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."

Comments

history in motion, transiting from hooliganism

[Anonymous Coward]

it's sort of like how union leaders used to get put in jail (or killed) for organizing strikes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike

Right now what they did does seem illegal hooliganism, as does most civil disobedience. Sometimes society adapts to see things differently. For now this is still hooliganism. I think they need to show a compelling good coming out of this if they expect a different response. The question is, what good would that be?

Will the Government Listen?

[Grantbridge]

This makes perfect sense. If an angry mob smashes up some shops fronts, but police only catch 14 people you wouldn't charge them with the total damage of the entire mob, as well as the cost of upgrading security to protect against an angry mob in the future. You would charge each individual according to the damage they actually did. In this case a single person using LOIC doesn't really do any significant damage at all. You could charge them a 1/1000 of the cost of overtime for personal to deal with the attack, and the extra bandwidth they caused the company, but its madness to hold them responsible for the damage done by the entire swarm. In a cynical POV, this is also an excellent way for PayPall to remove themselves as a target when the PayPal14 are found guility.

Re:Activism

[robinsonne]

The difference being that meatspace activism is almost pointless these days. It might get a 30 second mention on the news on a slow day, but otherwise you're just shunted into a "free speech zone", traffic gets routed around the protest and is flat out ignored.

Hacktivism on the other hand, has relatively immediate, noticeable (sometimes very much so) consequences that can either cost an organization money or if nothing else cause embarrassment.

Meatspace protests make you feel good, and are probably amusing to the powers that be. Online, a few people can a real nuisance, which is what activism is trying to do: be a nuisance until a change happens. [sarcasm] We can't have things like that happening in this country. Obviously we have to set an example for these 14 people. [/sarcasm]

Re:Fuck Them

[TheCarp]

So we should ignore the fact that making punishments harsher is a terrible deterrent; in spite of how simple it sounds? The chance of getting caught is what is an actual deterrent.

So hitting a few people, very hard, for an action much larger than them, produces very little result. Whereas slapping a lot of people lightly on the wrist, would likely produce a much bigger result.

Course, paypal deserved it. I applaud everyone who took part.

Re:Let em off cuz most weren't found?

[Samantha Wright]

That, and, Omidyar feels that many of the participants in the PayPal DDoS saw it as a form of protest. He doesn't attribute malice to them.