CNN Misrepresenting etoy vs. etoys Battle?

J Hotch writes "Check out CNN's story: eToys attacks show need for strong Web defenses. Check out this frighteningly inaccurate description of the conflict: "Online retailer eToys has taken legal steps to prevent a Swiss art group from using the domain name etoy.com." This makes it sound like etoy.com was trying to muscle in on etoys.com. They don't mention that etoy.com was registered years before etoys.com was even a twinkle in some business-major's eye. Unfortunately, they are just using the denial-of-service attacks on etoys.com as a springboard into a web security article. "

Comments

To be fair to CNN..

[Masem]

CNN's focus on this article is NOT etoy.com vs eToys.com. It's on how script kiddies can readily and easily cause a pure e-commerce vessle to sink if it's not well prepared.

Now, let the ranting begin:

1) The only time that I would ever advocate a DoS attack on a site is never. There is no reason to do so; sure, you might put it down for a while (etoys reported 98% instead of 100% reliability during the last few weeks), but if anything it could lead to worse things (see below). There are more effective ways to state your dislike for something.

2) CNN's not wrong; their article on the etoy/etoys things is truth. Just using a different set of words that seems to put etoys on the right side of the thing. Words are very powerful, but you can't blame CNN for misusing them.

3) I really don't like this idea of DoS attacks, especially in light of this article. Chain of events: All over e-commerce they read that a service can be put down because of DoS (they won't care why the DoS was initiated); Etoys says they have to use custom-built DoS prevention tricks to stop it; E-commerce security experts all up in arms on how to stop this; e-commerence management wonders how to easily stop it; e-commerce turns to US Government (using large bags of money) and asks them to stop it; US Government bans all TCPIP tools except port 80's. Ok, so the last one's going a bit far, but I don't doubt that this series of events can happen. Just as with the question of linking, overly long patent and trademarks, poor patents, and other junk, stuff like this only kills the net for anyone not involved in e-commerce, and even then, may take some lowend e-commerce sites down.

Moral of the story: PLEASE DONT BE A SCRIPT KIDDIE. :-P

Re:Wha?

[Gurlia]

That's the problem with freedom of speech (supporters? advocates? zealots?). Doing things like DoS against somebody's server just to "prove a point" will only hurt freedom more than help it, in the long run. We need "peaceful" protests -- not disruptive actions. Yes we have to fight for our freedom rights, but doing childish things like ping floods, etc., will only give a very bad image to people outside of our circle, and actually advance the cause of those who want to take away our freedom (they can point at us and say "look at this bunch of childish fanatics, don't listen to them.")

I guess this is a principle we should all learn: whether fighting for freedom of speech, advocating Linux, or whatever the noble cause may be. "Promoting" Linux by flaming MS doesn't do any good at all, as most of us know very well. Similarly, DoS'ing etoys.com just to "show them" we don't like their actions won't do much except confirm, in the minds of the unknowing, that we are just a bunch of fanatics that should be ignored. What we need is to protest in a non-disruptive way. If enough of us drop a (polite!) note to etoys.com or to a congressman or whoever's in the position to take action, or raise some legal funds, and take some other means of non-disruptive action against this trend, we might actually make an effect.

Remember, if we lower ourselves to the opponent's level, we lose. Unfortunately it only takes a small percentage of us to behave in a childish way and people jump to the conclusion we're all like that.

Right vs. Wrong

[humphrm]

There are too many right vs. wrongs here, and nobody (except maybe /. and etoy themselves with their legal counter action) is addressing this properly.

I recieved one of RTMark's e-mails; they clearly got my e-mail address off of /. because I responded to the earlier story about this. So, since I piped in with support of etoy (my post included simply options of other toy retailers to use, and my angle was that these other options are actually cheaper than eToys)

So, let's see... RTMark takes it upon themselves to harvest my e-mail address, send me Spam, and tries to enlist the spam's recipients to engage in an illegal DOS attack against eToys -- and they're the good guys?

The news article may not have been complete, (gee, Slashdot's never done that...) but they did get it right: this is an illegal attack that does nothing except make legitimate advocates for etoy look bad.

etoy.com a bunch of script kiddies?

[HomerJ]

That's the impression a got after reading the CNN atricle.

Not to mention they mention the "unix-based" Tribal Flood Network. As if they are trying to group anyone that uses a non-MS OS into the "script kiddie" catagory that trys to take down "legit" e-commerce sites like etoys.com.

Which makes me wonder if Ted Turner has some sort of interest in etoys.com. I've seen CNN spin the hell out of other stories that were against a Turner company. Turner uses CNN to promote all of his ideas. It's not called the Clinton News Netowrk for nothing.

Just my $.02, but NEVER rely on CNN when they put too much of a negative spin on one thing and positive spin on another in the same story. CNN projects it's financial and politcal ideas in it's "unbiased" stories more then any other news organization I've seen.

I know what really happened. Other news groups reported on what really happened. I take CNN at face value, so the story didn't really surprise me.

What the News is All About

[FFFish]

The news does not exist to inform you.

It exists to sell your eyeballs to advertisers.

The more eyeballs, the more dollars revenue.

Facts just scare the audience away.

Adopt this cynical (and realistic) understanding of the news media, and it'll serve you well.

Pleeeeze?

[Kaa]

We need "peaceful" protests -- not disruptive actions. Yes we have to fight for our freedom rights, but doing childish things like ping floods, etc., will only give a very bad image to people outside of our circle, and actually advance the cause of those who want to take away our freedom ...[snip]... What we need is to protest in a non-disruptive way.

I am usually not in favor of incitement to riots, but this position goes a bit too far the other way. Peaceful and non-disruptive protests make sense only when the imbalance of power between the two sides isn't too great. If your position on the totem pole is several feet below its bottom, then all the non-disruptive protests in the world aren't going to do you and your cause any good. At best you'll politely told to fuck off and not bother important gentlemen busy with their important matters.

The proper criterion for protest is not how disruptive it is, but rather how effective it is in achieving its aims. Sometimes the best way is to be very, very polite. Other times, being polite is useless but being obnoxious and irritating works wonders. It all depends.

I am not in favor of ping-flooding etoys' servers -- this attack is ineffective and is not likely to make etoys see the light. The management will just tell their tech people to fix it, and fix it they will, it's not hard at all. On the other hand, I am also not in favor of wringing one's hand lamenting the horrible state of affairs and writing whiny letters to congresscritters. If you want to do something, do something effective instead of pissing in the wind.

Kaa