Slashdot Mirror
Anonymous Hacks UK Government Sites Over 'Draconian Surveillance'
Krystalo writes "The hacktivist group Anonymous today hacked multiple UK government websites over the country's 'draconian surveillance proposals' and 'derogation of civil rights.' At the time of writing, the following websites were taken down: homeoffice.gov.uk, number10.gov.uk, and justice.gov.uk. The group is not pleased with the UK government's plans to monitor Internet users."
Maybe their 2,000,000 cameras aren't helping as much as they thought they would?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Hacktivisim at it finest. The more governments restrict freedom the more "terrorist" there will be.
"UK government has released a report today, announcing that as their crucial websites were taken down, they can no longer ignore the attackers, and have reversed the planned draconian surveillance."
More like in six months, there will be more arrests.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
While I agree with their sentiments, this is not the way to combat the surveillance proposals.
Attacking the UK government over the internet is a sure way to get them to give up on internet surveillance.
THIS is why we need this bill to pass... Nevermind that the Anonymous group denied the attack, they admitted it!
Kinda sad when the only people fighting for your rights are a bunch of script kiddies in their basements.
... I wish them well. We can live without the #10 Downing street website for a few days. And, it doesn't *seem* like it's a particularly destructive event. A DDOS attack means extra work for the IT staff and extra expenditures, but it's not like the servers go up in clouds of greasy black smoke, and it's not as if the IT staff will suffer anything worse than a few late evenings and missed cups of tea.
Some of the words, like "colour" "centre" and "organise" have been cannily vandalized.
It's quite a clevre plan.
The more our world leans to the universe in Daniel Suarez' fiction, the more I feel a delightful mix of elation, fear, uncertainty and excitement.
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
And they even get a choice of which thing they want to learn ... 1. How to respect the rights of the people ... or ... 2. How to make a web site and its servers secure. Sheesh. Did they set this up with "Government Websites For Dummies"?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Can we just $_ =~ s/Anonymous/someone/i please?
It would be far less confusing to those who don't realize it's just your average every-day folk behind these stunts. It's really just the common man turned vigilante... Either this, or label all vigilante acts with unknown perpetrators as the work of Anonymous -- Because that's what it's come to.
Here, I'll demonstrate:
Today, someone hacked multiple UK government websites over the country's 'draconian surveillance proposals' and 'derogation of civil rights.' At the time of writing, the following websites were taken down: homeoffice.gov.uk, number10.gov.uk, and justice.gov.uk. Someone is not pleased with the UK government's plans to monitor Internet users.
The current state of the UK is a good example of a government
which has more interest in remaining in power than anything
else it might be doing which could be more productive and might actually
serve its citizens.
As an aside, this is pretty much a preview of what you will see the US
government do in the next 20 years. In both cases it amounts to the
pointless thrashing of an empire which is either already defunct or
will soon be.
Obligatory XLCD
http://xkcd.com/932/
Fuck off, Uentermensch.
... but they should be locked up until they figure out how to press for change by democratic means.
This is a relatively small group of people, few of whom are UK citizens, that are using force to impose their ideology. They assume that their radical perspectives are supported by the majority, but are unwilling to test that by legally participating in the legislative process.
In other words, these are a bunch of hot heads that want to ram their ideas down everyone else's throats. In that sense they aren't terribly different from other religious or political ideologues.
(For what it's worth, I do support privacy. Yet I believe that the rule of law and democracy are far more important.)
From the first line of the article "Summary: Anonymous has launched a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) against multiple UK government websites."
Far less impressive than hacking the sites IMO. Then they could have left a message.
The defacing of Chinese government's websites were hacks. This is just a DDoS.
A DDoS is NOT a hack. Turning on LOIC, Longcat Flooder, Pissblaster 9001, etc is not hacking. All you're doing is pointing a hose and turning on the water.
to do. Who cares about a website? Websites are superfluous. But hack their Blackberries and you will get their attention. Hack their family's accounts, and you will get their attention. The politicians of the world need to know that their very lives are at the mercy of geeks, and that the geeks are not pleased.
If geeks would work together, this kind of BS would nearly instantly stop because modern life would be impossible without the active or passive participation of geeks.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
They took down some websites? It must be complete anarchy over there. A total breakdown of moral order. Its tough but fair. Well played Anonymous.
We need some sort of Enabling Act to hurry through legislation to protect us from these terrorists.
...to post as an Anonymous Coward!
(*dons monocle and top-hat, and raises glass of sherry*)
A toast...to Anonymity!
- A.C.
It must be complete anarchy over there.
You mean....Anarchy in the UK?
When you make their guns and weapons disappear.
Thanks Anonymous. That should stop them. Just in case though, my baby brother is going to put graffiti on a closed circuit TV camera. That will solve the problem.
Anybody that knows about the Revolutionary War, can see that they tried politics, but that didn't work. And the script kiddies, at least they're doing something. Better than /.'s just giving their personal opinions. If your government doesn't listen to the people, it probably won't survive for very long.
Part 2 was seemingly modelled on Hitler's Enabling Act.
Almost nobody knows that these new surveillance measures aren't new: Labour introduced unlimited internet surveillance in RIPA 2000. It's about who pays to store the data.
Also worth noting that this is an EU directive demanded by Labour via policy laundering.
Now, these new powers were leaked. And it seems that even the Deputy Prime Minister (a LibDem) didn't understand what had been proposed.
http://www.complicity.co.uk/blog/2012/04/the-party-machines-view-on-communication-interception/
Indeed, the liberal side of the LibDems are going mental about this. What the liberals will probably try to do is repeal RIPA and insist that access to such data is only possible via the judiciary ie a warrant.
This guy gives a much more in-depth analysis.
http://spyblog.org.uk/
Posting as AC as I have heavily moderated this article.
You wont solve a political problem by non-political means.
Really? The English gave you the colonies just like that, because you voted for it?
Worked for Canada.
But isn't protesting illegal in the UK?
Labour will back it, but oddly the biggest party in scotland stands opposed http://www.snp.org/media-centre/news/2012/apr/snp-condemn-uk-government-surveillance-plan Hey another resaon to desolve the act of union.
...the more star systems will slip through your fingers.
the draconian surveillance of hacktivists?
All these hackers are doing is making the government realize how inadequate the system currently is such that a small group of people can cause this much havoc. This will speed along more laws to help crack down on net traffic because they see an obvious security threat to the countries well being. This is counter productive anonymous. This isn't simple protesting. It's actual acts of crime and vandalism against a sovereign state. This will only make things worse in the long run.
When those hackers are caught, they are going to spend some time in prison. After that they probably get jobs as online-security advisors or the like.