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Downloads of DoS Attack Tool LOIC Spike
wiredmikey writes "As Anonymous initiated what it said will be the 'largest attack ever on government and music industry sites' in response to actions taken by the Justice Department against operators of file sharing site Megaupload.com, downloads of a popular DoS attack tool have spiked. While the Denial of Service tool known as the 'Low Orbit Ion Cannon' (LOIC) was developed by the 'good guys' to stress test websites, it has been a favorite tool of Anonymous to take its targets offline via denial of service attacks. Interactions seen on Twitter and IRC, made it clear that the action against MegaUpload has sparked many more individuals to get involved in the online protests and download the LOIC to take part in the attacks and has resulted in a massive spike in downloads according Slashdot sister site Sourceforge."
You're probably going to get caught if you don't know what you're doing.
I recently had an insight about Anon's activities. The reason hactivisim is gaining strength as a movement is because people are disenfranchised with society and seen conventional avenues of affecting change as a waste of time. The 'man' has a tight grip on the media, politicians and the police are being increasingly militarized for use on peaceful protesters.
People are unhappy with the status quo. Unless change starts happening now and fast, I predict Anon's numbers and targets to grow substantially in the coming years.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
He may have been an IRC operator of a channel which happened to be used to coordinate the attacks, not necessarily a channel solely intended to coordinate the attacks. The grandparent's post doesn't make that clear.
You know, americans are only 300 millions. The whole population is about 7 billions. Do you think that only USA citizens did it? And even if you are able to, could you imprison 7 billion?
ah racist troll, dumb as the tripe you spit out, Sydir was Russian and very much a guerrilla k thanks you dumb twat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydir_Kovpak
But, downloading LOIC is not a crime (Yet). Therefore why would Sourceforge hand over the IP requests if asked?
Elections are coming up, don't give them any ideas for lofty goals that they might try to implement! I've seen them debate, they're all batshit crazy enough to try and do it.
I hope these script kiddies aren't so foolish as to make the same mistakes twice.
Fuck that. I hope they do. DOS attacks are the lamest, most degenerate hacktivism ever. It doesn't change anyone's minds, it doesn't help create a better system, and it just causes damage in the process. The only thing it accomplishes is sating some primal desire for revenge, so I hope they get filtered out of the pool so the rest of us can go back to creating instead of defending.
You want to try to make things better but you're feeling disenfranchised? Subvert the system. Work on decentralized DNS replacements. Work on anonymity networks. Work on improving Bitcoin to make it a serious contender. Generate content and release it for free.
Don't destroy. Create.
How is this a "trap?" The people doing this are breaking the law, and for no good reason at all. I wonder how many of them read the indictment against Megaupload. Mega * was guilty of a lot more than just shameless copyright infringement.
they get called script kiddies because they dont have the knowledge of how to write their own tools
This applies to most people. Is "script kiddie" an insult?
It is not unavoidable
Oh? So you write every program you use?
I know where the name comes from. I just think it's idiotic to call someone a script kiddie merely because they're using someone else's program.
I do agree with you, DOS attacks are pointless; however, what options are left? You make a bunch of statements but truthfully, all of them have been tried.
I just had to switch ISPs since my current one decided that SSL connections would be limited to 7kb/s (Yes, just slightly higher than modem speeds) and I work from home and have to use a VPN. There reasoning is simply that file sharers are using SSL and they can't deep packet inspect them so there solution is to rate limit all SSL connections to a barely acceptable speed.
As for subverting the system, or building something new to solve a problem that shouldn't exist, how many times must we do this? How many protocols for file sharing have been created already? They just keep adding laws or abusing laws or trying to force others to do their work for them (ISP, website owners, etc).
Look at megaupload (I'm not a fan and have never used any file service like this) but the simple fact is that that company is no different than any other company (e.g., Google). The fact is that it is (or was) illegal to hold one person legally responsible for the actions of others, but that is exactly what the "law" is doing by arresting the owners of megaupload. At this point of time we no longer have Law (for the people), and without Law their is nothing left. The simple fact is this "token" assault is a peaceful demonstration (aka Internet equivalent of marching in the streets) that should be taken seriously; but as you, and others make clear, it will do nothing and/or provide fodder for even more laws. So at which point does the message have to go from peaceful to non-peaceful? This is what I am scared of as I believe there is little or no chance of a peaceful settlement anymore :( So I will encourage as much of this peaceful demonstration as much as possible for the small glimmer of hope that the message will get across before the worse case occurs....
Back a person (including you) into a corner and sooner or later you realize you have no choice but to attack. High unemployment, unbalanced laws, misappropriation of laws/legal/justice, economic enslavement, loss of hope, loss of freedom, loss of the "american dream", and ignoring the will of the masses are all, in my opinion, signs that the perverbial shit is about to hit the fan....
But keep thinking it's just about some kids that want to have some fun....
Civil disobedience is flagrantly ignoring a law because it is unjust. If they ignore you, the sense of the law erodes. If they arrest you, you become a martyr. Either way you win. MegaUpload, The Pirate Bay, and all the positive things I mentioned earlier are civil disobedience.
DOS attacks aren't like refusing to go to the back of the bus... They're sugar in the gas tank. Anonymous vandalism isn't going to generate sympathy from your fellow citizens.
Ok so here's the real question.
How many people have to be using it before the MafiAA and their paid goons in the government are required to stop calling it an "attack" and start calling it what it is, a civil protest no different from a lunch counter sit-in?
And these people are protesting what, exactly? That they might have to pay $8 in a theater to see the latest, oppressively stupid instalment of the "Transformers" franchise instead of getting to download it for free? Yeah, these guys are real crusaders for social justice.
Just because their method of displaying their discord isn't particularly proactive, doesn't mean that they don't have a legitimate complaint. While specific individuals might have varying motives, I get the impression that Anon's objections to big media is less about getting a few free torrents, and more about the control and power corporations exercise over individuals in society.
From your tone, I am guessing that you are unimpressed with them, so I will cast down the gauntlet: What is a better way to deal with corporations attempts to erode your rights in the name of greater profits? You going to hit em with the big guns, and write a letter to your congressman?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
DOS attacks aren't like refusing to go to the back of the bus... They're sugar in the gas tank.
Sugar in the gas tank causes permanent damage.
A DOS is the internet equivalent of a sit-in.
Or rather, sit-ins are pre-internet denial of service attacks.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
And neither does a DDoS. Also boycotts sometimes target entire supply chains or industries so I'm not sure that your analogy is anywhere close to be reasonable either from accuracy or as a decent comparison. I'm generally against these actions but acting like they don't have common ground with various disruptive non-violent tactics is silly. They are illegal, non-violent protest tactics just like lunch counter sit-ins wear. The real question is do they have moral legitimacy and will they be able to move beyond the disruptive force into a force that changes policy and cultural attitudes like other non-violent disruptions did in the physical world.
If you're holding out for a candidate that's not "fucking crazy" or "internet ignorant" I'm afraid you're going to have to set this election season out. Probably the next few too.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
If a lunch counter sit in disrupted a politically well connected business it would be called an attack too.
If a lunch counter sit in disrupted a politically well connected business it would be called an "attack" as well.
As far as the feds are concerned it isn't about how strong the attack is, but who the victim is.
If you want to protest, do so legally and publicly
And inside your designated free speech zone.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
Thanks for mentioning this. I'd even go further and emphasize that, in practicing civil disobedience, one should welcome arrest, or at the very least not go out of one's way to evade it. In the words of Thoreau, "under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
In my view, the MegaUpload case isn't even arguably civil disobedience. First, the accused maintain they did not violate any laws, unjust or otherwise. Second, assuming they did, and assuming they believe the laws are unjust, it's quite hard to maintain the moral high ground while also using massive financial gains from violating "unjust laws" to fuel incredibly extravagant lifestyles.
In contrast, The Pirate Bay is a reasonable example. It's overt purpose is to wantonly violate what it believes are unjust copyright laws and to deny media companies the revenue they use to preempt discussion of copyright reform, and its maintainers have used whatever proceeds and attention they have gained from running the site to fuel further political action, not a fleet of expensive cars.
In this case it means a $100 fine + lawyer fees, permanent loss of her career and teaching credentials, and thus the future ability to pay that fine (not to mention bills), as well as majorly restricting her future employment to that only requiring "High school graduate" level of education.
Wikipedia is once again misrepresenting the facts if that is worded to imply she was found innocent and nothing further happened to her.
I'd correct it myself but odds are 99 to 1 the moderator who assigned themselves that page will just revert my change and the citations added, so it's not worth the work
But my point was to counter your statement, that one is assumed innocent and someone somewhere must prove they left the javascript page open on purpose, and simply claiming they didn't know and/or was being exploited is enough to get them off the hook.
It just simply does not work that way.
Here is a case where the same situation happen: Computer was infected, it was doing things outside of her control, all she could do was turn the computer off but the students kept turning it back on (Likely to see the porn, must be pretty scarring to their fragile little minds while they were seeking it out) and the teacher faced a max of 40 years in prison.
The computer expert testimony even stated in court that the infection was a drive-by-download and so not her fault, and other than what she did (turn it off) she couldn't have been expected to do anything further that would have been required to fix it. ;}
The judge agreed and tossed out as many of the charges as he could, and hoped the prosecution would give her a new trial or let her off the hook.
If you are at all familiar with Windows and its wonderful security layers, you have no doubt even seen this happen and perhaps have been asked to magically fix it up without a reformat and reinstall. I've had it happen to friends, family, and coworkers many many times. Even the ones of them that do look at porn online, I am pretty certain they only want it to show up when they go to open it, not every 30 seconds automatically covering the desktop
Anyways, about letting her off the hook? That didn't happen, and the prosecution still pressed onward. They blackmailed her into plea bargaining with the threat that in the new trial they would get their 40 years of prison time and forced her to pay them $100, the lawyers tens of thousands of dollars of fees, and forfeit her teaching credentials, thus to give up 4-6 years of her life as wasted (aka college) and her entire future career working as a teacher (aka all the "big bucks" that teachers make, which she trained so long to do)
SO now this poor innocent woman has lost nearly a decade of her life total over this (6 years of schooling wasted, 4 years for the trial wasted), an amount of money in the 5 digit range, and in the job market she is effectively at "high school graduate" level now, when it comes time to base her pay and judge her qualifications.
In this case, that is exactly what "vacated on appeal" means.
I just ask that anyone thinking of running this tool - think about the above case and how fair and balanced our legal system is, before doing it.
Why does "anonymity" have anything to do with it?
When hundreds of thousands of people showed up to hear Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr. speak, was there some federal body requiring that everyone sign their name at the gate? Using facial recognition software to try to identify every single attendee? And if there were, would it not have been an infringement of the rights of free expression and association guaranteed by the Constitution?
The "anonymity" of LOIC is furnished in the same way. It is not true and full anonymity, as FBI attacks and raids on previous LOIC participaters have shown. It is merely the anonymity of being in a large group of otherwise non-anonymous people, such that it would either (a) take too much time and effort for the corrupt goons of the FBI to hunt them down or (b) be prohibitively selective to haul off only a few people of a few thousand, ten thousand, or hundred thousand or more to subject to criminal proceedings.
And yes, I'm posting as AC. My point: you don't have to have my name and face to see that what I am saying has value.
Perhaps they want (relative) anonymity because of draconian laws combined with third-world prison conditions in the US.