LulzSec: Why we do what we do • Hacker News Board

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#81

Post by tomp » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:00 PM UTC

Deestan wrote: post #26

tomp wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. If I leave the door to my house unlocked, it doesn't mean that it is ok for you to come in without my permission.

Morally, it's also not just how you break in, but what you do afterwards. I.e. if you prevent more harm than you do. If you enter the unlocked door and write "HI YOU FORGOT TO LOCK YOUR DOOR" with lipstick on the bathroom window, you're alerting the owner to a bad security practice by giving them a good scare. It is A Good Thing, because you likely prevented them losing their stuff. If you enter the unlocked door and…

Morally, I agree completely. But I'm afraid that the legal system may not.

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#82

Post by ZeSmith » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:00 PM UTC

getsat wrote: post #60

dgabriel wrote: post #33

Adorable. They're bullies and proud of it. It's one thing to call out security exploits, and quite another to take great joy in causing others pain.

> to take great joy in causing others pain This happens far more often than people realise.

Still does not make it okay.

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#83

Post by chriserin » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:01 PM UTC

bh42222 wrote: post #71

And I just realized what it is about LuLzSec that's bothered me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but now I realize deep down they are nihilists. That's a damn shame. What seemed most admirable about Anonymous is that as much as they were also in it for lulz and pure chaos, underneath there seemed to be a kind of idealism. Idealism is seductive, nihilism is off-putting.

Or maybe that Anonymous idealism was a fraud and lulz, as peers, could see the hypocrisy much clearer, as everybody in their community likely do what they do because of the thrills and ignoring the pain caused. Lulz admitting it is likely taking the high road? or is that too tortured as twist.

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#84

Post by chriserin » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:04 PM UTC

migrantgeek wrote: post #57

mentat wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we need to fix the infrastructure so that the current generation of attacks don't work. To just say, "oh, well bandwidth is limited so there's always going to be an attack" is not useful. Think of ways you can structure the infrastructure so that it can do filtering further out, or detected spoofed connections, or detect anomalous request patterns. There are solutions, we need to find them and implement them, no…

They can certainly protect against this but it's not a good idea. I pay US taxes and I don't want the cia.gov site to be on the same type of hardware as say Google just to be DDoS "proof". They shouldn't be connected with a 33.6 modem but to ask all sites to upgrade everything to prevent DDoS is insane. Who could afford to start a web site if they had to lay out all of that cost?

Might that be another advantage of cloud computing? To spread the cost of DDoS defense infrastructure across many websites?

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#85

Post by adamdecaf » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:04 PM UTC

> "suggests...our actions are causing clowns with pens to write new rules for you. But what if we just hadn't released anything? What if we were silent? That would mean we would be secretly inside FBI affiliates right now, inside PBS, inside Sony... watching... abusing..."

Isn't that happening right now and by the people with pens?

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#86

Post by ilikepi » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:08 PM UTC

mhitza wrote: post #75

diminoten wrote: post #19

This smells to me like a hastily conjured rationalization for a series of attention-seeking acts wrought by a small group of disenfranchised industry workers who have something to say, but they're just not articulate enough to voice it so they blow shit up instead.

For a moment I'd taught I was the only one to notice. If we would ignore them, they would just fade away.

If by "we", you mean everyone on the planet, including the blackhats who benefit indirectly by utilizing the results of LulzSec's exploits, then...maybe.

This is not realistic, however.

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#87

Post by bad_user » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:11 PM UTC

saulrh wrote: post #55

diminoten wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they cannot voice it perfectly well, if they have to resort to stealing user information to get their message across. Their plan was not good, insofar as it caused pain for a great many people. What they did was not okay, and should not be lauded as a positive thing for the Internet at large. The problem is that their antics are even being considered as anything other than the terroristic (in the real sense of th…

People have been trying for years to get the point across that we need to have better security. None of them have managed it . If anything, security is getting worse because cracking tools are becoming more sophisticated. Someone had to get word out, what people were doing to raise publicity wasn't working, there was a way to get attention, and LulzSec did it. Bad as what they did is, they successfully raised media a…

    None of them have managed it.

I'm glad they didn't -- this way I can still have some privacy.

    cracking tools are becoming more sophisticated

IMHO, it's easier to break into someone's home than into someone's server.

The result more predictable too, as you can find tools that can crack open doors, windows, anything. And if all else fails, you can just watch the house until somebody makes an error, like leaving the window open by themselves (although experts don't have to do this).

Real security can only be achieved through serious investments into state of the art alarms, safe-deposit boxes and by being a paranoid.

Another way to do it would be to plant GPS devices in each and every human and track each movement into a centralized database, while good thieves will find ways to block that signal anyway; and that's how all of the proposals for a more "secure" Internet sounds to me - basically punishing honest citizens in the name of security.

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#88

Post by diminoten » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:17 PM UTC

saulrh wrote: post #55

diminoten wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they cannot voice it perfectly well, if they have to resort to stealing user information to get their message across. Their plan was not good, insofar as it caused pain for a great many people. What they did was not okay, and should not be lauded as a positive thing for the Internet at large. The problem is that their antics are even being considered as anything other than the terroristic (in the real sense of th…

People have been trying for years to get the point across that we need to have better security. None of them have managed it . If anything, security is getting worse because cracking tools are becoming more sophisticated. Someone had to get word out, what people were doing to raise publicity wasn't working, there was a way to get attention, and LulzSec did it. Bad as what they did is, they successfully raised media a…

They succeeded in exactly the same way that the IRA succeeds in bringing attention to their cause when they blow up a school.

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#89

Post by danielharan » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:17 PM UTC

bxr wrote: post #49

seats wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Preying on the weak for fun Preying on the weak for profit They both kind of have a sociopath sound to them

But, only one of them is the foundation of our society.

Which one?

Re: LulzSec: Why we do what we do

#90

Post by sorbus » Fri, Jun 17, 2011, 5:19 PM UTC

jules wrote: post #64

nextparadigms wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also led to Paypal allowing Wikileaks to retrieve the money they already had before they suspended their account.

Is phillijw another false positive of HN spam detectors?

Maybe. Look back through his(?) comment history, and you'll see that the point where he was autokilled/hellbanned (around nine pages back) was, while a very downvoted (and nonsensical) comment, not actually malicious. Before that, he had a few comments which were downvoted maybe two or three times (you can tell by the color). It's probable that he was autokilled/hellbanned because those caused his average comment karma to drop too far, as well as making his karma negative, though I am not aware of the exact criteria.

At this point, he seems like a false positive based on his recent comments. It's a pity that there's no real procedure for being unhellbanned, even if the user discovers that they are, other than starting a new account.