

Well, they have been upgrading border security for a while now, and being mindful of the old adage that any fence that keeps your enemies out is also keeping you in...

I'm just curious how they plan to keep (it's more than 50 million, more like 200 million) that many people from destroying our would-be prison guards. With those kinds of numbers, having a gun is not sufficient to keep the masses from steamrolling you. Mind you, this is just for the United States...for the world, the number of pirates is radically higher.

See, the math is simple for calculating this stuff is easy. Consider every small business owner -> a fair number of them has a website today, and given what they teach about business in school today, they paid very little for their websites. As such, anywhere from one to a dozen pictures on those websites are recycled from the web, without permission from the original copyright owners. Then factor in every kid with an iPod or iPhone. That's a lot of people.

And there is some more comedy gold, as I believe reddit was tossing around a picture of some Congressman's site, which has a popular artwork as the background, possibly without permission from the content owner.

And the sad part is, I've been planning to study IP law. However, these weird reforms that Congress keeps popping through make me question whether there will be a need for my services by the time I graduate. They've been making a bit of a mess of the field lately, which is making me question my direction. It's quickly reaching the risk / reward point of "getting the hell out of the country," as opposed to "this might be worth sticking around." I know that makes me sound selfish, but reality dictates that I'm no good to anyone else if I'm dead or in prison.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

That the sense I get. I don't know jack about hacking, but isn't taking down a website ... trivial? I mean, "oh no, our website is down, we are ruined!"

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

who want attention.

Yes that is at this point the purpose of protest, to bring attention to an issue.
If those DDoS attacks bring even more attention to the issue then they have been beyond successful, DDoSing a website can be the equivalent of illegaly protesting it but if something does not inconvenience someone they are much less likely to care.

Re:Wow. They did dare!

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see the ex-judges getting serious jail time, even if it's minimal security. Fucking evil pricks!

Can't help but think

[chadenright]

With friends like that for the cause of freedom of the internet, who needs enemies? I have to think that they just -increased- the odds of draconian legislation being passed to help contain outbreaks just like this.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

The MAFIAA is breaking international law for self-interest. This is a war already.

Re:Can't help but think

[ackthpt]

With friends like that for the cause of freedom of the internet, who needs enemies? I have to think that they just -increased- the odds of draconian legislation being passed to help contain outbreaks just like this.

Reminds me of a line from a Douglas Adams book, referencing the distant rumble of a passed storm - leaving the impression of a man muttering "and another thing", who lost an argument 20 minutes ago. Yeah, this is a pretty poor grumble, nothing to match the heroics of Wikipedia, Wired, Google, et all who took on SOPA/PIPA in a constructive manner.

Re:Can't help but think

[alendit]

All those people who dare opposing unjust laws! They are just provoking an unreasonable response! The world would have been a much better place if that Rosa Parks had just sat in the back of the bus, like she was told.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Apologies for the implicit Godwin call, but the same arguments were called out to the French resistance during WWII. You know that destroying one of their staff cars will only result in them rounding up more people and shooting them.

Re:Can't help but think

[houghi]

If you believe that you can win by doing things in an orderly fashion, then you have not been paying attention to politics in the last 30 years.

Re:Can't help but think

[chadenright]

If you want a war, stop tearing down posters and talking big.

Re:Can't help but think

[bky1701]

I bet you would have complained about sit-ins in the civil rights era.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Though the mischievous side of me loves seeing this type of retaliation against "the powers that be", I can't help but think this will not fare well for anyone.
Gov/Mafiaas - "Oh Look! See? Those nasty "hackers" are mad because we shut this site down. The site MUST be bad...Freedom wins!"

Or, conspiracy theory side "Oh, the 'internet' is mad we're trying to pass this bill...just wait until after the blackout day".
(C'mon, you can't say you didn't think the timing of this was 'off')

Revolutions have brought about good change in many venues for thousands of years.
Unfortunately, some have brought bad.
It is my belief, though I enjoy many of Anonymous' actions, they will not fare well.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

The storm had now definitely abated, and what thunder there was now grumbled over more distant hills, like a man saying "And another thingâ¦" twenty minutes after admitting he's lost the argument.

Despite being the sixth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's trilogy it was written by Eoin Colfer, not the late, great Douglas Noel Adams.

Re:Can't help but think

[sneakyimp]

Mod parent up. This is really stupid. Any hacker who thinks he can keep his tracks covered forever should think again. Nothing like a little public outrage to fuel some kind of suspending-habeas-corpus-body-snatching legislation like the Patriot Act and these little twats will end up being waterboarded somewhere in Egypt. Lil' hacker buds would do well to remember that meatspace is not cyberspace.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

If you believe that you can win by doing things in an orderly fashion, then you have not been paying attention to politics in the last 30 years.

Thank you for saying that.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, but the line he quoted was from one Adams' books. Not 100% sure off the top of my head, but I think it was the third one.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Draconian legislation will be created and pass anyway. Power demonstration does not need justification, they can came from nowhere: if you stay quiet, you are not reacting and you have no rights besides "exist" for consume. If you talk, power must be demonstrated.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to think that they just -increased- the odds of draconian legislation being passed to help contain outbreaks just like this.

And when that legislation is passed, what will you do, sit around whining about it? Just give up? And who's REALLY to blame for it? What Anonymous did is take down some web sites which will quickly be fixed. The point is to bait the government into a massively over-proportioned response. I know I, for one, will not just sit here thinking "I forgive the government for all of this, after all Anonymous forced them into it."

No, this is merely accelerating the slide. Which will hopefully help a lot of people wake up and notice it for the first time.

Re:Can't help but think

[ackthpt]

Yes, but the line he quoted was from one Adams' books. Not 100% sure off the top of my head, but I think it was the third one.

From So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

I remember the phrase because it has such a true feel to it - probably because I've either been that man or heard that thunder at various times in my life.

Re:Can't help but think

[DaKritter]

No, Anonymous is right.

SOPA meant anyone could take down anyone else's website for any or none reason.

Now Anon shows what that would mean. For once there is a actually a point in the DDoS.

Re:Can't help but think

[antifoidulus]

Um, your analogy is flawed, this would be akin to Rosa Parks beating the shit out of the bus driver after telling her to sit in the back of the bus. Somehow I doubt that would have evoked the same reaction as her protest did

Re:Can't help but think

[oodaloop]

Exactly. We should all just roll over and do nothing.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, this country exists because the British generals insisted on doing things in an orderly fashion.

Re:Can't help but think

[Entrope]

If you order protest methodologies from most convincing to least convincing, denial-of-service is pretty far down the list. It doesn't even have the virtue of standing on its own as a statement.

Re:Can't help but think

[alendit]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Bus_Boycott was the direct effect of Parks' protest and caused major finacial loses for the transportation system. Now, tell me how it is different from DDOSing the living shit out of **AA and friends?

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

"nothing to match the heroics of Wikipedia, Wired, Google, et all who took on SOPA/PIPA in a constructive manner."

The movement started in November on 4chan by no other then Anonymous themselves, do your research before you speak.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, if you equate server downtime to physical injuries.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Heroics?

Wikipedia changed some .PHP and judging by the comments here, saw an increase in donations.

Google changed a .PNG and kept right on serving ads and taking money.

Regardless of the effects, it's not exactly throwing oneself on a grenade and I wouldn't call it "heroics".

Re:Can't help but think

[sneakyimp]

We should all just roll over and do nothing

I didn't say that. What I meant to strongly imply is that DDoS is totally counterproductive and accomplishes less than nothing. Someone else on here pointed out that airing dirty laundry of the bad guys might at least accomplish something. All this DDoS attack does is stir up the public's fear of anarchy and crime so that their elected representatives can scare them into supporting some nasty bit of freedom-stealing legislation that affects all of us.

Beating down SOPA by rallying all the sheep in the world was a triumph. This DDoS thing is a textbook example of shooting oneself in the foot for no purpose.

Re:Can't help but think

[naasking]

I have to think that they just -increased- the odds of draconian legislation being passed to help contain outbreaks just like this.

You can't contain these sorts of attacks using legislation or the current web infrastructure. It's just pissing in the wind, and you're only going to get wet. Solving DDoS attacks requires a switch to content-centric networking, or something like it.

Re:Can't help but think

[dumbunny]

DOSing is not a violent act; it's just a major inconvenience for the users of the site that forces them to go elsewhere for a while. This is more akin to Rosa Parks taking a shit in the back of the bus.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

"...they just -increased- the odds of draconian legislation being passed to help contain outbreaks just like this."

That is the purpose of the exercise; force then to pass more legislation that further restricts rights until the populace wakes up and says: "We're as mad as hell, and we're not going to take this anymore."

Re:Can't help but think

[sneakyimp]

Sounds like somebody's stolen porn movies got pwned IRL by the DOJ.

Re:Can't help but think

[StikyPad]

Mainly because you can't boycott their closest friend, the DoJ.

Re:Can't help but think

[DigiShaman]

There's a BIG difference here. It's censorship regardless who does it, but there is a clear distinction in the eyes of the Federal Goverment with regards to who is allowed to wield such power.

Re:Can't help but think

[shutdown -p now]

Montgomery bus boycott was about people refusing to take the bus at all - it's the exact opposite of DDoS. It would be comparable if, instead, they kept riding on the buses such that there would be no free seats available at all times

Re:Can't help but think

[Nethemas the Great]

So with a physical building you can camp out on the door steps an impede the flow of business. On the Internet you can...?

Re:Can't help but think

[kirkb]

Or civilization for the past 5000 years...

Re:Can't help but think

[demonbug]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Bus_Boycott was the direct effect of Parks' protest and caused major finacial loses for the transportation system. Now, tell me how it is different from DDOSing the living shit out of **AA and friends?

Ah yes, organizing a boycott against a service versus forcibly preventing others from using said service. Clearly these are one and the same.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. We should all just roll over and do nothing

It would have been much more effective if anonymous dug up some dirt on senior WH, DOJ or MPAA folk...something actionable something that would end a career or spark an investigation.

This action would send a much more powerful message and attract popular support for anonymous.

As hard as I try I don't see anything good come of attacking government sites. Its a little too analogus to attacking a 20ft thick slab of concrete with your head for my taste.

Anonymous needs some "class" they need to be a little more LOLzy and above all be creative.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew Rosa Parks, Rosa Parks was a friend of mine. You and your friends sir, are not Rosa Parks.

Re:Can't help but think

[pclminion]

All this DDoS attack does is stir up the public's fear of anarchy and crime

It does? Some douchbag sites that nobody with a life ever visits anyway go offline and this is going to stir up fear?

Take a look at Google News. See anything strange? Like, the complete absence of mention of this crap? Don't you think media would be cashing in on this? Where are the articles?

Re:Can't help but think

[migla]

I'm no stranger to or opponent of hyperbole used figuratively to illustrate a point and, in fact, I think I often fail to get my message across when using it.

But I suspect you are saying "heroics of Wikipedia, Wired, Google, et all" with a straight face...

Not that it isn't unexpectedly great what they've all done, but for the corporations of the lot, I'm sure the impact on the bottom line is carefully thought through.

Serendipitously, the actions of these are at the moment aligned with what is right for everyone.

Publicly traded corporations are not heroic, nor good or evil.

In general (as in this case) they will say and do whatever social darwinism will have their intestines percolate to the top and out of their PR-mouth.

Re:Can't help but think

[chronoglass]

soon the internet will be reduced to posting xkcd comics back and forth... and millions of years from now, when the first hard drives are finally restored, they will think they are hieroglyphs, and we.. while a generally advanced civilization, resorted to an alphabet that was 4095 comics long.. because I believe in the Randall.. but really.. who needs more than 4 gigs?

Re:Can't help but think

[Mad Leper]

So when do we start the blackout campaign & letter writing to repeal Anonymous ?

Because I see absolutely no difference here between what SOPA/PIPA threatened to do and Anonymous does on a regular basis.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

No Wikipedia added some Javascript.

Dickhead.

Re:Can't help but think

[chronoglass]

I didn't say that. What I meant to strongly imply is that DDoS is totally counterproductive and accomplishes less than nothing. Someone else on here pointed out that airing dirty laundry of the bad guys might at least accomplish something. All this DDoS attack does is stir up the public's fear of anarchy and crime so that their elected representatives can scare them into supporting some nasty bit of freedom-stealing legislation that affects all of us.

Beating down SOPA by rallying all the sheep in the world was a triumph. This DDoS thing is a textbook example of shooting oneself in the foot for no purpose.

don't forget that some of the breaches have occurred... during a DDoS

Re:Can't help but think

[migla]

eh... so my point, which I forgot to mention, is that the corporate machines whose actions in this case are aligned (thankfully) with our goals are in it for their bottom line, while anonymous and common people of the internet are fo' rizzle shizzle McNizzle, or whatever them young'uns call it nowadays.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

We, the paying users of the Internet, see common man, are up against the entire US Media industry and Washington lobbying syndicate. Does the phrase, "By Any Means Necessary" mean anything to you?

This is David vs. Goliath. Hopefully you know which side you're on, and which side should prevail in a just society for this issue.

Re:Can't help but think

[LordLucless]

The difference is, that when you track down the Anonymous punks, you can throw them in jail.
What exactly is your recourse against your persecutor when it's the federal government of the most powerful nation on earth?

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Riding with out paying that is.

Re:Can't help but think

[HornWumpus]

USA rules: If you do that you'll be arrested.

Protests at reasonable distance, not obstructing the flow etc are legal and protected.

Sitting in the doorway and refusing to move will land you in a cell. Doesn't matter if it's an abortion clinic or a bank. Long settled law.

Re:Can't help but think

[Nidi62]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Bus_Boycott was the direct effect of Parks' protest and caused major finacial loses for the transportation system. Now, tell me how it is different from DDOSing the living shit out of **AA and friends?

Because Anonymous isn't boycotting the Montgomery bus system. They are simply painting over their signs.

Re:Can't help but think

[HornWumpus]

I bet you would complain about pro-lifers sitting in an abortion clinic doorway or waiting room.

Rules apply to all, beware of what you wish for. Fleabaggers or Westborough Baptist. Pick your poison.

I say we start by raising the limit to one (foaming at the mouth protestor who can't really explain what he/she wants). Beyond that it's poaching.

Re:Can't help but think

[bratwiz]

Too bad people can't get together and NOT buy the crap the RIAA and MPAA is peddling for even a day.

Re:Can't help but think

[Nethemas the Great]

Obviously not legal however, misdemeanor civil disobedience vs. "terrorism". Was Rosa a terrorist?

Re:Can't help but think

[sneakyimp]

That *is* possibly interesting. I'd be willing to bet the MegaUpload bust will yield quite a harvest of piracy suspects. I wonder if anonymous might be trying to cover the tracks of a few pirates in their midst. ARRRR.

Still, I fail to see any triumph here. If it's even a victory at all, it's a Pyrrhic one.

Re:Can't help but think

[sneakyimp]

they are out there.

Re:Can't help but think

[AngryDeuce]

This is more akin to Rosa Parks taking a shit in the back of the bus.

Best analogy I've heard today...

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

ddosing a pamphletware public website that nobody actually uses anyhow is utterly and completely unlike the Montgomery Bus Boycott in any way, shape or form.
not even as an abstract concept!
Like I guess ... if Rosa Parks had all her friends go and repeatedly dial the phones at the bus terminal so that the staff were mildly inconvenienced.
I guess if that was what Rosa Parks was famous for I could see it.

Except she did something real, and inspired real people to take real meaningful action.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

No one gives a shit about the **AA websites. No one visits them. Why would you?

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

You seem to of forgotten that Anonymous sees ddos's as a modern version of the picket line. To them, it's a statement less than a message, if you understand what I mean.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why it might be a false flag operation.

Re:Can't help but think

[bky1701]

I don't really have any issues with the WBC other than the fact they are completely insane. The way they operate makes so little sense, they offend me entirely by their disregard for causal logic.

However, I support the free speech of EVERYONE, including those I disagree with. Even the WBC. I don't think pro-lifers sitting in an abortion clinic is really comparable, it is more like them standing outside with signs, perhaps yelling at those entering. It doesn't mean that they aren't assholes, but it does mean they have the civil right to their speech. Further, there are points where legality and morality split, which I think we're definitely seeing with copyright and the anti-copyright protests, including taking down these sites.

If you only allow speech you support, it's only a matter of time until someone else gains the majority and censors you. Given you do not have the majority now, advocating censorship is insane and idiotic on the level of the WBC itself.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anthony Mouse]

Publicly traded corporations are not heroic

Have you ever heard the expression "you get what you expect"?

Despite all the publicity about corporations having to do what's best for the shareholders, corporate executives have wide latitude in how they go about it. They can be as heroic or Machiavellian as they like. Keep painting them as soulless empty suits who never do anything outside of their own self interest and I'm sure they'll continue to take you up on it. Personally, I prefer to give credit where credit is due.

Re:Can't help but think

[westlake]

All those people who dare opposing unjust laws! They are just provoking an unreasonable response! The world would have been a much better place if that Rosa Parks had just sat in the back of the bus, like she was told.

There was nothing anonymous about Rosa Parks.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful because it was backed by the bus company's paying customers. The geek pursuing his free movie fix has no such leverage.

The boycott gained a broader legitimacy because blacks were willing to risk put their jobs at risk --- not to mention the uncertainties of the Montgomery lock-up.

There would be worse to come:

After the boycott was over, and the buses in Montgomery were desegregated, occasionally buses would get ambushed and shot at. One such shooting, on January 10, 1957, was followed by bombings at Montgomery's Bell Street Baptist Church, the Mount Olive Baptist Church, the Hutchinson Street Baptist Church, and the First Baptist Church and its parsonage

First Baptist Church (Montgomery, Alabama)

The Montgomery boycott dragged on for 381 days. It takes that kind of staying power to win any meaningful victories in politics.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

What exactly is your recourse against your persecutor when it's the federal government of the most powerful nation on earth?

Vote

Re:Can't help but think

[HornWumpus]

I'm just saying that being an obstructionist asshole is universally wrong. Yell all you want. But if you plant your ass on the ground in front of something, expect to be hauled off and the thing to continue.

You have the right to speak, you do not have the right to obstruct. Anti-abortion protestors are a concrete example. You're chosen side has no more rights.

Re:Can't help but think

[ScentCone]

Was Rosa a terrorist?

Choosing not to do business with a bus operation is perfectly legal, ethical, and smart PR. Doing the crap that Anonymous does is illegal, unethical, and a bunch of dim-witted adolescent BS that will only make things worse. Which is just what they want. They're 12 year old griefers.

Re:Can't help but think

[kiwimate]

We should all just roll over and do nothing

I didn't say that. What I meant to strongly imply is that DDoS is totally counterproductive and accomplishes less than nothing. Someone else on here pointed out that airing dirty laundry of the bad guys might at least accomplish something. All this DDoS attack does is stir up the public's fear of anarchy and crime so that their elected representatives can scare them into supporting some nasty bit of freedom-stealing legislation that affects all of us.

Beating down SOPA by rallying all the sheep in the world was a triumph. This DDoS thing is a textbook example of shooting oneself in the foot for no purpose.

Don't forget to lube up before your **IAA masters fuck you, you fucking apologist faggot. Maybe you'll do us all a favor and DDoS your own brain.

Oh good, a mature debate, that'll help.

Perfect example of how people shoot themselves in the foot. Someone puts forward a reasonable commentary pointing out how this attack might be counterproductive and you respond with insults and without any cogent argument. Happens all the time these days on /., is a great way to annoy the wider public and fail to educate them on the issues, and is entirely without merit. Nice one, AC.

Re:Can't help but think

[cynyr]

Depends, Are they simply sitting there silently judging? or are they calling everyone that walks in a whore, a slut, or should burn in hell, etc? Are they physically blocking access to the facility? Anyways there are laws about where and how you can legally protest in the physical world. The issue is that as the WWW is different they don't really work there. There really is no other mechanism with which to conduct a virtual sit-in other than a DDOS.

Westborough has the right to peacefully protest and not incite or disrupt (as do all legal protests). They also have to be willing to be counter protested, or the "I'm going to stand with them and hold a sign that makes all the ones around me look silly"

Anyways, yes free speech is a double edged sword in that you may have to hear things that you don't like. I tend to like it that way.

Re:Can't help but think

[cynyr]

What do you suggest as an alternative?

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

then you're not worth a dime more than those you claim are your enemy, and you deserve the exact same fate ...

Re:Can't help but think

[DanielRavenNest]

Would not the Dept of Justice shutting down Megaupload be a Denial of Service for all the non-copyright infringing users of the site?
Would not it have been fairer to require Megaupload to scrub the files hosted there, or change their business practices, instead of shutting the whole thing down?

Re:Can't help but think

[sneakyimp]

I would recommend that Anonymous take the high road instead of this silly prank.

Anonymous, however badass they imagine themselves, will never approach the evil blunt instrument that law enforcement becomes in a time when the populace perceives something as a crisis. If you've ever been incarcerated, you know how bad it sucks. This mayhem caused by Anonymous may be fun and get the adrenaline pumping but the sheep of the world get scared when their sense of order is threatened. In scary times, scary politicians fill the void with scary, increasingly facist ideas. As you may have noticed, the public is perfectly willing to put up with all kinds of domestic surveillance and clandestine warfare when they feel law and order breaking down.

And let's face it. Rallying to the cause that everyone is entitled to share movies and music for free? Showing outrage because a few punks who made fortune off content they didn't create got their maserati taken away and sent to jail for it? What kind of cause is that? Who fucking cares? I would definitely agree that the disgusting bastards who invented Justin Beiber (or "work it" or "the hills" or countless other shows) need to be stopped, but if all entertainment is free then there's no such thing as a professional entertainer so we'll all have to settle for the work of amateurs. Buy indie for fuck's sake.

More importantly, "give me entertainment or give me death" is hardly a rallying cry of a revolution. Anonymous could put their power to use working on plenty of things much worse than a bunch of greedy entertainment fat cats. What's particularly strange is the sense of entitlement they seem to have to the fruits of the Big Content's labor. How about a *boycott* ? I personally don't consume much entertainment at all, so I find all this outrage and self righteous indignation and chest thumping to be a little silly. If they really wanted to help the cause of fair use and other consumer rights related to entertainment, they would raise some cold hard cash and bail out Jammie Thomas. The boys of MegaUpload already have plenty of money and can easily afford the best laywers money can buy.

How about digging up dirt on dickheads like Rick Santorum? How about revealing the corruption wherein money buys and sells our elected representatives? Anonymous has so much capacity to affect things that really matter and they're wasting it.

Re:Can't help but think

[sneakyimp]

So we go back 4,000 years to the Code of Hammurabi? Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth means we all end up blind and toothless.

But let's look at what this accomplishes. A few sites went down. They'll be back up in a few days probably. A few of the folks involved in the attack will get arrested and rat out a few other guys who will get arrested or profiled. In two weeks, no one will remember it -- except the attackers, the sysadmins of the victim sites, and the guys who got arrested. Is that victory?

On the other hand, it makes them look dangerous or villainous to most law-abiding types. Anonymous would do well to consider the PR impact of such exploits. It might be gratifying, but it's impetuous and short-sighted.

Re:Can't help but think

[Wolfling1]

Your post made me stop and think about it for a minute. The ability to destroy the DNS so easily is clearly a weakness in the architecture of the Internet. If DoJ can do it, then we (the technical community) have clearly failed to engineer a global network resilient to single points of failure.

Perhaps the most constructive thing we can do is re-engineer the DNS architecture so that it cannot be destroyed so easily.

This would be a great victory of intelligence over politics - something that is way overdue.

Perhaps some kind of Beowulf DNS Cluster arrangement. Or a RAID/striped/mirrored DNS database. One that cannot be centrally administered. In order to take down a website/DNS/Server - you need to physically shut down the server.

Now, I have no doubt that DoJ would seek out ways to accomplish this task, but at least other countries (with more sane governments) would have the opportunity to oppose such sloppy legislation.

Re:Can't help but think

[bky1701]

Who really wanted to see these websites that badly? It's hard to be an "obstructionist asshole" if people were not really intending to use the thing you're obstructing. DoS'ing the Department of Justice is like blocking a dead end road.

Also, you are wrong, as many localities (and countries) support people's right to be "obstructionist assholes" in cases. I'll say it to you, too: you'd probably have been whining about sit-ins were you alive to have done so.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

You scoff, but there's a long history of such protests. The civil rights movement used this tactic quite a lot, with people sitting or standing around an entryway, slowing or inconveniencing would-be customers of racist businesses.

Just because it's on the internet doesn't make it new, or even different.

Re:Can't help but think

[Aryden]

In today's hyper-security-everything-is-a-threat-and-everyone-a-terrorist world, you're damn right she would be. And with the bullshit new law, she'd be taken into custody by the military and held indefinitely without trial. The teabaggers would use her as an example so they can have being a minority outlawed.

The reality is, though I heartily approve of protesting the bullshit the DOJ and it's *AA friends are doing, I fear that actions like these that Anon are taking, will do nothing more than give fuel to them and allow them to get more bullshit laws and regulations into effect that will harm us even more.

My analogy for the day: The bully beats you up for your lunch money. You spit in his face. He then proceeds to cave your skull in and take your shoes.

Re:Can't help but think

[Aryden]

The geek pursuing his free movie fix has no such leverage.

And what about the geeks who pay to use the service legitimately who have now effectively had their money stolen by the government over a civil matter?

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to lube up before your **IAA masters fuck you, you fucking apologist faggot. Maybe you'll do us all a favor and DDoS your own brain.

I'd love to, but I am too busy listening to my legally purchased Born This Way album, I think I'll watch my legally purchased District 9 BluRay after I finish telling you get off your cheap ass and pay for your entertainment you spoiled little shit.

Re:Can't help but think

[walshy007]

Central administration is required, because otherwise multiple people can register the same dns names and it all becomes pointless

Same deal with internet ip ranges, we have IANA for a reason. So multiple people don't try and use the same public ip.

Re:Can't help but think

[walshy007]

They expected their enemy to act as gentlemen and respect a code of civility amongst the war and death, while not ideal in a war situation I think it was quite respectable.

It is the difference between standing to face your enemy, letting them know you are going to fight them, and engaging in a fair fight. Vs stabbing them in the back while they aren't looking.

Sure, the second has a far likelier chance of you winning, but the brits of the day did not consider that kind of behaviour respectable.

Re:Can't help but think

[WML MUNSON]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Bus_Boycott was the direct effect of Parks' protest and caused major finacial loses for the transportation system. Now, tell me how it is different from DDOSing the living shit out of **AA and friends?

YES, exactly this.

DDOS attacks like this are no different than the civil rights era sit-ins which took place in the 1950's and 60's. This holds especially true if the attack was carried out via voluntary LOIC botnets.

Re:Can't help but think

[WML MUNSON]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montgomery_Bus_Boycott was the direct effect of Parks' protest and caused major finacial loses for the transportation system. Now, tell me how it is different from DDOSing the living shit out of **AA and friends?

YES, exactly this.

DDOS attacks like this are no different than the civil rights era sit-ins that took place during the 1950's and 60's. This holds especially true if the attack was carried out via a voluntary LOIC botnet.

Re:Can't help but think

[TheGratefulNet]

when you exchange info in the form of xkcd comics, you get great data compression but the latency is variable and not often acceptable.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nonsense. The US government is corrupt through and through. They want more power over their inventory. The RIAA wants more power and is willing to pay for it. No scapegoat is going to affect this.

If it's not Anonymous, it's pirates, job loss, national security, starving MAFIA executives, arbitrarily forged "revenue losses", etc. They'll find some bullshit excuse to further oppress people. Even if we all bend over and take their corruption and abuse without question, they will find something to blame the need for more power on.

Re:Can't help but think

[TheGratefulNet]

The Montgomery boycott dragged on for 381 days. It takes that kind of staying power to win any meaningful victories in politics.

wow. what would that be in, say, modern days?

(some snark in there.)

Re:Can't help but think

[X0563511]

Well, you can. It's just not necessarily a wise idea.

Re:Can't help but think

[X0563511]

... and these 'hackers' just demonstrated that such an allowance is just a fabricated illusion.

Re:Can't help but think

[TheGratefulNet]

So we go back 4,000 years to the Code of Hammurabi? Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth means we all end up blind and toothless.

see! again, big pharma wins.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

DOSing is not a violent act; [...] This is more akin to Rosa Parks taking a shit in the back of the bus.

No, Rosa Parks did what she believed in even if it got her into trouble. How many DOSers do you see identifying themselves and taking responsibility for their actions, saying that they are willing to go to trial and possibly even get convicted if that is what it takes to change something?

Civil disobedience is about standing up for your beliefs in order to get change *through* the system, relying on the system to conduct a fair trial.

If you don't believe in something strongly enough, if you don't think the system is capable of giving you a fair trial or if you simply don't believe in the system, don't try civil disobedience. Claiming that this is something like what Rosa Parks did is a slap in the face of and insult to Rosa Parks and everyone that has followed her footsteps.

Re:Can't help but think

[L4t3r4lu5]

"**AA and friends" don't make their money through their website any more than Ford or GlaxoSmithKline do. It's nothing more than impotent rage.

If you want to demonstrate against a business entity, you need to affect the revenue stream. Post links to CC licensed music which isn't shit (because most of it is). Organise boycotts and public demonstrations where you give away CC licensed music. You can buy a stack of 100 CD-Rs for under £20, spend a night putting some rock, jazz, pop, whatever on a few, and ask people if they want some totally free music instead of buying their next album? Include details, or a link, or QR code, to the artist in the sleeve. Hand them out in front of your local record store.

Re:Can't help but think

[L4t3r4lu5]

"**AA and friends" don't make their money through their website any more than Ford or GlaxoSmithKline do. It's nothing more than impotent rage.

If you want to demonstrate against a business entity, you need to affect the revenue stream. Post links to CC licensed music which isn't shit (because most of it is). Organise boycotts and public demonstrations where you give away CC licensed music. You can buy a stack of 100 CD-Rs for under £20, spend a night putting some rock, jazz, pop, whatever on a few, and ask people if they want some totally free music instead of buying their next album? Include details, or a link, or QR code, to the artist in the sleeve. Hand them out in front of your local record store. When the police turn up, hand them a piece of paper listing the artists, and explaining the license terms.

How has nobody thought of this yet?!

Re:Can't help but think

[L4t3r4lu5]

Which is why civil disobedience needs to be undertaken by thousands of people; Make arresting and charging everyone impossible.

I don't think the police could do much about 15k people walking down $BigCityStreet in the middle of the day, especially if, when confronted with shield and baton, they simply walked forward and didn't stop. What can a single line of men do against the press of thousands?

Worried about getting shot? Google "Bloody Sunday" for why this won't happen.

Re:Can't help but think

[Tastecicles]

I think Wikipedia had the right idea, to deprive (albeit temporarily) the monolinguistic English speaking world of the somewhat essential resource that is en.wikipedia.org for a day - when you control the switch like that and have the agreement of 99.9% of the editors, you can do anything. That it was for a day just to raise awareness: bravo, Sir, I think it certainly accomplished that. What's needed now, if this legislation goes through (which it likely will notwithstanding the public opposition), is the promise of permanence for ALL versions of Wikipedia - because it will not be able to function in the new, US-controlled Internet. An undernet/darknet/sidenet is what's needed (and probably a decent name for it as well), something that's more decentralised than the current environment if only to make it more resilient, and something that is run by the people for the people; corporate and geopolitical interests can jog on.

Re:Can't help but think

[Tastecicles]

if you're confident in the ability of your legal team, the Constitution of the United States.

Re:Can't help but think

[LordLucless]

And have four or five years to wait, and millions of dollars to pay your legal team, and support you while the government is suppressing your business.

The best justice money can buy.

Re:Can't help but think

[lightknight]

Hey, hey! Hammurabi had the good sense to write down the law. The people in charge these days...well, there may be laws on the books, but you're the own who has to read them and remind these people that they are not supposed to be doing what they're doing. That's pretty bad.

One rule for the elite, one rule for the masses.

Re:Can't help but think

[Pentium100]

Eye for an eye and tooth for a tooth means we all end up blind and toothless.

Not all, just the bad guys.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Man with black hat and Megan at Tanagra?

Re:Can't help but think

[jellomizer]

Most Companies do not like to get political in front of their customers. They normally see it as a way to instantly alienate a good percentage of their customer base.
Wikipedia main goal was to keep its site to be neutral and objective. Google who gets a lot of heat from the Right already. To go an protest a bill publicly could have/may have severity backfired on them.

For the SOPA bill it is about these peoples bottom line. If there are too tight controls then they cannot operate. You need to remember companies like Google Wikipedia and even Wired give a lot of service for Free, that means they are keeping costs under a tight control. Bills like this will make operations more expensive for them. Just as we protest bills and ideas that normally work against our own public interests, companies do the same.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, true. But something tells me that as trivial as the event is they're still going to deploy a fully-armed and aggressive SWAT team to bust into the home of whoever tore down that unimportant poster.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

He gets it!. Hallelujah!

Now, for bonus points, do you really think this is just an accidental vagary of human folly? The random, unpredictable, unplanned course of events? Careful now, this could be a trick question :-)

Hint: Do you really think this is about an alleged half-billion dollar loss to the entertainment industry, which probably spent at least twice that much of other people's money in the same time period lobbying Congress and state leglislatures to have everyone else, but particularly taxpayers, pay for policing their "property", which would not exist without the fiat monoply of copyright?

Assume I'm wrong, though, and there are no sinister agendas lurking behind the compartmentalizations of COPA, SOPA, PIPA, DMCA, Patriot Act, UCITA, NDAA, presidential ad-hocracy, etc, and so on. Still the only way to get through to the scuttlefish (Ellison's term, not mine) is not to frighten them in defense of poster-boys for sleaze, but to pierce the delusions of "intellectual property". Otherwise you're only reinforcing it, and you're deluding yourself as badly as those other utter tools, the cops, honest or otherwise, who either think they are doing right, or at least that no one (of any importance) will question them.

If you can't defend profiting from those files, not just sharing them, you have no business eliciting my support for taking down websites, abusing networks, and otherwise annoying the admins. (No excuse for that, period. :-) . Yes, I know about fair use, collateral damage, etc, and all the other constittutional issues, but unless you can get down to the real meat of the matter and address it, in the courts, and in the legislatures, and in the minds of the people who decide these things, the end-game here is NOT good, and Anonymous are, however well-meaning, simply idiots and tools. Just more sheeple.

Anonymous Optimist

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a BIG difference here. It's censorship regardless who does it, but there is a clear distinction in the eyes of the Federal Goverment with regards to who is allowed to wield such power.

They are wrong. It's just a matter of time until they realise it.

Once you make a hole in the fabric of a just society it's a only a matter of time before everything and everyone gets through it.

Re:Can't help but think

[cynyr]

http://www.ted.com/talks/defend_our_freedom_to_share_or_why_sopa_is_a_bad_idea.html This video does a much better job than I could ever do expaling some of the issues around SOPA.

As for a boycott, that is just about impossible to do... Do you go out to restaurants/bars? they have a license to play music and so some of the money I pay for dinner still goes that way. Same for just about anytime you hear music in public.

Anyways, that whole looking into dirt on dickheads worked very well for Wikileaks and Julian...

Re:Can't help but think

[AmiMoJo]

Actually protesting outside buildings and effectively preventing people from entering them is a well established and vital part of democracy. The whole point of protest is to cause disruption to draw attention to a point of view or cause.

Re:Can't help but think

[cynyr]

P.S. Sneakyimp is not authorized to decrypt the above comment.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

You must be an idiot if you think Wikipedia/Wired censored its page purely for business reasons and that none of them gave a single shit about the freedom issue. God damn you corporation haters are fucking thick sometimes.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

USA rules: If you do that you'll be arrested.

Protests at reasonable distance, not obstructing the flow etc are legal and protected.

Sitting in the doorway and refusing to move will land you in a cell. Doesn't matter if it's an abortion clinic or a bank. Long settled law.

It seems that protesting is already like breaking the law, look at the Occupy Wallstreet movement, so I say whats the difference. The Government do not seem to be listening maybe DOSing their ass might get their attention and maybe they will listen.

Re:Can't help but think

[Agent0013]

That reminds me of that joke about the group of people that just tell jokes by number.

And the new guy stands up and yells out "number 42"! Everyone starts laughing hysterically! The guy next to him explains that he never heard it told that way before.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

So dig Google, EFF, Imgur, JYA, etc, etc, etc. Their action however, will not FRIGHTEN THE SCUTTLEFISH, and provoke the reaction that the enemy wants. Which is the power to shut your site down at will.

Yeah, there's a point. If you're really working for the other side.

Re:Can't help but think

[HornWumpus]

People who think they are accomplishing anything by getting in my way can universally fuck off.

I don't care how good their cause is. I stopped listening to the assholes when they got in my way and started yelling.

No locality in the USA supports them. The only ones that can get away with it is public employee unions (because the cops are also union thugs). Even there it is still illegal. Just the cops won't enforce the laws.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

No. The people who wanted the draconian legislation would have (and are) passing it regardless of what the haxor kiddies do. What the kids did was a one day show, tomorrow all will be right as rain. However, what the people from Dracos want with their legislation will last like a dark stain till someone starts playing a fiddle on the white house lawn while they watch everything around them burn. Like the politicians of ancient Rome, American legislators are corrupt. Sitting in charge of a once-powerful republic, they eagerly attempt to game the political system for their own personal financial gain. Its such a difficult thing to say no when someone approaches, and says that instead of retiring and living out your life poorly, you and your family can retire in luxury. All you have to do is sacrifice some of your best intents, and allow a tiny piece of the empire to crumble. Just a little piece, no one will notice. And so the epitaph reads "The rise and fall of the American empire", and history is allowed to repeat.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

Learn the difference between then and than.

Re:Can't help but think

[migla]

I wasn't counting Wikipedia as a corporation.

I don't believe I spoke in absolutes, so I didn't say I think Wired did or didn't do anything "purely for business reasons". In general, though, publicly traded corporations will act for their bottom line (which may include standing up for human rights or handing out candy or whatever) and the more efficient a large organization is, I'd say that the less likely it is to do anything without having its bottom line (in the short or longer term) as first priority. That is its purpose.

Re:Can't help but think

[migla]

I'm not saying the humans making up the corporation are soulless suits themselves. I'm saying the aggregate result, the more abstract corporation, is not heroic or evil, and that there is not much room for individualistic humanitarianism to guide the actions of the publicly traded corporation.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anthony Mouse]

I don't know. I mean sure, you'll never see the officers of an undiversified coal company go on TV and admit to the damage coal is causing to the environment, or offer to compensate its victims out of the company's profits or to shut down their operations until the damage can be avoided. But there are ways that corporations-as-entities, when they're run by high-minded people, can Do The Right Thing.

The fight against SOPA and PIPA is a great example: It's blatantly obvious to anyone that real people are against the bills. Nothing stops the tech companies from saving their political capital for some other issue and letting Hollywood get what they want, or from going to Hollywood and negotiating to drop their opposition in exchange for some quid pro quo. But the tech companies also have the option of siding with real people and opposing the other corporations in Hollywood, which is what they've done. They didn't have to do that. So as I said, give credit where credit is due -- failing to support those who fight for your rights can easily result in there being no one willing to fight for you in the next round.

Re:Can't help but think

[Anonymous Coward]

What you say is true, but you're a little behind the times.

Read up on DNSSEC which solves the problems of an overzealous legislature, amongst other things.

Indeed one of the technical objections to SOPA is that it is incompatible with DNSSEC.

Re:Can't help but think

[Eponymous Hero]

hopefully it's not any different. hopefully it results in the preservation of our constitutional rights, just like Parks' protest. you could also reference the revolutionary war, opposition to unjust taxation, etc etc. it disgusts me that you would put the montgomery transportation system's profits ahead of our rights. whose side are you on, anyway? oh wait nvm, i see your little white hood there. my bad, grand wizard.

As time goes by it all seems like a plot

[David89]

How are these attacks going to help our cause? The more I read about this the more I believe it's all a cover up by the government or some other pro SOPA force. Makes it seem like these bills really need to get passed.

Re:As time goes by it all seems like a plot

[westlake]

The more I read about this the more I believe it's all a cover up by the government or some other pro SOPA force.

The wonderful thing about a conspiracy theory is that it can made to fit any set of facts.

Re:As time goes by it all seems like a plot

[Anonymous Coward]

"The surest sign of a conspiracy is the complete lack of evidence."

Re:As time goes by it all seems like a plot

[Aryden]

The wonderful thing about a conspiracy theory is that when it's true, you get to yell "I TOLD YOU SO!"

Re:As time goes by it all seems like a plot

[X0563511]

Frog in a pot...

Except in this case, there's millions of frogs in the pot, and a group of them keep instigating the chef to raise the temperature, in hopes all the other clueless frogs finally notice something is wrong...

Re:As time goes by it all seems like a plot

[X0563511]

You take things far too literally. That added absolutely nothing to this discussion. It might have even hurt, by drawing attention away from what actually matters.

This won't help

[Anonymous Coward]

If Al-Qaeda blowing up two buildings and killing 4000 people didn't cause the US government to change any of its stances but rather become even more entrenched; then taking down some web sites certainly won't impress anybody. Anonymous is only making the rest of the Internet look bad. As a proponent of Internet freedom I do not condone or applaud these immature kids.

Re:This won't help

[gottspeed]

The powers that be orchestrated that attack to rationalize all the fascist policy changes we've seen this decade. They called it a 'new pearl harbour'. Clue in you coincidence theorist! Us fluoride guzzling baby registering plebs are seen as cattle by people who run shit (and rightfully so from the shit people put up with), if you don't think so its time to gain some perspective and consider why you and your friends ask the government for permission to engage in lawful activities like travelling and getting married. Capitalism isn't a mode of commerce, its the ideology of teaching men to devalue themselves by behaving as commercial entities to be regulated by a corporate state.

Well done them...

[ackthpt]

I'm certain the feds can back-track the traffic and find more ip addresses to servers which were compromised and home addresses which controlled them. The net isn't as loose as it once was and the more this activity happens the more tools the feds will build to track and back-track.

Short term victory, that's all.

Re:Well done them...

[Anonymous Coward]

So... the Cyber Police back-traced it?

Man, the consequences will never be the same again!

Re:Well done them...

[ackthpt]

So... the Cyber Police back-traced it?

Man, the consequences will never be the same again!

The opportunity to do these things is in limited supply. Each iteration of attacks exposes more of the means and the perpetrators.

Utterly juvenile reaction. "Hey, lookit me! I can take down ur websites! LOL! Take that, teh man!"

Re:Well done them...

[Anonymous Coward]

What victory? This is like slapping a bear.

It's not even short-term accomplishment, it's getting yourself into the thick of it.

Re:Well done them...

[DogDude]

I'm certain the feds can back-track the traffic and find more ip addresses to servers which were compromised and home addresses which controlled them

That's why open wireless networks are so great.

Re:Well done them...

[hldn]

gl backtracing us cyber police, we're behind seven proxies.

Re:Well done them...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certain the cyberpolice can back-trace

FTFY

Re:Well done them...

[jamstar7]

I'm certain the feds can back-track the traffic and find more ip addresses to servers which were compromised and home addresses which controlled them

That's why open wireless networks are so great.

Especially when you're seriously pissed off at your neighbor. Figure out his home net, download some kiddyporn to the bitbucket, and microwave some popcorn for the show when the cops show up. Rinse and repeat.

Re:Well done them...

[HornWumpus]

If you did that all you would be doing is DDOSing your proxy network.

What the smart ones do is rent computer time on zombie networks. Sure they are fucking over the zombie network operator. Even better if the CC you paid the Ruskys or Ukrainians with traced back to a MPAA big cheese. That's two groups I'd enjoy watching fight to the death.

Aside: What is a good ethnic slur for Ukrainians? I know Rusky isn't a slur so don't bother telling me.

Re:Well done them...

[Anonymous Coward]

They dun goofed!

Re:Well done them...

[X0563511]

Lets not forget WEP is broken and bad WPA keys are 'easy' now.

Re:Well done them...

[lightknight]

And when they find that a few of the various ip addresses belong to them?

Re:Well done them...

[Anonymous Coward]

The Feds can back-track the IP addresses of AC's on slashdot, too. I'm sure the editors have a good laugh from time to time, as well. I trust some of them at least are listening astutely. Them that have ears and all.

Anonymously Cryptic

Re:Well done them...

[Anonymous Coward]

You may not realize that Anonymous uses all kinds of anonymizing tools to prevent such backtracing. The script kiddies who download LOIC to join DDoS campaigns without using VPNs and multiple proxies are the only ones who have been caught. They call themselves by that name because they ARE Anonymous, and there are many, many thousands who are involved in this, not just a small cadre of hactivists in their basements. They'll never catch all of them becuase DoJ is probably outnumbered here.

Kim Dotcom not worth fighting for

[Anonymous Coward]

On or about October 14, 2011, DOTCOM sent an e-mail to a PayPal, Inc.
representative indicating:
Our legal team in the US is currently preparing to sue some of our competitors and
expose their criminal activity. We like to give you a heads up and advice you not to work
with sites that are known to pay uploaders for pirated content. They are damaging the
image and the existence of the file hosting industry (see whats happening with the Protect
IP act). Look at Fileserve.com, Videobb.com, Filesonic.com, Wupload.com,
Uploadstation.com. These sites pay everyone (no matter if the files are pirated or not)
and have NO repeat infringer policy. And they are using PAYPAL to pay infringers.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment

operative?

[PaulBu]

Anonymous operative Barrett Brown

Does not being Barret Brown contradicts beins Anonymous? ;)

Paul B.

Re:operative?

[Dr Caleb]

Even Saddam Huessien had "The Iraqi Information Minister."

Re:operative?

[Hentes]

It might be just a nickname.

Re:operative?

[Anonymous Coward]

What he meant was, it's actually a peninsula.

Re:operative?

[Barefoot Monkey]

Anonymous? You must be mistaken - he is a member of Pseudonymous. They just like to call themselves Anonymous because, well, you can't call yourselves Pseudonymous if that's your group's actual name. It wouldn't make any sense.

Re:operative?

[Anonymous Coward]

He is still anonymous.

It is but an alias. Aliases are still anonymity.

There is no such thing as true anonymity. Even if you never interacted with another human your entire life.

Re:operative?

[X0563511]

Also Known As: an alias. (see what I did there? :P)

Re:operative?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Anonymous have never recognised Barrett Brown as their spokesperson.

If you want to know what position Anonymous has on a subject, join their IRC channels and ask them yourself. You can get the details easily from a Google search, and you can connect to them through anonymising services like I2P or Tor, should you so wish.

Expect to have your mother's sexual proclivities questioned. It's just their way.

Not Anonymous..

[Superken7]

..but regular internet users.

The summary sounds like it was a specialized group of hackers - it wasn't it was anyone who followed a link like the following:

http://pastehtml.com/view/blaoyp0qs.html

Re:Not Anonymous..

[Anonymous Coward]

Once loaded, the above page generates plenty of requests against some sites - guess which?

Re:Not Anonymous..

[Shikaku]

Link warning: opening this will max your internet connection to load certain websites from the title, so don't open it unless that is your intention.

Re:Not Anonymous..

[Inda]

48kbps up is hardly maxing my connection.

It's the amount of requests, not the bandwidth.

What point does this serve?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do hacker groups think that taking down a website (usually only briefly) in any way does anything? They haven't hurt the DOJ, RIAA, or Universal Music in any way. If anything, they are probably suggesting that the Internet is lawless wildwest and needs more control. I just don't get the point of taking down websites that nobody goes to as if it promotes some cause.

Re:What point does this serve?

[bky1701]

It shows the government is mortal. It also (repeatedly) shows that they are incompetent when it comes to technology. If people were less apathetic than you, that would mean a lot.

Re:What point does this serve?

[Dan541]

They do it because they are untalented, lazy individuals. It's easy to sit on your ass and DDoS someone but to do something that makes a difference requires effort.

Re:What point does this serve?

[X0563511]

They do it because it attracts attention. See the XKCD that illustrates the idea. Sure, the experts know better... but then, the experts already know about all this bullshit. It's the regular people that need a love-tap with the cluebat.

should of not done the DOJ other are fine

[Joe_Dragon]

Let's see in court can't look up DOJ guild lines. YOU GET LIFE BANG.

Re:should of not done the DOJ other are fine

[Anonymous Coward]

Your England are fail.

Re:should of not done the DOJ other are fine

[Anonymous Coward]

+1

How does this even hurt them?

[oic0]

I fail to see how this would even bother those agencies. They don't make money from their web sites. They're nothing more than billboards. Have you ever been to the RIAA web page? what about the DOJ web page? They need to find a better way to hit them. I think graffiti on their buildings would bother them more.

Re:How does this even hurt them?

[Anonymous Coward]

"In defiance of all known logic, no matter how much the group of hacktivists urinated on the billboards of corporate thugs, the fists and guns of their well-trained assassination and coverup squads continued functioning properly. Said one Anonymous member, 'I don't understand it! I even spent all day eating nothing but asparagus to make my urine extra-powerful! How did that not shut down corporate abuse?'"

Re:How does this even hurt them?

[sjames]

Because the people at the DOJ are just the sort of super type-A anally retentive hotheads that an be driven to an early stroke by this sort of embarrassment.

They need better things to do

[future assassin]

Taking down sites will do nothing but give the corrupted politicians more amo. Why not concentrate on digging up dirt con corruption and start making it public? Get some incriminating info on RIAA/MPAA/Politicians.

Re:They need better things to do

[bobcat7677]

Yeah, isn't DDOSing their website the virtual equivalent of throwing rocks at a tank?

Re:They need better things to do

[CrazyDuke]

Because no one in this country gives a fuck about corruption unless cum is involved.

Re:They need better things to do

[frank_adrian314159]

Get some incriminating info on RIAA/MPAA/Politicians.

You're assuming that they are actually doing something illegal. In this society, immoral, stupid, or dickish does not mean illegal.

Re:They need better things to do

[future assassin]

>You're assuming that they are actually doing something illegal. In this society, immoral, stupid, or dickish does not mean illegal.

If they can dig out dirt on the lobbyist then they can force the politicians to distance themselves from those lobbyists.

Re:They need better things to do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes ddos is like throwing rocks at a tank in the sense that it is a great distraction from the real attack being mounted against it.

Re:They need better things to do

[Aryden]

how well did that work out for Wikileaks or Julian Assange? Arab spring was awesome, but he's being extradited and wikileaks is bust.

Re:They need better things to do

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean like Wikileaks?

... And what's Julian been up to these days? Oh wait...

Re:They need better things to do

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but what are people doing to support Bradley Manning and Julian Assange?

They *did dig up tons of dirt*

but now Manning is about to convicted multiply and god knows what after that.

Re:They need better things to do

[lightknight]

Which is why we need to convince the insurance companies who cover actors that they haven't been charging enough for their premiums. And then we need to play with the movie stocks...

Since their yearly income, as reported by themselves, is only around $300 million, it will only take a little to begin sapping their strength. And it's not like the public isn't already fed up with them; the words "Talent-less hacks with a $5 dollar story written on a paper napkin" has been an apt description of their efforts for the past several years. Won't take much to sink this Titanic.

Re:They need better things to do

[bobcat7677]

I say fight fire with fire. Mount a grassroots effort to legalize "piracy" and then let the mega-studios figure out how to adapt. It's not like there have not been shakeups in hollywood before...and it didn't kill them. When United Artists was formed everyone cried fowl but ultimately UA made hollywood better (at least for a time).

The Internet

[omganton]

Perhaps the Government will soon learn that they serve us, not the other way around.

The Internet and the Government are by the people, for the people. This will not end until the old men in mothball scented suits understand that their rein of power is coming to a swift end. The people are united, angry and done listening to wrinkled, clueless senior citizens make laws that have no place in our modern society.

We are on the cusp of a new generation. The next civil war will take place in a series of tubes.

Re:The Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

No it won't. All of these massive corporations would be happier than pigs in shit if the internet was severely locked down and turned into the next TV where only 'approved' things can be seen.

The internet will be taken down long before anything can actually be taken down thanks to the internet. Or at least that applies to the internet in North America (since Canada will just follow the US like a stupid puppy dog like it always does, and the USA ignores Mexico anyway).

I see the past few years as the beginning of the end. Enjoy the internet while you can... soon it will not exist as you know it. It will become the next television... nothing more than a media feeding tube.

Re:The Internet

[packslash]

The sky is falling ! The internet will never become television. You're doom and gloom lacks any foundation in reality.

Re:The Internet

[sjames]

We have passed the point where the internet can simply be taken down. Far too many wealthy corporations depend on it now.

Oh the irony.

[unity100]

The CITIZENS of the country who elect and send representatives to make laws for them, cannot do ANYthing against the repression those representatives rain down on them - from nullification of habeas corpus to censorship. if they do, they are pushed into 'free speech zones', or batoned down in public ............. but, those who are dubbed as 'criminals', react on their behalf with unmatched efficiency that would put the biggest picketing protest to shame....

when things come to this point in a society, it means that that society, with everything in it, is broken beyond repair and needs a total reset.

Re:Oh the irony.

[Nethemas the Great]

How is the parent a troll?

Re:Oh the irony.

[ScentCone]

censorship

Be specific.

free speech zones'

You know perfectly well that if you and your group decide to go to the trouble to organize and pay for the support needed to hold a huge public event, that you would also get the benefit of law enforcement preventing people from blocking access to your event, from shouting down your invited speakers, and from trashing your facilities. Everyone gets the same protections to assemble and stage events. The idiots who want to disrupt such events realize that they don't have the coherence or public interest to assemble in a way that rises to the same level of organization/logistics, and instead just squat in public parks for weeks and bang drums. And guess what? They only get asked to move when the rats and trash get out of hand. And here you are complaining about how people you hate arrange a one hour parade.

unmatched efficiency

And they've efficiently done ... what? Further convinced everyone else that, indeed, all they know is destruction, rather that productivity. That they support an ongoing criminal business built around ripping off others' work, and they're all about extortion tactics to show how Grown Up they are. Please.

Re:Oh the irony.

[fnj]

The citizens who stupidly elect those who perpetrate this corrupt monstrosity are ultimately to blame. They will be judged harshly by history.

Re:Oh the irony.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Total Reset!"

Sounds like a great T-Shirt.

Re:Oh the irony.

[alonsoac]

Or.... you could vote, and educate your friends and family and have them vote. Or even run for office yourself. Don't complain because an asshole was elected, you had your chance to stop it. And you will have another chance. Oh and if you do get elected, just don't be an asshole.
 

Re:Oh the irony.

[unity100]

they vote. and what changes ? election requires money. all parties need to cater to the rich to get elected. else no ads on tv, no flyers, no broadcasts.

*slow clap*

[Anonymous Coward]

Well done idiotic reactionaries, you've played right into the puppetmasters trap.

Yesterday people took notice of a real issue that had both politicians and Big Media scrambling for damage control.

Big Media responds with a very calculated move to bring down a notorious hive of actual crime, it's like setting the bait for the trap.

Guess what will be talked about in the media for days now?

Guess how your CongressButts will vote when they sense danger?

GREAT JORB

Re:*slow clap*

[im3w1l]

Mod parent up

Staged?

[Qbertino]

I think it's quite likely this entire thing is a staged PR stunt by the SOPA/PIPA cartell to generate a little counter-press. Call me paranoid, but It apprears to me all to convenient that something like this happens just now. At least it's a theory worth entertaining, imho.

Re:Staged?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they took down Megaupload without SOPA or PIPA then what purpose would those bills serve? I thought it was to give them the power to do what they just did.

Re:Staged?

[jamstar7]

If they took down Megaupload without SOPA or PIPA then what purpose would those bills serve? I thought it was to give them the power to do what they just did.

Because now the MAFIAA can go before Congress and argue that they need more power, more power, MORE POWER to rinse and repeat without probable cause and other such legal niceties. "We shut them down without too much hassle, but we coulda done it FASTER and EASIER and more importantly, CHEAPER, with this new legislation. Well, cheaper for US, anyways. Oh, and here's a campaign contribution, carry on!"

Re:Staged?

[Anonymous Coward]

This could very well be a false flag operation. Anonymous is very vulnerable to these types of scenario because of the nature of anonymous participation in the group. The thing is this can backfire on them if more skilled members of the collective pick up on the false flag op as if it was actually an anonymous operation. The thing about ddos attacks is they are great for obfuscating more skilled attacks happening at the same time. So if you launch a fake ddos attack against yourself like that you also risk real members of anonymous joining in turning it into a real ddos lasting longer than you decide and running the risk of more skilled attacks on your network coming through during the high throughput making it hard to tell what really happened.

Re:Staged?

[Tom]

You don't need to stage it if your enemy is this predictable.

Yes, of course the timing wasn't accidental. Though I believe they messed it up. Doing this the day before the SOPA/PIPA blackout would have been a ton more effective.

So, our enemies are losing it. They are making strategic mistakes. They are not in control of the game anymore. This is a good sign.

good luck

[unity100]

taking the immense botnets' masters and very, very elite hackers that reside in russia and china out, without world war iii.

Re:good luck

[Bucky24]

Well, considering how they got the NZ government to arrest some people just by asking, I don't think that will be so difficult, assuming they can find the hackers of course.

Re:good luck

[unity100]

you are comparing NZ government, with russia, or * gasp * china ?

Re:good luck

[Bucky24]

mmhmm

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

"Very, very elite hackers?" You do realize you're talking about Anonymous, right? They're a bunch of basement-dwelling twats with a V for Vendetta fetish. They don't CARE about activism, they never have. They've been quite clear about their goals from day one; "we do it for the lulz." They don't care about SOPA or any of the other four-letter words the US government is trying to pass as law these days, they don't care about the people who are affected. Hell, they don't even care about their own members being arrested. The only thing they DO care about is amusing themselves, that's it. Everything else is just so much propaganda on their part in an effort to bolster their own reputation.

Re:good luck

[unity100]

"Very, very elite hackers?" You do realize you're talking about Anonymous, right? They're a bunch of basement-dwelling twats with a V for Vendetta fetish

yeah. a bunch of basement dwelling twats with a v for vendetta fetish.

first, if you had known zit about the underground scene, you would know that they had a 'v for vendetta' fetish LONG before even v for vendetta was published as a comic. it is the general sentiment/culture/understanding in those parts.

second, twats with fetishes cannot break in and steal data from defense contractors, or take down major websites ranging from fbi to doj.

and if you think that the botnet power that can take down those sites are owned by a bunch of basement dwelling twats - you are really way too ignorant of this.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought you people weren't supposed to identify yourselves publically? "We are legion" and all of that trite. It'd be a real shame if someone were to report you to Homeland Security for supporting what they now consider to be a terrorist group. I'd imagine your chest-beating nonsense would sound a lot lot more like screaming if you were being beaten and raped in Guantanamo.

Remember the "big plans" that Anonymous had for November 5th last year, where they essentially claimed that something big was coming? Remember how nothing happened? No, of course you don't. How about when they claimed they were going to take down the New York Stock Exchange website? Yeah, that didn't happen either. In fact your little Guy Fawkes fan club seems to have more failures under their belt than successes.

Taking down major websites? What, by telling all of the little nerds in #anonops to run LOIC, that kind of "taking down?" Yeah, that works really well. A few days after they get bored the sites are right back up, if they're even affected at all. And yeah, that "botnet power" that you're so mystified by? That can be bought. Easily. By a bunch of basement dwelling twats.

Here's a little exercise for you, anon. You want to prove how powerful you are? Identify me in this thread. I mean you're all-powerful hackers aren't you? A site like Slashdot should be a pushover compared to the defense contractors that Anonymous supposedly conducted successful attacks against. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Actually I won't, because I know you can't do it. You're just a bunch of script kiddies buying your Fawkes masks off Amazon running mundane, run of the mill DDoS' on a few sites no one even looks at half of the time. You can spew all the "we are legion" nonsense you want, the truth is that you're no more than a bunch of maladjusted sociopaths with a superiority complex.

How about you crawl back under a rock and go back to your "underground scene" you pathetic excuse for a human being?

Re:good luck

[TheGratefulNet]

The only thing they DO care about is amusing themselves, that's it. Everything else is just so much propaganda on their part in an effort to bolster their own reputation.

wait a minute, *who* are we talking about, again?

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Outsourcing.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

> 'v for vendetta' fetish LONG before even v for vendetta was published as a comic.

Anon were around in 82?

Re:good luck

[lightknight]

Seriously. If they think a bunch of script kiddies are "31337 h@x0r$" then they are in for a rude awakening, should they continue to pursue their current path. Let them continue to make a mockery of our government.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the "botnet masters" are getting the ignorant public to run their little program which does the DDOS. IP addresses are very easy to track, and the public people who think they are "part of anonymous" and "doing their part" are stupidly blind and think they are safe.

Arrest them all. Put em in jail.

Re:good luck

[NickFortune]

It'd be a real shame if someone were to report you to Homeland Security for supporting what they now consider to be a terrorist group.

Yeah, it'd be a great shame if that whole right to free speech thing was so undervalued that you were unable to put forth the viewpoint of a protest group without being reported as a possible terrorist.

And yes, I know you were trolling. But I thought the point was worth making anyway.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Replace "arrest" with "employ" and you'd be closer to the truth.

Re:good luck

[delinear]

True, but SOPA is very much anti-lulz, so the two aims of stopping SOPA and having lulz aren't mutually exclusive.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, right. A bunch of basement-dwelling twats with a V for Vendetta fetish ... and an almost fanatical abhorrence of capitals.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1775, Anonymous published the pamphlet "Common Sense", which sparked the American Revolutionary War.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

(...)

first, if you had known zit about the underground scene, you would know that they had a 'v for vendetta' fetish LONG before even v for vendetta was published as a comic. it is the general sentiment/culture/understanding in those parts.

(...)

So you are saying that anonymous has existed before 1982?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V_for_Vendetta#Publication_history

Re:good luck

[unity100]

bbs scene was around before 82.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

This government is already making enough of a mockery of itself.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

I think a differentiation needs to be made between clearly skilled individuals who are able to break into defense contractors, and federal information security consultant systems (and covert their tracks after the fact) and people using LOIC to DDoS unpopular websites.

CAPTCHA: emaciate

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

What, they were wearing Guy Fawkes masks and saying ideas are bulletproof before the internet was invented? V was 1982-1985 when it first appeared. And they're not skilled hackers, they run LOIC which requires almost no input from them. They basically just use their computers to run a program that any monkey could run.

Re:good luck

[Anonymous Coward]

"Very, very elite hackers?" You do realize you're talking about Anonymous, right? They're a bunch of basement-dwelling twats with a V for Vendetta fetish

yeah. a bunch of basement dwelling twats with a v for vendetta fetish.

first, if you had known zit about the underground scene, you would know that they had a 'v for vendetta' fetish LONG before even v for vendetta was published as a comic. it is the general sentiment/culture/understanding in those parts.

second, twats with fetishes cannot break in and steal data from defense contractors, or take down major websites ranging from fbi to doj.

and if you think that the botnet power that can take down those sites are owned by a bunch of basement dwelling twats - you are really way too ignorant of this.

lets put it this way... if they ever get caught they won't be put in prison... but put in the USA security hacking the GOV websites and reporting the flaws in their security and tell what they are and how to fix it to the government for minimum wage and 15 hours a day.

Begun!

[Zaatxe]

Begun, the Internet War has!

You think they give a shit?

[AdamJS]

Websites mean little compared to winning ideological battles.

Re:You think they give a shit?

[bky1701]

It serves to embarrass the supporters of these laws, and to some extent, show how incompetent they are in internet matters.

Re:You think they give a shit?

[Nethemas the Great]

Might I humbly suggest that if the public cared about incompetency then Sony Entertainment would no longer be in business and most nearly every PS3 would already have been recycled.

Might I also suggest that if people cared about their digital property rights that Universal Music, EMI, etc., Paramount, Disney, etc. would be hemorrhaging money and preparing to file for bankruptcy protection.

The war that needs to be fought has not just one front but two. The people in charge and the people who could care less.

Re:You think they give a shit?

[ScentCone]

It serves to embarrass the supporters of these laws

How? People who don't think it's right for a millionaire in New Zealand to keep getting richer by ripping off other people's work aren't going to be embarassed by the fact that a bunch of script kiddies are having a tantrum. To the contrary, people who want to convince others that artists shouldn't have control of their own works should themselves be embarassed that their supporters are willing to engage in mob violence in a childish attempt to seem serious. How can you not be embarassed?

Re:You think they give a shit?

[bky1701]

You have to look at it from the perspective of the average moron. "Oh my god, the Department of Justice got hacked!" is the thought process of many people - even if it IS just the outward site, with zero connection to any of the important underlying systems. It sounds worse than it is.

Basically, it is more embarrassing to the government. Notice that that's really all anyone is talking about in these comments. The RIAA/MPAA get hacked and DoS'd so often it isn't noteworthy.

Re:You think they give a shit?

[bky1701]

I am not embarrassed because the copyright holders have waged a legal and political war against freedom of communication for the past thirty years, largely unnoticed by the general public. It's time for a push back, and this somewhat counts as that.

Also, I disagree with the fundamental claim that anyone has a "right" to control any information. That is the underlying problem of copyright, and it's why we're seeing censorship and copyright so closely connected these days. They are the same thing.

If the creator of content can stifle creation of new works based on their work, or criticism of their works (the first has been the case since copyright's inception, the second is slowly becoming reality), that is censorship. It is preventing person A from creating something because person B created something that influenced it. That is a problem. Nothing is made in a vacuum, everything is based on prior works. I wonder what would have happened had Tolkien managed to keep control of High Elves and Dwarves...

So, just because you made something does not give you some kind of holy right to determine how it is used, nor some kind of right to profit off it; it's absurd, it's a recent invention, and it hurts us as a society to allow information to be property. Further, it isn't going to last long if this keeps up. I won't shed a tear when it is gone.

War

[bky1701]

It's starting. Hopefully it will keep moving. We need to get this shit sorted out once and for all.

Unfortunately, instead of the revolt that is needed over copyright, we'll probably just end up with some kids in gitmo for the rest of their lives and another SOPA/PIPA copy passed in a few months.

Wake up, now is the time to stand up.

Re:War

[gerddie]

Unfortunately, instead of the revolt that is needed over copyright, ...

indeed:

Intellectual Property is a myth. It is invented with the backing of the threat of force of the state. It is the idea that knowledge or information can be owned by one certain company or person. The myth is perpetuated that people who copy are pirates or thieves. Even those who file share and copy movies and music have come to call themselves pirates. The problem is that it is not piracy or theft. It is theft if I take something of yours. If I copy something of someones or my own it is simply not theft, it is copying.

Re:War

[Mad Leper]

Indeed, I keep telling people that ID theft is really ID sharing and it should be decriminalized, after all you can't steal information, right??

Re:War

[HornWumpus]

The natural form of intellectual property is called a 'secret'.

If you think not having patent and copyright has no cost, answer me this: 'How do you make a Stradivarius?'

Just because our laws are currently fucked doesn't mean the idea isn't sound.

The current situation is more about 'rent seeking' behavior. Which is a fundamental problem, likely to never be solved, once and for all.

Re:War

[ScentCone]

Yes! We need a revolt so that we can make writers, musicians, film makers, programmers, photographers, painters and the like - finally - into the slaves we've always wanted them to be. Stupid artists, they must understand that whiney adolescents who want free entertainment have the moral high ground, and that the artists themselves should have no influence over or claim to their own efforts. Bow down, artists - your 12-year-old masters demand that you create stuff for them!

Re:War

[bky1701]

You can't steal someone's identity, since they'll still have it when you're done with it, which is a prerequisite for something to be stealing. However, you can steal their money using their identity. "Identity theft" is more shorthand for "theft of property by impersonation." Probably we shouldn't call it that, but it doesn't have the same kind of insidious undertones as equating copyright infringement to theft.

Re:War

[L4t3r4lu5]

Antonio Stradivari was an artisan, an expert craftsman of string instruments. There is no big secret to his construction of violins; You can take one apart and see exactly what was done, and it's listed on Wikipedia (larger pattern, darker varnish). He was, however, the best at doing it, so his works were most sought after.

This is all moot, however; You are, presumably, talking about someone attempting to duplicate a Stradivarius violin and selling it as the genuine article. This is disingenuous to the point; The name "Stradivarius" would be Trademarked, yet this is a discussion of copyright. If Antonio had said to other luthiers "You may make instruments under my name, here is a certificate saying so." then it would be a copyright issue, as only those with the license could copy his work.

Re:War

[ScentCone]

Spoken like a true adolescent who has never created anything and who has an attention span shaped by nothing but video games. Why do you care? If you don't like what someone creates, ignore it. In your world, someone who invests years creating something should lose any right to it the moment they're done creating it. How many huge multi-year creative projects do you think will be pursued if the first leech who wants has more claim to it than the person who creates it? Just another passive, witless consumer who wants people to make stuff for him, and feels entitled because he's breathing. Grow up.

Re:War

[HornWumpus]

There are important details of his process that he took to his grave. You can't take them apart and see how he finished the wood. They've been trying for centuries and can see that the pores in the wood are wide open. Theories abound.

They can't make them today. Under anybodies name.

Some people claim it's all just biased perception. Call it the 'premium Vodka effect'. I paid more for it, it must be better (Vodka is science, Cognac is art; paying more then about $12 for 750ml of Vodka just proves you are an idiot). Musicians mostly say this is BS regarding Stradivaius'.

Call me when they actually _do_ retaliate

[Anonymous Coward]

Why bringing down some lame websites should be a "retaliation" is beyond me.

Re:That'll showem

[Toonol]

Because breaking the law will show the law enforcers that they are wrong for taking down a site that was breaking the law. Yeah! You go!

What law was MegaUpload breaking? They were compliant with the DMCA, from what I understand. They were simply a file repository for their users.

Not sure how this helps

[dbthelinguaphile]

They have balls, but I can't help thinking that this is counterintuitive. I applaud the effectiveness of the SOPA/PIPA protest yesterday -- that's great. It's within the law, it's effective, it was a lot of people banding together to protest a piece of legislature that could destroy the Internet as we know it. Fair enough. Now right on the heels of that we give Rupert Murdoch something he can point to and say "See? These are the kinds of people we're dealing with! Give an inch and they'll take a mile." All this is going to do is tick off the federal government, add fuel to the fire on the filesharing debate, and give justification to the abuse of power by the entertainment industry lobby. With this recent protest, the Internet has shown that it can bring significant leverage to bear on injustice if enough influential people/corporations get the word out. What's to stop us from doing that instead of giving executives examples of why they should hate the Internet? All this does is invalidate what we did yesterday. SOPA and PIPA are not the answer to the problems with piracy, but neither is this the answer to the problems with anti-piracy work.

Re:Not sure how this helps

[Anonymous Coward]

your government should fear you it seems you fear your government.

and really.

[unity100]

you think that, if they havent done that, no crap like sopa pipa schmogga would be out ?

there werent any such hacktivism back in 2005. and yet, they popped out the attack on network neutrality at that year. apparently they have been cooking it since 2-3 years. and also the rumors of acta starting came out that year. so, it was probably underway from a while ago, but noone knew.

wake up. this is a war, and they treat you as their enemy. they were BENT to do these, to implement censorship, REGARDLESS of what you did.

you havent engaged in any acts of terrorism. neither your neighbors. in fact, there hasnt been any case of domestic terrorism in the u.s. since 2001.

and yet, habeas corpus was just invalidated with the infinite detention act ..............

see ? it doesnt matter whether you behaved. they will do it regardless.

hacktivism only reminds people that all is not lost. and governments and corporations are not all that powerful. in that, its something good. its like the gestapo prison air raid british did in early ww ii. it was strategically unimportant, but the deed was so courageous and so irritating to germans that it broke the air of invincibility around them and gave morale to both allies and the french resistance.

its time for you to say 'viva la resistance !'. for you are already under occupation in america.

Re:and really.

[Anonymous Coward]

there hasnt been any case of domestic terrorism in the u.s. since 2001

ter-ror-ism: the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes

Take another look.

Re:and really.

[unity100]

habeas corpus is practically invalidated. introducing exceptions to condition, which can be overridden easily, does not change practicality.

what are you expecting ? someone from govt. to come to cnn and announce that habeas corpus is no longer valid ?

Re:and really.

[Lando]

Hmmm, go even further back to find out why it is illegal to break encryption in 1998. DMCA was/is pretty heinous as well. I agree with you, btw just offering you an avenue for more supporting evidence.

Re:and really.

[artor3]

Your EXACT words were: "habeas corpus was just invalidated with the infinite detention act".

That means that there is an act which invalidates habeas corpus. I suspect you're referring to the NDAA (which means you're parroting lies you've heard from other people on this site), but it's possible you're talking about a different bill. Either way, if there is an act that invalidated habeas corpus, you should be able to point it out.

So do so. Or admit that you were just lying to get people outraged, and who cares if one of them goes out and shoots a cop as a result.

Re:and really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, DDoSing a website that nobody gives a flying fuck about sure does bolster my faith in humanity alright.

Fuck you and fuck Anonymous. Nothing but a bunch of script kiddie losers with a hard-on for themselves. I'm guessing the only reason they're attacking over Megaupload is that their members (like you for instance) were using it to distribute files anonymously. They don't care about the issues, they only care about themselves. Selfish, spoiled little brats do not a protestor make. You can delude yourself into believing that all you like but your masturbatory nonsense about Anonymous being some world-changing force is just that, nonsense. They haven't changed a damn thing and they never will.

But hey, you're an anon, one who was stupid enough to identify himself publically no less. Prove me wrong.

Re:and really.

[Anonymous Coward]

And now you show your own ignorance. Ever heard of a site called attrition.org? They used to mirror sites that had been defaced, often by people with political goals that they stated quite clearly on the hacked sites themselves. Long before 2005. If you think Anonymous "created" hacktivism then you've become even more deluded by their propaganda than I initially suspected.

How's that plastic Fawkes mask from Amazon working out for you, by the way? Do you smear proactiv all over the inside to get rid of that troublesome acne, little man?

Re:and really.

[fnj]

Why not? The tyrant Abraham Lincoln had no problem openly and arrogantly suspending habeas corpus, and simply scoffed at judges who pointed out that it was an unconstitutional act.

Re:and really.

[Aryden]

Truthfully, the NDAA is vague in the use of terms such as "requirement". It states: "The requirement to detain a person in military custody under this section does not extend to citizens of the United States." This can be interpreted to mean that the military is not required to detain US citizens but does have the ability (most common interpretation) or that "requirement" in this instance means "ability". Section B is: "to have participated in the course of planning or carrying out an attack or attempted attack against the United States or its coalition partners." Now, who other than the governing body is to say that taking down government sites is not an attack against the United States?

This is what scares most people. The government gets to decide what is and is not an attack. UMF actions aside, if Iranian or Chinese hackers DDOS's the stock markets, you better damn well bet that the government would declare it as such.

Re:and really.

[gox]

there hasnt been any case of domestic terrorism in the u.s. since 2001

ter-ror-ism: the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, especially for political purposes

Take another look.

So, if you threaten to punch me because I'm a racist, you become a terrorist? Nice perversion of language.

Think about it. Terrorism never had a concrete definition, but it clearly was used to distinguish between direct use of violence to coerce and using "terror" to attain that goal. Terror distinctly meant a violent action of the kind that incites irrational fear. There is a need for such a term because of its tactical difference to other types of attacks, and mainly its unreasonable cost-effectiveness.

Re:and really.

[Tastecicles]

Habeas corpus is abrogated in time of war.

The US is at war. War on drugs, War on Terror. Pick your poison.

Have a look around the DoJ site, particularly in the section on recent judgments. See how many Habeas corpus cases actually succeeded.

Tell you what, I'll save you the trouble: none.

I thought...

[fenskinator]

...everyone was pissed about all the inaction.

Outcome = nothing good

[toby1]

It's not really an effective "retaliation" - a site taken down by physical raids and arrests is not just offline, it's gone and all the content is gone. These (probably) DOS attacks just cause downtime and nothing is really lost except face.. So now what? DoJ etc log some service calls with providers, reset a few things and it's back like nothing happened where MegaUpload is offline until some new person decides to setup shop. Result = nothing good, BAU, *sad face*

yes

[unity100]

and the ips will come out in russia, or china. thats why the fed and government and corporations are barking like mad dogs since a while.

DDoS?

[Sebastopol]

As much as I want to see a vigilante internet group of elite white-hat hackers send a potent message, a DDoS is hardly effective. It grabs a headline or two, but in the end, does nothing.

Too bad l0pht/CDC went legit.

*sigh*

Re:DDoS?

[wisnoskij]

Well what did you want them to do? a DDoS is doable and something you can at least get away with. It is non-violent resistance, they are not leaking government data, they are not planting bombs, they are simply causing their enemies an annoyance and getting noticed by them and everyone else.

Re:DDoS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time a site got DDoS'ed, it took down a corrupt law firm. People so easily forget...

Re:DDoS?

[Sebastopol]

I dunno... maybe take over WOPR and launch a Global Thermonuclear War against Seattle?

Re:DDoS?

[Dan541]

a DDoS is a cowards 'protest', it actually take courage to stand up for what you believe in. Especially in the face of fierce opposition.

Re:DDoS?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I work in infosec for a former l0pht member. True story. He's pretty cool.

Legit indeed, but there's plenty of good we can do from the 100% legit side :) It won't be as flashy, it won't be as glamorous or widely-published, but in the end, we will win.

Re:DDoS?

[wisnoskij]

Taking down the a government site could very easily end these people up being indefinitely detailed as terrorists or if they are lucky decades in jail. That is hardly a cowardly act.

Re:DDoS?

[Dan541]

These people are hiding. If they weren't cowards they would stand up for what they believe in.

Re:DDoS?

[misexistentialist]

As cowardly as the anonymous members of SEAL Team Six?

Re:DDoS?

[Dan541]

wow, I can't believe anyone would try to make that comparison.

I think we're done here, but feel free to be a douche in my absence.

Re:DDoS?

[manwargi]

Okay, if it makes you feel better, is Batman a coward for hiding his identity?

Re:DDoS?

[Dan541]

Unlike anonymous Batman is not afraid to face his adversaries and stand up for what right. I can't recall any scenes of Batman hiding in his mothers basement, I could be wrong maybe he plays WoW.

The 4 men doing the evil deeds have been arrested

[Anonymous Coward]

They were arrested in NZ...where I live...at 6AM local time and will appear in court tomorrow morning to face extradition charges.
USA we love you!

The DOJ = anything but justice

[Anonymous Coward]

The legal system in this country is about politics, not about what is right or wrong.

The swine in the Supreme Court have been bought by corporations, and
the rest of the government has too.

A thinking man cannot respect these institutions any more, because the public
is not served by them, but enslaved by them. The rest of the world views the US as
the big bully. What they may not realize is that US citizens are just as much
victims as the rest of the world is.

Re:The DOJ = anything but justice

[Jorl17]

I've started to believe that everything that country does with respect to the internet or money is bullshit.

Idiocy

[Arancaytar]

Yes, taking down sharing sites is bad. But vigilante attacks at a time when the government is already itching to censor the internet are fucking silly. It's like protesting the TSA by putting bombs in your luggage.

Re:Idiocy

[sdguero]

And detonating the bombs at the security checkpoint...

Re:Idiocy

[Bucky24]

It's like protesting the TSA by putting bombs in your luggage.

Considering the track record of the TSA they probably wouldn't even notice the bombs...

Re:Idiocy

[StikyPad]

It's like protesting the TSA by putting bombs in your luggage.

Not really. I think this behavior is counterproductive, but it's not like they're replicating the behavior meant to be stopped by SOPA/PIPA by any means.

Re:Idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

However if everyone protested that way it might be effective.

Re:Idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

It's more like irradiating top politicians responsible for the TSA with the same dose a twice-a-day-all-year frequent flier would receive over 30 years of going through whichever TSA checkpoint in the country is set at the highest radiation setting. Excessive and unwise, but certainly fair.

Re:Idiocy

[naasking]

Yes, taking down sharing sites is bad. But vigilante attacks at a time when the government is already itching to censor the internet are fucking silly. It's like protesting the TSA by putting bombs in your luggage.

These attacks really aren't so different from public protests that disrupt traffic and businesses in cities. Except the penalties for such "protests" online are as bad and sometimes worse than major felonies. There's a bit of a disconnect there.

Re:Idiocy

[fibonacci8]

No, this would be like protesting the TSA by groping or irradiating TSA employs without justification.

Re:Idiocy

[Nethemas the Great]

Do you think anyone--not already having an agenda--is bright enough to understand the difference?

Re:Idiocy

[mtmra70]

No, it's like 10,000 people getting in line at the airport without a ticket. Brings TSA to a grinding halt while they sort out the mess.

Re:Idiocy

[rastoboy29]

So...what do you suggest, that will actually do any good?

Sad as it is, getting attention is critical in our democracy.  Just look at the effect of Wikipedia et al. yesterday has had on our Senate?

When we live in a time of legalized bribery, where almost all politicians are hopelessly corrupted, do you really think normal means can work?

Fuck 'em.

Re:Idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, because when your spouse threatened to beat you up, fighting back is just fucking silly. You should shut up, obey, and say "Yes, Massa".
Your thinking is what made the 3rd Reich possible in the first place. Not the few idiots wanting to do it. The overwhelming majority who parroted around that defending and resisting is "fucking silly".

The war is already in progress. It doesn't matter if you play or not. In reality: The more they know you won't fight back, the more they beat you up.

FUCK THEM! Destroy them! And if that means having to destroy cattle like you with them, then so be it.

Re:Idiocy

[Larryish]

Based on the TSA agents I have seen, the best place to hide a bomb would be inside a green vegetable.

Re:Idiocy

[L4t3r4lu5]

No, it's like protesting the TSA by shooting spitballs at a TSA poster until you can't see it any more.

Stop with the hyperbole-laden faux analogies already.

Re:Idiocy

[lightknight]

Perhaps, but it's more along the lines of protesting the TSA by getting their security badges locked out of their own system. Which serves a valid point: if you can't secure your own system, what business do you have securing others?

Re:Idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up, because he's insightful for the very reason the GP is NOT...

Re:Idiocy

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, the bomb won't be detected as long as you remember to remove the nose-hair scissors from your shaving kit...

- T

Hadopi

[Anonymous Coward]

Hadopi.fr too... Thanks guys!

To all my fellow numbnut ACs

[Anonymous Coward]

Media: "Coming up next! Terrorists have taken down the Dept of JUSTICE website! You could be next!"

Armed rebellion?

Media: " Terrorists have taken arms in a compound. Federal Authorities tried negotiating but were fired upon and unfortunately, had to defend themselves with drones."

My fellow serfs - give it up. We're fucked.

I expect a lot of criticism directed at Anonymous

[blind biker]

..but despite that, I'll be a bit less politically correct and give a little sign of appreciation: good targets, guys. MPAA, RIAA and the greatest copyrights troll of all, Universal. Good selection.

What OS/web servers were they running?

[BlueCoder]

I'm curious if it was MS or Linux.

Re:What OS/web servers were they running?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Linux in a MS HyperV, no really whats the ef'ing difference. It's like Fat Man and Little Boy being 20 ft off target.

now its a party

[gearloos]

Now it's a party. Too bad they forgot to invite Sony...

Re:The 4 men doing the evil deeds have been arrest

[Anonymous Coward]

EDIT...the Megaupload team.

What's begun?

[rsilvergun]

not to put a damper on things, but how does this really hurt any of these groups? I might be able to buy something on Universal Music, but I'm not very likely too. The other sites are just business portals. All Anonymous really did was mildly inconvenience some low level employees trying to log into their corporate intranet. Meanwhile MegaUpload's still down and the owner's still facing criminal charges and decades in prison...

Re:What's begun?

[cpu6502]

Seems pretty ridiculous to me.

I was in the middle of downloading old One Tree Hill episodes, when megauppload got yanked. Will I suddenly go out and buy the DVDs??? Ha! Not likely. The show was fun to watch when it was free, but I'm sure as hell not going to pay for it.

I'll go find a different form of entertainment, like watch Free TV over my antenna, goof-off on youtube, or go read a book.

The RIAA/MPAA just doesn't get it. They are NOT losing money because most of us never had any intent of buying their shit in the first place

.

Re:What's begun?

[Anonymous Coward]

probably not even that, as the low level intranet employees probably log on someplace other then their outward facing webserver.

Re:What's begun?

[HornWumpus]

Dude you forgot to click 'reply anon'.

Now everybody knows you watch that crap. It's your fault they make more of it.

Re:What's begun?

[one cup of coffee]

How does this get modded troll? It's actually very honest and insightful, even if you disagree with him, at least he's got the balls to tell the truth. This whole farce is based around tricking the people into believing the lie of scarcity, and this goes way beyond cheap entertainment, if people only know it also included food, and many other basic human resources, the whole world order might be up for change. Of course, the most important enforced scarcity of all is information, thus we have things like SOPA.

Re:What's begun?

[X0563511]

Ratings generally do not include pirate viewers :P

Re:What's begun?

[luther349]

oh no now i have to get my show from some other site not like theirs any shortage of them.

Re:What's begun?

[Pope]

I dunno, rent them?

Re:What's begun?

[cpu6502]

Ha! Funny post.

(1) No I never watched the show until just this month, so I'm not the reason WB kept making it the last 9 years. They were making it because it appealed to their primary audience (teens/20-somethings).

(2) Even if I had watched it, there's no Nielsen ratings box in my home. I don't have any power to affect what's on the TV. Neither does anybody else unless they have that special box connected to their TV. (Or watch it on CWtv.com)

L8r. :-)

Re:What's begun?

[Anonymous Coward]

(2) Even if I had watched it, there's no Nielsen ratings box in my home. I don't have any power to affect what's on the TV. Neither does anybody else unless they have that special box connected to their TV. (Or watch it on CWtv.com)

Or use a DVR...

Re:What's begun?

[Anonymous Coward]

How does this get modded troll?

They're just suffering the consequences of their former actions. C64 used to be a huge troll. Hopefully they've cleaned up their act and have learned how to express their opinion without trolling, but only time will tell.

Webpages aren't companies

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to take down the websites for DoJ, etc. won't actually affect anyone in those respective companies. Most employees probably don't access their external company website very often, if ever. If you took down my company's main page, I'd hear about it on Slashdot before I actually noticed.

so what?

[koan]

Flaccid response as none of those web sites listed are critical merely informational, all this does is add fuel to the FED fire of erasing the Internet as it currently exist.

"internet spring"

[tekrat]

While the SOPA protest yesterday was effective, today's action by the DoJ was basically a big "fuck you" to due process and working within the system.

So fine, you want a war, you got one. For every site they take down, we need to take down 5 or 10, and not just for one day, for as long as is possible.

The time to be peaceful and work within the system is obviously over. Occupy Wall Street was nowhere near as effective as Arab Spring, and that's because we were not throwing Molotov Cocktails and shooting cops.

Ok, we got the message. No matter how hard we try and work within the system, you will CHANGE the system to be to our disadvantage.

So fuck you.
Now it's war, complete with the cocktails and shootings, until things really do change.

Re:"internet spring"

[StikyPad]

today's action by the DoJ was basically a big "fuck you" to due process and working within the system.

How so? They convened a grand jury to look at the evidence, then got warrants, and now they're filing charges. That IS due process. I'm suspect about whether or not the evidence is genuine, but I haven't seen it and neither have you, so it's way too early to say whether or not this was a legitimate action.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Our power, does not lie in Molotov cocktails. ... Our power lies in our ability to say nonviolently that we aren't gonna take it any longer." - Dr. King.

Re:"internet spring"

[koan]

And for every act like that they will say "see we told you the Internet is out of control" remember who makes the laws a bunch of stupid old white men that still can't figure out how to set the time on their VCR's, and more telling still use VCR's.

Re:"internet spring"

[Tom]

Occupy Wall Street was nowhere near as effective as Arab Spring, and that's because we were not throwing Molotov Cocktails and shooting cops.

Shooting cops isn't the answer.

Shooting politicians is.

Re:"internet spring"

[Tastecicles]

Mod parent up.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

And specifically rebel without a cause. What exactly do you want?

Re:"internet spring"

[Pentium100]

I use a VCR (and I know how to set it up and repair it) because for me it is more convenient and reliable than recording to a PC and more compatible than recording to a DRM infested digital video recorder. Please do not group me with those ... individuals.

Re:"internet spring"

[rich_hudds]

Occupy Wall Street was not as effective as the Arab Spring because Wall Street is part of a democracy which has a proper system of law.

The rule of law is the most fundamental thing we have in the West. It's more important than democracy since you could not possibly have a democracy without the rule of law.

Breaking the law because you disagree with it, even if your cause is just, should only be done with a very heavy heart for a truly just cause, and only when all other avenues have been explored.

The sit ins and boycotts of the civil rights movement met that criteria. Complaining about an internet bill that hasn't even passed yet does not.

Grow up a bit, stop swearing, stop wittering on about war, it does a disservice to people who have died in real wars and makes you look immature. Using CAPITALS generally huts your cause too.

Oh and fuck you, moron.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yum cocktails and shootings, to go with the sodomy and cake you will be getting in prison...only they are out of cake.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

Well if you know how to set it up then you wouldn't be "grouped" with them now would you, you insecure, archaic nitwit.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you and the guillotine you rode in on. If you really want to change society, you sue someone. Endless pooping on police cars doesn't do squat except make everybody hate you. Stop flinging poo, you retarded monkey, and if you think you have a legitimate grievance, prove it in a court of law.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a political statement you just made. You know who else makes political statements? Politicians. You better wear a lot of bulletproof armor, if you go around making threatening political statements about how those how make political statements should be shot. ...You stupid fuck.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

If everyone stopped infringing copyright, and acted peacefully, and didn't protest, "they" will still work to turn the internet into 'their" privately owned shopping mall. "They" don't want artists to be able to sell music directly to people, and "they" don't want people to organize across state or national boundaries through forums on the internet. No matter what you do, "the internet will be out of control" until it is completely controlled by corporations, and policed by the government, paid for with tax dollars.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

The rule of law is given legitimacy by the people. Many laws are opposed by the people, hence are illegitimate. Examples: Copyright law (at least as it currently stands) as evidenced by the sheer number of people who violate it, Drug prohibition (as evidenced by the number of people who use illicit drugs, and by polls that show that a majority think that marijuana should be de-criminalized). Many of our elected leaders break the law, Bush with torture and invasion of sovereign countries, Obama with his policy of assassination, etc. They should be hauled before international court and charged with war crimes. Yet there they sit, comfortably raking in tax-payer money to do their dirty deeds. So, don't come here talking about the Rule of Law --- it is a joke.

Re:"internet spring"

[HeckRuler]

Occupy Wall Street was nowhere near as effective as Arab Spring, and that's because we were not throwing Molotov Cocktails and shooting cops.

This gets +5 insightful? Calm the fuck down slashdot!
But no, the Arab spring was successful because the cops (eventually) sided with those revolting rather than those in power. Your plan would only incriminate and degrade the legitimacy of the protest. Ultimately driving people away from the movement and bringing it to a swift demise. Plus you're inciting people to cause violence. You're literally telling people they should be shooting cops.

today's action by the DoJ was basically a big "fuck you" to due process and working within the system.

How exactly do you know that? Do you know what the process is for the feds getting foreign nations to arrest foreigners? Because if you looked at the charges the feds are sticking to Mr. Dotcom, you'll see some serious stuff. Well, half of it is kinda bullshit, but the other half is real criminal behavior. And, this is the kicker, if they can prove it in court, then Mr. Dotcom and Megaupload really DOES deserve jail time. (Aside from the foreign-laws thing)

In short,
No, fuck you.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, yes, "Arab Spring" How's that working out, by the way? About a well as the War on Some Drugs? Thought so.

Anon's actions are an even bigger "fuck you". With less excuse.

By the way, have you ever considered a career in law enforcement or counterintelligence operations?. Little rough around the edges, but you seem to have a definite knack for it.

Re:"internet spring"

[Tom]

Sounds like a political statement you just made. You know who else makes political statements? Politicians. You better wear a lot of bulletproof armor,

Please. Try logical fallacies at a dinner party, not on /. where every second visitor has a degree in something and most of those somethings included Logic 101.

If politicians make political statements, it does not follow that people who make political statements are politicians.
Compare: If chickens are birds, it does not follow that all birds are chickens.

This is called a non sequitur and is one of the simplest and oldest logical fallacy arguments around. Frankly, I feel insulted that you even tried it on me.

Re:"internet spring"

[Anonymous Coward]

It is legitimate, I'd say, because those who own the process of deciding whether it is or not are the ones who did the takedown.

That doesn't mean it is valid (in the sense that it servers any useful social purpose) or right.

And others have mentioned that the judicial system in the US is not really a justice system. Unless you are one of Forbes 400, you can't afford justice here.

how to discredit Anonymous collective

[Anonymous Coward]

Would it be beyond the relms of posibility that this is a black operation seeking to discredit Anonymous and such groups. Similar to HBGarys plan to discredit Wikileaks.

"Create messages around actions to sabotage or discredit the opposing organization". Submit fake documents and then call out the error"

SOPA

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that's a good way to convince people that draconian laws like SOPA aren't needed. Now the DOJ RIAA and Universal aren't going to feel compelled to push harder for straightjacket laws.

Good going, Anonymous. Way to go, way to justify the surveillance-state.

Re:SOPA

[pclminion]

Good going, Anonymous. Way to go, way to justify the surveillance-state.

Taking down a couple websites temporarily? You're fucking kidding, right?

All it justifies is punishment against those who carried out the attacks. Will the government crack down because of this? Maybe, but that's taking the bait that has been set out for them. Don't you get it, that's the whole point -- it's like a little kid daring him parent to hit him. Oh, you may want to... But you better not do it.

Gimme more of this!

[wzzzzrd]

Gimme more of this! I mean, we all know what side will always have the moral and technical advantage. And the other side can only lose in the long run. It seems it really did enter another stage. And you're right, it's all just script kiddies. But if script kiddies can take down such websites in a blink of an eye, well, hail the script kiddies.

Useless move

[Windwraith]

What the hell, Anonymous? What damage does hacking DoJ or the RIAA/MPA sites?
Hack iTunes, hack Netflix, hack pages that offer services whose money goes to RIAA pockets. If you shut down a page that offers nothing, what you get is nothing. (except being charged for (pretty much) terrorism without causing any significant damage to the people you want to attack).

Anonymous should damage their SOURCES OF REVENUE, not their useless face sites.

Re:Useless move

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell, Anonymous? What damage does hacking DoJ or the RIAA/MPA sites?
Hack iTunes, hack Netflix, hack pages that offer services whose money goes to RIAA pockets. If you shut down a page that offers nothing, what you get is nothing. (except being charged for (pretty much) terrorism without causing any significant damage to the people you want to attack).

Anonymous should damage their SOURCES OF REVENUE, not their useless face sites.

While I understand the sentiment of your post, and agree that taking down the sites selected won't do anything other than a "feel good moment" for the Good Guys, you will not make any friends by taking down iTunes and Netflix. Disclosure: I don't use iTunes, but I do have a Netflix.ca (streaming) subscription. Remember all those angry people when PSN (and thus Netflix for PS3 owners) was down? They will be angry at Anonymous, not at MPAA/RIAA.

What lesson can be learned from #SOPAblackout January 18? It's all about getting the message out, propaganda if you will. That is what needs to be done, and the tone needs to be "What The Copyright Industry Doesn't Want You To Know" and concentrate on the history of copyright, and what the Public Domain is, and why it would be good that copyright expires within the overseeable future from when a work is first released.

Do not fight "against copyright". Fight for the Public Domain. It's always better to fight for something than against something. It just happens to be the other side of the same coin.

Re:Useless move

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't it be even better not to target the retailer's shopfront, but the link between the retailer and the banks to cut off the money - much like SOPA was trying to do?

Re:Useless move

[Windwraith]

I am not a hacktivist of any form, but in the terms of the article, and trying to imagine myself as one of those hackers, I just cannot imagine what damage they cause by hacking a mere face site. It'd be like if having the choice to take down my blog or my sales outlet, they pick my blog.

Taking that down is not worth it. If I was going to be charged as a terrorist for shutting down the freaking DoJ, I'd rather take away a few hours of sales to the people I am interesting in harming by shutting down their connections with their customers. It's the only kind of attack they can understand.

However, to fight FOR public domain, you need to create stuff. At least that's how I understand fighting FOR public domain, by expanding and adding more to it. Unfortunately, both you and I know that few can do that kind of thing. It was always easier to find soldiers than artists.
Few fight "for" something, almost everyone fights "against" something.

Re:Useless move

[Windwraith]

Can these hacktivist groups do something like that?

Re:Useless move

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh no,
That's half the problem here.
You are damaging innocent bystanders i.e. Netflix who did nothing(but actually show what the big guys should of done). Ok not quite a perfect example, but...
Using Neflix as an example, we can say that where the music/movie industry heads failed and Neflix/Itunes succedded because they (Netflix/Itunes) moved with the times to provide content pipelines that people wanted.
I don't pirate because Netflix/RedBox made the content cheap enough and easy enough for me not to care and i'm happy to support.
If the industries had done that to begin with then then there would be no middle man for them...which actually gives me the idea to skip all this and be my own label to produce movies and music and provide reasonable content distribution to move with the times....hmmm....
Anyway, I like netflix..and many itunes thought I don't have apple stuff but you end up causing people pain..like this bill will..

Re:Useless move

[Windwraith]

I don't have an account on any of those two services. I guess it shows.
But then again I only mentioned those because it's selling of music and movies, which is related to this article. No other intent on it.

Re:I expect a lot of criticism directed at Anonymo

[Hentes]

Yeah when you are shooting at everyone you ought to hit the right targets sooner or later...

Completely different thinking

[roguegramma]

How about arguing that the law can crack down on megaupload just fine shows the lack of necessity for SOPA and PIPA?

The Scientologists Were Right

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's time to start going after the industry lobbyists individually, with all the legal and bureaucratic brutality that's been so effective for the Scientologists.

I'm not talking about killing anyone or violating the law in any way, but engaging the system to make the lives of individual lobbyists as hellish and unlivable as possible.

Nobody goes after the CoS anymore. Not in any way that would actually be a threat to them. Why not take a page from a book that actually worked, for once?

Re:The Scientologists Were Right

[Tastecicles]

That's probably because the CoS can have you killed if you try.

Calm down everyone

[Anonymous Coward]

It's just a false flag operation initiated by the government.

Re:Calm down everyone

[jamstar7]

Welcome to the Reichstad.

Got a light?

Well let me ask the dumb question

[cvtan]

Can Anonymous take down any site they please? I assume "take down" means to make the site unavailable to the casual surfer rather than hack into and steal site info that ought to be secured?

Take action now.

[RandomAvatar]

I am absolutely pissed that the U.S. government has the audacity to do something like this. I am not a cracker, nor am I going to take any action that is illegal in my country. However, I do plan on taking action, and I encourage you all to do the same. Call your MP or whoever the government official is in your area, pester the hell out of them with your worries and complaints. Do the same to whoever is in charge of foreign affairs through the appropriate channels. This cannot continue.

Right now I view the U.S. as a mix between China and the terrorists of Alcida. If you are a U.S. citizen, please do whatever you can to stop the madness in your government. If this keeps up, your government may start WW3 with itself in the place of the axis of evil.

Re:Take action now.

[fishbowl]

"I am absolutely pissed that the U.S. government has the audacity to do something like this."

So how do you feel about the New Zealand government, which actually did the arresting?

Re:Take action now.

[RandomAvatar]

I feel angry at them, however a whole lot less angry than at the U.S. government because there is a chance the New Zealand government had a reason to do this. However, a good portion of that is bias against the U.S. due to recent actions like threatening to block trade from countries that don't do as they say, and war against a country that has "weapons of mass destruction" when the U.S. not only has the most WMDs in the world, but is also the only one has not had the responsibility to not use them on anyone. I can see any world leader that has the U.S. breathing down their necks for something would comply for fear of becoming the next U.S. "big threat".

Parent is right

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes. We're fucked. Corporate America has won. And they will continue to do so.

Look at the current Republican Presidential debates. Do you honestly see any pertinent issues being debated? I don't. It's all one big distraction and the voting public falls for it every time.

The People only care about what a person does in his own home - can't have gay sex, abortion, or guns!

Whether or not someone believes in some fairy tale - God.

Begin (Free to use) Troll:

Speaking as a filthy rich atheist white guy who can fly to any other country and get an abortion for any female family member regardless of the legality of it - with my armed to the teeth security forces, keep up the good work peons! Oh, and my private jet is loaned out to Congress people while I deduct it from my taxes. And the porn actress "flight attendants" are strictly no touch - wink.

Laws that regulate social behavior or taxes or guns only apply to you 99%ers.

suck it,

End Open Source Troll.

Sorry parent, that doesn't help you, does it? My bad. But you are so right, Those assholes get away with it because we allow it and some impotent losers take down a web site - Ooooooooooooo! That's sooooooo bad! What next? Spray painting protests on the side of their buildings?

They're sooooooo afraid!

No way!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am certain they are bouncing the signal all over the Internets. It will be the hardest back-track those Feds ever heard. But they might try to enhance the image.

Re:No way!

[HornWumpus]

You can't DDOS over proxies. DDOS all about traffic. You would DDOS your proxy network first.

Zombies and idiot sacrificial script kiddies (strictly jail cover).

Re:No way!

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind though, that that makes them martyrs. And the feds arresting kids for corporate profits doesn't exactly sit well with the general public.

Wrong, I Was

[Niscenus]

So, hmm, during that Sony business of dropping support for...oh, who can remember...I had said that Anonymous wouldn't be stupid enough to do something that would, by standing definition at the Department for Homeland Security, perform any action which would explicitly be deemed well within the scope of terrorism -- due in part to the fact that even the Mexican drug cartels are able to hunt down and attack its members.

I don't often say this (and there's a decade and one half on Slashdot to prove it), but...I...was...not as right as I felt I should have been. Wow. That taught me a lesson. Never under-estimate stupidity among highly active protestors. That hurt. I will remember this in the future.

Hard to respect Anonymous

[bjdevil66]

I appreciate Anonymous for going after who they perceive to be wronging people, but I can't really respect them because they're inconsistent. They lost my respect when they chickened out after they threatened to go after the drug gangs in northern Mexico.

Sure, Anonymous - standing up over digital rights is noble, but that's easy when the only threat to you is a lawyer. When human lives are on the line, however, and you have a chance to make a REAL difference in the world with something more web site rights, and show some real value to society, you - and a lot of your reputation, IMO - disappeared.

It was the one case where your group's name really fit your moves...

Some Anon's should the Art of War.

[Icegryphon]

Just a brief outline but, this is what I would start to work with (mostly intel):
1. Define Targets. (Names/Emails/Sites/Etc)
2. Define Targets Infrastructure.
3. Define Allies (Partnerships) (Names/Emails/Sites/Etc)
4. Define Allies Targets and Infrastructure.
5. Find Weak points in Logistics and Infrastructure.
6. Plan Attacks Types against Weak points.
7. Time Attacks to Occur at Same time.
I know I am forgetting some points and I am sure it can be added. DDoS will eventually go away.
http://suntzusaid.com/

Next up, DoX..

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what we need. Somewhere out there, is people with actual names that are pulling the triggers. We need to know who they are.

I am of course referring to the **IAA's and so called Department of shady-Justice, etc....before any of their sock-puppet commie lackeys suggest otherwise.

Name and shame.

Re:That'll showem

[Mad Leper]

".. They were compliant with the DMCA, from what I understand.."

Apparently not, try ars technica for what these scum were really up to

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2012/01/why-the-feds-smashed-megaupload.ars

What's this supposed to accomplish?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does taking down the "Department of Justice, Universal Music Group and the RIAA" websites actually have any effect? Do these websites even get more than 10 visitors a day? It's not like their websites are their sole source of business. Music is still being made and sold, the department of justice is still driving around in their unmarked cars, and the RIAA is still suing people.

It's like it's protesting against a bad contractor by ripping the company logo off his shirt. Whooopy do! Next we're going to hear how Anonymous is disrupting their supply of cheap promotion pens, that'll show em who's boss!

Re:The 4 men doing the evil deeds have been arrest

[fishbowl]

"They were arrested in NZ."

By New Zealand authorities, in accordance with New Zealand laws.

For me (a mere coyote who has his own ethos and feeds on chaos), their crimes were (1.) being identifiable targets, and (2.) trading in currency instead of barter.

MegaUpload should sue them all for rent.

[Anonymous Coward]

MegaUpload should be suing all these media companies for unpaid rent.

And if they aren't paid to hold that property then it becomes theirs and it's auctioned to the nearest Anon just like the storage company that took my property after I couldn't afford to pay for 3 months since moving out of my parents' basement.

Re:That'll showem

[X.25]

Because breaking the law will show the law enforcers that they are wrong for taking down a site that was breaking the law. Yeah! You go!

And you concluded that they were breaking the law because ... ?

Even better

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of hacking, boycott. Write a simple one-page explanation of what RIAA/MPAA are doing wrong (make the text convincing to the general public), on the other side print the boycott dates (e.g. first week of February) + a list of products to boycott. Put this on the net, ask volunteers to print copies and distribute them to everyone everywhere. If all goes well, RIAA/MPAA members will suffer revenue losses in a legal, democratic, as designed by capitalism way... Repeat as necessary.

Re:Even better

[Windwraith]

Since the article is related to direct attacks, I replied on those terms.

I have seen a lot of boycotts in my life. From media stuff to real-life boycotts of food products and similar "real" goods. Not a single one worked, I'd even say that the numbers barely moved from the "intended result". Companies never notice boycott efforts, as well. As much they'll see a drop of 300 units in a expected sale of one million units. Which they will blame on piracy anyway.

Re:Even better

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true, read up on the recent Bank of America's attempt to charge for debit card transactions and "move your money day." Boycotts do work, especially when using the net to get as many people behind it as possible. The trick is to not do it once, but repeatedly. Worst case it'll have as much impact as hacking attempts, but it'll be legal and if the media covers it, they'll have to try really hard to spin it in a bad light...

Biggest problem is the apathy of people like you who say "it'll never work, why even try it." That's why the corporations have taken over, because people don't even try any more to take control of their own lives and their own rights, in a legal democratic way.

Re:Even better

[Windwraith]

I don't know what you perceive of me, but if asked to not buy something, I am more than happy to oblige. Specially because I have no money to spare, and I have no concept of "brand loyalty". They be loyal to ME first, and later we'll see if I am loyal to THEM.

We aren't talking bank of america (read: influences people's money, hence it's maximum priority) we are talking MEDIA like videogames, music and movies. How can you dare calling me apathetic on something that is not even required for day-to-day survival? I am apathetic, but about them and their products, that's where I am apathetic. Thus, they don't see a penny from me, I won't recommend their products to anyone, and I won't even care about their releases, I don't even download them, because they suck. I not only have more money for survival, but I am not wasting my time with their inane superhero movies, cookie-cutter FPSs and heavily filtered pop singers. I don't even pirate their garbage, it's not worth it. Sure, I might miss out on one or two good things, but it's media, I don't need media other than to kill time

I can teach you a thing or two about boycotting those idiots. And I still believe boycotts, for media, do not work. Check the sales of the DRM-filled games that everyone calls boycott on, but they still sell millions every time. How do you call that other than "boycott not working"?
As long as people feels the need to purchase the lastest movie/album/game, boycotts will fail. Thing is, I don't know there that "need" comes from, because in the latest years, media releases are just excuses to test out new content blockers/DRM instead of releasing new content.

Fucking kids, now get off my damn lawn.

Re:Even better

[L4t3r4lu5]

Proving your point

Re:Even better

[Windwraith]

Thanks- *high fives*

Re:Even better

[Anonymous Coward]

Google "Operation Black March".

Actually, Google imagesearch it.

What I want to know is...

[anotherzeb]

Will they keep wearing the masks on which a license fee is probably paid to a SOPA/PIPA backer? Haven't they seen the irony in this since they started using them?

Update

[guttentag]

I see a lot of venting and ranting, but not a lot of info about what actually has or has not happened. No one seems to have noticed some of these Web sites are up and running.

copyright.gov is up
DOJ is up
RIAA seems to be down
MPAA is up
UMG is down
BMI is down

OK, now that we've got those facts sorted out, the next question is who cares?

This isn't like a DDOS attack against Amazon or Google. None of these organizations, government or otherwise, depend on their Web sites to transact business. Copyright.gov is an informational resource that contains reference material you can find in many other places. No one cares if it's down. Did you even know it existed before it allegedly went down? Justice.gov exists to inform the people about what the department is doing. That's it. If Anonymous wants to raise awareness about the DOJ's activities, taking their site down has the opposite effect, and does not hurt the DOJ. When was the last time you visited the MPAA or RIAA site? Is that where you're going to look to decide what movie you want to see tomorrow, or what music you're going to buy on iTunes? And UMG and BMI's businesses don't depend on their Web sites... their music is marketed and sold elsewhere.

We've known for about 12 years now that it's really not that hard in the scheme of things to DDOS even the biggest sites on the Web. Remember the shocking 3-hour attack on Yahoo in Feb 2000? The prevailing thought then was, "If they can shut down Yahoo, they can shut down anybody." This was a legitimate concern because with its site down, Yahoo's business does not exist. But these attacks are being directed at sites where it really doesn't matter. All it does it generate a scary-sounding news headline. Some of Anonymous's other antics have some real world implications for their targets... this does not.

Re:Update

[kelemvor4]

Man, I wish I'd not posted so I could mod you up. You're 100% right. These attacks are completely irrelevant.

WTF is wrong with the world?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean i do "like" ( in a weird way ) these hacker groups ,they kinda made me gain more interest in computers (long story removed...),
but now i can say thing is worthless..
If they hacked something thing would be different,that would be a security thread.Im on my first university year on a computer related graduation, correct me if im wrong but a ddos attack is like "weakest" form of attack in the way that it simple,can be effective for a limited amount of time but the only thing it causes is...
"mom internet is slow,i'm going to the tv".
But this..(as lots of people said ) this will only help those bills to pass, (quoting something i read) "scared old people get laws approved.".

What else can we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

If it were physically possible to "picket" an Internet site (something which is LEGAL in the physical world), we'd be doing it. But it isn't, so... what do we do? The goal is to change minds which means influencing people who do NOT already agree with you, or who may not even be aware of what you're fighting for.

What's your suggestion? Door-to-door petitioning? Good idea, here's the problem. There are 350 something million people in this country. Can you reach them all with people on the street? Yes, but how long does it take? Compare that to the ability of massive media companies to reach those same people, whenever they want however often they want, with whatever MESSAGE they want. TV and radio, these are basically enormous PA systems that belong to private parties, who have huge advantage over any individual, hell even any collective of individuals, in terms of making people hear a message. Oh, and Congress seems to really like these guys too.

Even though there are millions of us and only a few of them, we can't get the message out as effectively. The Internet is the only thing that promises to change that. Don't you understand? The Internet changes the way power and control flow through the social relationships on this planet. This has got to be the most terrifying thing ever to any major power. Seriously, just look at the role of social media in the worldwide revolutions over the past year.

The US government is shitting bricks that something like that could happen here. So what happens? Out of nowhere come SOPA and PIPA, bills which threaten to shut down precisely the same web sites which are used for this freely flowing communication: sites where users can post unreviewed content in real time. Sites like Facebook. Twitter. Slashdot.

Need I even continue writing this damn post? Isn't it clear that what we want to say is MORE IMPORTANT than what the RIAA and MPAA have to say? No really, you stand there and tell me with a straight face that what has happened to copyright and intellectual property in this country in the last 30 years is a good thing.

The Internet is our power right now. We simply can't allow it to be manipulated by corporate and political interests. If we use it right, we might just be able to come up with a system of government that makes the world better.

The takedown of MegaUpload the day after the SOPA/PIPA blackout was a message from the powers that be, have no doubt about it. What you are seeing is the reaction of angry people to a situation they feel no control over. You should just be thankful it isn't violent.

Re:What else can we do?

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen!

Re:That'll showem

[fishbowl]

"What law was MegaUpload breaking?"

The indictment is quite specific, and not a difficult read. I wonder how many of the people who are already in full protest mode have read it?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204616504577171180266957116.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories

It is worse this time, we are not fighting the MAN

[SmallFurryCreature]

This time, we are not fighting the man, the elite, the rich. We are fighting U2, the media, the free press. The press has a role in democracy as the watcher of the entire political system BUT this only worked when newspapers were separate enough and not forced to report on issues that go against their own interests.

In Holland, commercial radio licenses are up for auction to the highest bidder. Commercial radio presenters always very quick to bitch about other people going on strike saw no issue with taking the radio waves hostage to protest a new auction round that might jeopardize their own million euro jobs. Bye bye fair and balanced reporting, hello self interest.

The traditional newspaper is already dead, most are now part of vast media empires and that means that the press when reporting on media is reporting about it self. You wouldn't expect a newspaper owned by the Ford company to report fairly on cars would you? Then how can you expect newspapers owned by Murdoch to report fairly on media affairs? The BBC has been called out for unfair media practices and conveniently, the BBC itself completely failed to report on this, how odd.

When the likes of Bono from U2 call out the US on food aid, or make a song about British war crimes in Ireland, that is as expected but do you hear him about a certain 2 letter band performing in South Africa during the apartheid? Do you see media thriving on interviews from the band, reporting on it?

For the free press to work as part of the checks and balances of our system, the free press needs not to be just free from government control but from any form of control, including its share holders. But that hasn't been the case for a long time.

Take Futurama, it has done an episode that could have been payed for by the MPAA but it wasn't. It didn't need to pay for it since the two are rubbing the same belly, a totally one sides presentation of copyright because the person doing the telling has both the means to tell it and the motivation to tell it. What TV producer is going to present a balanced approach to copyright when their salary so clearly comes from one side of the story?

---

An example that might require some abstract thinking:

Do you trust the "Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences" to honestly award the oscars based on the quality of the movies submitted? Well, you might or might not but they are after all industry experts or at least members of the industry.

BUT even if you accept the Oscars are unbiased, do you expect these same people to give an unbiased answer to the following: "How important are movies to our civilization"...

THINK really hard about that question. It is is asking a surgeon if an operation is the right medical procedure to cure something. A make up retailer on whether women need to wear make-up. A car dealer on how important it is to own a car.

A fundemental question that we need to answer when dealing with copyright is whether we need the content that needs copyright. No commercial musician, tv producer, movie maker or writer is going to say "no, for thousands of years content/art has been produced without copyright so we don't need it even if it means I no longer can earn a living with it because art will survive through people who do it for fun, not for the money".

Even if the discussion comes up in the media, the premise that we NEED commercially produced art, is not up for discussion.

Does this matter?

The car industry had to be called out in the past on cars being unsafe. This only was possible because there were people outside the industry with a hearable voice who dared to pose the concept that cars did not have to be dead traps. That it was possible to work towards a goal of zero car fatalities. How would the move to safer cars have gone IF the entire discussion had only been done by people who had taken it for granted that each model would kill a few dozen people as an unchangeable fixed constant?

It is becoming clear that the patent and copyright

Just so you know who you're rallying behind

[Anonymous Coward]

The text below is a translated excerpt from an obituary for Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth, an infamous lawyer who in the 1980s entrapped young nerds by sending letters in which he pretended to be a teen girl ("Tanja") who seeked copies of games. Gravenreuth was also the lawyer behind the "Explorer" trademark farce. Gravenreuth (much) later shot himself when he faced jail time after he had been convicted of fraud in a different case. That suicide was the cause for the obituary which also shines a light on the cooperation between Gravenreuth and Kim Schmitz, who is the alleged puppeteer behind Megaupload. The full obituary is in German and available here. Translation:

But GvG (Günter Freiherr von Gravenreuth) couldn't touch the scene without inside contacts. So he hired wannabe-hacker Kim Schmitz. Kim was known for his gigantic ego, and for talking without really knowing what he was talking about. Instead of doing his own hacking, he had naive insiders feed him hot information. In the mid-90s, Kimble worked on his presence in the warez scene. He paid with calling cards for all uploads of warez to his Munich based BBS "House of Coolness". For many, calling cards were the only remaining way of making free telephone calls at the time, after the illegal use of MCI and AT&T satellites had seized to be possible. BlueBoxing was the name of the method by which certain frequencies tricked the satellites into believing a call had ended, after which the channel could be used freely. Until Kim Schmitz demonstrated the procedure on German television, German Telekom had no clue. Additionally German Telekom had also profited from the excessive use of the 0130 numbers. When blockers and filters were installed against the freeloaders, the only remaining alternative was calling cards. But Kimble didn't just want a fast board, he also wanted to be at the center of the scene. Schmitz founded the PC and console group Romkids and had unpublished Nintendo games and PC software delivered to him by suppliers. But that wasn't enough. Kim Schmitz joined the mostly British Amiga group Loons, who at that time illegally distributed several big title games on diskettes. The Amiga games ultimately gave Kim Schmitz access to about a hundred illegal mailboxes all over Germany. Word got around that he had made his way into the scene and that he could supply the latest titles quickly. Many operators threw their suspiciousness overboard and granted him access to their systems. Schmitz uploaded and downloaded and made a record of all files that were available on each system. He took the captures to Gravenreuth, wo allegedly paid Schmitz per busted BBS. This benefited Kimble in several ways. He himself was under the personal protection of the lawyer and could get rid of unwanted competition as he pleased. Allegedly the cooperation even went so far that they jointly operated a telephone hotline for the scene by the name of "Szenetalk", which offered callers rooms where they could talk to scene members from all over the world. Calls were billed to the true owners of the calling cards. This way Schmitz cashed in twice: As operator of the hotline and as the wholesale dealer of illegal calling cards. Evrim Sen mentions in his book "Hackertales" that Gravenreuth eventually simply stopped paying his supplier. Kimble stopped being an informant to GvG, Szenetalk closed shop and Schmitz moved on to other projects.

The only known successor to Kimble was Darklord, but the cooperation didn't last long. There wasn't much left of the scene anyway, after the raids he had ordered. The old guard was almost completely devastated. Those who weren't busted themselves sought other hobbies because they feared legal persecution or used the opportune moment to leave the scene without losing face.

So there you have it. You're rallying behind a man who got rich delivering the German warez scene to the content industry on a silver platter.

Piracy!

[qualityassurancedept]

We need some legally sanctioned government buccaneers to sail the high seas of the internet and steal some good stuff on our behalf. It can't possibly be the case that the internet, the best idea in decades, is going to turn out to be nothing more than a content delivery tool for huge international corporations that want to peddle mp3s and movies. Sheesh. What a waste.

take apple and microsoft down the same way

[Anonymous Coward]

so if this take down of megaupload stand, then it would set a precedent on all cloud base storage. If that the case why not load up another cloud storage like Microsoft skydrive, then the feds would arrest bill gates and so forth. In a sense we could literal take down some big company's by there own rules? Everyone get a skydrive account and start flooding the net with link and see if the feds bite. Who wants to shut down microsoft the same way with apple with icloud. Same situation bigger US company what will happen next. wanna find out? lets try?
let shut down these company's with the same action taken today

Terroristic threat

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realize you are posting something that can be construed as a terroristic threat. If you are doing so on purpose, either you should find a way to do it more anonymously or you should post your full name and address and make sure as many people hear as possible since you will most likely be getting a visit from authorities to investigate threats made against the FBI, DOJ, and police officers. Unless, like the founding fathers, you are ready to hang together, it would be best to tone down your rhetoric especially as we have another election coming and one more good chance at changing things at the ballot box.

Re:Terroristic threat

[Anonymous Coward]

Ballot box... How naive :(

Re:That'll showem

[Anonymous Coward]

Those must be some mighty important repositored files for people get so bent out of shape. Files with value, shall we say.

Re:That'll showem

[Anonymous Coward]

As the old saying goes: If you are good, you know what's right without "the law". And if you're bad, you don't give a shit about the laws anyway.
PROTIP: "The law" nowadays is often quite the *opposite* of what is right.

Example: The RIAA is a criminal organization, playing a huge racketeering scheme, abusing artists, destroying creativity, lying, manipulating, harrassing...
Yet by "law", they are legal, and we're the criminals. (That includes you.)

So, I just say: FUCK THEIR LAW!
I'm doing what's *right*. Instead of being blind and obedient cattle like you, who "believe in law".
And in the book of pretty much every sane human being, destroying RIAA is "The Right Thing".

We need The Daemon

[billybob_jcv]

Where is Matthew Sobel when you need him??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel)

SOPA

[Anonymous Coward]

No wonder they went quiet on SOPA so easily, they had another plan all along... So they can take down sites WITHOUT the legislation...

Should have hosted on Amazon servers

[phalse phace]

Lesson learned: host your sites on Amazon's servers. They couldn't bring Amazon down last time.

Sci-Fi Book started in 2002 about Media Rights War

[BrendaEM]

I hope it stays fiction:
http://www.amazon.com/Rights-Numbers-Brownstone-I/dp/1466428589/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1327025112&sr=8-1

It doesn't matter.

[Brain-Fu]

It doesn't matter how immature Anonymous is being, nor how their efforts are non-productive or even counter-productive. None of that matters to them because it is simply human nature to strike when angered.

Arrest every single member of Anonymous, and another group will spring up to do the same thing. This is because their behavior is a direct consequence of their situation: real human beings perceive that they are the victims of harmful and unjust laws. So, they will do what history has demonstrated again-and-again to be human nature: strike the oppressor.

This response was entirely predictable. And as the government passes even more restrictive laws, and becomes even more draconian in their enforcement, more and more people will get pissed off and will fight back.

Some will fight back through proper political channels. Most feel too politically disempowered for that, so they will fight back more directly. More enforcement will only add fuel to this fire.

Unless the authorities capitulate, things will only get worse. Many innocent people will get caught in the middle and harmed, but that won't inhibit the "revolutionaries" for a second. They will fight until they are satisfied. Count on it.

All of this has happened before and this will all happen again. Those who remember history are doomed to watch it be repeated.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Well put. I was actually just trying to make this point to a friend, and you found the words I was struggling for - do you mind if i quote this?

Re:It doesn't matter.

[rioki]

"The tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of Patriots and Tyrants." Thomas Jefferson

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Vitriol Angst]

I like to call this blowback from the "will of the governed."

When the Justice Department closed for business, and avowed War Criminals get to walk around after having playing cards made for people they wanted to assassinate without the benefit of a Nuremberg or even military trial. When Wall Street and Oil companies paid off their regulators and ran their own game.

Well, THAT is what creates Anonymous and things like it in the digital age.

See, Corporate taxes are now below 7% of the government's revenue now when they used to be about 40%. But what those fans of a "police state" don't realize, is that their NEW tax is going to be paying for body guards, bullet proof glass everywhere, and some hacker they cannot trust to watch the programmer they cannot trust to protect them from a million Anonymous script kiddies with mayhem in mind because now everyone is as ruthless as they are.

It's all fun and profits when YOU are the only rat bastard.

Anonymous likely has never hurt any corporation or entity that didn't also do the same thing to someone else -- only those stories don't get printed in the sponsor driven papers.

Re:It doesn't matter.

[Anonymous Coward]

The "anger" response is never justified and only creates another angry response. There are plenty of effective ways to respond without without retaliation even in a Big Brother state - and we haven't reached full on Big Brother yet. Even if we did reach a full Big Brother state, a violent/retaliatory response is still not justified and there is always a non-violent response. However, fighting back is certainly the easiest response, the quickest (at the sake of being sloppy), and requires the least amount thought.

Maybe it was the fbi that took themselves down

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe, just maybe, anonymous is a creation of the fbi and is doing this for the fbi in order to allow the fbi to say "see look, we need sopa!"

Conspiracy?

End of days

[dochin]

I don't know about y'all but I'm hunkered down in my fallout shelter with two of my guns (I only have two hands) pointed at the entry dreading the moment my wifi goes down and I have to resort to ham radio and morse code on my shake light.

Re:That'll showem

[misexistentialist]

Ha, I like the part where they show that Megaupload aka "The Mega Conspiracy's" diligent removal of child porn is evidence that it had the capability to remove all copyrighted material. Clearly Megaupload's biggest failure was not leaving more pictures of naked kiddies up for the feds!

ummm seriously?

[realized]

DDOSing justice.gov for an hr, then going to fbi for another hr.. seems like a waste of bandwidth.....it does nothing, proves nothing, and all it does is piss off a few people.. in fact, now the websites are back up.. so did it even happen? my point exactly.

megaporn

[Anonymous Coward]

They also took down mega porn =/.. i am sad

You are utterly wrong

[Bayoudegradeable]

Stop with the silly Iran thing, really. If I break Iranian law by actions in the US without ever having my actions affect any aspect of Iranian society/economy, etc then my actions, not only unknown in Iran, will have no impact on Iran. HOWEVER, when non-US folks break laws that have direct impact on US companies and US citizens INSIDE the US (and they use US computer services)then of course they are fair game to be prosecuted. Sorry you don't like the long arm of the law, but if I start messing with French companies from the US then France certainly has the right to seek me out. Not that France has the backbone for that sort of thing, but still...

Re:You are utterly wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be a fucking baby, the French have more spine in their little fingers than you have in your whole shitty country.

While the Frogs are arguably annoying they do have a habit of sticking up a big "Fuck U" to ANYONE who gets in their way, and they do possess THE most effective military the world has ever seen.

Least they don't roll over like little bitches every time their Corporate Overlords decide to reduce their minimum wage more.....what is it now ? $7/hr..IF you have a job?

Fucking spineless stupid bitches in the US deserve everything they get. Now STFU and get back to that factory boy, before it gets moved to China so your master can buy more Lear Jets while you kill yourself out of depression.

Bitch.

good support for speech, kind of impotent though

[Anonymous Coward]

All these organizations have public Internet sites and private networks. I would rather they had taken out the private networks or made RIAA and DOJ confidential documents available. This is kind of like smacking them in the face with a pie, yeah, it is a laugh but it doesn't really do anything. It's like tagging the side of a police station, well, not quite that ballsy because it's done remotely. Kewl, but, the cops and corporate raiders still screw everyone.

What? it's *exactly* like rosa parks!

[ulricr]

I'm glad they are standing up for MegaUpload's right! The founder barely managed to make 46 million dollars last year with it, now how will be able to pay the mortgage with the accounts frozen?? How are they going to build the wells in Africa now? Having so much money is *hard*: a constant burden to stay ahead, avoid taxes, getting robbed, etc. Everyone wants a piece of you. The plight of the black people of america is nothing to compared to this. We should start up a site with donation through paypal to support MegaUpload's humanitarians. We could also have a service that allows you to donate faster (given a reasonable monthly fee).

Does it matter?

[kelemvor4]

I think it was a waste of time. DOJ, RIAA, and universal music group are not internet based businesses. Other than a slight embarrassment, and annoyance at having to recover the site I don't see how this would be that big off a deal to the attacked. It's not like the attacks would have had any significant effect on the day to day operations on the targets that were named.

It probably didn't even cost them any money, since the IT guys recovering the sites are likely on salary.

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lt's just digital evolution...

[Anonymous Coward]

hackers and pirates will evolve and get better...that's the nature of the system...

Re:It is worse this time, we are not fighting the

[Aryden]

Do you trust the "Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences" to honestly award the oscars based on the quality of the movies submitted? Well, you might or might not but they are after all industry experts or at least members of the industry.

Numerous actors including John Wayne and Denzel Washington have admitted that AMPAS and the persons voting, do not go by the quality of the pictures themselves, but by who they think deserved the award, even if it is years later. An example would be True Grit, the only movie John Wayne won an Oscar for. Even he admitted it was given to him because it was believed that he had earned years before and just hadn't been given to him.

OK: let's make a deal then:

[Anonymous Coward]

Close off Mega-Upload and close off the RIAA (and their constituents)

I suspect this is all about the lawsuit

[Arker]

The indictment appears to be the product of someone with a rich fantasy life.

In reality, I rather suspect the move is really a reaction to MegaUploads current lawsuit against Universal. That suit was shaping up to be quite damaging to Universal, but now with MegaUploads assets seized, they are no longer in a position to pursue it. How convenient.

Re:I suspect this is all about the lawsuit

[Anonymous Coward]

If the emails quoted in the indictment can be shown to be authentic, then how is the indictment a product of someone with a rich fantasy life. I think our copyright laws are pretty fucked up, but if someone presented me with evidence that persons X, Y, and Z were paying people cash to upload content they knew was copyrighted with the stated intent that they were looking to increase their revenue, I would come up with a similar indictment.

Re:Political channels

[TaoPhoenix]

Given the level of momentum turning toward the Big Brother state, there may not be that many "mature" political channels left. In case everyone missed it, they found a new weapon against "peaceful protest" - ridicule.

Occupy Wall Street was the first/best civil protest we've had in *decades*! The result? The media planted a few Laugh Off stories about some of the "Boys Will Be Boys" activities going on the sidelines and then the cops busted it all up, and we didn't have a followup. That's because they quietly destroyed B.W.B.B. those same decades ago, with the final lock as a nifty side effect of the 9-11 theme. "Oh look, ten thousand protesters aren't as orderly as school children or cowering workers!" Uh... protesters are ... angry, that' the definition, right?

The interesting thing is Slashdot has chosen to let the trolls post come ill or shill, because it's part of Taco's original foresight to the abuses of over-modding TOS policies now creeping everywhere else. The mod system could use a couple more finesses, but it's *us* modding each other, not the editors. That's starting to become a Meta-Experiment in the current climate.

I'm quite lenient with my mod scores - I only mod down the absolute lowest of the vulgar offtopic junk, or the "random word generator" posts, or the shock pics. I stay out of the "Shill - Anti-Shill" wars.

They should have stayed in China or Russia

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to agree with BB's fairly Machiavellian analysis of the matter. Like it or not, there are extradition treaties between countries with similar laws. The question to me is, does New Zealand have such similarly "strong" laws against copyright infringement?

It seems to me that totalitarian or authoritarian regimes like China or Russia are a safer haven for those who are in to this kind of thing.

Re:terms of these 'rights' in another 10 years

[TaoPhoenix]

Please let us have 10 years! Then I can have time to live large and die happy in middle age.

Has no one noticed that about half the targets were *FEDERAL*? We're talking about MU, and that's plenty bad, but now that Anonymous is attacking top level agencies and not just goofy little 1 man contractors, we're in for some real hurt.

Re:That'll showem

[Tom]

Thanks for that link, finally a good, balanced article on the whole thing.

The minute I read that Kimble was the founder of Megaupload, I was on the side of the FBI on this one. I'm from Germany, the guy has quite a "reputation" over here. Well, you'd need to say abs($reputation). Basically, he's a wannabe-hacker who knows how to play the media in his favour, but everyone I know who knows anything about computers finds him a piece of disgusting trash. He's a scammer, a con man, a career criminal. If you told me anything he so much as touched is legit, I'd want a full forensic examination to make sure.

What's long hand for "Anonymous"

[Anonymous Coward]

"hackers aligned with the online collective Anonymous"

informed and against the censors but still wrong..

[Anonymous Coward]

Peoples mindset has to change before anything will ever happen.

People suggesting anonymous are in the wrong here because it gives the government an excuse to do more bad things? How about the idea that people are accountable for how good/bad their own actions are? Thats like blaming the woman for being too attractive when she gets raped.

THERE IS NO WAY TO WORK WITHIN THE SYSTEM AND GET A FAIR RESULT, THE SYSTEM IS DESIGNED FOR THE EXACT OPPOSITE PURPOSE!

Nope, no forcing of others made.

[Anonymous Coward]

If there's a large queue for the bus, the peope queueing aren't "forcing" everyone to not use the bus that turns up, you dickwad.

Anonymous did right

[Xarvh]

I'm not from the US, I don't know muchabout Anonymous, but (at least in my EU country) they managed to attract the attention on the issue.
This is worth.

Almost Time....

[Killer Instinct]

The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.
-Noah Webster

Its almost time to take back our democracy.....

-KI

Physiciain, Megaupload Thyself

[ThomasLB]

The artists who say they support Megaupload could have put a CC license on their work and let them distribute it legally, or gone a step further and put it on their own websites.

Re:That'll showem

[V for Vendetta]

Basically, he's a wannabe-hacker who knows how to play the media in his favour, but everyone I know who knows anything about computers finds him a piece of disgusting trash. He's a scammer, a con man, a career criminal. If you told me anything he so much as touched is legit, I'd want a full forensic examination to make sure.

So much this!

Kim(ble) is a convicted crook. Whatever one might think about the Megaupload case itself, taking Kim out of business is a service to mankind, IMHO.

Re:The facts in this case have been misreported

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree that the reporting on MegaUpload is unbalanced and leaves out many important facts. But you should know that the facts in the Gizmodo article are taken from the case against MegaUpload, and they're taken out of context and grossly misleading.

For example, individual employees at MegaUpload sent each other links to illegal files, but that doesn't mean anything if the leadership isn't aware of it. Employees always do things outside the employer's control. If individual Google employees send each other links to Simpsons cartoons on YouTube (which is run by Google), does that mean Google is guilty of willful infringement and it's CEO should be arrested?

MegaUpload also took down links to an infringing file when asked, but if the same file was uploaded by multiple users, they kept the other users' links. That sounds pretty damning, until you realise the same file may be legal for some users and illegal for others.
For example, here in Sweden, it's legal for me to rip a DVD, upload it and share it with family and close friends. If my neighbour uploads the same file without owning the original, he commits copyright infringement. Same thing if an American uploads it. So if the MPAA complains about a link that's being used to spread a file illegally, it makes sense to remove only that link and keep the others.
Since MegaUpload has users from all over the world, some from countries with much more permissive copyright laws than the United States, this isn't just a theoretical issue. I'd be pissed if MegaUpload removed my (legal) file just because someone else uploaded the same file illegally, and it doesn't make sense for a business to piss off its customers.

Megaupload also intentionally constructed its top 100 list with only non-infringing downloads when it had direct knowledge that the top 100 files were actually mostly links to pirated content.

MeagUpload can't include the links to people's personal music and video collections, since it may be illegal for anyone else to download them. For example, if I rip my CDs and DVDs and put them on MegaUpload, it's only legal for me and my close friends to download them, and if MegaUpload put the link in their top 100 list, they'd be guilty of large-scale copyright infringement. The top list can only include links to content which is known to be free, such as free software and MegaUpload's own licensed content.
So it's true that MegaUpload "intentionally constructed" their top list this way, but it was to stay legal.

Don't get me wrong, there was likely a lot of infringing material on MegaUpload, and the leadership was likely aware of it, but they seem to have removed the infringing files as they became aware of them. If that makes them criminals, then all broadband providers are also criminals, since a large part of their bandwidth is used to download illegal cotent by their subscribers.

Re:The facts in this case have been misreported

[Anonymous Coward]

P.S. I suspect the copyright industry is concerned about MegaUpload because it's going legit, not despite it. It's only by going legit that it can become a serious competitor. By signing up its own artists, distributing their songs for free, and making good money off it, MegaUpload is showing both artists and advertisers that the traditional media companies aren't really needed. You can just put ads on the download page, or bundle ads with a legal torrent, such as a tv series. Most of the middlemen, such as TV networks, would become unneeded.

What the MPAA/RIAA is doing, is similar to a buggy whip manufacturer trying to convince the public that cars are dangerous and should be outlawed.

Do I make you Horny Baby??

[Droog57]

Yeah, Baby, Yeah!! Fook Mi (and my kind), then Fook Yu. Thanks Anon, you do together what we can't accomplish alone. I'm not 100% for EVERYTHING you have done, but you are batting 0.800 in my books.

Re:Political channels

[Vitriol Angst]

The UPSIDE of this media orchestrated ridicule is that more and more people don't think the Media is legitimate -- other than of course fans of Fox News who think CNN is somehow "Liberal" because it's less obviously for pinheads.

When I hear from OWS and other groups like them -- they sound legitimate. Legitimacy is becoming more and more a social media networking experiment -- echoing the "small town" of long ago. I'm sure that's why Facebook is so important -- but I'd caution anyone trying to manipulate public opinion here too; In order for people to LISTEN, they need to get value from the exchange. If people don't have jobs, justice, or opportunity -- you cannot tell them that their friend's sister said "this is the best of all possible worlds." The skunk gets defriended pretty quickly.

The moment for me where the Media became the annoying drunken uncle was when Howard Dean's innocuous "Yeehaw" was sampled and broadcast on almost every TV station about 2000 times per channel for two weeks. The normal staid and thoughtful Dean was instantly painted as a kook.

The DOWNSIDE of the "friendly network news" system is the creation of Bubble realities. IF you are an intelligent design scientist with part time membership in a militia and your greatest fear is Canadians crossing the border to steal our jobs -- there is likely a group of like-minded individuals ready to listen to your sage echo of their own thoughts.

>> Americans have been used and abused by commercial messages and our government has been bought and sold, and the people who "buy into it" are going to be in the minority soon. It's got to be disappointing that after Clear Channel got 80% of the radio stations and News Corp built their empire, they've got a majority stake in that annoying buzzing sound we tune out.

idiot

[unity100]

you dont need to be anonymous to know about the underground scene. anyone who used computers in between bbs days and 2000s know underground scene.

you spoke like a true right wing nutjob who thinks that knowing what terrorists means you are a terrorist. not that anon are terrorists.

why dont you crawl back to whichever barn you came out of, and grace us with your non-presence ?

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Re:I expect a lot of criticism directed at Anonymo

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, the fact that the DoJ decided to take down MegaUpload -- a service owned by Alicia Keye's husband (a producer with Jay Z's company) that has already fought with Universal Music Group over copyright control of the work their own artists -- is really a boneheaded move. Billionaires arresting millionaires over a site that really doesn't have all that much to do with torrent trackers (aside from polluting the pages of real torrent sites with ridiculous advertisements). If they really wanted to have an impact, they should have taken down both MegaUpload AND RapidShare and leave our torrent trackers out of the line of fire.

Re:Political channels

[Boona]

>Occupy Wall Street was the first/best civil protest we've had in *decades*!

This tells me you reside on the left side of the political spectrum. Because for all it's flaws, the Tea Party were united in that they wanted a balanced budget ... and they were ridiculed. Now the right is doing the same thing to the left with OWS. The fact that you recognize one and not the other tells me that you're a useful idiot in their plot to use ridicule as you described it.

Mod parent

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent: +100 Brilliant