Downloads of DoS Attack Tool LOIC Spike 267
wiredmikey writes "As Anonymous initiated what it said will be the 'largest attack ever on government and music industry sites' in response to actions taken by the Justice Department against operators of file sharing site Megaupload.com, downloads of a popular DoS attack tool have spiked. While the Denial of Service tool known as the 'Low Orbit Ion Cannon' (LOIC) was developed by the 'good guys' to stress test websites, it has been a favorite tool of Anonymous to take its targets offline via denial of service attacks. Interactions seen on Twitter and IRC, made it clear that the action against MegaUpload has sparked many more individuals to get involved in the online protests and download the LOIC to take part in the attacks and has resulted in a massive spike in downloads according Slashdot sister site Sourceforge."
And now script kiddies everywhere (Score:5, Funny)
have 2 new search terms to punch into google after the word download!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
your pretty bad ass using a program that even wikipedia notes:
See also
Script kiddie
but hey dont come crying to me when you use this years "aoHELL" to commit "terrorist acts" against "government facilities" and end up in a federal prison getting ass hammered by a guerrilla named Sydir.
Re:And now script kiddies everywhere (Score:5, Insightful)
ah racist troll, dumb as the tripe you spit out, Sydir was Russian and very much a guerrilla k thanks you dumb twat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydir_Kovpak [wikipedia.org]
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I think he meant "sysdir," not Sydir, and was trying to shut these script kiddies down by enticing them to carry out a preemptive strike on their own "SysDir."
SysDir [pcmag.com]
(SYStem DIRectory) A folder or subfolder that contains the operating system. In Windows, it typically refers to C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32
Re:And now script kiddies everywhere (Score:5, Funny)
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Uh... not all black males in the U.S. are incarcerated at any point in their lives. Therefore, by definition there cannot be an average age at which that occurs. Did you fail 7th grade math, perchance?
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Boy, you're a mean Friday night drunk, aren't you?
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they get called script kiddies because they dont have the knowledge of how to write their own tools
This applies to most people. Is "script kiddie" an insult?
It is not unavoidable
Oh? So you write every program you use?
I know where the name comes from. I just think it's idiotic to call someone a script kiddie merely because they're using someone else's program.
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I've no idea how to write a web browser, or a large modern website for that matter, but here I am using Firefox to browse Slashdot. Better call me a script kiddie!
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If that's the case than I must be a leet haxor with this NoScript plugin...
Re:And now script kiddies everywhere (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, that's what we've called script kiddies since at least 1993.
Script Kiddie = Someone who calls themselves a hacker, but doesn't actually know what they are doing, just using tools made by others.
Back in the day, you could knock windows machines offline, steal the DUN passwords and then jack their accounts and do more mayhem using programs written by others. The peak was around the time of the Back Oriface utility... some dumb ISP's installed this scriptkiddieware onto their servers, and lolz were had.
Windows has never been particularly secure operating system, but back in the Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 era, (before PPP was standard in the DUN) the security was non-existant. To this day I never save passwords when prompted to. Likewise ICS(NAT) was a new thing in Windows 98, which allowed for sharing internet connections with networked devices. It was also possible to reverse this and dial-in to machines that had two lines (or a backup dialout line,) and share the internet connections.
Even as late as Windows XP SP1, there were still tools out there that can crash windows machines by simply connecting them to the internet without a firewall.
Overall, that was the "fun years", when you could claim ignorance. As of Windows Vista, Windows is actually secure enough to not become infected the second you plug it in. Nowadays, most "hacking" to take down sites consists of just DDoS, and someone with a single connection can't overload someone else willy nilly. You have to get an army to do it. You want to see a potential SOPA solution? Anyone caught downloading infringing material must have their internet connection degraded to 512K down/up, (some ISP's have 1Mbit plans) upon warning sent via email. Clicking on a link in the email to acknowledge reading it, then restores the connection, and then leaves a 24 hour window in which no more emails will be sent. This way if an IP address is found "participating in malicious or illegal activity" it can just be crippled once to get the attention of the subscriber. If they continue past that point, they are not guaranteed to keep their internet access.
I can assure you, especially with children, that all it takes is a warning every few months to get them to stop. But you have to add an embarrassing component to it, like DPI'ing the filename being transferred.
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So there's no firewalling for IPv6 right?
So you can't have a "middlebox" firewall like in the old days before NAT, right?
So you don't really know that NAT and Stateful Firewalls are two separate things and they just happen to come preconfigured when you buy a "broadband router", right?
Please, take a look at some firewall manuals and understand all the differences and terminology and you'l
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Re:And now script kiddies everywhere (Score:5, Informative)
Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're probably going to get caught if you don't know what you're doing.
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The whole point of LOIC and similar tools (including nmap, when used this way) is, that you never do is alone but always with so many others, that it becomes impossible to track them all down.
Like a fish swarm of a million fish. The shark doesn't catch them, because it becomes impossible to focus on one. They're everywhere!
If you do it alone, you're, of course, an idiot. Since even with the use of the famous seven proxies, it couldn't even get a single server down. Alone, the only way is to use a botnet. (E
Re:Umm... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you DoS from your own machine, you don't know what you are doing.
Those downloading LOIC... (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously.. their IP has been logged!
Re:Those downloading LOIC... (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if it is all people from outside of the USA? and I wonder if America would have any luck extraditing thousands of people for a single crime.
I don't imagine that anyone non anonymously doing this in America really has a chance to get off easily. Something like this they are likely going to classify as terrorism.
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So what i they log half of the US? Concentration camps?
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Camps get messy - too many smart people mixing, talking, making new friends, demanding lawyers, medical care, a few escapes with images, deaths, guards having fun...
You will see camps when less than 1% of the population is protesting - a big number for the USA.
Until then its very personal raids with courts or black sites.
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No, they might just watch your search logs for a few weeks and then sort you into a weapons, drugs, crime or porn raid.
Gee.. I wonder what the average choice will be?
Richard Stalman created worse: WGET. (Score:2, Interesting)
wget has got to be the Tourist tool of the century of all the Brobots in 4Chon.net's R9K1.
Taking pictures and leaving footprints (Chuck Norris style).
Nothing to see here, move along.
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So?
Let's say, for arguments sake, 100,000 people download it in the US and use it against the websites currently being hit by Anon. in response to the MegaUpload takedown. Are the authorities really gonna charge 100,000 people with DDoS or whatever the equivalent crime on the books is, most likely kids mind you, and drag them into court? I would LOVE to see that happen, and the resulting reaction from the Internet community, and Anonymous. Please, law enforcement agencies, and DOJ. PLEASE, do that!
They know
Re:Those downloading LOIC... (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah. Instead, one person outside the U.S. should download it. Then, he should upload it to some webserver that has mega amounts of bandwidth so he can share it with all of them in a way the authorities can't track easily.
Re:Those downloading LOIC... (Score:5, Funny)
That's absolutely hilarious.
The whole idea of DoS is to flood the server with so many packets it cannot handle them all. TOR is so fucking slow you might as well be shunting the output of Hoover Damn through a silly straw.
Not to mention the exit node for the connection is what is going to get picked up, and that is unlikely since TOR won't use 100% of the upstream.
You just turned the beam from the Death Star down from "destroy" to "light tan".
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They're fools if they're not behind 7 proxies (Score:5, Informative)
As an above poster said, LOIC is not anonymous. I hope these script kiddies aren't so foolish as to make the same mistakes twice.
Re:They're fools if they're not behind 7 proxies (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope these script kiddies aren't so foolish as to make the same mistakes twice.
Fuck that. I hope they do. DOS attacks are the lamest, most degenerate hacktivism ever. It doesn't change anyone's minds, it doesn't help create a better system, and it just causes damage in the process. The only thing it accomplishes is sating some primal desire for revenge, so I hope they get filtered out of the pool so the rest of us can go back to creating instead of defending.
You want to try to make things better but you're feeling disenfranchised? Subvert the system. Work on decentralized DNS replacements. Work on anonymity networks. Work on improving Bitcoin to make it a serious contender. Generate content and release it for free.
Don't destroy. Create.
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My kingdom for a mod point. Great post!
Perhaps the mistake is ignoring the warning shots (Score:5, Insightful)
I do agree with you, DOS attacks are pointless; however, what options are left? You make a bunch of statements but truthfully, all of them have been tried.
I just had to switch ISPs since my current one decided that SSL connections would be limited to 7kb/s (Yes, just slightly higher than modem speeds) and I work from home and have to use a VPN. There reasoning is simply that file sharers are using SSL and they can't deep packet inspect them so there solution is to rate limit all SSL connections to a barely acceptable speed.
As for subverting the system, or building something new to solve a problem that shouldn't exist, how many times must we do this? How many protocols for file sharing have been created already? They just keep adding laws or abusing laws or trying to force others to do their work for them (ISP, website owners, etc).
Look at megaupload (I'm not a fan and have never used any file service like this) but the simple fact is that that company is no different than any other company (e.g., Google). The fact is that it is (or was) illegal to hold one person legally responsible for the actions of others, but that is exactly what the "law" is doing by arresting the owners of megaupload. At this point of time we no longer have Law (for the people), and without Law their is nothing left. The simple fact is this "token" assault is a peaceful demonstration (aka Internet equivalent of marching in the streets) that should be taken seriously; but as you, and others make clear, it will do nothing and/or provide fodder for even more laws. So at which point does the message have to go from peaceful to non-peaceful? This is what I am scared of as I believe there is little or no chance of a peaceful settlement anymore :( So I will encourage as much of this peaceful demonstration as much as possible for the small glimmer of hope that the message will get across before the worse case occurs....
Back a person (including you) into a corner and sooner or later you realize you have no choice but to attack. High unemployment, unbalanced laws, misappropriation of laws/legal/justice, economic enslavement, loss of hope, loss of freedom, loss of the "american dream", and ignoring the will of the masses are all, in my opinion, signs that the perverbial shit is about to hit the fan....
But keep thinking it's just about some kids that want to have some fun....
Re:Perhaps the mistake is ignoring the warning sho (Score:4, Interesting)
The fact is that it is (or was) illegal to hold one person legally responsible for the actions of others
I'm going to have to call bullshit on this. If you pay a hitman to kill someone, you also go down for a crime; sometimes murder; sometimes conspiracy. If you go along on a crime in the US (e.g. a housebreaking) where someone gets killed, even if you weren't directly involved, then they charge you with murder. If you are a mafia boss and they prove you ordered a drugs transport, they do you as a drugs dealer.
In this particular case, the police seem to have made very sure that they have evidence of inducement; there are tape recordings of the megaupload people discussing that they want to encourage copyright infringement. There is evidence of the people at megaupload using database searches for copyright material etc. etc. Now, I don't take what the police say at 100% face value, but you should be very aware that it's likely that they have deliberately made sure that they have proof of every stage needed to make you look very foolish. They have laid a trap and claiming that these people are innocent becuase they can't prove inducement to unlicensed copying is falling into that trap.
The members of Megaupload are innocent for another reason. The majority of the copyrights broken belong to members of the MPAA or RIAA. These groups have been deliberately attempting to reduce the public domain. As such, they are acting contrary to the constitutional aim of copyright and their copyrights should be invalid. Given that they have had several chances to act against it and have failed in their constitutional duty, the members of the supreme court should be impeached for allowing this kind of situation to continue. Unfortunately judicial immunity makes that a bit difficult.
Don't confuse "you can't prove it" which is a simple factual matter with "this should be allowed" which is a moral matter. Also don't confuse that with "this is legal" which is often decided in practice by judges who don't understand the issue in the first place. By mixing these things up you give arguments to your enemies.
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Don't destroy. Create.
Don't destroy. Create.
You need to be sending that message to the people sitting in government and industry, and NOT to a bunch of freedom loving, disenfranchised geeks.
Unfortunately when you are dealing with a bully the only way to stop them is to fight back. The day of protest only delayed the inevitable. And all those things that you are talking about; bitcoin and proxies, can just as easily be destroyed by the copyright lobby as all those things proposed by SOPA and PIPA.
Government and industry are so far being much more aggr
Re:They're fools if they're not behind 7 proxies (Score:5, Insightful)
Civil disobedience is flagrantly ignoring a law because it is unjust. If they ignore you, the sense of the law erodes. If they arrest you, you become a martyr. Either way you win. MegaUpload, The Pirate Bay, and all the positive things I mentioned earlier are civil disobedience.
DOS attacks aren't like refusing to go to the back of the bus... They're sugar in the gas tank. Anonymous vandalism isn't going to generate sympathy from your fellow citizens.
Re:They're fools if they're not behind 7 proxies (Score:4, Insightful)
DOS attacks aren't like refusing to go to the back of the bus... They're sugar in the gas tank.
Sugar in the gas tank causes permanent damage.
A DOS is the internet equivalent of a sit-in.
Or rather, sit-ins are pre-internet denial of service attacks.
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A DOS is the internet equivalent of a sit-in. Or rather, sit-ins are pre-internet denial of service attacks.
No they aren't. The key part of the sit-in is the media event. You show up in place. You make it visible you are there. You show the police arresting you; hopefully in a way which looks brutal in the media but doesn't leave any permanent damage.
A DOS attack fails because the public can't see videos of the person actually standing up for what they believe in. Also because download and run is too easy, compared to actually having to show up in a physical place.
Re:They're fools if they're not behind 7 proxies (Score:5, Informative)
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If they ignore you, the sense of the law erodes. If they arrest you, you become a martyr. Either way you win.
Or maybe you just go to jail when the Dotcom bubble bursts.
A conviction against Kim Schmitz (or one of the other listed MegaUpload associates) means that more than $175 million stashed away in 64 bank accounts around the world becomes U.S. government property.
Some of the automobiles listed for forfeiture include an amazing mix of exotic vehicles:
2008 Rolls-Royce Phantom Drop Head Coupe
2010 Maserati GranCabrio
16 various modern Mercedes-Benz vehicles
(including many CLK and CL series)
1989 Lamborghini LM002
1959 Cadillac Series 62 convertible
1957 Cadillac El Dorado
Harley Davidson motorcycle
Von Dutch Kustom motor bike
Two 2010 Mini Cooper S coupes
2010 Sea-Doo GTX jet ski
What MegaUpload founders stand to lose [cnet.com]
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Oh, don't get me wrong. Kim's no one to love. He's a sleazeball as greasy as they come, and I have no delusions that he's doing this for any altruistic reasons.
But at least he's doing something interesting.
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What is this silliness? A DOS attack does no damage to any computer equipment at all. A DOS attack is even MORE pacifistic then going to the back of the bus. In real life a bunch of people show up to protest a place and close businesses by blocking traffic. A DOS attack does the same thing except the stakes are even lower because the
Re:They're fools if they're not behind 7 proxies (Score:5, Insightful)
Thanks for mentioning this. I'd even go further and emphasize that, in practicing civil disobedience, one should welcome arrest, or at the very least not go out of one's way to evade it. In the words of Thoreau [gutenberg.org], "under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."
In my view, the MegaUpload case isn't even arguably civil disobedience. First, the accused maintain they did not violate any laws, unjust or otherwise. Second, assuming they did, and assuming they believe the laws are unjust, it's quite hard to maintain the moral high ground while also using massive financial gains from violating "unjust laws" to fuel incredibly extravagant lifestyles.
In contrast, The Pirate Bay is a reasonable example. It's overt purpose is to wantonly violate what it believes are unjust copyright laws and to deny media companies the revenue they use to preempt discussion of copyright reform, and its maintainers have used whatever proceeds and attention they have gained from running the site to fuel further political action, not a fleet of expensive cars.
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The people who write the history books, a hundred years from now.
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But who decides if it is unjust?
I have my own well-considered system of ethics, but as you imply, we will never see a universal consensus. I'll skip past the last few millenia of philosophical debate and take you right to the time-tested standard:
Whoever wins in the end.
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Explain it to me, then. What don't I understand?
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No, that was a congratulatory comment. I complete agree with what you said.
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He may have been an IRC operator of a channel which happened to be used to coordinate the attacks, not necessarily a channel solely intended to coordinate the attacks. The grandparent's post doesn't make that clear.
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More along the lines of being the owner of a cafe that the rebels of a current government frequent.
Being in the same room as other does not equal complicity in the crimes perpetrated.
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Fight the power, Anon! (Score:5, Insightful)
People are unhappy with the status quo. Unless change starts happening now and fast, I predict Anon's numbers and targets to grow substantially in the coming years.
Re:Fight the power, Anon! (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason hactivisim is gaining strength as a movement is because people are disenfranchised with society and seen conventional avenues of affecting change as a waste of time.
Well, hear, hear. Obviously conventional avenues of effecting change are a waste of time; they have proven not to work. A bunch of nerds, techies, and assorted sending e-mails and letters to a representative? You get a standard text back. Bla-di-bla protect interests of creators bla-di-bla thousands of jobs.
Now with Wikipedia and Google blacking out and providing the masses with uncensored information about SOPA and the obvious reaction, that it something that worked. That is why Dodd (MPAA) wants to meet in camera with the tech industry giants to see if they together can't work something out. The public again off the game board. And what are they going to do? Vote Democratic? You get what you have now: ACTA, SOPA/PIPA, etc. Vote Republican? Who knows what you would have gotten. Left or right, you lose.
The only thing Dodd is scared about is a mainstream medium that is not part of the Entertainment Industry. A side-channel. What if that medium tasks itself to educating the public regarding copyrights and how ridiculous it is that a recording made in 1935 won't enter the Public Domain until 2067. What if it starts calling people to action? That is way more effective that DDOSing a few irrelevant sites.
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a recording made in 1935 won't enter the Public Domain until 2067
I'd say that's extremely optimistic considering that US life expectancy is now 76 years. I guess it was lower in 1935 though.
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Living for 62 years after making a recording isn't really all that optimistic. It's probably less than one standard deviation above the norm even if someone made the recording in his/her mid-twenties.
Re:Fight the power, Anon! (Score:5, Insightful)
What if that medium tasks itself to educating the public regarding copyrights and how ridiculous it is that a recording made in 1935 won't enter the Public Domain until 2067.
My favorite example of the ridiculousness of copyright abuse by the content industry is still Happy Birthday To You [wikipedia.org]. The tune was first published in 1858... three years before Abraham Lincoln took office! Martin Van Buren, the country's 8th president, was still alive! Mark Twain wouldn't publish Tom Sawyer for another two decades! Yet this song was published in a few different forms over the next 80 years or so, and now the copyright on it does not expire until 2030... 172 years after it was first published. Think this is just some obscure case that no one takes seriously? Warner Music Group bought the rights to it in 1998, and as recently as 2008 they reported earning $5000 a day in royalties. Ever wonder why restaurant employees will embarrass you on your birthday but won't really sing Happy Birthday? Because it would be a public performance of a copyrighted work and they would be liable!
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Obviously conventional avenues of effecting change are a waste of time;
That depends on what the obvious conventional avenues are. From what I see current conventional avenues for affecting change is purchasing legislation from corrupt congress and senate. So if you really want to effect change you do what the MPAA/RIAA/BSA and other lobby groups do. You pay for legislation. Now whether the multitudes want to band together to lobby congress on the digital rights of the people rather than big media is another story altogether. I try to give to The EFF when I can but that
Re:Fight the power, Anon! (Score:4, Insightful)
Taking a stand for MegaUpload? This is a perfect example of when anonymous gives itself a bad name.
Kim DotCom is a greedy ruthlessly conniving pig of a man that makes wall street executives look noble in comparison. His success is based on the exploitation and stealing of others. [wsj.com]
This isnt fighting oppression, this is being a crybaby because you cant download your latest call of duty game in a few clicks
Re:Fight the power, Anon! (Score:5, Insightful)
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No he's logical. When you are campaigning you pick and chose your cases. Rosa Parks was selected as the person to campaign over because she had a pretty respectable background. You want to demonise drugs? Ignore the deaths on sink estates and focus on any deaths of pretty middle class girls (Leah Betts).
For copyright you want to stick to cases involving respectable parents doing things that are borderline fair use in any case.
Leave Kim DotCom to the lawyers. He can afford them.
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The reason hactivisim is gaining strength as a movement is because people are disenfranchised with society and seen conventional avenues of affecting change as a waste of time.
and this is somehow novel to this generation. I was 16 once and an anarchist then i grew up got a job and learned how society and the world really works.
Real change comes from within. Vote, run for politics, discuss politics with your peers and elders. Somehow everyone decided discussing politics was a dirty evil topic and society went to hell as everyone started caring more about what the Kardashians are doing than whats going on with the world around them.
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Well, let's see. We just got done with a well-constructed, well-reasoned, well-executed protest against SOPA and PIPA, and we killed those bills dead as a *direct result*. When was the last time a DDoS did *anything* other than harden the resolve of the party being attacked? How do they think the MPAA et al will react? "Oh my goodness, some script kiddies are DDoSing our web site. Quick, release the MegaUpload people from jail and turn their servers back on! It's our only hope!"
Re:Fight the power, Anon! (Score:5, Informative)
We just got done with a well-constructed, well-reasoned, well-executed protest against SOPA and PIPA, and we killed those bills dead as a *direct result*.
That simply has not happened.
The sponsor of SOPA has recently also pushed new anti-childpornography [loc.gov] laws through the house and congress, in preparation for attaching SOPA as a rider.
He has already admitted the ONLY problem with the last SOPA was that he let the public know about it [theverge.com], giving them time to express their dislike, and has stated he learned from that mistake.
As in, the damaging effects, the destruction it will cause, and the fact people are against it, he doesn't see any of that as a problem. Only that the public had time to counter it.
This time next year, SOPA *WILL* be law.
* Note I am not arguing in favor of DDoS either. You are quite right in that such attacks have not helped anything one bit, and are not part of any functioning solution.
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SOPA is the straw that threatens to break the camel's back. It takes a lot to stop a House / Senate bill on short notice, even if it's temporary.
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Um, ok then . . . carry on with your DDoS, I guess. Cause, yeah, that'll show 'em.
Re:Fight the power, Anon! (Score:5, Insightful)
I recently had an insight about Anon's activities. The reason hactivisim is gaining strength as a movement is because people are disenfranchised with society and seen conventional avenues of affecting change as a waste of time. The 'man' has a tight grip on the media, politicians and the police are being increasingly militarized for use on peaceful protesters. People are unhappy with the status quo. Unless change starts happening now and fast, I predict Anon's numbers and targets to grow substantially in the coming years.
And these people are protesting what, exactly? That they might have to pay $8 in a theater to see the latest, oppressively stupid instalment of the "Transformers" franchise instead of getting to download it for free? Yeah, these guys are real crusaders for social justice.
There's a right way and a wrong way to do online activism. Google and Wikipedia showed the right way to do it with their protests of SOPA. Their protests made a powerful statement about online freedom without attacking anyone, and it was amazing to see how quickly Congress retreated. By comparison, the Anonymous attacks just seem like a vindictive act of petty vandalism, by a bunch of kids who are angry because their parents have taken their toys away from them. It's not helping anything, if anything it's destructive. People are going to think "if this is what they mean by freedom of speech, then maybe I'm in favor of a little censorship".
The death of 1000 scripts... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just because their method of displaying their discord isn't particularly proactive, doesn't mean that they don't have a legitimate complaint. While specific individuals might have varying motives, I get the impression that Anon's objecti
The Sheep’s Mere Sheep (Score:5, Interesting)
... easily dispersed should you strike the shepherd.
Politicians, DoJ, even the RIAA and MPAA, these are mere sheep. Willing scapegoats, but immortal. You cannot destroy them. You must strike at the human minds behind.
Take away the anonymity of the directors of the copyright owning corporations behind this. Expose their secrets. Illuminate their crimes. Dissolve their privacy, pull back the veil behind which they destroy human rights. Ruin their lives. Then tell them why. Tell the world why. Let them be a lesson.
Do not be fooled into thinking your government is against you. Once educated, they will be your greatest ally. But they have been deceived. Strike at the heart of the corruption, not a symptom of it.
Ineffective, as recent history shows (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, let's go back to working within the system because that has worked so well in the recent past.
Have you been paying the slightest bit of attention?
Do you honestly believe that educating the government will work when the entire SOPA blackout didn't?
All attempts at working within the system have failed. It's time to try other avenues.
Anonymous has chosen to promote change in their own way. It may work, it may not... but at least it has the *possibility* of working. We now know for certain that all the "right" ways will fail.
Perhaps someone should come up with a system similar to kickstarter, where people can donate money to fund the opponent of congressmen they don't like.
Lamar Smith introduced SOPA and is coming up for reelection this year (I think). Perhaps people should pledge money to a fund which will be given to his opponent, as a response.
Perhaps someone should start a super-PAC org and take donations to air ads against him.
There are lots of other things we could do - we just need some creativity.
Time for the net-neutrality 'activist plugin' (Score:4, Interesting)
I've got an idea, but I don't develop/code software.... someone please run with this....
Make a plugin for browsers that denies or blocks access to sites for companies that are actively pushing to destroy net neutrality. Like most blacklists, they are maintained by a source that tries to keep up to date, and upon whom the subscribers bestow trust (that the sites are indeed pushing against net neutrality).
A few ideas...
1) Block site, and reference evidence as to why.
2) Offer option to continue to the site (lets say you've got to pay your ATT bill online or something, but you like the filter for most other reasons but were forced to choose ATT for an ISP thanks to oligopoly).
3) Link to donations for EFF or other pro-net-neutrality activism groups?
Anyway.. I feel like something like this, if produced well, and promoted, would catch the eye of even the layman who may be interested, and want to be supportive, but may not actively follow the unfolding drama around the topic... The outcry against SOPA/PIPA clearly grabbed the attention of many who are politically inept or disinterested, and they motivated well. It would be nice to see a plugin like this spread with public support.
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Many people feel net neutrality is a government solution to a problem created by government generated barriers to entry in the first place. I haven't researched it myself so I don't know how much of a role the government plays in creating ISP monopolies, but I wouldn't assume more regulation is the answer.
Stupid idea. (Score:3)
If you want to protest, do so legally and publicly. The Guy Fawkes mask protests were a great gimmick to get media attention and raise awareness. Chances are, elected officials will be more likely to act in your favor if they see their jobs and sweet money flow coming to an end.
Re:Stupid idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want to protest, do so legally and publicly
And inside your designated free speech zone.
MU Takedown Timing? (Score:3)
The timing of the MegaUpload takedown seems extraordinarily coincidental. There has been talk of it being retaliation for killing SOPA, but that doesn't wash, because the DoJ does not rush into things like that (for good reason). They have said it was in the works for a long time, and the indictment indicates that.
So look at it the other way. Why did they wait until immediately after SOPA died?
Once you ask that question, I think it is hard to ignore the elephant in the room. They were holding off because they knew it would make SOPA look unnecessary. They were trying to get SOPA passed before they executed on existing law.
Even assuming you think MU is guilty of the more apparently illegal stuff in the indictment (like I do), that doesn't seem right. "We're not going to execute the law, because we think we might be able to jam these mutts up harder when the new law goes through, and we don't want the public to know that existing laws already cover this." I dig how, in this case, waiting for SOPA to indict the MU leaders could be handled without triggering ex-post-facto, but it still seems like a dishonorable way to execute the law.
Punk kids run LOIC because they think the system does not respect them, and therefore they have a duty to disrespect the system. However misguided those punks may be, behavior like the above displays the very disdain for the public that is causing them to feel disenfranchised.
This is a chain reaction that is not going to stop unless one side decides to act in a mature fashion. Here is an inconvenient truth: It is not going to be the punk kids that decide to be the bigger man.
Re:I took a LOIC in the ass (Score:5, Informative)
"Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) is an open source network stress testing and denial-of-service attack application, written in C#."
God the AC's round here are getting fucking dumber
Re:I took a LOIC in the ass (Score:4, Funny)
Re:I took a LOIC in the ass (Score:5, Interesting)
And linux naming strikes again...
Seriously, that's just bad luck. Half a page after the "script kiddie anti-defamation league" starts a mini-flamewar, and you go and point out that the linux version of the tool has a name that can be easily parsed as "Low IQ?"
Yeesh. You can't make this stuff up. :)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Is it worth a year in a hellhole? (Score:5, Insightful)
Elections are coming up, don't give them any ideas for lofty goals that they might try to implement! I've seen them debate, they're all batshit crazy enough to try and do it.
Re: (Score:2)
Gingrich will nuke someone if he thinks it might get him some strange.
Re: (Score:2)
I've seen Gingrich on the news before. I think the threat of a nuclear weapon is the only thing that increases his chances of getting some strange to "possible".
Re: (Score:3)
Gingrich will nuke someone if he thinks it might get him some strange.
Haven't you seen a picture of wife number three? Isn't that strange enough?
Re:Is it worth a year in a hellhole? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorts the ip's and finds all the middle/low class locals. Makes sure none are too rich or connected in some way - then the morning raids are set.
Thats the strange thing about all this - skilled hackers are usually turned or have life 'issues'.
This all seems like a huge trap with ip's been in the open, waiting to be tracked.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
How is this a "trap?" The people doing this are breaking the law, and for no good reason at all. I wonder how many of them read the indictment against Megaupload. Mega * was guilty of a lot more than just shameless copyright infringement.
Re: (Score:2)
to been a COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program) like trap - 'lets download tools and
or http://cryptome.org/0006/anonymous-wabc.htm [cryptome.org]
http://cryptome.org/0006/anonymous-mused.htm [cryptome.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Is it worth a year in a hellhole? (Score:4, Interesting)
you would have to prove that the browser user was deliberately participating rather than innocently exploited while viewing a completely innocent page
Not really. A school teacher was convicted due to a classroom computer being infected before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_Connecticut_v._Julie_Amero [wikipedia.org]
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok so here's the real question.
How many people have to be using it before the MafiAA and their paid goons in the government are required to stop calling it an "attack" and start calling it what it is, a civil protest no different from a lunch counter sit-in?
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:5, Insightful)
If a lunch counter sit in disrupted a politically well connected business it would be called an attack too.
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:5, Insightful)
If a lunch counter sit in disrupted a politically well connected business it would be called an "attack" as well.
As far as the feds are concerned it isn't about how strong the attack is, but who the victim is.
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:5, Insightful)
And neither does a DDoS. Also boycotts sometimes target entire supply chains or industries so I'm not sure that your analogy is anywhere close to be reasonable either from accuracy or as a decent comparison. I'm generally against these actions but acting like they don't have common ground with various disruptive non-violent tactics is silly. They are illegal, non-violent protest tactics just like lunch counter sit-ins wear. The real question is do they have moral legitimacy and will they be able to move beyond the disruptive force into a force that changes policy and cultural attitudes like other non-violent disruptions did in the physical world.
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:5, Informative)
Nor has this.
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:5, Insightful)
Why does "anonymity" have anything to do with it?
When hundreds of thousands of people showed up to hear Malcolm X or Martin Luther King, Jr. speak, was there some federal body requiring that everyone sign their name at the gate? Using facial recognition software to try to identify every single attendee? And if there were, would it not have been an infringement of the rights of free expression and association guaranteed by the Constitution?
The "anonymity" of LOIC is furnished in the same way. It is not true and full anonymity, as FBI attacks and raids on previous LOIC participaters have shown. It is merely the anonymity of being in a large group of otherwise non-anonymous people, such that it would either (a) take too much time and effort for the corrupt goons of the FBI to hunt them down or (b) be prohibitively selective to haul off only a few people of a few thousand, ten thousand, or hundred thousand or more to subject to criminal proceedings.
And yes, I'm posting as AC. My point: you don't have to have my name and face to see that what I am saying has value.
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps they want (relative) anonymity because of draconian laws combined with third-world prison conditions in the US.
Re:initiating first post blast (Score:5, Funny)
Why, in my day we DoS'd by clicking on slashdot links, and by golly, we liked it!