Wikileaks has done effectively nothing recently besides attack the US government. Where's all those high-finance leaks that were promised years ago? Where's the responsible redaction that every reputable journalist goes through? Where's the public editing and input that it began with? As far as I can tell, Wikileaks lost all attempt at virtue by the beginning of 2010. Since then, it's resorted to blackmail to maintain its interests, threatening to release unfiltered, uncensored information if anything happens to Julian Assange or the organization itself. Virtue, indeed.
Regardless of my opinions, Wikileaks may be worth fighting for. In that case, donate to it through any of the several channels that are still open. If they're all shut down today, wait until tomorrow and there'll be five more. Shrugging off law and order to throw rocks at companies isn't about a virtuous protest. It's a child's tantrum. What's more, it's a tantrum from children who don't dare consider that they're breaking laws with this farce of a protest. HBGary is now being attacked for investigating a criminal act. Last time I checked, breaking laws for any cause was still grounds to be arrested and put on trial. Often, it's even enough to be convicted.
Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald who, conspiracies aside, killed President Kennedy. Ruby was convicted of murder, because he killed someone. What his victim may or may not have done is irrelevant. In my opinion, every participant in a DDoS ought to face justice according to their jurisdictions. They broke laws, and have no basis to complain now that they're being caught.
Perhaps I'd feel differently if there were no outlet for protest other than a DDoS, but there are. Wikileaks' supporters could raise a billboard encouraging support of Wikileaks' mission. They could send letters to representatives and picket assemblies and courthouses. They could follow any of the myriad forms of protest that have been established and respected over the past thousand years, without breaking any laws. They could, but Anonymous won't. Anonymous is a legion of crying children. Virtue doesn't hold their interest. Mayhem does.
My name is Sarten-X. I've done a good many stupid things in my life.
I've jumped off a platform on a mountain and crushed a vertebra. Now I wake up every morning in pain, can't sit or stand upright for extended periods of time, and will probably need major surgery before I'm 50.
I've grabbed an exposed wire carrying 240 volts, because a circuit breaker wasn't double-checked to be off. It felt like someone punched me in the neck.
I parked my car on top of a sheet of ice in the middle of the woods at night. I couldn't get any traction when I tried to leave. If it weren't for a friend conveniently in the area with a truck and tow cables, I'd have been stuck out there all night in below-freezing weather, with only a single thin blanket.
I do not assume that I will not do more stupid things in my life. I hope I don't die from something stupid, but I accept that it is possible. I certainly don't speak out of arrogance. I speak because I've learned something more, and because of that, James Kim's death does not qualify as "pointless". A pointless death is one where nothing is gained that may benefit humanity. When I die, I sincerely hope that my death contributes to the world.
Please do not assume that I am some stereotypical "arrogant, self-centered" person. That's rather disrespectful. On the contrary, I accept that anyone, including myself, may simply have the misfortune to do something stupid, and die because of it. It is sad that Mr. Kim died. It is sadder still that we should forget his final lesson, and need to learn it again later.
To play devil's advocate for a minute, what's the difference between building a house without review, and getting an exact detailed proposal approved by a city?
Think of other similar stories that happen every day. How often do computer scientists complain about software specifications that come from the folks in marketing? Sure, they might look good at first glance, but there's almost always hidden problems. Of course, by the time those problems are noticed, the plan has been approved, and it's nearly impossible to convince management that it's a bad idea.
The same goes for any city. Once the plan's approved by the council/voters/whatever in charge, it's nearly impossible to make significant changes, even if the original plan is wrong. The concern is that by having such a detailed plan, it could be pushed through without adequate review from engineers who've had all their training.
I'm sure anybody can make a bad decision at any time, but it doesn't mean the mistake isn't stupid. Death by stupidity is a normal part of life. It's not an issue of being inherently smarter. It's an issue of "somebody's going to do it". Ideally, the survivors learn from the mistakes of others and don't repeat history.
Instead of returning to the exit, they consulted a highway map and picked a secondary route that skirted the Wild Rogue Wilderness, a remote area of southwestern Oregon.
From James Kim, I learn that I shouldn't choose alternate routes that take me near wilderness unless I'm prepared to spend time in the wilderness.
Also industrial control and monitoring, remote instrumentation and telemetry, smart appliances, and research.
An FTP server probably needs a TCP stack, but it likely doesn't need support for laptop power management. On the other hand, a remote monitor might need to run with a backup battery, but communicate over a serial line. Again, embedded systems involve a lot of choices. The field of embedded machines is enormous, and there is certainly no single OS (and especially no single configuration) that will fit all needs.
What I get from that quote is that the custom configuration EOS is promoting eliminates several attack vectors. As an example, look right underneath, where it's mentioned that Plug and Play is disabled. Even if the case is compromised, modifications to the machine wouldn't work easily. It sounds like protecting against both known and unknown bugs by adopting a minimalist strategy. There's less stuff, so less stuff can go wrong.
It currently runs Debian, stripped down to about 100 megs, and that's with only removing packages. A friend of mine (who is more familiar with the Linux internals) says that figure can easily be cut in half. The spare hard drive I stuck in the box is 2 GB, so I'm not particularly worried. Text recipes don't take that much space.
The first version I set up actually ran Windows 98, because I had originally written my recipe program in Visual Basic. It has since been translated to a language that causes less pain, and the OS was changed shortly thereafter, purely because I love the FHS.
I'm saying that arbitrary hardware requirements do not have any relation to how well something actually does its job, and the examples you gave are ridiculously off-base for an embedded system in the first place.
As an example, ATMs get new anti-counterfeiting devices all the time (certainly often enough to refer to any particular device as "next-gen"), yet they run old operating systems without significant problems. Sure, there's the occasional virus, but the overall rate of infection is far lower than desktop PCs, even after the latest antivirus updates. Would running a new OS make the ATM any better at handing out money? No.
Think about each component of a modern OS, and determine whether it really needs to be on an embedded system. Does an ATM really need wireless functionality, or even TCP at all? What about support for rendering HTML? Is generic TWAIN support more cost-effective and bug-free than a custom driver? What about file and printer sharing? They're all potential attack vectors, so removing unneeded components is necessary. Newer operating systems have more components, and they're more tightly integrated. That means more unpredictable security overall, which just costs more to install and maintain.
Few embedded systems are simply a desktop computer in a fancy box. There are many design challenges, and every device is different. While I'm sure there are cases where an embedded system needs to store 20 GB inside itself, it's not the kind of issue that comes up often.
As another example of how different embedded systems are, consider an impressive bit of embedded mastery: Apollo 11's Automated Guidance Computer. That machine was responsible for landing humans on the moon. It did its job almost perfectly. Assuming it were running at full capacity throughout the entire flight, Apollo 11 ran fewer calculations than a few minutes playing World of Warcraft.
My source makes no mention of the cause priority, so I picked a few at random. I apologize if my statement's in error, but my sentiment remains. Shutting down communication is not a reasonable response to a movement for change.
On a more general scale, I'd actually support the use of the Internet to protest for or against any cause. Want to use the Internet to organize a protest in favor of censorship? I'll help you do it, but I'll mock the irony.
The protesters are using the Internet to organize. They're protesting to fix those "bigger problems" like a lack of free speech, corruption in government, and police brutality. Preserving their Internet access is preserving their ability to fight for what they want. I believe that's important.
Right... Because the computer I built as a recipe box for my kitchen certainly needs 8 GB of RAM, 3 TB disk space, and a video card that can ray-trace 1080p in real time.
HIPAA isn't largely unenforced... It's just largely crap (for anybody that isn't a hospital). Store patient data on encrypted drives. Don't give private data to somebody who doesn't need it. Don't leave a workstation unlocked and unattended. Make a good-faith effort to maintain security. If you're reading Slashdot, chances are you can already guess HIPAA's rules.
It's pretty easy to comply with HIPAA and HITECH, if you've designed your system with them in mind. Unfortunately, hospitals (which are notoriously out of date by modern IT standards) are too often running old systems without encryption or secure communication. That's fine, but with one small problem: Any large (>=500 people) leak results in a big (and expensive) hassle to contact those affected and make amends. The company at fault gets put on a list, which may have other consequences down the road. Nobody wants to work with a company that leaks data. That's why there's still a significant industry built around upgrading old systems to be HIPAA-compliant.They'll update infrastructure, train users, review the office layout, and otherwise minimize the risk of a breach. They'll also review every computer storing patient information, and make sure it's encrypted properly. That way if the computer (especially a laptop) is lost or stolen, it's not considered an actual "breach", because it's unlikely that any private data could be extracted.
Again, if you're setting up a new installation, HIPAA and HITECH aren't really anything beyond today's best practices. Email can include private information, as long as it's secure in transit and stored securely. As in my original comment, that excludes Google Mail and almost everything that mentions a "cloud". Running an internal email server on a secure network, storing mail on a secure volume, is perfectly fine.
Exactly. "Controlled by you" is the key phrase. All private information goes over secure lines in a secure facility. That can't be assured in most (if not all) cloud environments (unless it's private, which is more of a grid or cluster than a cloud).
I spent several months working with highly-sensitive medical data. Anything containing patient information was legally allowed anywhere inside our company, but not outside. That meant all communication including such information had to stay on private servers and be sent over encrypted channels. Our machines hosted outside the main office were connected via secure VPN, with encrypted volumes storing all data. At no time did sensitive information ever leave an authorized area, and that includes all internal email.
As an exercise in naivety, I searched for reports on ACTA. The first results are from Ars Technica, which is run by Condé Nast Publications, and CNET, which is a part of CBS Corporation. It seems to me that both of those ought to be significant and reputable enough to become a trusted outlet for OpenLeaks.
Perhaps you'd like to provide a different example of this great conspiracy?
Offhand, a protest I participated in during 2009 helped reduce a 30% budget cut for libraries down to 10%. Every three years, the Librarian of Congress determines DMCA exceptions, primarily based on public letters. A bit more research shows many successful protests. These companies rely on either being necessary or popular. Make a protest visible enough, and they'll change their minds.
While there may not be any large independent media, each company does effectively operate independently. I doubt AOL Time Warner would particularly worry about publishing information damaging to News Corp, or vice versa. There also Gannett, Disney, and Comcast, and they all effectively hate each other. In fact, being such a large company is detrimental, because each division of each company must work with every other company, and nobody wants to make nice deals with the competition. Pay attention to any of the content-provider contract battles, and this is obvious.
Advertising revenue is usually not tied to the number of sponsorships. It's tied to the number of viewers. Irritating one sponsor, but increasing viewership by 20% is a profitable move for the network. A single network with an exclusive story can also extend favors a targeted company, offering to release rebuttals and host spokespersons.
Given that the world's largest entertainment conglomerate only brought in $38 billion last year, I find it hard to believe that a shady deal's profits would measure in the billions. A hundred million, perhaps, but then that's well within the range of a smart advertising move.
The conspiracy theory, like all such theories, also requires far more cooperation than is feasible. Anyone involved in a large secret deal would also be suitably above the day-to-day dealings of the news branch to not know about the leaked story before it's released. If the news branch were told not to release any stories about certain rivals, that lets a few hundred people know that a secret deal is taking place. People don't keep secrets that well.
Corporate-controlled media is controlled by corporations. They'll follow any action that will make them profit in the long term. If being the first to break a scandalous story to the world costs them two advertisers, but brings in enough viewers to make other advertisers more profitable, they'll do it. Their competitors will be forced to broadcast the story, just to keep up appearances. Sure, the government can ask for some story not to be reported, but any attempt to actually enforce such a request is just a bigger scandal, and the request itself makes the story that much more interesting to viewers.
It'll be tricky, but this could work out, thanks to greed itself.
I am in favor of the IPv6 allocation idea, but that's another issue entirely...
Assuming no prior criminal history, bail is a very likely option. Without further evidence, acquittal is likely.
Perhaps you've forgotten the early days of the copyright-infringement lawsuits, where the evidence was taken at face value, mostly because it came out of actual investigation. Timestamps were checked against logs, and the endeavor was small enough that humans could check the evidence for sanity. When the process became more widespread is when accuracy rapidly fell off.
There's also various other changes that have helped reduce the inaccuracy as well, especially within the past few years. Wireless encryption is much more common, public access terminals are more carefully locked down, and every defense lawyer worth his salt knows what mistakes to look for.
Quite simply, nobody complains because this doesn't look like a scam.
Without the Anonymous DDoS, the issue could have been handled by some nice letters and petitions, instead. That wouldn't have disrupted service to Mastercard customers, and wouldn't consist of breaking laws around the world. It'd still result in properly-zealous regulators looking for legal violations.
Hence why I say the DDoS wasn't a protest. It was a tantrum by a bunch of children. There are established mechanisms for protest that do not involve collateral damage.
There are a few key differences. First, the sit-ins only directly affected the ones responsible for the offense, such as the restaurant itself. The employees still got paid for the day (except tips, of which I'm conveniently ignorant of the day's standards). Other restaurants that were not segregated did not suffer from the protest. In contrast, the DDoS affected all Mastercard customers, regardless of their views regarding Wikileaks.
Second, sit-ins, petitions, and speeches all present an identity and reputation with the action. I've been out protesting, holding a sign in front of a library, and I was recognized. There was a risk to my own reputation, and that is what I donated to the cause. Anonymous is anonymous. Their attacks are simply attacks, and do not carry any endorsement beyond the childish claim of being able to hit harder.
Finally, most sit-ins are legal. No laws are broken, but only establishment policies to raise awareness and provide pressure for change within the bounds of the law. DDoS's are prohibited by various legislation around the globe. Rather than saying "we want to work for change", a DDoS says "we want to force change, and don't care about anything in the way".
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sorry, but where exactly is the virtue?
Wikileaks has done effectively nothing recently besides attack the US government. Where's all those high-finance leaks that were promised years ago? Where's the responsible redaction that every reputable journalist goes through? Where's the public editing and input that it began with? As far as I can tell, Wikileaks lost all attempt at virtue by the beginning of 2010. Since then, it's resorted to blackmail to maintain its interests, threatening to release unfiltered, uncensored information if anything happens to Julian Assange or the organization itself. Virtue, indeed.
Regardless of my opinions, Wikileaks may be worth fighting for. In that case, donate to it through any of the several channels that are still open. If they're all shut down today, wait until tomorrow and there'll be five more. Shrugging off law and order to throw rocks at companies isn't about a virtuous protest. It's a child's tantrum. What's more, it's a tantrum from children who don't dare consider that they're breaking laws with this farce of a protest. HBGary is now being attacked for investigating a criminal act. Last time I checked, breaking laws for any cause was still grounds to be arrested and put on trial. Often, it's even enough to be convicted.
Jack Ruby killed Lee Harvey Oswald who, conspiracies aside, killed President Kennedy. Ruby was convicted of murder, because he killed someone. What his victim may or may not have done is irrelevant. In my opinion, every participant in a DDoS ought to face justice according to their jurisdictions. They broke laws, and have no basis to complain now that they're being caught.
Perhaps I'd feel differently if there were no outlet for protest other than a DDoS, but there are. Wikileaks' supporters could raise a billboard encouraging support of Wikileaks' mission. They could send letters to representatives and picket assemblies and courthouses. They could follow any of the myriad forms of protest that have been established and respected over the past thousand years, without breaking any laws. They could, but Anonymous won't. Anonymous is a legion of crying children. Virtue doesn't hold their interest. Mayhem does.
Hi.
My name is Sarten-X. I've done a good many stupid things in my life.
I've jumped off a platform on a mountain and crushed a vertebra. Now I wake up every morning in pain, can't sit or stand upright for extended periods of time, and will probably need major surgery before I'm 50.
I've grabbed an exposed wire carrying 240 volts, because a circuit breaker wasn't double-checked to be off. It felt like someone punched me in the neck.
I parked my car on top of a sheet of ice in the middle of the woods at night. I couldn't get any traction when I tried to leave. If it weren't for a friend conveniently in the area with a truck and tow cables, I'd have been stuck out there all night in below-freezing weather, with only a single thin blanket.
I do not assume that I will not do more stupid things in my life. I hope I don't die from something stupid, but I accept that it is possible. I certainly don't speak out of arrogance. I speak because I've learned something more, and because of that, James Kim's death does not qualify as "pointless". A pointless death is one where nothing is gained that may benefit humanity. When I die, I sincerely hope that my death contributes to the world.
Please do not assume that I am some stereotypical "arrogant, self-centered" person. That's rather disrespectful. On the contrary, I accept that anyone, including myself, may simply have the misfortune to do something stupid, and die because of it. It is sad that Mr. Kim died. It is sadder still that we should forget his final lesson, and need to learn it again later.
To play devil's advocate for a minute, what's the difference between building a house without review, and getting an exact detailed proposal approved by a city?
Think of other similar stories that happen every day. How often do computer scientists complain about software specifications that come from the folks in marketing? Sure, they might look good at first glance, but there's almost always hidden problems. Of course, by the time those problems are noticed, the plan has been approved, and it's nearly impossible to convince management that it's a bad idea.
The same goes for any city. Once the plan's approved by the council/voters/whatever in charge, it's nearly impossible to make significant changes, even if the original plan is wrong. The concern is that by having such a detailed plan, it could be pushed through without adequate review from engineers who've had all their training.
I'm sure anybody can make a bad decision at any time, but it doesn't mean the mistake isn't stupid. Death by stupidity is a normal part of life. It's not an issue of being inherently smarter. It's an issue of "somebody's going to do it". Ideally, the survivors learn from the mistakes of others and don't repeat history.
Instead of returning to the exit, they consulted a highway map and picked a secondary route that skirted the Wild Rogue Wilderness, a remote area of southwestern Oregon.
From James Kim, I learn that I shouldn't choose alternate routes that take me near wilderness unless I'm prepared to spend time in the wilderness.
Why use an extra stick? Location and time can be estimated with reasonable accuracy using a single stick (or other shadow-casting object).
I wonder what it is that makes so many of us susceptible to such blatant scientific fraud.
Patternicity.
Also industrial control and monitoring, remote instrumentation and telemetry, smart appliances, and research.
An FTP server probably needs a TCP stack, but it likely doesn't need support for laptop power management. On the other hand, a remote monitor might need to run with a backup battery, but communicate over a serial line. Again, embedded systems involve a lot of choices. The field of embedded machines is enormous, and there is certainly no single OS (and especially no single configuration) that will fit all needs.
What I get from that quote is that the custom configuration EOS is promoting eliminates several attack vectors. As an example, look right underneath, where it's mentioned that Plug and Play is disabled. Even if the case is compromised, modifications to the machine wouldn't work easily. It sounds like protecting against both known and unknown bugs by adopting a minimalist strategy. There's less stuff, so less stuff can go wrong.
It currently runs Debian, stripped down to about 100 megs, and that's with only removing packages. A friend of mine (who is more familiar with the Linux internals) says that figure can easily be cut in half. The spare hard drive I stuck in the box is 2 GB, so I'm not particularly worried. Text recipes don't take that much space.
The first version I set up actually ran Windows 98, because I had originally written my recipe program in Visual Basic. It has since been translated to a language that causes less pain, and the OS was changed shortly thereafter, purely because I love the FHS.
I'm saying that arbitrary hardware requirements do not have any relation to how well something actually does its job, and the examples you gave are ridiculously off-base for an embedded system in the first place.
As an example, ATMs get new anti-counterfeiting devices all the time (certainly often enough to refer to any particular device as "next-gen"), yet they run old operating systems without significant problems. Sure, there's the occasional virus, but the overall rate of infection is far lower than desktop PCs, even after the latest antivirus updates. Would running a new OS make the ATM any better at handing out money? No.
Think about each component of a modern OS, and determine whether it really needs to be on an embedded system. Does an ATM really need wireless functionality, or even TCP at all? What about support for rendering HTML? Is generic TWAIN support more cost-effective and bug-free than a custom driver? What about file and printer sharing? They're all potential attack vectors, so removing unneeded components is necessary. Newer operating systems have more components, and they're more tightly integrated. That means more unpredictable security overall, which just costs more to install and maintain.
Few embedded systems are simply a desktop computer in a fancy box. There are many design challenges, and every device is different. While I'm sure there are cases where an embedded system needs to store 20 GB inside itself, it's not the kind of issue that comes up often.
As another example of how different embedded systems are, consider an impressive bit of embedded mastery: Apollo 11's Automated Guidance Computer. That machine was responsible for landing humans on the moon. It did its job almost perfectly. Assuming it were running at full capacity throughout the entire flight, Apollo 11 ran fewer calculations than a few minutes playing World of Warcraft.
Excessive hardware is merely excessive.
My source makes no mention of the cause priority, so I picked a few at random. I apologize if my statement's in error, but my sentiment remains. Shutting down communication is not a reasonable response to a movement for change.
On a more general scale, I'd actually support the use of the Internet to protest for or against any cause. Want to use the Internet to organize a protest in favor of censorship? I'll help you do it, but I'll mock the irony.
The protesters are using the Internet to organize. They're protesting to fix those "bigger problems" like a lack of free speech, corruption in government, and police brutality. Preserving their Internet access is preserving their ability to fight for what they want. I believe that's important.
Right... Because the computer I built as a recipe box for my kitchen certainly needs 8 GB of RAM, 3 TB disk space, and a video card that can ray-trace 1080p in real time.
I take it you've never had a horse charge at you because the rider was an idiot.
HIPAA isn't largely unenforced... It's just largely crap (for anybody that isn't a hospital). Store patient data on encrypted drives. Don't give private data to somebody who doesn't need it. Don't leave a workstation unlocked and unattended. Make a good-faith effort to maintain security. If you're reading Slashdot, chances are you can already guess HIPAA's rules.
It's pretty easy to comply with HIPAA and HITECH, if you've designed your system with them in mind. Unfortunately, hospitals (which are notoriously out of date by modern IT standards) are too often running old systems without encryption or secure communication. That's fine, but with one small problem: Any large (>=500 people) leak results in a big (and expensive) hassle to contact those affected and make amends. The company at fault gets put on a list, which may have other consequences down the road. Nobody wants to work with a company that leaks data. That's why there's still a significant industry built around upgrading old systems to be HIPAA-compliant.They'll update infrastructure, train users, review the office layout, and otherwise minimize the risk of a breach. They'll also review every computer storing patient information, and make sure it's encrypted properly. That way if the computer (especially a laptop) is lost or stolen, it's not considered an actual "breach", because it's unlikely that any private data could be extracted.
Again, if you're setting up a new installation, HIPAA and HITECH aren't really anything beyond today's best practices. Email can include private information, as long as it's secure in transit and stored securely. As in my original comment, that excludes Google Mail and almost everything that mentions a "cloud". Running an internal email server on a secure network, storing mail on a secure volume, is perfectly fine.
Exactly. "Controlled by you" is the key phrase. All private information goes over secure lines in a secure facility. That can't be assured in most (if not all) cloud environments (unless it's private, which is more of a grid or cluster than a cloud).
I spent several months working with highly-sensitive medical data. Anything containing patient information was legally allowed anywhere inside our company, but not outside. That meant all communication including such information had to stay on private servers and be sent over encrypted channels. Our machines hosted outside the main office were connected via secure VPN, with encrypted volumes storing all data. At no time did sensitive information ever leave an authorized area, and that includes all internal email.
Unfortunately, it's also wholly unsuitable for any business needing absolute confidentiality, just like every cloud solution.
As an exercise in naivety, I searched for reports on ACTA. The first results are from Ars Technica, which is run by Condé Nast Publications, and CNET, which is a part of CBS Corporation. It seems to me that both of those ought to be significant and reputable enough to become a trusted outlet for OpenLeaks.
Perhaps you'd like to provide a different example of this great conspiracy?
Offhand, a protest I participated in during 2009 helped reduce a 30% budget cut for libraries down to 10%. Every three years, the Librarian of Congress determines DMCA exceptions, primarily based on public letters. A bit more research shows many successful protests. These companies rely on either being necessary or popular. Make a protest visible enough, and they'll change their minds.
While there may not be any large independent media, each company does effectively operate independently. I doubt AOL Time Warner would particularly worry about publishing information damaging to News Corp, or vice versa. There also Gannett, Disney, and Comcast, and they all effectively hate each other. In fact, being such a large company is detrimental, because each division of each company must work with every other company, and nobody wants to make nice deals with the competition. Pay attention to any of the content-provider contract battles, and this is obvious.
Advertising revenue is usually not tied to the number of sponsorships. It's tied to the number of viewers. Irritating one sponsor, but increasing viewership by 20% is a profitable move for the network. A single network with an exclusive story can also extend favors a targeted company, offering to release rebuttals and host spokespersons.
Given that the world's largest entertainment conglomerate only brought in $38 billion last year, I find it hard to believe that a shady deal's profits would measure in the billions. A hundred million, perhaps, but then that's well within the range of a smart advertising move.
The conspiracy theory, like all such theories, also requires far more cooperation than is feasible. Anyone involved in a large secret deal would also be suitably above the day-to-day dealings of the news branch to not know about the leaked story before it's released. If the news branch were told not to release any stories about certain rivals, that lets a few hundred people know that a secret deal is taking place. People don't keep secrets that well.
I'm okay with an Internet kill switch (more or less). If it ever gets misused, we have the Second Amendment to fall back on.
Corporate-controlled media is controlled by corporations. They'll follow any action that will make them profit in the long term. If being the first to break a scandalous story to the world costs them two advertisers, but brings in enough viewers to make other advertisers more profitable, they'll do it. Their competitors will be forced to broadcast the story, just to keep up appearances. Sure, the government can ask for some story not to be reported, but any attempt to actually enforce such a request is just a bigger scandal, and the request itself makes the story that much more interesting to viewers.
It'll be tricky, but this could work out, thanks to greed itself.
Not likely, and apart from various forms of trolls, there's no reason to.
I am in favor of the IPv6 allocation idea, but that's another issue entirely...
Assuming no prior criminal history, bail is a very likely option. Without further evidence, acquittal is likely.
Perhaps you've forgotten the early days of the copyright-infringement lawsuits, where the evidence was taken at face value, mostly because it came out of actual investigation. Timestamps were checked against logs, and the endeavor was small enough that humans could check the evidence for sanity. When the process became more widespread is when accuracy rapidly fell off.
There's also various other changes that have helped reduce the inaccuracy as well, especially within the past few years. Wireless encryption is much more common, public access terminals are more carefully locked down, and every defense lawyer worth his salt knows what mistakes to look for.
Quite simply, nobody complains because this doesn't look like a scam.
Without the Anonymous DDoS, the issue could have been handled by some nice letters and petitions, instead. That wouldn't have disrupted service to Mastercard customers, and wouldn't consist of breaking laws around the world. It'd still result in properly-zealous regulators looking for legal violations.
Hence why I say the DDoS wasn't a protest. It was a tantrum by a bunch of children. There are established mechanisms for protest that do not involve collateral damage.
There are a few key differences. First, the sit-ins only directly affected the ones responsible for the offense, such as the restaurant itself. The employees still got paid for the day (except tips, of which I'm conveniently ignorant of the day's standards). Other restaurants that were not segregated did not suffer from the protest. In contrast, the DDoS affected all Mastercard customers, regardless of their views regarding Wikileaks.
Second, sit-ins, petitions, and speeches all present an identity and reputation with the action. I've been out protesting, holding a sign in front of a library, and I was recognized. There was a risk to my own reputation, and that is what I donated to the cause. Anonymous is anonymous. Their attacks are simply attacks, and do not carry any endorsement beyond the childish claim of being able to hit harder.
Finally, most sit-ins are legal. No laws are broken, but only establishment policies to raise awareness and provide pressure for change within the bounds of the law. DDoS's are prohibited by various legislation around the globe. Rather than saying "we want to work for change", a DDoS says "we want to force change, and don't care about anything in the way".