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eBay Founder Pleads For Leniency For the PayPal 14
DavidGilbert99 writes "The founder of eBay, the parent company of PayPal, Pierre Omidyar has called on U.S. prosecutors to have mercy on the 14 members of Anonymous who are appearing in court this week facing up to 15 years in jail and a $500,000 fine for their part in a DDoS attack against PayPal in 2010. Despite thousands of Anons taking part, and most of the damage being done by two major botnets, the 14 are set to bear all the responsibility if U.S. prosecutors have their way."
If I choose to pay someone $5.5 million to put up a "no trespassing" sign and a chain link fence after getting hit by vandals, that doesn't mean the vandals cost me $5.5MM
They all used Anons ddos app. It doesn't disguise your IP or anything. The point of it is, this is supposed to be a type of protest. I doubt there were any leaders in this case. 1 dude just pointed the application at the target and everyone else just ran the client for a few minutes. It's insane that this is illegal. This should be entirely a civil matter. Your ISP should ban you or you should be subject to a civil suit. But criminal charges? This is clearly a protest. Sounds like it was a hippie protest to me, and I hate hippies. But if we throw them in jail for bitching now, what's going to happen to all us non-hippies when we decide to bitch?
No it would be awesome to live in a world where protesters would only be allowed to protest in a convenient place where they didn't bother anyone else. Maybe designated "free speech" zones where they won't disturb the rest of us who need to sleep, go to work, go shopping etc.
Anyone who protested elsewhere and disturbed other people should get 15 years in jail and a $500,000 fine.
What a wonderful "Black or White" world that would be right?