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In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

wired.com

51–60 of 68 posts

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sit ins are not legal either, you can be arrested for trespassing on someone's property if you've been told to leave. The purpose of a sit in is to draw attention to an issue through non-violent means, and it's accepted that there may be consequences to that (including jail time) but the cause justifies the risk. Regardless, it's questionable whether a DDoS and a sit-in are comparable. For one, DDoS does not require…

Reading compression. I am not suggesting that sit ins are legal. I am asking if participating in one is enough for the police to get a warrant to thrash your house. Furthermore, sit ins are by definition denial of service attacks. Assertions about differences of scale are 1) irrelevant, 2) questionable (most DDoS fail miserably). This has nothing at all to do with my approval or disapproval of the politics.

Here the analogy breaks down. Sit ins are nominally illegal. DDoS is also a crime. And whereas a sit-in doesn't involve any special equipment and happens outside someone's home the equipment and the act itself of a DDoS happens in the home, so using strong probable cause to obtain a warrant and collect evidence is perfectly legitimate I think.

As far as sit-ins vs. DDoS, it's patently ridiculous to say that scale is irrelevant. If I steal a single penny that is a much different crime than if I were to steal a penny from everyone in America. And if I stage a sit-in at a place of business and deny one or a handful of customers the opportunity to do business that's incomparable to if I deny a thousand or a million people.

One of the core reasons why sit-ins are a respected form of civil disobedience is because it preserves an important aspect of scale. One person one seat. The more popular a cause is and the more people are dedicated to fighting for it the more effective the sit-in can be. But unpopular causes will find it tough to use a sit-in to advance their agenda. The public will ignore their cause and turn a deaf ear to their arrests. And no one will take their place at the sit-in once they're gone. That sense of scale is important. In contrast, a DoS becomes very much more akin to a bomb threat or breaking windows. Because a far smaller and less popular group can effectively disrupt the business activities of a very large number of people. That is not in any way a good thing.

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#52
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So they're going to arrest a kid for sending an average on one packet every two seconds, over the period of two-and-a-half hours? As a general principle, if it is illegal for one person to perpetrate an act against a victim, I don't see how it should not be illegal for a large group of people to perpetrate the same act, even though the individual contribution of each member of the large group might be small enough…

It's an interesting question, though. If 1000 people tell one person that they don't like them, and the person commits suicide, then it's reasonable to claim that the group drove them to do it. However, do you prosecute an individual who merely tells someone, "I don't like you?" On an individual basis, it's a weak case. I'm not sure how the law deals with this, or even if there exists any legal principles dealing wit…

If the 1000 people did it in coordinated manner with the intent of causing harm to the one person then it would seem like a crime to me. Of course, it's the leaders who should get the severe punishments, but you still have to punish the others too (to a lesser extent). Otherwise you're just saying that it's acceptable to help people commit a crime.

And why are people complaining about the FBI going after people anyway? It's their job to catch (probable) criminals, so they can't really start deciding which ones to pursue. It's the judges and jurys (and lawmakers) who make that decision.

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#53
I find it a strange position for Wired to be in.

On the one side, they offer quality articles and have quality resources. They seem to favor the hackers.

On the other side, this article was written by Kevin Poulsen, who had a part in turning over a whistleblower and journalist source to the authorities. Kevin Poulson has made himself too related to anonymous and WikiLeaks to be regarded as objective on these matters.

I know that isn't reason to judge any article of his, but the extra care I'm forced to take when Poulson is involved (consider his sources, morals and agenda), leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth and an inability to enjoy reading this article.

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#54
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you assume an MTU of 1500 bytes, then this kid sent about 5.25MB worth of data.

But he didn't buy anything! This is like walking into a book store, looking around at books, reading a bit, and leaving the store without making a purchase. Clearly a federal crime.

I think a better analogy would be one where everyone was standing in the doorway and not letting anyone else use the store.

Probably a crime, but a pretty minor one.

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#55
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After reading the article, it appears as though Anon were lured into the attack by PayPal. Then it sounds like the Feds already had all their stuff in place to collect the data while the attacks were happening.

> Then it sounds like the Feds already had all their > stuff in place to collect the data while the attacks > were happening. [citation needed] My read says that PayPal had some sort of network monitoring system in place which allowed them to capture data during the attack. They then handed this information over to the Feds.

Yes, one of Radware's ids/idp solutions. (Radware is an Israeli company who do some nice kit - I've bought quite a few of their boxes).

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#56
post #23
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering that most DDOS attacks come from zombie bots installed on programs when people Torrent, I'm suprised that there were arrest made based on IPs

Did you read the article? Paypal provided evidence that the DDoS was coming from LOIC, a manually-operated non-botnet tool. Also, it sounds like Paypal's evidence was only used to get search warrants, and evidence found in those searches (like LIOC) would then be used to justify arrests.

Not necessarily manually-operated. See also: LOIC Hivemind.

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#57
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly does one take an IP number and point a finger to the person who caused that transmission? Good thing that's not what the FBI is doing. can we really say for sure who caused any transmission from a PC? If a computer is seized from a teenager's bedroom and it has LOIC installed and it isn't malware-infested...

If a computer is seized from a teenager's bedroom and it has LOIC installed and it isn't malware-infested... Are you not bothered by the notion of a warrant being issued for search of your home and seizure of your computers based on nothing but an IP address ? I'm extremely bothered by that, personally, because I know enough about networks to know how very shaky that "evidence" of identity is.

Err, you do understand how warrants work, right? You don't get one by proving someone is guilty, but by showing there is probable cause.

>The standard for a search warrant is lower than the quantum of proof required for a later conviction. The rationale is that the evidence that can be collected without a search warrant may not be sufficient to convict, but may be sufficient to suggest that enough evidence to convict could be found using the warrant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_warrant#United_States_of...

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading compression. I am not suggesting that sit ins are legal. I am asking if participating in one is enough for the police to get a warrant to thrash your house. Furthermore, sit ins are by definition denial of service attacks. Assertions about differences of scale are 1) irrelevant, 2) questionable (most DDoS fail miserably). This has nothing at all to do with my approval or disapproval of the politics.

Here the analogy breaks down. Sit ins are nominally illegal. DDoS is also a crime. And whereas a sit-in doesn't involve any special equipment and happens outside someone's home the equipment and the act itself of a DDoS happens in the home, so using strong probable cause to obtain a warrant and collect evidence is perfectly legitimate I think. As far as sit-ins vs. DDoS, it's patently ridiculous to say that scale is…

I like your breakdown of the DDoS vs the sit-in. The requirement of many people vs a few does make an important distinction when considering the effectiveness as a form of protest.

But I think the analogy to a bomb threat or breaking windows is a bad one, primarily because it's likely to be misunderstood. I'll agree that those are more similar in the sense of scale, but that's about the only similarity. Bombs and stones damage both property and individual human lives in ways that are likely to be traumatic and irrevocable. A DDoS is peaceful, causing only a temporary financial effect on a business.

Re: In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters

#60
post #14

How exactly does one take an IP number and point a finger to the person who caused that transmission? If a computer can be hijacked by an undetectable virus from a Sony cd, can we really say for sure who caused any transmission from a PC? What if you framed your neighbors unsecured wifi? Or target someone's home? It's like a modern day witch hunt!

Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Whatever happened with that judge's ruling that an IP is not a person? Did it get overturned? http://torrentfreak.com/ip-address-not-a-person-bittorrent-c...

Until the supreme court rules on it themselves, I'm pretty positive other judges are still free to make their own judgments on the matter.
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