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Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#121

Post by metageek »

nikster wrote: post #51
geedee77 wrote: post #14

To be perfectly honest, the actions of the 'anonymous' are pretty disgusting and it's bullying. A company provides a useful service to the majority of the on-line world and, just because they do something to protect themselves and their identity (there's a lot of people who dislike wikileaks) then this 'collective' decide to disrupt the whole company. Bullying was pathetic in high school and is so much worse in the '…

You know, I am really glad that you're not at all concerned about the invisible hand which seems to synchronize actions across governments, Visa, MC, PayPal, Amazon, and other major businesses. All in the name of shutting down free speech. Wikileaks has not been charged with any crime anywhere in the world, let alone been found guilty. So why is it the US government is after them like the villain in a bad James Bond…

Upvoted, but one nit:

>Publishing leaked classified information, however, is protected by the 3rd Amendment.

First. The Third is "No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.".

Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#122

Post by metageek »

michaelchisari wrote: post #107
ergo98 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikileaks has not been charged with any crime anywhere in the world, let alone been found guilty. At a very minimum wikileaks is distributing copyrighted information without authorization. Technically they can be taken completely down via the DMCA. Ultimately of course PayPal, Amazon, Mastercard and others don't want to do business with Wikileaks, or anon, or any similar "fuzzy" business. The business doesn't have to…

U.S. Government documents cannot be copyrighted.

There must be some exceptions to this, though, because IRS forms generally come with copyright notices. (Or, at least, they did the last time I did my taxes on paper, which was 5-10 years ago.)

Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#123

Post by indrax »

singular wrote: post #68

I really don't think this kind of behaviour helps anything. Though we may disagree with the actions of these corporations, using thousands of ordinary people's computers to flood sites many people use for things that have nothing to do with Julian Assange, Wikileaks or anything whatsoever linked to the cable leaks is simply wrong. Being immoral in order to expose the immorality of others does nothing but muddy the wa…

If they had nothing to do with it, they would not have been pressured by the government. They picked a side. DDoSing them is not immoral. (though if it's a zombie net, that is immoral.)

Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#124

Post by Retric »

joebananas wrote: post #118
Retric wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I happen to work for the Army so I am often near well armed "grunts" with access to that off switch. It's a judgment call, but I assume walking around the Pentagon is probably safer than driving which I am also willing to do. More to the point, I think being respectful to well armed people is prudent, hiding under the bed is pointless. So, while I recognize the risk to life and limb at some point you need t…

Not interested. My original post was not about your completely-missing-the-point simile, but about the fact the the US government demonstrably sucked at IT security when they let the great unwashed have the kind of access they had to State Department cables.

IMO, the government does a reasonable job balancing how well it protects information and the costs of that protection. The current strategy will lead to leaks, but so did paper documents. Millions of people work for the government and many of them are going to try to cause problems.

So, if you are going to equate a single low impact release with “sucking” the go for it. But, I would point out unlike banks which often lose large numbers of SSN’s the government keeps the hole list for everyone and that has not gotten out. And (as my original post pointed out) sometimes when dealing with hard problems mitigation really is the best you can hope for.

Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#125

Post by CamperBob »

metageek wrote: post #122
michaelchisari wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

U.S. Government documents cannot be copyrighted.

There must be some exceptions to this, though, because IRS forms generally come with copyright notices. (Or, at least, they did the last time I did my taxes on paper, which was 5-10 years ago.)

That's crazy talk.

Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#126

Post by Nrsolis »

jrockway wrote: post #119
Nrsolis wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not going to get into specifics but I'd like to address your points. The problem of distinguishing between legitimate traffic and attack traffic gets harder when the attack starts to look more like legitimate traffic. It doesn't get impossible. You can have a more effective attack if you have a LOT of machines you can use to generate legitimate requests. Of course, after a short while, it's going to be possible t…

I agree that you missed my point :) My point is, any finite limit can be exceeded. In days of old, it was state tables and file descriptors. Now it's bandwidth. Filtering doesn't matter once the packet has traveled down your finite link to your packet filter. That bandwidth has been used, and denied service to a legitimate user that wanted his packet to go to your server. Mostly, you're right, it comes down to luck.…

Filtering of DDoS attacks is moving into the network. The days of sorting attack traffic at the destination have always been numbered.

Current best practice has been to use technologies like FLOWSPEC to get the traffic off the network much closer to the origin.

Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#127

Post by petercooper »

chopsueyar wrote: post #78
petercooper wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're lucky you don't depend on Paypal for your income like hundreds of thousands of eBayers and people with few other choices (e.g. non US sellers). On the other hand, this will all blow over within days.

What is the saying about eggs and baskets?

Sometimes you have no serious options to spread your risk. Multiple payment systems on a single Web page looks tacky and is an accounting nightmare even if it's doable. On eBay, you could get people to mail you checks but PayPal is by far the most efficient way to sell through them.

When it comes to infrastructure, the small guys can't always have backups. Do you have two power companies simultaneously supply your office? Two broadband connections? Yet I believe that someone maliciously cutting off my water or broadband to make a political point is as much in the wrong as someone cutting off my payment provider.

Re: Paypal.com appears to be unavailable

#128

Post by singular »

indrax wrote: post #123
singular wrote: post #68

I really don't think this kind of behaviour helps anything. Though we may disagree with the actions of these corporations, using thousands of ordinary people's computers to flood sites many people use for things that have nothing to do with Julian Assange, Wikileaks or anything whatsoever linked to the cable leaks is simply wrong. Being immoral in order to expose the immorality of others does nothing but muddy the wa…

If they had nothing to do with it, they would not have been pressured by the government. They picked a side. DDoSing them is not immoral. (though if it's a zombie net, that is immoral.)

Actually, I heard the bot computers were provided by volunteers. Regardless, the fact that the attacks affect those who have taken neither side, i.e. customers of the sites being targeting, I still feel the behaviour is immoral, not to mention the fact it makes it easy for the anti-wikileaks guys to denounce the argument for wikileaks as that of 'computer criminals', etc.
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