Slashdot Mirror
Vatican Attack Provides Insight Into Anonymous
Hugh Pickens writes "John Markoff writes that an unsuccessful campaign against the Vatican by Anonymous, which did not receive wide attention at the time, provides a rare glimpse into the recruiting, reconnaissance, and warfare tactics used by the shadowy hacking collective and may be the first end-to-end record of a full Anonymous attack. The attack, called Operation Pharisee in a reference to the sect that Jesus called hypocrites, was initially organized by hackers in South America and Mexico and was designed to disrupt Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Madrid in August 2011 for World Youth Day and draw attention to child sexual abuse by priests. First the hackers spent weeks spreading their message through their own website and social sites like Twitter and Flickr calling on volunteers to download free attack software and imploring them to 'stop child abuse' by joining the cause. It took the hackers 18 days to recruit enough people, then a core group of roughly a dozen skilled hackers spent three days poking around the church's World Youth Day site looking for common security holes that could let them inside. In this case, the scanning software failed to turn up any gaps so the hackers turned to a brute-force approach of a distributed denial-of-service, On the first day, the denial-of-service attack resulted in 28 times the normal traffic to the church site, rising to 34 times the next day but did not crash the site. 'Anonymous is a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots,' says Cole Stryker, an author who has researched the movement. 'You have four or five guys who really know what they're doing and are able to pull off some of the more serious hacks, and then thousands of people spreading the word, or turning their computers over to participate in a DDoS attack.'"
A new inquisition to capture and torture these basement dwelling monsters
I think he's giving them too much credit by far.
The organization they were attacking.
Cue as well a number of people deriding the "a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots" idea.
A protest is a protest. You're not an "idiot" just because you're not an organizer.
I originally read it as "Vulcan Attack" which perked me up for a moment. Those guys wouldn't just go after anybody.
Then my eyes focused better. Damned presbyopia.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
I think they are trying to debunk the idea that Anonymous is a legion of hackers. Instead Anonymous is a handful of hackers surrounded by a bunch of people with computers.
In Spain? I wasn't expecting that.
You're an idiot
Speaking of digital Kool-Aid, that kind of balderdash is probably why they're a handful of genii surrounded by a legion of idiots. That's the demographic it appeals to.
That being said, it's charming the way they always say, "Expect us." In this day and age, it's very civilized to find anyone who RSVPs anymore, let alone a hacking group.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
" a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots" Sounds like slashdot...
Perhaps I'm just a bit more in tune (yeah right...), but, didn't we know this is pretty much how they operated? A bunch of LOICers combined with a couple of guys scattered across the globe who actually know wtf they are doing? The most interesting thing about this is that you have all these intelligence think tanks, the CIA, the FBI, etc. that Anon has managed to infiltrate or get through their security, yet the Vatican remains untouchable? Exactly what kind of stuff are they hiding that they need or implement better security measures than our intelligence services?
Indeed. Most of the 'organization' are social-engineered victims of the core group.
Calling the core trolls geniuses is an overstatement. Most of them are just scriptkiddies whose most sophisticated attacks are correctly guessing when the password is 12345. The strategy of Anonymous is to try hacking against easy targets and DDoS against well-secured ones. And while DDoS is relatively easy to implement, the LOIC those "geniuses" came up with is a crappy tool.
Sounds about right, "idiots" is a bit harsh. But then the skilled hackers are transient also, so the intelligence agencies who can't grasp the concept of a leaderless collective are going to be disappointed that there aren't just a few heads to cut off...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
No, I am anonymous.
No one was.
" 'Anonymous is a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots,' says Cole Stryker, an author who has researched the movement. 'You have four or five guys who really know what they're doing and are able to pull off some of the more serious hacks, and then thousands of people spreading the word, or turning their computers over to participate in a DDoS attack.'"
That's how governments and empires work(ed) and were built. They teach it in classes, so why not put it to good use?
Obviously, Anonymous is NOT the Spanish Inquisition, since according to them, EVERYONE should expect the Anonymous Inquisition!!!
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
"Anonymous is a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots,"
You can probably say this about most organizations in the world.
The Zeitgeist Movement
In the course of human history, the power of any group, be it a tribe, guild, religion, government, or corporation, has always been about a relatively small number of clever people surrounding themselves with a much larger number of useful idiots.
Victims? They don't get tricked into installing a botnet client. They install, configure and run a DDoS tool, voluntarily. Although botnet herders might participate sometimes, I don't think any infected computers count as Anonymous members...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This morning on NPR’s The Takeaway, annoyingly shrill-voiced, and hysteria-edged voiced, Celeste Headcase, interviewed the Brookings Institution, by way of Noah the Shackman, also a contributing editor to Wired (read any verifiably informative articles there in the last 10 years?????).
While Shackman did mention a few truthful facts, among Celeste Headcase’s constant barrage of snarky anti-Wikileaks comments, he sadly suggested everything Anonymous is doing is “highly illegal” – were that he would mention the same about the millions of crimes perpetrated by the banksters, insurance companies, lending processors, et al.; funny how that always escapes mention?
no one is anonymous.
Silence is a state of mime.
I didn't realize anyone thought that Anonymous was a legion of hackers. It's been previously reported that being part of Anonymous meant downloading DOS tools, so it should've already been clear that Anonymous wasn't a bunch of hackers. It seems to me that "legion of idiots" was just a gratuitous insult.
Nothing more need be said.....
a bunch of wacko zealots that actually hate the stuff they attack, or a bunch of really smart operators hiring themselves out, knowing that with the right arguments can attraqt a bunch of idiots to attack anything they want?
A relevant article.
B-b-b-ut fox news told me they are hackers! On steroids!
Steroids! You can't even stuff these nerds in a locker!
We're doomed!
I understand when uninformed news sites give importance to this kind of events, but isn't Slashdot a technology site?
Aren't you supposed to know that this is no more than a circus ran by unskilled cry babies?
Is it that hard to understand that this kind of crap is even more useless than throwing rocks at government buildings?
'Anonymous is a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots,'
Handful is pushing it. There can't be more than 2 or 3 who can truely frame a movement mentality instead of the usually "I don't like XXX, lets attack my personal army!"
Your an idiot
No, no that's not what the article said at all.
Cole Stryker has - HAS - to be a pen name, right?? Totally sounds made up.
Anyone who was using LOIC is an idiot.
Anyone who walked around in the street waving a sign and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask is a protester.
There is a difference.
On the first day, the denial-of-service attack resulted in 28 times the normal traffic to the church site, rising to 34 times the next day but did not crash the site.
The only way that evil can win is if good people fail to act. If the Catholic Church is the Body of Christ started by a divine Jesus Christ, then obviously wicked men practicing their pedophaelia or hackers targeting it's website cannot destroy the Church. Metaphorically speaking, they can load the pistol and pull the trigger but the weapon will misfire, their aim will be off, the shot will be deflected, or something else will happen that prevents the shot from reaching the target. Just sayin...
This whole thing reads like the PayPal protest back in 2010. So, um, what's new?
The attack, called Operation Pharisee in a reference to the sect that Jesus called hypocrites, was initially organized by hackers in South America and Mexico and was designed to disrupt Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Madrid in August 2011 for World Youth Day and draw attention to child sexual abuse by priests.
How exactly was crashing the website going to have any effect on the event in meatspace? I can see anon causing some damage to a dotcom company, but this isn't The Matrix. I'm sure the church doesn't have any critical infrastructure tied to their website, and last I checked most still used books. You know, that old information storage system that operates just fine without electricity.
I bet next anon will be protesting Black Friday by attacking Walmart's site, and they'll be shocked when no on even notices the increased traffic.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
I'm an idiot!
I thought "genius" was the gratuitous part. I would go more with "A handful of moderately competent hackers surrounded by a legion of fucking morons".
the LOIC those "geniuses" came up with is a crappy tool.
dude, if you think you can do better you can do better. Unless your kvetching about underlying design or strategy flaws.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
...because God knows who they are; therefore, they aren't anonymous.
Mod me down, I shall become more off-topic than you could possibly imagine.
"Anyone who walked around in the street waving a sign and wearing a Guy Fawkes mask is a protester."
I know several of those.
Trust me, they're idiots too.
Attacking the Catholic Church in 2012 over the priest abuse scandal is like attacking Britain over John Major's policies.
The abuse scandal was a pattern of abuse and cover-up that exploded into the media spotlight in the late 80s/early 90s. The Church did wrong, but since then, they've done a lot of right - there's a zero-tolerance policies, lots of priests have been defrocked, billions in settlements have been paid, hundreds were jailed, etc. There will always be sexual abuse in any large organization with access to children - schools, Boy/Girl scouts, the YMCA, the Mendocino Physics Club, Gencon, whatever. So yes, there may be some that goes on today on a small scale...but what has changed is the organizational response. In 1970, a Bishop might have shuffled a pedophile priest to a different parish. Today, there's zero tolerance, formal processes, and a much greater awareness.
So...why attack in 2012? What is the point? If this was 1990, it'd be more understandable.
I think "anonymous" (aka a half-dozen bored kids) is just desperate to remain in the spotlight. The attention-getting is more important than any "cause". In fact, attention-getting is the cause.
Advice: on VPS providers
"As we're not smart enough to come up with good ideas, let's just burn everything just in case"
Awesome.
The description "a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots" fits almost any organization of more than a few dozen people. Pick any large organization you want, from a political party to a Fortune 500 company, and 20% of the people actually get things done, while 80% of them are placeholders to justify the departmental budgets.
If it's age-related you can get glasses for ten bucks. Or a CrystaLens implant for $15,000.
back on topic... from TFS -- designed to disrupt Pope Benedict XVI's visit to Madrid in August 2011 for World Youth Day and draw attention to child sexual abuse by priests.
As if everybody and his dog didn't already know about the pedophlia. I never could understand the Catholic's refusal to let priests marry, considering that one of the Apostles (Peter maybe? I'd have to look it up) said that men should marry to avoid being tempted into sinful sex, and there's surely not much that's more sinful than raping children.
Free Martian Whores!
grammar: the difference between knowing your shit and knowing you're shit.
(blatantly ripped from a picture I saw on a social network)
I don't think so.
I participate in the Susan G Komen walk for the cure. Three day fund raiser to help fight breast cancer. But I am not Susan G Komen. Does that make me one of the "legion of idiots" for this cause?
Then retract that head out of your skanky butt, and do something more brilliant, sonny.....
Taking a shit everyday is "more brilliant" than what Anonymous does. The truly brilliant you will never know about because they do not act like trolls.
"A handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots".
Well, duh. That is the time-honored approach to power used by every political organization/religion in the world. A small group of people manage to convince a large number of people to become puppets/tools - ostensibly to serve some "higher purpose" - but in reality merely giving power to the small number of people for their own gain.
It just seems to be human nature that most people will line up and blindly engage in abhorrent behavior if someone else tells them to do so. An authority figure telling them what they want to hear (irrespective of how absurd it may be) is a well-known approach to getting the sheep to line up. The fact that they are being used for someone else's gain seems to fall into some sort of genetic blind spot. Hence why we have so many atrocities inflicted on each other.
If you want some disturbing science related to seeing just how far the 'common man' will go in response to a random authority figure, go read the Milgram Experiment. It will leave you with a healthy distrust of the people sharing this planet with you.
What, like get a job, start a family, become a productive member of society, build, create, grow, nourish, and be happy?
Oh, you meant code another DDOS tool so script-kiddies can feel like they have e-peen.
If I had the points...
I believe I heard that churches are statisically safer than schools or sports programs. Or this is used as an excuse to allow priests to marry (most of the issues was male on male action so marriage wouldn't help). Unfortunately, many people blindly drink the Kool-Aid.
In any field of endeavor that the speaker is not masterful in, "genius" is anybody that knows more than you do.
That's most slashdotter's parents call them "computer geniuses" because they can reboot the modem when the ISP hiccups.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I think they are trying to debunk the idea that Anonymous is a legion of hackers. Instead Anonymous is a handful of hackers surrounded by a bunch of people with computers.
Isn't that the structure of any revolutionary movement ? Few brains + the masses.
Anonymous is just the digital equivalent of real life revolutionary movements (without the bloodshed that revolutions bring in).
Better yet, Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law.
I am pseudonymous!
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
No, that makes you an unwitting dupe of right-wing religious zealots.
How is that incorrect, especially the "idea" bit?
There is no such organisation as "Anonymous", all you have is a bunch of like-minded people on the Internet who prefer not to shout their names from the rooftops. This particular attack on the Vatican was perpetrated by a completely different set of people than some of the other attacks we witnessed. Even if you were to arrest them all, you won't have "arrested Anonymous", as the next attack will quickly prove.
Anonymous isn't anyone in particular, and could be everyone. It is an idea and perhaps more to the point a label or rallying brand.
"A handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots". Sounds like the Catholic Church, except the part about the geniuses.
Excuse me, but the plural of genius is geniusaurses.
[Text goes here]
In Spain? I wasn't expecting that.
Actually, in Spain, nobody expects the Papal Inquisition. The gangs protect their respective territories.
Ezekiel 23:20
This isn't hacking, there's no skill, it is just having more bandwidth available than your target and being a dick. Of course that only works if you actually can have more bandwidth. As they found out Amazon didn't even blink, Amazon has WAY more resources than some dumbass script kiddies.
People with computers and the patience and drive to download command line software and follow its instructions. That qualifies them as "hackers" in the eyes of the general public at least.
May the Maths Be with you!
"I am Anonymous."
I am oblivious.
I'm not even a squad, let alone a Legion.
It may look like I forgive.
But really I just forget.
Don't expect me because I'll probably oversleep.
Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, but wasn't Paul (or one of the anonymous authors writing under the Paul psuedonym) responsible for the decree that priests of the Catholic Church be celibate in order to focus their energies on God?
Here's to hot beer, cold women, and Glaswegian kisses for all.
It would be easier and more effective to maintain silence and truncate their index.html.
Paul suggested that single life was better for Christian service since you would have fewer competing obligations. However, he concluded that "it is better to marry than to burn." Kind of suggests a pragmatic approach. More directly, Paul specified the qualifications for bishop to include "married to one wife." Thats the raw text, you can make cases for both celebacy and marriage, with a reasonable reading being single is better if you can handle it, if not, get married (once).
I never could understand the Catholic's refusal to let priests marry, considering that one of the Apostles (Peter maybe? I'd have to look it up) said that men should marry to avoid being tempted into sinful sex, and there's surely not much that's more sinful than raping children.
I get a lot of history across my plate sideways as it were, since my wife is a history and English teacher. It's kinda fun actually -- she's already mostly vetted the books by the time they make it to the house, so I don't have to slog through lots of BS to find the good reads. :)
On-topic here, the reason the Church (big-C Catholic Church) explicitly outlawed the clergy marrying was because of clergy folks setting themselves up as little hereditary fiefdoms, complete with lines of succession and all the fun politicking and internecine warfare that usually accompanies such an arrangement. Disallowing marriage meant breaking that line of power, and is not too dissimilar from policies at the State Department that forcibly rotate diplomats -- this prevents anyone from getting too cozy (at least in theory).
In more detail, celibacy was general Church policy possibly as far back as AD 300 and is certainly mentioned in the mid-400s. This policy was often overlooked though in the hurly burly of northern European politics, and it wasn't explicitly decreed against until the mid-1000s with the Gregorian reforms. Suffice it to say that it's complicated, but the crux of the issue was inheritance and power struggles related to it.
There's plenty more online via Google, or starting from this Wikipedia article.
Cheers,
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Actually being "part of Anonymous" is nothing and everything. Being an active member on any chan and posting as Anonymous (like everybody else) and actively spreading and fostering ideas is also Anonymous, no tools required...
P.S. It needs more DESU!
"Idiots" is a gratuitous insult, although it probably seems fair to anyone who's glanced at /b/.
"Geniuses" doesn't refer to organizers, really. Some of Anonymous's actions are simply DDoS, which just takes an organizer and some idiots. It doesn't even take a particular organizer, since the legion of idiots isn't really an organized group. Their more interesting actions, though, involve some substantial hackery.
So what they're talking about is the density of actual, competent hackers vs. people who participate in DDoSes and how the organization of the former is different from the organization of the latter.
I never could understand the Catholic's refusal to let priests marry
Because Catholocism pretty much made a whole bunch of shit up, that's why. It's "tradition" - tradition that isn't backed by scripture anywhere.
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
Read the linked quote before you critisize it.
“The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong.”
Herman Wouk, The Caine Mutiny
This is also how many businesses operate. If you have the intelligence realize what you are doing is wrong (or will put you at odds with those in charge,) then you get the hell out of there before the plan is executed. Call center and Retail businesses often operate this way. You stick to the "genius" plan of those in charge, no matter how wrong it is. They're the ones with the Business degrees or whatever worthless piece of paper they use to call you an idiot with.
I've encountered more idiots in my lifetime than genuine intelligent people. Those running the businesses, country and even various websites are only where they are because they don't look like idiots to those who are voting them in or buying their products. Take a look at Nokia, HP and RIM for examples of ship sinking from idiots managing the company. Look at eBay after Meg Whitman left, eBay itself is going down in flames but the PayPal unit survives, I wouldn't be surprised if eBay renames itself PayPal and becomes a full fledged international bank that just so happens to own a few e-commerce sites. The US under George W Bush Jr went from a good-enough country to a "getmethehelloutofhere" country that hit the wall in 2008, we're still recovering from the hell that started on 9/11. Obama doesn't have the balls to roll back everything little dubya junior allowed to go down under his watch. And the current looneys vieing for the presidency (Newt, Mitt, Rick, and Ron) can't tell how aweful they look as alternatives to Obama. Newt is the most corrupt idiot there is and isn't even trying to hide it, Ron is the least corrupt but sounds like he wants the US to return to 1940's, Mitt is corrupt and has destroyed businesses for profit, and Rick just looks like least-likely-to-destroy-america at this rate.
I'll weep for the future of the world when Anonymous and Wikileaks are considered legitimate news sources. As it is, DDoS'ing a site does no damage to a site, just renders it unavailable. This only costs ecommerce companies money, and even then, if they are successful at DDoS'ing a site like Visa or Mastercard, those aren't the commerce front-ends and costs them nothing. If Anonymous really wanted to damage a company they would to get insiders into the companies they want to compromise, and have them take configuration information to discover weak points. Easily enough done for places that outsource, the weakest points are the companies in India and Philippines. There's your largest argument against outsourcing customer service right there.
Sounds like little more than a language exercise. If you're volunteering yourself to be unobscured fodder, I guess you might be both a volunteer and a victim.
Not that I feel particularly bad for them.
Damn, and I thought he was pissed at the fig tree! What did Peter do to piss off the Jay Cee?
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
I am palendromanagramaous!
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
You may have a thousand people that can port scan, but out of the thousand maybe 2 would know what to do to get into a system.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Anonymous is, in effect, practicing an eclectic combination of bits of espionage, sabotage and warfare. (For that matter, so is WikiLeaks.) Eventually, they will run up against people who don't think that should be confined to the online world when it has real world consequences. I really wonder if they've considered what happens then.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Because Catholocism pretty much made a whole bunch of shit up, that's why.
Because religions pretty much make a whole bunch of shit up, that's why
Fixed that for you.
Hmm. Based on your sig, I'd have thought you were "Sudomodymous". Or something like that...
"...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
It was a typo. The decree originally said "celebrate", but the scribe was having an off day.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
'Anonymous is a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots,'
this line is simply funny. You could replace Anonymous with anything you want, any company or entity that exist and you know when you think about it, it would still make a lot of sense. lol
Why is it if something like this were done against the Jews or Muslims it would be considered a hate crime but against the Catholics people feel it is okay? Why don't all of the politically correct types denounce this? Unless it is secretly condone by them.
Hey, somebody had to make dinner.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
Yes, considering over 20% of what is given is eaten up by Administration and Fund Raising costs.
I never could understand the Catholic's refusal to let priests marry, considering that one of the Apostles (Peter maybe? I'd have to look it up) said that men should marry to avoid being tempted into sinful sex, and there's surely not much that's more sinful than raping children.
Pedophile priests are not raping children because they can't marry. They're raping children because they are sick men who should never have been allowed to wear a collar in the first place.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
If I choose to post a comment and not have my name attached to it (Anonymous) does that make me a member of Anonymous or just another willing pawn?
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
but wasn't Paul (or one of the anonymous authors writing under the Paul psuedonym) responsible for the decree that priests of the Catholic Church be celibate in order to focus their energies on God?
In the context of the rest of the epistle (i.e. letter), the advice is being given to missionaries, basically. I.e. when you are out travelling and spreading the word, don't also be running around trying to hook up with the locals -- it kind of messes with the message you are trying to teach. Do that before or after, not during.
It's generally thought that Paul himself was a widower when he left on his travels, as marriage was a prerequisite for his pre-conversion status as a Pharisee.
>> Standing on head makes smile of frown, but rest of face also upside down.
Centuries of burning people to death for attempting to translate the Bible into English should be enough of a clue by itself.
Wikipedia describes the many English translations of scripture, starting long, long before the Reformation (the first translator they mention is St. Bede), with the Douay-Rheims version (from around 1600, preceding the KJV by a few years) as the "first complete English Catholic Bible."
Not to say there weren't people burned to death. I'd add that exaggeration doesn't help your case, but then I look at Fox News.
You save only 59 seconds over 8 miles by going 75 instead of 65. Do you really have to pass that guy? Do the Math!
Mine an idiot
This, exactly this.
The article (that I didn't read) exposes how it's just a group that works the exact same way as usual social dissidents. The authors don't realize that the idiots could very well be leaders in another action, and how stupidly fast and easy it is to become a leader. Anonymous is a brand name for dissidence, not an organized criminal network.
That's what it means, "we are legion". It means everyone can be replaced as long as anyone has the motivation to rally enough people to Get Shit Done.
Making laws based on opinions that stem up from false informations leads to witch hunts.
Seems to be a gap in education of Anonymous there. If they had gone through a Catholic school they would have known:
Don't mess with the Sister in charge. She knows what you are up to.
They have set up webpages before that starts to DDOS servers. All you have to do is trick people to click on the link. Honestly, I think that was one of their more creative ideas.
Sounds like little more than a language exercise. If you're volunteering yourself to be unobscured fodder, I guess you might be both a volunteer and a victim.
Same could be said of belonging to the Catholic church then.
'You have four or five guys who really know what they're doing and are able to pull off some of the more serious hacks, and then thousands of people spreading the word, or turning their computers over to participate in a DDoS attack.'
surely everyone already suspected this...
seems to me that "legion of idiots" was just a gratuitous insult
It probably was just that...a sound bite for the mass media to be able to report on Anonymous as a bunch of idiots, rather than the slowly growing collective of like-minded individuals hell bent on keeping the power & freedom of the Internet/world in the hands of the people, not those in power. This way, the sheeple think of them as criminals, but revere the government as their protector (from what, only those idiots can tell you).
It's all spin, baby!
Will draft for food...
With the tiny difference that that doesn't involve attacking people.
Vigilantes are cool, sexy, nearly always total morons, and they hurt people. They do what they do specifically to hurt people who they think deserve it. It baffles me how people can on one hand "hate" the us (or whatever, I'm sure there's an oil company in there somewhere) for not always doing 100% due process properly (and screwing up at times) ... and support things like anonymous.
I now declare this thread 100% off-topic.
Then my eyes focused better. Damned presbyopia.
Is that the plural of presbyterian?
Consistency and doing the popular thing (hating the church in this case) don't mix very well.
Either way, you would pray to be in the control group in that experiment D:
and may be the first end-to-end record of a full Anonymous attack.
They act as if tracking Anonymous is any difficultly at all. The group is highly transparent. Finding them and following them on specific issues or OPS is not difficult at all. All you need is an strong interest in the subject matter, plenty of time on your hands, and a huge bucket of popcorn.
I thought "genius" was the gratuitous part. I would go more with "A handful of moderately competent hackers surrounded by a legion of fucking morons".
Moderately competent hackers perhaps, but they seem to be very good with PR and group psychology. Channeling all the petty acts of vandalism and bending them to your purposes ... #include "godwin.h".
The Church has always lived within the rush of humanity. That it is affiliated with child rape says much more about western culture than it does about the church, if one looks at teachers, coaches, youth leaders and of course priests you will see that they all fall percentage wise into similar numbers of child predators.
In other words it's a lot like saying Democrats are criminals, because more blacks vote Democrat, and blacks have the highest incarceration rate. There's a HELL of a lot of "ism", assumption and ignorance in that statement - similar to your own comments.
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
They're all idiots. I for one can't wait until the Internet becomes more regulated than Obama's bathroom. For teh tshyldren. Kinderheil!
Those who live by idiocy will die by idiocy.
Hitler hates pedophiles.
Five hundred years ago all you needed to stir up trouble was a handful of people to organise and infuriate the masses - and a bunch of people with pitchforks. Today, all you need to stir up trouble is a handful of people to organise and infuriate the masses - and a bunch of people with computers. The blokes with the pitchforks didn't need to be experts in martial arts and neither do the blokes with computers need to be expert hackers. I haven't been following the media all that closely, but it looks like a handful of people are now trying to organise and infuriate the masses against Anonymous. If they are successful they might get a bunch of people with computers (or pitchforks) to show Anonymous the error of his ways.
It's generally thought that Paul himself was a widower when he left on his travels, as marriage was a prerequisite for his pre-conversion status as a Pharisee.
Ah, Paul was one a Pharisee. This explains the sour grapes. If you want a somewhat biased opinion of a company, ask an employee. If you want a completely distorted opinion of a company, ask an ex-employee. The latter are even less capable of objectivity than the former...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Anon backed off on the Zetas once people started getting strung up
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Lets start off with a real world correction, "Anonymous" has a whole history of legal public protest prior https://whyweprotest.net/anonymous-scientology/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology prior to any yarns about 4chan, global conspiracies, organised crime RICO distortions, handful of geniuses and legion of idiots or any other ludicrous mass media distortions.
Where it has gone since those days has never been challenged by those that worked to initiate the idea, as it is and always will be the individuals own choice and responsibility for what they choose to do in the name of "Anonymous",up to and including false flag events, (stupid enough to do it to yourself why would anyone protest).
Just another lame arsed "please buy my book" sensationalist. Whether it's a dead tree work by a short run minor publisher and a desperate author or a web site eventually you just start to ignore them as pointless.
The only thing that should ever be challenged is, government investigative agents seeking to gain promotion by destroying the lives of unskilled teenagers with claims of terrorism and threats to vital infrastructure with the hoodoo of "Anonymous". When government agencies started testing recruits with lie detectors completely forgetting psychopaths are born capable of passing any lie detector test, what other result could be expected.
Lazy sensationalist journalism of course does it's bit to promote readership over the truth and the harm it's lies of omission and distortion will cause it's victims.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
The report says that attacking browsers (yes, browsers, not PCs) were all targeted at the same URL with a few randomized URL values thrown in to force the server to treat them as separate requests. The key to defeating a DDOS, as I understand it, is to be able to separate legal requests from illegal, and route them to different places. If every attacker attacks with almost the exact same URL signature, doesn't that make it trivially easy to defeat? Am I missing something?
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
Our chief weapon is LOIC... LOIC and HOIC...HOIC and LOIC.... Our two weapons are HOIC and LOIC...and ruthless legion of idiots.... Our *three* weapons are HOIC, LOIC, and ruthless legion of idiots... and an almost fanatical devotion to the Anonymous... Our *four*...no... *Amongst* our weapons.... Amongst our weaponry...are such elements as HOIC, LOIC.... I'll come in again.
Because Catholocism pretty much made a whole bunch of shit up, that's why. It's "tradition" - tradition that isn't backed by scripture anywhere.
In other words, it's exactly as backed up as the rest of scripture. But for some reason the stuff they made up and wrote down before the Council of Nicaea is considered canonical by some but the stuff afterwards not. Forgive me if I'm not clear on why the double-standard exists here...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
sweet
Good try samzenpus, not!
Eh, I don't know. If somebody downloads and installs tools suggested by this core group of "hacker geniuses" under the auspices of "this will hurt the bad guys, not you -- we promise" I think calling them idiots might not be gratuitous at all. "But it's open source!" Yeah. I'm just certain the people running it combed through the source and verified the hashes before they blindly did what they were told.
That nobody has fleeced the sheep yet is a small miracle, but it will happen. In fact it might be a good way to hurt Anonymous as a whole. If you take away their firepower, their ability to do anything much more significant than guess at passwords or sweep a website for known security vulnerabilities is basically eliminated.
The Idea of Anonymous: If there is something that you don't like, take down their web page... That will show them.
Lets bring awareness of stuff that everyone already knows about. If you are not part of the problem and you are not part of the solution... Lets make a brand new problem, that way you are involved. That is the Idea of Anonymous.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Sometimes religion leads to attacking people. And not only to attacking computers.
"we are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further."
Yes, giving more money to Warner Bros by wearing your meaningless mask - that's such a protest!
What part of "social-engineered victims of the core group" don't you understand?
Hitler hates pedophiles.
You're right about that, but you imply that there is no causal link between the pedophilia in Catholic priests and celibacy, and I'll argue that there is a causal link.
I'd argue that the causation is in the selection bias that the celibacy requirement creates. By saying that priests must be celibate, the Catholic church eliminates a huge chunk of good, non-pedophile men who might consider the priesthood if they could have sex.
The pedophiles are going to try to become priests no matter what - the celibacy requirement doesn't deter them. The celibacy requirement does deter non-pedophiles. And so with many fewer non-pedophile applicants, that skews the percentages towards pedophiles.
If only I had mod points...
Hitler hates pedophiles.
If my government is currently attacking Iran. That means my nation is at war with Iran and everything that entails. You're damn straight I want to know about that.
If you think these are the first info management steps to WW3, what the hell is an IN PROGRESS attack on Iran going to lead to?
Politically correct dissidents. Very brave.
P.S. Might want to look up what "we are legion" actually means. Still wildly appropriate for a group possessed by profound retardation. Unfortunately, even Jesus can't cure the retarded.
Hitler hates pedophiles.
Members of the Catholic church doesn't involve attacking people? Thats a good one. Haven't heard a joke that good in a while. They've toned down on the physical attacks on non-believers the last few centuries, but I assure you they attack people with the power of their words and influence on politics. At least as effective as any attacks Anonymous does.
They don't have any history prior to 4chan. Their hacking activities predate their meatspace protests.
I don't really get your rambling about false flag RICO conspiracies, since I didn't mention any of that, but sure, whatever.
But that IS what the article is saying. The skilled hacker activity of anonymous is very limited, and if those heads were cut off, then there would really just be a network of voluntary DDOS bots, which isn't really anything all that unique since traditional botnets can do the same thing.
AJ Henderson
It's all spin, baby!
Sure is, and you're better than Pravda.
Hitler hates pedophiles.
No one ever does.
If I had mod points I would mod you down.
Well, there is a great way to check that for sure. Someone with the tools should do an statistical analysis of how much paedophiles we have among priests, parents, teacher\school directors and other positions of power over children. If celibacy does not play a role, the distribution should be the same.
--- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
"With the tiny difference that that doesn't involve attacking people."
History differs in your assessment, the only reason they are not waging all out religious war is because the world is interconnected and the majority of people will not tolerate it.
I can guarantee that if the world society crumbles, this harmless religion will organize large scale attacks to convert; there is nothing about them that has changed since middle ages, same book, same structure, same belief, same ignorance, and same power hungry ideologues running it. The only thing that stops them is the world around them.
Plus another 40% which gets spent on "Education", which is used pretty liberally, since money spent on advertising themselves is considered "Education".
The priest class abducted the psychedelic sacraments that constituted man's ritual diet, taking knowledge of god from us, and claimed to have it hidden in reserve somewhere. The priests claimed to be able to barter with us for knowledge of god, the most precious thing we ever knew, so we started giving them everything we had, hoping for scraps of it. Knowledge of god was the most precious thing we ever knew. Priests are the ultimate muggers and cheats, the first capitalists. And what they claim to be trading with, their currency, is knowledge of god they in reality no longer have, but we miss it so badly, we'll give them anything in supplication to the lie
So they made the sacrament a placebo, the Eucharist, and told us the closest we'll come to god on our own is reading the Bible
You can still take mushrooms or acid and know god in your home, initiate yourself into adulthood the way man always has done, and have religion back, a living religion, not a 2000-years-dead one. That's all I need to say about this
Peace
It looks to me like you are also attacking people with "the power of your words."
What would be our chief weapon?
"Legion" is not a name out of the bible; it is simply a word meaning "many" that happened to be used in the bible. It could just have well been "multitude" or "horde", the meaning would have been the same.
To be clearer: "We are legion" is NOT a biblical reference. It is simply a sentence meaning "we are many". It does not refer to demons.
So anyone who is recruited into or joins a protest is a socially-engineered victim?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
How does one do such a statistical analysis, assuming the pedophiles are unwilling to declare themselves?
"________ is a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots."
(noun)
This is gonna be fun.
Slashdot
Well, there is a great way to check that for sure. Someone with the tools should do an statistical analysis of how much paedophiles we have among priests, parents, teacher\school directors and other positions of power over children. If celibacy does not play a role, the distribution should be the same.
Even if you performed such a study and discovered a skewed distribution in the priesthood, it would not mean that celibacy causes priests to become pedophiles, which was the point that I disputed in the first place. Correlation is not causation.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
You mean like what it has always been since the beginning?
makes sense to me
No it's very clever. As anti-virus software is getting better it's harder to get a Botnet up and running quickly any other way!
Anonymous is extremely transparent as far as political organizations go.
celibacy for priest comes from italy around year 1000.
celibacy was made not because of "priest should not have sex", but because they didn't want their children to inherit the founds the priest could have left after death.
so when a priest dies, all the donation he received because "he was good" will go directly to the vatican so he can maintains his empire with millions of lands and houses across the whole globe.
yeah, the "you should not have sex" is just a side effect because for the vatican you can't have sex if you can't procreate.
funny thing: these people can't have a family nor they can't rise children however people usually refer to them when they need
some suggestion for their family or their children; it's like asking how to cook a good steak to a vegan.
The priest abuse scandal was dealt with in the 90s in the US, but it has not been dealt with in all countries which have experienced abuse. Still abuses are being documented:
- The graphic Irish report in 2011.
- The German abuses that came to light in 2010:
- Dozens of other examples.
It's only ancient history where you come from. The rest of the world hasn't necessarily come to terms with it yet. South America is the next on the list, and just wait until Africa is processed.
re: your sig... the speed limit here is 75mph you insensitive clod !
That's because you're doing it wrong.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
While I agree with your point 100%, I also think that:
a) the Catholic church could have acted quite differently in finding, reporting, and bringing justice to the offending priests, and:
b) there are some vocations (priest, teacher, coach, and youth leader, as you mention, and others) where the expected child predator rate should be ZERO, or as close to it as possible. I know this seems an unrealistic expectation on the surface, but consider, for a moment, how many professions require extensive and thorough background checks or psych evaluations to access resources far less critical than our kids*, and the hefty consequences that are handed down if protocols are broken. If these same techniques were used for the vocations you listed, I can only surmise the percentage of child predators would be significantly lower in those vocations than that of the greater population (not to mention the salaries and quality would likely improve, too, though I cannot guess what would happen to the candidate pool).
*I don't normally do the "think of the children" thing, but I have two daughters, and this hits pretty close to home for me.
Just because someone drank coke that someone peed in doesn't mean that everyone who ever drank or drinks coke drank or drinks coke that someone peed in. Just because a lot of people drink coke that no one has peed in doesn't mean that no one has ever drank coke that someone has peed in.
Hitler hates pedophiles.
Sure. It's just regular American English, like "The sky is blue" and "I like pie."
Oh, and the fact that it's a verbatim quote from the Gospels. Pure coincidence.
Hitler hates pedophiles.
Why? Does hatred feel good? Does silencing other people's free speech give you a boner?
Hitler hates pedophiles.
LOL at the continued naivete of OeLeWaPpErKe.
Someone correct me on this if I'm wrong, but wasn't Paul (or one of the anonymous authors writing under the Paul psuedonym) responsible for the decree that priests of the Catholic Church be celibate in order to focus their energies on God?
Actually, scripture indicates exactly the opposite of this, going so far as to explain that doctrines which forbid marriage are from demons (such as the Catholic church forbidding their priests to marry):
1 Timothy 4:1-3 (NASB) (emphasis mine)
But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron, men who forbid marriage and advocate abstaining from foods which God has created to be gratefully shared in by those who believe and know the truth.
What you are likely thinking of is in one of Paul's epistles to the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7 Paul says that it's great if you are celibate (1 Cor. 7:7), but that it is a spiritual gift that only some people have, and otherwise it is best to get married so that your sexual energy can be expressed in a holy way (1 Cor. 7:9).
1 Corinthians 7:5 speaks specifically about how husbands and wives should not deprive one another of sexual release (unless agreed to for a limited time to pursue spiritual practices), as sexual relations with one's spouse is a defense against sexual immorality and temptation:
1 Corinthians 7:5 (NASB)
Stop depriving one another, except by agreement for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer, and come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control
In short, the doctrine of the Catholic church which forbids their priests from marrying (among some of their other doctrines) contradicts the teachings of the holy bible.
How about you force priests to have a lot of sex and see if that prevents them from becoming pedophiles?
Yes. Once you marry, your SO becomes your god, or something to that effect.
Still, it seems rather unclear: why do people continue to worship JC / YHWH after they marry if their SO is their god? Sh*t does not make sense.
I am John Hurt.
I would hope not. The dude died over 2000 years ago!
How does walking fight breast cancer? I've never understood this.
"Attack"? I am sure that the people involved consider it a protest. I see little difference in a person voluntarily committing their computer to a Denial of service action against an organisation's web presence to a person voluntarily committing their time to physically protest outside an organisation's building.
A lot of them just type 'ping' into command prompt then brag about being hackers in IRC.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
... the slowly growing collective of like-minded individuals hell bent on keeping the power & freedom of the Internet/world in the hands of the people, not those in power.
This way, the sheeple think of them as criminals, but revere the government as their protector
Too much credit given all around.
The somebody should also look into how many pedophiles are heterosexual, bisexual, or homosexual.
testing out my trending skills
"Oh, and the fact that it's a verbatim quote from the Gospels. Pure coincidence."
Yep. Take just about ANY three words that make sense together, and they have been used millions of times over the years. And because the phrases "we are legion" and even "I am legion" have been used in many places and many contexts that are NOT even remotely related to the bible, I would say that indeed, it is much more likely than not that they had no intention of referring to scriptures when they made it part of their motto. It isn't even a direct quote. They did not say "I am Legion", they say "we are legion".
If that passage had said instead, "I am Many" (which is all it means) or "I am Multitude" would you call out anybody who says "we are many" too? Ridiculous.
Repeat: "legion" is not a name, even as used in the bible. It is simply a noun ("a legion of soldiers") meaning "many", or an adjective ("the rocks on the hillside were legion"), again meaning "many".
You sound to me like the kind of person who sees images of Jesus on burnt toast.
The teachers unions wouldn't allow the teachers to be fired.
A new inquisition to capture and torture these basement dwelling monsters
Starting with the pedophiles!
Recruiting a zealot into grabbing a fresh copy of the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), installing it, and putting it into 'Hive Mind' doesn't take that much effort. Clickjacking, clearjacking, cookie poisoning, cache poisoning, cross site scripting, cross site script forgery, and the old favorite: SQL injection can all be scripted in, but at least are more work. More advanced attacks like packet injection man in the middle attacks and other more advanced attacks require knowledge. Since so many sites are so badly configured, one of the above will get in (the DDOS attack works on everyone, but some sites like Amazon can basically ramp up extra servers, load balancers and memcache boxes on the fly, so as more LOIC machines join in, more machines boot and take the load: and "hive mind" is suddenly looking at "Beowulf cluster server").
Welp, some people believe that it shouldn't be part of the religion if it's not in the holy book. You know, like DMing a D&D campaign and pulling new rules out of your ass. ("GRAPPLING IS NOW DECIDED BY COIN TOSSES!")
Random Thoughts From A Diseased Mind (Not For Dummies)
"Anonymous" has a whole history of legal public protest prior https://whyweprotest.net/anonymous-scientology/ , http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology prior to any yarns about 4chan,
Before the whole scientology thing there was plenty of people on 4chan busy with hacking, they just didn't style themselves as "Anonymous". It's the scientology protests which started the whole "Anonymous is legion" thing. Their offline activities before that were mostly benign flashmobs dressed up in various types of topical (for 4chan at least) getup and in far smaller numbers simply "for the lulz".
You can argue about "Anonymous predating 4chan" as much as you like, but the culture of the collective is drenched in the memes and culture of that site and was so since it's inception. This however doesn't mean that they are exclusive to 4chan, just that if you go back in time you'll find the roots of the collective there. Note that I'm not saying that all of 4chan is the collective "Anonymous", as the opinions on the group there are divided.
handful of geniuses and legion of idiots or any other ludicrous mass media distortions.
The word "geniuses" is clearly oversensational, but I would say that the analogy is mostly apt. What better a way to describe a few kids smart enough not to get caught (YMMV, see lulzsec) while egging on other kids voluntarily running DoS tools on their computers? It's mob mentality on the internet, nothing more and nothing less. Hell, if you gather enough of the "legion of idiots" in a room you'll get the same mentality, which is why 4chan is no longer welcome at conventions.
Whether it's a dead tree work by a short run minor publisher and a desperate author or a web site eventually you just start to ignore them as pointless.
I find it amusing that in this day and age people (especially journalists) still don't "get" how online communities work. Take real world behavior, add a layer of "anonymity", et voila instant greater internet fuckwad theory to a certain extent. Sure, not every online community is like this, but if it is convinced it can act without impunity you will get the exact same phenomenon as "Anonymous" eventually.
No need to show footage of a van exploding, no terrorist cells, just people being dicks.
The only thing that should ever be challenged is, government investigative agents seeking to gain promotion by destroying the lives of unskilled teenagers with claims of terrorism and threats to vital infrastructure with the hoodoo of "Anonymous".
I agree that the reaction to this whole thing is drawn out of proportion, but the reaction to most things seems drawn out of proportion these days. While I don't think that just being a dick warrants punishment, there's obvious cases where the law can step in: harassment phonecalls (often including death threats), participating in DDoS attacks, actually hacking servers, etc... I think that the justice system should use common sense in their approach to the lesser things (eg. community service), and for the more egregious offenses a more severe punishment. But letting it slide just because they are "unskilled teenagers" is simply silly, because the last thing these unskilled kids need is confirmation that they can actually do these things without impunity.
I refuse to believe that the average 15 year old downloading LOIC doesn't stop to think about what they're doing and make a moral choice. But I also refuse to believe that we should punish them beyond a (albeit serious) slap on the wrist.
"A handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots" describes the whole human race, not just anonimous. Any human organization - be it a corporation, a country, or a classroom - with a big enough number of members will look like that.
I'd say the term is better applied to organised religion.
That's a pretty ignorant comment. The American Church, which has been providing free healthcare via charity hospitals for generations now, objects to being forced to pay for its employees (who, after all, sorta knew they were working for a Catholic organization to start with) to recieve "free" abortifacients- which is against the tenets of Catholicism.
Either you're totally ignorant about the issue, or you've been propagandized like a good little tool.
My working response was similar, but you said it first.
pedophile will target predominately work where they have contact with children. It isn't new. But the government is TRYING at least to put obstacle and certainly DO NOT shuffle pedophile professor or teacher in anotehr district.
Furthermore I would argue it is much more important to compare the number of pedophile in church not agaisnt somewhere where you would expect pedophile to sneak in, but agaisnt the average pedophile rate. And yes pedo rate are higher in church. School are not pretending to be moral bastion. Church are pretending to be moral bastion and example. This is where the fucking significant difference is.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
"exact same URL signature, doesn't that make it trivially easy to defeat? "
Still takes processor time/cycles to deal with the requests... throw enough of them at a target and they tend to fall over.
I'm guessing the John Markoff who wrote the first article is the guy who wrote to the world about the dangers of Kevin Mitnick. It's a good thing Kevin was stopped before launching those nukes. Thank god for responsible journalism and best selling books.
A steaming cup of soykaf would be real wiz right now.
Some of the greatest victories in history can be described as a handful of geniuses surrounded by a legion of idiots, that generally turns out to be a pretty successful recipe.
A legion of geniuses turns out to be chaos, as does a legion of idiots.
Please - I'm far from a Christian fanatic, but it's a pretty common literary allusion. That phrase my have leeched into the common culture (who knows, maybe they're big Richard Matheson or Will Smith fans), but the use of the term "legion" to mean "many" is a Biblical allusion. Try to remember that up until probably the 1950s, most literary allusions in the States were Biblical - it was by far the most widely owned and read book in the country. Without a fairly detailed understanding of the Bible, it becomes quite difficult to really understand a lot of 19th century oratory - phrases that just seem odd to our ears were shorthand call outs to scripture.
While a lot of that Bible reading culture has now faded away, bits and pieces like "We are Legion" survive. (I laugh when people think that today's GOP is somehow the most "Christianist" in history - they'd be considered Godless libertines in the 1880s or 1930s.)
And the actual quote is "My name is Legion: for we are many." So "we" and "legion" is part of the real quote.
In the name of "Anonymous" sounds just ridiculous.
Your point might stand if Paul had actually criticized the Pharisees much, which he doesn't(at least not in any of the epistles I've read). Most(all?) of the attacks on the Pharisees I've read were from non-other than Jesus himself.
We're so close. We just need a couple hundred thousand more participants:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/6000-runners-fail-to-discover-cure-for-breast-canc,176/
Classic! Thank you. That made my day.
So does atheism. So does any ideology I can think of (oh it's just that one form of atheism, not this one, right ? Well, that's exactly how communists see it)
As far as religions go, frankly, Christianity's history is rather peaceful. But most religions history is unknown, and the "default" thought seems to be that what is not known must be peaceful. This leads to stupidities like calling buddhism peaceful, calling native american society "nonviolent" or "in harmony with nature". Now read the a few accounts of encounters with that society. Note how little harmony with nature ... note how very, very violent they were (I'm sure it was always the historian's fault, right ? Suuuure, mostly people were attacked the moment they crossed unmarked borders. Additionally tribes fought eachother periodically with the purpose of wiping out neighboring tribes, stealing women and children). Some people even call islam peaceful, which committed it's first genocide before there were 100 muslims, more than a hundred years before even the first mention of the quran. Again. Just plot the wars, both "real" and civil wars on a map of our planet. Now mark the borders of muslim majorities on that same map. Heh ... suuuure, they must be peaceful.
Hinduism was relatively peaceful. So was Confucianism, and so was Christianity. If there's any religion or ideology you're going to call less violent than Christianity, then please pick one of those.
And then there are non-religious ideologies that are called peaceful, despite their more than bloody history. Prime example here is of course socialism. It baffles me how anyone can call an ideology that's "credited" with half a billion dead bodies in the last century alone peaceful. The very ideology that came with the beautiful concept called "eugenics". It baffles the mind.
In Europe you have people (yes, today, not 50 years ago) calling Nazism the only ideology that is peaceful over the long-term (because genetic improvement will lead to perfection which means no wars, get it ?). It is scary to see that this portion of Europe's political landscape is much bigger than, say America's communists, and they certainly exceed 5%, maybe even 10% of all Europeans.
So here's a thought. There are 3 big incidents in the history of Christianity, and a dozen smaller ones. That history spans over 2000 years, couple of hundred thousand dead. In socialism's 150 year old history, we're talking dozens of big wars, hundreds of millions dead. In islam's 1300 year history, we're talking hundreds of wars, hundreds of genocides constantly occurring over their entire history, hundreds of millions dead. In atheism's various uptics (it doesn't really have a continuous history at all) we're talking short periods with near-constant and intensive warfare, sometimes genocide, mostly in conjunction with other non-religious ideologies, where even a few incidents quickly add up to millions dead. Is atheism as violent as, say, socialism ? No probably not. But it's far less peaceful than Christianity.
It seems to add up with the logical way to think about atheism. It requires you to have a sort of utility based value system. So of course atheists see value in (some) wars, for example. They don't see value in war in itself, like muslims do ("dar al harb", or hisbah-"export" if you like), but they also don't think it a disaster no matter the potential rewards, like Christians do. This seems to me the way the ideologies work. Likewise, there are ideologies that use violence for ideological reasons (e.g. Nazism - to create racial purity, Communism - to overthrow the burgeoisie) and ideologies that see wars as a negative in itself (e.g. subsistense anarchists, I can't really find one), and ideologies that calculate (e.g. capitalism and the well known oil is worth fighting over)
Then again, I'm a bit of a contrarian. The more people scream something is true, the less I believe it. I mostly think that there's a reason so much screaming is required. And
In the UK, but here ya go... eat a british keyboard.
Teachers union official says teachers who have consensual sex with pupils should not face prosecution
http://www.pctattletale.com/blog/133/teachers-union-official-supports-sex-offenders/
Here's some state schools that had abused children for decades...
In Seattle, state school for the deaf had decades of abuse:
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/article/Decades-of-sex-abuse-plague-deaf-school-1053009.php#page-2
Canadian state school, 40 years of reported abuse:
http://www.survivingthepast.ca/gillsterinc/schools/4-1_History.htm
New York state school, another 40 years of abuse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willowbrook_State_School#More_scandals_and_abuses
Recent scandal in LA, confirmed 175 kids abused for years, more expected
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/02/09/l-a-s-school-sex-abuse-scandal-widens.html
Check google for teacher abuse and you'll find about hundreds of active cases being reported in the news. According to the best statistics we have, about 10% of children are sexually abused at schools.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2012/02/is_sexual_abuse_in_schools_very_common_.html
I said no... but I missed and it came out yes.
"And the actual quote is "My name is Legion: for we are many." So "we" and "legion" is part of the real quote."
Now that's a REAL stretch. I suppose if I were playing basketball and said "my score was four", I must be quoting the Gettysburg Address?
Crickey, you are obtuse.
Firstly, the book in question (The Gospel according to Mark, 5:9) was written 2050 years ago, a bit longer than your 1000 years.
Secondly, even though it was written in Greek, the author of Mark used the the transliterated Roman term "Legio" (Legiwn in Greek) - the author of Mark was writing for Romans and used the Roman term. Like Anonymous, he was using an allusion that his audience knew.
Thirdly, Anonymous are using English for their motto - so the fact that we're talking about a phrase that was translated into English 500+ years ago hardly makes it likely that they came up with weirdly similar phraseology de novo. I'm not saying Anonymous is a bunch of Bible students - I'm saying they're using phraseology that came from a Biblical source whether they knew it or not simply because it's been used by speakers and authors who were purposely alluding to the Bible for hundreds of years and it has thus entered the popular culture.
Finally, the phrase "We are Legion" pairs a plural subject and a singular noun. It hardly makes sense - try using "We are Battalion" or "We are Patrol" - except as an allusion to the Biblical phrase.
I'm sorry if you are so traumatized by the Bible that the fact that certain phrases and concepts have bled into the popular culture makes you mad. I'm not a huge fan of chunks of it either, but come on - this one is a gimme...
And why couldn't anonymous break-in ?
The Vatican has better security than the DoD ?
I guess everybody just assumes God is protecting them, that must be why nobody finds it curious that their systems are so secure.
Trick? Tricking someone into clicking the link puts about the same load on the server as tricking them into clicking a shortened URL that redirects to the server's /index.html. In other words, about as effective as the Slashdot effect. The real harm is done by the people who aren't tricked into clicking the link - the people who click it intentionally - and then leave it running for hours on end, loading and reloading the site's assets.
Perhaps you should go edit the Wikipedia article, then.
The Christian New Testament gospels of Mark, Luke and Matthew describe an incident in which Jesus meets a man, or men, possessed by demons who, when asked what their name is, respond:
"My name is Legion, for we are many."
(In Latin) "Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumus."
The quotation has been referenced and alluded to many times throughout history in popular culture.
...
On Wednesday, January 23, 2008 the Internet-based group "Anonymous" released statements on YouTube and via a press release, outlining what they call a "War on Scientology". During Their YouTube video they state "If you want another name for your opponent, then call us Legion, for we are many.".
It's obviously an intentional reference to the New Testament.
No, I am sudonymous...
"During Their YouTube video they state "If you want another name for your opponent, then call us Legion, for we are many."
Given that whole statement, I would have to agree that it is a biblical reference. However, I do not agree that simply saying "we are legion," which is what was said in this case, necessarily amounts to that. Given that they have said that before, if what you say is true, then it seems that it is a biblical reference. But this discussion was based only on the statement "we are legion", and nothing else.
Even given that, though, there is still nothing indicating that it's a reference to demons, because again "we are legion" ONLY means "we are many"... which, besides being supported by the history of the word "legion", is also stated in so many words, just as you have pointed out.
People quote Romeo and Juliet without any intention of committing suicide. Simply quoting "we are many" does not mean they associate themselves with demons.
"Crickey, you are obtuse. ... Firstly, the book in question (The Gospel according to Mark, 5:9) was written 2050 years ago, a bit longer than your 1000 years."
* I * am being obtuse? Hahahaha. Look up the word "legion", dumbass. It isn't known to have existed until approximately the year 1000 A.D.!!!! And I'm being generous, giving it a good 100 years or more leeway.
"... he was using an allusion that his audience knew."
And your point is? He substituted a Roman allusion for the Greek. I can accept that. But you missed the point: WHAT was the Greek word for which he substituted it? Do you know what the original was? MY point about that was only that the word "legion" was not in the original bible, nor is it important. It was simply a word used to mean "many". Period. Other words could have been as easily used.
"the fact that we're talking about a phrase that was translated into English 500+ years ago hardly makes it likely that they came up with weirdly similar phraseology de novo."
I never stated that they did. Where did I assert any such thing? You have gotten sidetracked, and completely missed the point I was making, which was the fact that someone TODAY saying "we are legion" hardly implies that they are attempting to associate themselves with demons... which is exactly what GP was obviously implying.
"Finally, the phrase "We are Legion" pairs a plural subject and a singular noun. It hardly makes sense - try using "We are Battalion" or "We are Patrol" - except as an allusion to the Biblical phrase."
In this you are simply wrong. Look up the word. It is not JUST used as a noun (although when it is, it is often used as a plural, not singular, noun), but in modern times it is ALSO used as an adjective. So that's not a valid argument.
As somebody else pointed out, at other times Anonymous has stated "We are legion, for we are many." Now, THAT is obviously a biblical reference. But without that foreknowledge, I deny that simply saying "we are legion", today, is an intentional reference to the Bible, much less a reference to demons. It has been used too often, in too many other contexts.
I think you got too caught up in the last couple of exchanges and didn't bother to go back and find out what my original point was.
In case my point wasn't clear, it is precisely the same as the last sentence you quoted: "... it has been referenced and alluded to many times... in popular culture."
Exactly. My point was (if we are talking about ONLY the words that were being argued about, not the earlier, more complete quote you gave) that it has been used "in popular culture" a lot, and it is arguable that most people who say it are not necessarily -- or intentionally, anyway -- referencing the bible.
The whole quote, though? Yeah, probably.
* I * am being obtuse? Hahahaha. Look up the word "legion", dumbass. It isn't known to have existed until approximately the year 1000 A.D.!!!! And I'm being generous, giving it a good 100 years or more leeway.
OK, even I am getting bored by this, but try to follow this.
When a word like legion has a dictionary entry that says "Origin 1175-1225", that's when the word entered the English language, not when it first popped out of the mouths of humans. Legio (Latin) and Legiwn (Greek) have both existed for well over 2000 years. Legio came to Greece and became Legiwn, came through Old French as Legion and entered English through Old French/Norman. Same word, with slight changes to pronunciation, century after century. And when it came into English, it was used in the sense of a "Roman Legion" (band of soldiers), not as a synonym for "many".
I was pretty clear in my posting that I doubted that Anonymous was purposely quoting the Bible. But you said:
The use of the word "legion" to mean "many" is approximately 1000 years old, and it originally referred to a "legion" of Roman soldiers. It did not come from the Bible at all. Remember that the Bible is a translated work.
Look up the etymology (word origin) of legion. Here's the very first hit from Google.
Which is pretty much all I said. That you continue to get your dander up over it is bizarre...
OK, even I am getting bored by this, but try to follow this.
Be bored all you like. You're the one who isn't getting it. I haven't misunderstood you, it's that your statements are irrelevant (as far as I know) to the point I was making.
When a word like legion has a dictionary entry that says "Origin 1175-1225", that's when the word entered the English language, not when it first popped out of the mouths of humans. Legio (Latin) and Legiwn (Greek) have both existed for well over 2000 years. Legio came to Greece and became Legiwn, came through Old French as Legion and entered English through Old French/Norman. Same word, with slight changes to pronunciation, century after century.
All completely irrelevant. The issue was (I asked you last time... maybe I didn't make myself clear?) WHEN was that translated into English, and what word (in whatever language) did it replace? That was the question. Was it translated to English directly from Legio or Legiwin? If so, you haven't said so. If it was, I'll concede your point.
And when it came into English, it was used in the sense of a "Roman Legion" (band of soldiers), not as a synonym for "many".
I am fully aware of this. If you bothered to read my earlier posts, I even mentioned this myself. My reference to its use as "many" was to MODERN usage. You should not have had trouble getting that part straight. I haven't even implied anything else.
Generalized sense of "a large number" is due to translations of allusive phrase in Mark v.9.
Which is pretty much all I said. That you continue to get your dander up over it is bizarre...
You think it's bizarre because you don't have the context right. Go back and look at my ORIGINAL point. It was: that young modern English-speakers who say "we are legion" (no more, no less), are probably NOT attempting to associate themselves with demons.
In that context, it is you and others who have yanked things all over the place and made irrelevant arguments. My original point was that in MODERN, contemporary usage, it is often just a synonym for "many". The dictionary says so, quite clearly. It was other people who started BSing about the meanings of words at times that were not even relevant to the conversation. And you are one of them.
English wasn't really what we'd consider English before then. Old English (or to be more precise, West Saxon) was spoken from about 800-1100 and formed the basis of what we call English now.
The Gospel of Mark in West Saxon uses "Legio", the actual Latin word, so it would seem that prior to "Anglicization" in 1175, we just used the Latin word directly. The influence of Norman French after the conquest on English caused a lot of Latin words to be merged with their Old French equivalents. So, yes, legion is a direct translation of Legio and had been used in Saxon prior to being "updated" to the French pronunciation.
And if you'd read my post carefully, I showed you that the MODERN usage of legion to also mean "many" is because of the Bible verse. The Romans didn't use the term to mean "many" - its root meaning in Latin was "conscript" from the word legere "to choose". As far as anyone can tell, it was first used as "many" in the Bible. Every etymology of the use of legion to mean "many" points to Mark 5:9 as the reason.
That's even true in French, where they use the phrase "être legion" as a synonym for many and point to scriptural use (one source uses the example "legions of demons") as the reason why.
I've read the chain. Nick brings in Jesus a little weirdly, but the basic point was that "we are legion" is a quote of the "bad guys". You were the one who brought in demons and claimed there couldn't possibly be a connection between the term legion and the Bible.
It's the equivalent of someone saying "work makes you free" and being told that "you probably should think about the origin that phrase".
"We are legion" is a bad-guy quote. If Anonymous wants to be considered good-guys, they might want a better motto.
"The Gospel of Mark in West Saxon uses "Legio", the actual Latin word, so it would seem that prior to "Anglicization" in 1175, we just used the Latin word directly. "
In that case, I concede the point that it could have meant "legion" in the Roman sense of the word.
"And if you'd read my post carefully, I showed you that the MODERN usage of legion to also mean "many" is because of the Bible verse."
And if you read MY posts carefully, you would see that this is completely irrelevant to what I originally said. My point was about MODERN usage. In fact that was the whole of my point... that someone today would not necessarily make the connection.
"I've read the chain. Nick brings in Jesus a little weirdly, but the basic point was that "we are legion" is a quote of the "bad guys". You were the one who brought in demons and claimed there couldn't possibly be a connection between the term legion and the Bible."
That is not an accurate assessment. "Nick", as you call him, was clearly implying an association with demons. Else his statement made no sense whatever... it would have been completely pointless to write what he did. Logically, he HAD TO be referring to demons. So I was not actually the one who "brought it up". I was the first to state it in plain words, but I did not introduce the subject, he did.
And I did not go so far as to say it "could not possibly". If you did indeed read my other comments, you will see that I mostly used phrases like "probably" and "not likely".
"We are legion" is a bad-guy quote. If Anonymous wants to be considered good-guys, they might want a better motto."
See? There you go again. I disagree completely about it [i.e., the words that were actually used in this case]. I do not think that a young person today who says "we are legion" is necessarily or intentionally making an association with demons. And nothing you have stated has had any bearing whatever on that assertion. The phrase has been used too often in modern times, in too many other contexts. Repeat: today's dictionary defines it as meaning "many". And my argument was about today.
Now, having said that: someone else pointed out later that on another occasion some representative of Anonymous stated "we are legion; for we are many". If you take that whole phrase, it would pretty clearly have to be a biblical reference... anything else is too much of a stretch. But even then, that does not imply that the speaker actually understands the reference. Regardless, in THIS case, that isn't what was said. So it has no bearing on my argument, which was only about the phrase "we are legion", in modern usage. That was the whole of my original point... it wasn't me who sidetracked the issue.
I agree that they could probably do with a better motto, but I do not assume that its implications are really understood by the people saying it.