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How the FBI raided Anonymous

arstechnica.com

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Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#101

Post by steveklabnik »

nhangen wrote: post #100
steveklabnik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting innocent bystanders involved is literally the point.

I disagree. I think the point is to grandstand and to pretend to be Neo for a day. Reading the commentary, it seems that these guys were far from familiar with the game they were playing. Furthermore, unless you were involved in the attack, how could you claim to know the point in the first place?

There are thousands of people involved. I'm sure that some people want to be Neo, but not all of them, not by a long shot. Also, if you'll note, Neo had a political cause...

I didn't participate in any DDoS, but it's not like this stuff happens in secret. All you have to do is know where and how to look. It's not exactly secret where these kinds of things are organized and discusssed.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#102

Post by gojomo »

steveklabnik wrote: post #91
gojomo wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vote with your own dollars, sure. Boycott Mastercard, sure. But interfering with others' legal expression and commerce is just repeating the same injustice that was done to Wikileaks, and damaging innocent bystanders. Leave their dollars alone.

Getting innocent bystanders involved is literally the point.

Getting innocent bystanders involved is literally the point.

Indeed, and in a civilized society, there are rules against hijacking others' dollars and interfering with others' lawful commerce, no matter how just you believe your cause to be. Thus, what you call 'literally the point' is also the 'mens rea' for a criminal prosecution.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#103

Post by sliverstorm »

TWO %REAL% GUNS POINTED AT ME

I love this part. It's obvious that, for the first time in the lives of these Anons, sh%t actually got real.

(I don't mind any downvotes you see fit to give me, I have always found it laughable when Anons expect to break the law and suffer no consequences. Whether or not it is a good law has no bearing, that's not how civil disobedience works.)

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#104

Post by steveklabnik »

gojomo wrote: post #102
steveklabnik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting innocent bystanders involved is literally the point.

Getting innocent bystanders involved is literally the point. Indeed, and in a civilized society, there are rules against hijacking others' dollars and interfering with others' lawful commerce, no matter how just you believe your cause to be. Thus, what you call 'literally the point' is also the 'mens rea' for a criminal prosecution.

That's what makes it so impactful: its important enough that the consequences are irrelevant.

It seems that you place a much higher importance on following the law than I do; I don't disagree with what you're saying, but you seemingly imply that that's a bad thing.

Generally, following the law is good, but I hold no illusions that there's any connection between legality and morality.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#105

Post by ZachPruckowski »

kotrin wrote: post #7

"We have noted that similar attacks have also been carried out against Wikileaks itself, yet so far, nobody has been arrested in connection with these attacks, nor are there even any signs of an investigation into this issue at all," I think that is one of the most important points of this article.

For a law enforcement agency to investigate the Wikileaks would require Wikileaks to turn over their server access logs, including every visitor to the site for the period of time in question. They would be basically finished in terms of getting dissidents to visit the site or hand over information if they're seen as turning over any sort of visitor-identifying info to any sort of law enforcement agency.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#106

Post by ianhawes »

tptacek wrote: post #74
steveklabnik wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> such a contention is intellectually and morally bankrupt. Could you expand on this a bit? I actually believe that it's very close to the same thing, but I'd like to hear your reasoning. > Moreover, sit-ins are not legal either. You are correct. This is why it's called 'civil disobedience.' Sometimes, the best way to change a law is to break it. And break it publicly. It doesn't mean that you'll be spared a sentence…

The best way to change the laws about distributed denial of service is to participate in DDoS attacks? We're going off the rails here.

I think you're onto something. The FBI, by raiding everyone involved in this, is taking the risk of setting a precedent whereby protest-DDoS is proved legal. If the ACLU or other organization throws lawyers at this, its likely that it will be determined that the CFAA does not actually make DDoS, in circumstances where the user only activates a DoS tool on their computer with permission, illegal.

It really boils down to whether a lack of access constitutes "damage". Denial of service happens "naturally" all the time, just not maliciously like this.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#107

Post by hugh3 »

steveklabnik wrote: post #79
tptacek wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best way to change the laws about distributed denial of service is to participate in DDoS attacks? We're going off the rails here.

I was making a general point about civil disobedience. In this case, Anon believes (and I'm inclined to agree) that MasterCard made a business decision that not dealing with Wikileaks would be the better thing for them to do. However, a DDOS does two things: makes not serving Wikileaks an actual expense, and manages to bring their message to a wider audience. If anon had ran around just saying "MasterCard sucks," nob…

Apparently they think that this is worth going to jail for.

Or more likely, they thought they'd never get caught.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#108

Post by hugh3 »

wmf wrote: post #82
steveklabnik wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do. EDIT: Anonymous has demonstrated an increasing political savvy and awareness, first via the protests against Scientology, but also with some smaller things that were tried that didn't spark such media coverage, like Operation CNTroll, for example. Characterizing all of Anonymous as being ignorant children is just wrong. Not all of them are doing things for political reasons, but the leadership most certainly…

I agree that the Anonymous leadership is politically savvy (so they're probably not LOICing from their home computers), but I can't escape the feeling that they view their followers as clueless cannon fodder to be exploited and then discarded.

What makes anyone think there's such a thing as the Anonymous Leadership?

"Anonymous" is just a cloak that some folks put on from time to time. I supported Anonymous when they were fucking with Scientology. I opposed Anonymous when they were fucking with Mastercard and Visa. But it's not in any sense "the same" group.

I could go and rape a donkey and leave a note saying "Anonymous Did This" if I felt like it -- it wouldn't be in any sense the same group that did other things that Anonymous did though.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#109

Post by mnutt »

gojomo wrote: post #102
steveklabnik wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Getting innocent bystanders involved is literally the point.

Getting innocent bystanders involved is literally the point. Indeed, and in a civilized society, there are rules against hijacking others' dollars and interfering with others' lawful commerce, no matter how just you believe your cause to be. Thus, what you call 'literally the point' is also the 'mens rea' for a criminal prosecution.

Which leads us back to the sit-in. You seem to think a sit-in is unjustified in any situation, but at least that part of the analogy holds.

Re: How the FBI raided Anonymous

#110

Post by gizmomagico »

fleitz wrote: post #66
forensic wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well the RCMP and the FBI work together very closely, for one. An American FBI agent can get more done in Canada through RCMP connections than a rich and powerful Canadian can. RCMP is the Canadian FBI by the way.

Yes, and vice versa, lets say the RCMP needs someone sent to Syria for 'questioning', then they'd phone the FBI and tip them off that such a person is coming to the US. And the FBI would promptly send them to Syria for 'questioning' of course also ignoring their citizenship and duty to deport people back to their country of citizenship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maher_Arar

It's a fucking disgusting world we live in.
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