In ‘Anonymous’ Raids, Feds Work From List of Top 1,000 Protesters • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by ryusage » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 3:17 PM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #31

michaelchisari wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be civil disobedience if they turned themselves in That's not, actually, a requirement of civil disobedience, and never has been, historically. For instance, millions broke the salt laws of India, but only 80,000 were arrested, and I can guarantee that the remainder did not voluntarily turn themselves in.

I stand corrected - I always assumed CD at least required you publicly announcing that you broke the law.

Civil Disobedience is (by definition) illegal, so I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make much sense for there to be any rules or requirements around it.

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

#62

Post by burgerbrain » Wed, Jul 27, 2011, 11:39 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #51

burgerbrain wrote: post #48

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…

This kid didn't control a botnet. He sent a handful of megabytes of data down his residential connection.

He had the functional impact of a single person at a sit in. No, realistically even less.

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

#63

Post by SwellJoe » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 1:44 AM UTC

starwed wrote: post #57

SwellJoe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 convic…

And issuing a warrant based on an IP address is roughly akin to issuing a warrant to search a random person on a bus, because someone who may have committed a crime is known to be on the bus.

I'm simply uncomfortable with the level of the bar on probable cause with regard to IP addresses, given how little information an IP address actually provides, even when government has cooperation of the ISP to identify users of that IP during the actions in question.

I'm also uncomfortable with the history of how computer seizures have been handled, and how little respect is shown in such cases. Given that seizing computers is not the same as searching a home; once a search of your home is over, it's over. With alleged computer crimes someone's business could be destroyed by the time the computers and data are returned. And, historically, it has occasionally required a lawsuit to get the computers and data returned (and the data may have been tampered with or destroyed).

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

#64

Post by InclinedPlane » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 2:33 AM UTC

burgerbrain wrote: post #62

InclinedPlane wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This kid didn't control a botnet. He sent a handful of megabytes of data down his residential connection. He had the functional impact of a single person at a sit in. No, realistically even less.

If he had gone to say the paypal homepage and diddled around all day then he would have had the same impact as a sit-in. Instead he simulated the traffic of thousands of people. That's not comparable to a sit-in.

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

#65

Post by burgerbrain » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 3:18 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #64

burgerbrain wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kid didn't control a botnet. He sent a handful of megabytes of data down his residential connection. He had the functional impact of a single person at a sit in. No, realistically even less.

If he had gone to say the paypal homepage and diddled around all day then he would have had the same impact as a sit-in. Instead he simulated the traffic of thousands of people. That's not comparable to a sit-in.

Bullshit. The entire idea behind a sit in is a number of people consuming disproportionate resources of an establishment. You don't participate in a sit in by using the amount of resources that a single person might normally reasonably use.

I suggest you read this article, since I am beginning to suspect you are operating under a very very distorted definition of the term: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sit-in

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

#66

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 2:06 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #63

starwed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 convic…

And issuing a warrant based on an IP address is roughly akin to issuing a warrant to search a random person on a bus, because someone who may have committed a crime is known to be on the bus. I'm simply uncomfortable with the level of the bar on probable cause with regard to IP addresses, given how little information an IP address actually provides, even when government has cooperation of the ISP to identify users of…

[deleted]

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

#67

Post by starwed » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 2:07 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #63

starwed wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 convic…

And issuing a warrant based on an IP address is roughly akin to issuing a warrant to search a random person on a bus, because someone who may have committed a crime is known to be on the bus. I'm simply uncomfortable with the level of the bar on probable cause with regard to IP addresses, given how little information an IP address actually provides, even when government has cooperation of the ISP to identify users of…

(That's a terrible analogy.)

I'm comfortable with using IP addresses to issue warrants -- I don't think it's a stretch to say that a reasonable percentage of the time it'll turn out to be accurate.

The way computer seizures are handled is fucked up, though, totally with you on that.

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

#68

Post by SwellJoe » Thu, Jul 28, 2011, 4:18 PM UTC

wmf wrote: post #39

SwellJoe wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm more bothered by the idea that the architecture of the Internet would be turned into a "get out of jail free" card. Unless your attacker is completely incompetent, the only evidence you'll have is an IP address; if you can't use that then you have nothing.

I hate to parrot quotes as an argument, but I feel like this one is appropriate here: "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer" - William Blackstone (various others have said it over the years with "ten" replaced by some other value, usually even higher than ten)

Given that having your computers and data seized is already punishment for a lot of people, possibly significant and life-altering punishment, I think courts should be damned careful about allowing police to take that action. I've known people who's businesses have been destroyed by computer seizure. And I've known people who have only gotten their computers back years later (which effectively is the same as "never", because computers have a relatively short shelf life), despite no charges ever being brought against them. My business probably wouldn't currently be destroyed by the loss of all of my personal computers, but it would certainly be a very serious hardship, far beyond what I feel would be just punishment without a trial. And, seizure of all of my servers (including the ones where the backups are stored) probably would very nearly destroy my business and cost me tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost sales and data.

A search is one thing, effective theft of my means of putting food on my table is something altogether different, and I think police ought to have to have a pretty damned good reason for taking away my livelihood for an indeterminate period of time.