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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."
it's begun!
Justice down? Sounds like Justice is alive and well to me.
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!
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.
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.
Track IP - Remotely track the IP address of a machine via email or MySQL.
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.
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.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78786408/Mega-Indictment
Anonymous operative Barrett Brown
Does not being Barret Brown contradicts beins Anonymous? ;)
Paul B.
..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
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.
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.
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.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
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.
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.
Read radical news here
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
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.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
taking the immense botnets' masters and very, very elite hackers that reside in russia and china out, without world war iii.
Read radical news here
Begun, the Internet War has!
So say we all
Websites mean little compared to winning ideological battles.
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.
Great Intellect...
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.
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.
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.
Read radical news here
...everyone was pissed about all the inaction.
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*
Thou Shalt Ignite That Which Burns.
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.
Read radical news here
Your England are fail.
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*
https://www.accountkiller.com/removal-requested
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.
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.
Hadopi.fr too... Thanks guys!
..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.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I'm curious if it was MS or Linux.
Now it's a party. Too bad they forgot to invite Sony...
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
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...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
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.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
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.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
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.
Yeah when you are shooting at everyone you ought to hit the right targets sooner or later...
How about arguing that the law can crack down on megaupload just fine shows the lack of necessity for SOPA and PIPA?
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
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.
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?
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?
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
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.
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!
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.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
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...
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/
".. 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
"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.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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 ... ?
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?
Good luck sometimes arrives disguised as bad
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.
Welcome to the Reichstad.
Got a light?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
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.
"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
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
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
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
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.
if your life is such a big joke then why should I care?
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.
Where is Matthew Sobel when you need him??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemon_(novel)
No wonder they went quiet on SOPA so easily, they had another plan all along... So they can take down sites WITHOUT the legislation...
Lesson learned: host your sites on Amazon's servers. They couldn't bring Amazon down last time.
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
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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...
Sig Registration Form 34c_766(a) submitted to Ministry of Signature Management. Approval pending.
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).
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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hackers and pirates will evolve and get better...that's the nature of the system...
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.
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.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
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.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
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.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Proving your point
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
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.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
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.
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
#include bier;
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.
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.
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.
"If the only tool that you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." Donny Rumsfeld
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.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
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 ?
Read radical news here
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Thanks- *high fives*
>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.