Piratbyran Co-Founder Says Stop DDoSing Polish Sites

bs0d3 writes "Since the news was released that Poland will sign ACTA later this month, activists have taken to the streets in protest. Also, Anonymous has aimed their DDoS cannons at Polish websites. A government minister admitted the government had failed to fully consult the public on the issue. Piratbyran Co-Founder Marcin de Kaminski has been following the issue on ACTA in Poland, and agrees with activists that Anonymous' DDoS is hurting the situation. Now the Polish government is trying to speed up the signatory process, making a statement of not giving in to 'cyber terrorists.'"

Comments

Great logic

[hawguy]

The government says "Hey, we really didn't consult the public before we agreed to this, but you know, since some anonymous organization from outside our country is attacking our internet sites, we have no choice but to screw the public as we originally intended and the blame rests soley on Anonymous."

Sounds like a convenient excuse to do what they were going to do anyway, but now they have a scapegoat.

Re:Great logic

[Xest]

"The government says "Hey, we really didn't consult the public before we agreed to this""

I don't know why this is being billed as the government admitting any kind of fault, I thought the whole point in ACTA was to get it produced and signed off without the public even finding out, hence the secrecy of negotiations in the first place?

I think when they say they admit they didn't consult the public they're not saying "Yeah, we kind of should have consulted the public", they're saying, "We didn't consult the public, because that was the whole fucking point of ACTA".

Any news?

[mwvdlee]

Anonymous has been randomly attacking sites for the fun of it for most of it's existence.
They're not interrested in political issues, just attacking sites using any random excuse they can think of to justify their vandalism.
If they ever had ideological goals in the past, those have long since gone.

Re:Any news?

[Mick R]

Very "black and white" view you have there. Anonymous would say they had a reason for every action they've taken, but since you've decided it was all just for fun I guess none of that matters. I don't necessarily agree with every action they've taken, but I can understand why people would want to do some of the things they've done.

Re:Any news?

[AK Marc]

They do have a member list, but every entry is the same.

Re:Any news?

[Hentes]

If you want to fight the law by breaking it than you need to be "very black and white". You have to be perfectly clear what your goals are and how will you try to achieve them. You have to take your actions consistently with your communication. Otherwise, you are just a vandal.

It's like saying that "Hey, this cop might have shot two innocent people but it's very black and white thinkign to call him a murderer. I mean, he also shot three criminals that sure balances it out isn't it?" .

Re:Any news?

[kiwimate]

It may be black and white, but it's also correct. The concept of Anonymous is so vague as to allow anyone to engage in some random vandalism just for the fun of it and claim "it got done by Anonymous".

There's no working goal. There's no aim, not even a loose and incoherent one. There are just people who make attacks and say "I am Anonymous". Most of the time the provided rationale is nothing more than "these people are bad so we're gonna do something bad to them".

I'm gald you understand "why people would want to do some of the things they've done". It's pretty obvious that most of the actions ascribed to Anonymous are carried out by people who not only can't construct a coherent explanation of why they're doing something but apparently don't even understand themselves what they're trying to do.

Given that, I think the GP poster's position is about the only logical conclusion you can draw.

Mind you, I apparently have an old-fashioned view about these things. I believe that two wrongs don't make a right.

Real cyber terrorists are Hollywood and the RIAA

[Anonymous Coward]

Now the Polish government is trying to speed up the signatory process, making a statement of not giving in to 'cyber terrorists'.

The "cyber terrorists" are actually the American government and the corporations that control the American government.

The people who collude with the terrorists are the governments who take orders from the United States and enact legislation that was written by U.S. corporations. While the propaganda machine would like to deflect this problem unto protestors, everybody knows that Anonymous is merely making public what would otherwise be a back page news story.

Too bad that Piratbyran has fallen victim to the propaganda. And no, I do not support DDoS (and I do not condemn it either), I merely recognize it as a reaction to an oppressive and irrational trend towards ever more authoritarian governance.

Only stupid people will believe that Anonymous is expediting governments to be authoritarian. Too bad that there are a lot of stupid people in the world.

Easy solution

[thej1nx]

1. Anonymous should simply change their demand then. "We will continue to DDOS the websites unless the all the ministers in present government continue to occupy their position and stay in politics".

2. The Polish government will then announce that they refuse to give in to cyber terrorists and shall immediately resign en masse,and quit politics...

3. Profit!

Punishing the wrong government.

[Hozza]

This does seem like a bizarre reaction from the hacktivists. The Polish government is in the news because they're one the longest holdouts in signing up to ACTA. Surely one of the governments that signed up quickly and quietly, with the minimum of public discussion, is more worthy of our scorn.

Re:Punishing the wrong government.

[Serpents]

The Polish PM boasted in December that pushing the adoption of ACTA was one of the greatest successes of Polish presidency of the EU. They have recently removed this info from his website

Hardly unique.

[SuricouRaven]

I'm sure there are plenty of historical precidents in which an action is regarded as a form of legitimate protest by the perpetuators, but a form of illegal violence by the state. Eventually the judgement of history will decide, but that can take decades - and really just depends on who wins, and thus who writes the history books. If the US had lost the war of independance, we'd be teaching that the rebels were a bunch of selfish thugs who just wanted to get out of paying taxes.

Re:Hardly unique.

[walshy007]

If the US had lost the war of independance, we'd be teaching that the rebels were a bunch of selfish thugs who just wanted to get out of paying taxes.

You mean to say they weren't? of all the colonies britain put around the world the US seems to be the only one where it resulted in a large war, the rest all progressed along peacefully. Lets not forget that the people of the US were the ones that started violence and hostilities. They wouldn't have even won without the french's support (since the english and the french were always at each others throats of the time, the enemy of my enemy is my friend etc)

The 'taxation without representation' Business could be construed as an after the fact justification. Initially very few americans even wanted to fight the english, they were fairly content. Only after the violent acts were done and britain came down hard on them was support gained. This could be likened to present day fighting in the middle east - a limited number of people cause a ruckus for another country, they overreact and create far more support for the initial cause by the reaction.

Re:Hardly unique.

[mbone]

I guess they don't teach much about the Easter Rising and the Irish Civil War in British schools, nor probably touch on the invention of concentration camps (a British coinage, you know) in South Africa, or the Mau Mau in Kenya, or, well, you get the picture (or, presumably, didn't beforehand). And, while India basically invented non-violent civil disobedience to get its independence more or less peacefully, that certainly wasn't true a century before, in the "Mutiny" of 1857, which was a large-scale war with a considerable number of civilian casualties.

By the way, "no taxation without representation" dates from the 1750's, so it seems odd to call it an after the fact justification.

How it looks in Poland

[lukaszg]

Currently ACTA is present here (Poland) in every news since a couple of days. People are furious, I think because: 1) Something such important was done behind their back 2) It certainly may limit freedom and may be cause of many abuses. Top government sites were hacked (as far as I know by different groups, some were quite funny). Despite large number of protests politicians seem to pretend that everything's alright and that they can continue with signing the act (yesterday polish ambassador in Japan was given permission to do that). What's funny is that Prime Minister says it won't change anything - so why to sign up? Many protests are being organised, similarly as with SOPA there are lists of politicians who support the act, some start to have doubts knowing that it may influence their appearance and perhaps future elections (in three years). I think that decisions are already made and nothing can be done. Some more info: http://globalvoicesonline.org/2012/01/22/poland-netizens-protest-governments-plan-to-sign-acta-next-week/ .

Re:So...

[Totenglocke]

Every political party (except the Greens) voted for it. Very few NZ citizens agree with it.

Hence why I laugh at the notion that the people actually control the government in a democracy. The politicians do whatever they please because the people have no recourse but to vote for a different politician with the same goals.

Re:Stopping is not the solution

[ruemere]

What!?

Dude, we're not THAT conservative. Actually, given that we're part of the Old World, you'd probably hard pressed to find anyone but the most closed-minded people, who would care about who is sleeping with whom.
We have a party leader who's brought a dildo to press conference, we have another who is apparently married to a cat in everything but official capacity, and we've had a share of convicted criminals, low-level swindlers and so on. At the least we've avoided a Berlusconi-level con guy, though.

Regards,
Ruemere

Re:this means

[Baloroth]

And now they have every justification for doing so in the eyes of most of their citizens.

Great job, anonymous! /sarcasm

Consider this

[openfrog]

Even if all current members of Anonymous stopped all action upon realizing that what they do is a public relation dream for governments intent on passing censoring legislation, you can rest assured that would continue to see actions done in the name of Anonymous. It is that much of good PR stunt.

So, in the media, instead of reading that 5 millions people signed a petition against SOPA-PIPA, you read that punk hackers have defaced a site or two, and are threatening to wreak havoc. So, the conflict is no longer represented as between a corrupted government and the people, but between authorities in need of maintaining order in front of an assault by teenage vandals wanting to steal things without consequences.

Particularly, observe the way Anonymous played in the media in the last round about SOPA-PIPA. There is no other word to describe them, but as tools. Conscious of what they do or not, they were well on their way to derail the whole public effort with their stunts.

They will not stop by themselves, as I wrote. Collectively, those who wish to see the passing of sane Internet and copyright legislation, or at least stop the legislative push (putsch?) of corporations to take control of it, need to think about the way to stop this. Journalists need to educate themselves about the nonsense of accepting at face value claims that an action has been committed by a group called "Anonymous". Can you verify it? If you can't, then it is done anonymously, perhaps, but simply by vandals, punks, or by whoever's agents for that matter.

Re:this means

[iamhassi]

And now they have every justification for doing so in the eyes of most of their citizens.

Great job, anonymous! /sarcasm

Actually, as of yesterday the Polish government is reconsidering signing the treaty.

Great job, anonymous! /nosarcasm