Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

blog.achernya.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 220 posts

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#171

Post by Gigablah »

thefreeman wrote: post #151
vor_ wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This "pacific interruption", as you delicately describe it, hurts innocent teachers and students who had nothing to do with the alleged bullying of Swartz, who was already suicidal prior to his prosecution. Regardless of what one may think of computer laws, there is no proven link between his suicide and the criminal charges he faced, and any claims to the contrary have so far been entirely speculative and coming fro…

I've been trying to stay out of this, but I gotta agree with you hear. For all we know, Aaron got dumped by his girlfriend last week or something. People are just using his suicide to turn him into a martyr for a cause they believe in, and its disturbing.

> For all we know, Aaron got dumped by his girlfriend last week or something.

You mean Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman? She was the one who found his body.

Any other speculations you'd like to share?

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#172

Post by redthrowaway »

gojomo wrote: post #45

As I'd mentioned on an earlier submission about W3C's site being inaccessible: A cool thing about Aaron's activism was that it involved building things, circumventing censorship, and spreading information, rather than sabotage and denial-of-service.

DDoSes are far, far easier to carry out. The low barrier to entry means that far more people can engage in that kind of "activism" than would be able even to write the python script Aaron used to download the JSTOR articles.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#173

Post by armored_mammal »

gfosco wrote: post #136
armored_mammal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, do you think people have no social responsibility towards the institutions they support? If you belonged to the Westboro Baptist Church or some other group it'd be legit to claim you're responsible for their actions to a certain degree. Why do MIT students get a special exemption from the chain of responsibility that applies to everyone else? If you are a member of a collectivist institution it's also your resp…

You lost me at Westboro Baptist Church, which isn't comparable. WBC is a voluntary group, which I assume you can enter and exit without penalty. Imagine you're a student, halfway through your 4 year program at MIT... You don't know Aaron, or anything about his situation. Yes, you get an exemption from blame, because it has nothing to do with you and it's not your business. You cannot just exit and go elsewhere withou…

And your tuition money is so entirely different than tithing how?

Likewise, customers have social responsibility in their purchasing decisions, and transferring credits to another school isn't all that huge of a deal, either, so I'm kind of finding your take a little overblown. Obviously every student at MIT volunteered to come there, too.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#174

Post by armored_mammal »

rprasad wrote: post #133
armored_mammal wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, do you think people have no social responsibility towards the institutions they support? If you belonged to the Westboro Baptist Church or some other group it'd be legit to claim you're responsible for their actions to a certain degree. Why do MIT students get a special exemption from the chain of responsibility that applies to everyone else? If you are a member of a collectivist institution it's also your resp…

That's like saying that if your father raped someone, you raped that person too. It's the same logic that was applied to Jews, Gypsies, and slaves for centuries (and is still applied in the Middle East today). It has no place in modern discourse.

It's more like ignoring that your father raped someone or tolerating it or telling him it's fine instead of getting him help or reporting it.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#175

Post by pdonis »

danielweber wrote: post #28
latj wrote: post #14

I do not condone the attacks that may be occurring. However, if you are trying to get someone's attention- it makes more sense to get the attention of the students rather than the administration. Today's MIT students are tomorrow's death-ray designers, robot-maintainers, and policy makers. They are tomorrow's administration- and they may not have made up their minds yet about ethical issues of intellectual property o…

As a first guess, MIT students are very unlikely to react to someone causing them trouble by become more sympathetic with the people causing them trouble. Especially if the message of the attackers is "people who break into the network shouldn't have the cops called on them." (Although we should wait for Hal Abelson's report to find out what happened behind the scenes.)

As a first guess, MIT students are very unlikely to react to someone causing them trouble by become more sympathetic with the people causing them trouble.

That was my general reaction to protests on campus when I was a student there. I often saw the same general pattern I see here: protests would be highly visible and inconvenient to the people who couldn't do anything to address the issue, and would have no impact at all on the people who could.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#176

Post by armored_mammal »

simonster wrote: post #152
leepowers wrote: post #54

My guess is someone wants to "send a message" to MIT and so they're attacking the most vulnerable, most exploitable part of MIT's infrastructure: a non-critical system run by student volunteers. I doubt it's anything personal against Alex or other MIT students. Imagine if a thousand members of Anonymous staged a non-violent protest at MIT, marching across campus. This would inconvenience some students, possibly even…

> My guess is someone wants to "send a message" to MIT and so they're attacking the most vulnerable, most exploitable part of MIT's infrastructure: a non-critical system run by student volunteers. I doubt it's anything personal against Alex or other MIT students. But they're not sending a message to MIT, because the systems they are attacking don't matter to the faculty or administration. They're just creating a mess…

Who should blame the administration instead of the DDOS'ers.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#177

Post by pdonis »

aaron695 wrote: post #121
danielweber wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a first guess, MIT students are very unlikely to react to someone causing them trouble by become more sympathetic with the people causing them trouble. Especially if the message of the attackers is "people who break into the network shouldn't have the cops called on them." (Although we should wait for Hal Abelson's report to find out what happened behind the scenes.)

I couldn't disagree more. These are MIT graduates, highly intelligent people, not some slack jaw locals. They are fully capable to look at the issues and take moral responsibility for the University they are part of. How can an intelligent person support a organisation by being part in it, then take no responsibility for what it does. Yes I know the commoners do this all the time for their entire lives, but being bet…

How can an intelligent person support a organisation by being part in it, then take no responsibility for what it does.

Being a student at MIT (or an alum) does not automatically imply support for everything MIT does. That said, I expect many MIT students and alumni to be paying very close attention (as I am) to the investigation that Prof. Abelson is conducting, and what follows from it. And I expect that MIT's administration knows that. But I seriously doubt that this DDoS attack will make any students pay attention who weren't paying attention already.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#178

Post by pdonis »

armored_mammal wrote: post #176
simonster wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My guess is someone wants to "send a message" to MIT and so they're attacking the most vulnerable, most exploitable part of MIT's infrastructure: a non-critical system run by student volunteers. I doubt it's anything personal against Alex or other MIT students. But they're not sending a message to MIT, because the systems they are attacking don't matter to the faculty or administration. They're just creating a mess…

Who should blame the administration instead of the DDOS'ers.

And suppose they do. What then? MIT has already said an investigation will be conducted. Is the DDoS going to continue until it's finished? How does that help anyone? Or should the students demand heads immediately, without waiting for the full facts? How does that help?

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#179

Post by Cushman »

MrScruff wrote: post #166
Cushman wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I realize that. I'm just struggling to find one that seems unreasonable even out of context. It reads like as a list of valid opinions the curator disagrees with, which comes across as more than a little bit pissy.

Really? 'Affiliation with MIT right now, even as a student, looks to me like affiliation with the Nazi youth.' Not unreasonable?

Well, okay, that one has pretty bad grammar. But no, that seems like a sensible analogy to describe a way a person feels right now.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#180

Post by lkbm »

Yver wrote: post #105
gojomo wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the effect of a 'protest' is to prevent people from accessing online information that they'd like to access, it goes against Aaron's anti-censorship views. Every bully wants to 'discomfort' their opponents into changing. Those who use DDoS are more like the federal prosecutors -- making 'destructive' threats, expecting change through punishment -- than Aaron.

And how did that work out for him by the way? I head they've dropped their lawsuit? Also, if DDoS is "destructive" then copying a file is stealing.

> Also, if DDoS is "destructive" then copying a file is stealing.

How does that follow?

Post reply on HN