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Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

blog.achernya.com

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Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#181

Post by pdonis »

leepowers wrote: post #66
armored_mammal wrote: post #38

If the students have failed to vehemently distance themselves and protest to the administration, or even quit MIT for somewhere else, then they are just as guilty. Their attendance abets the status quo. Especially since it's a private university. Quit whining.

That's insane. There's no way an individual student can possibly vet and approve every decision made by the school administration. If the U.S. president engages is an immoral action do I bear the guilt of his actions because I voted for him? Should I renounce my U.S. citizenship whenever my congress-critter misbehaves? Of course not. That is the worst thing I could do. I would be far more effective if I stuck around…

I imagine the point of this attack is to effect/inconvenience students so they complain to the MIT administration.

If that's the objective, it's not a very well chosen one IMO. As I and others have posted elsewhere in this thread, MIT is already conducting an investigation, and I expect that students who are at all likely to complain to the administration already know about this and are already watching what happens, and will make their displeasure known if the appropriate action isn't taken once the investigation is complete. I doubt that this DDoS attack will have a significant effect on that.

Plus, as has also been posted elsewhere in this thread, investigations take time. Is this DDoS attack going to continue until it's finished? How does that help? Or is the objective to get students to demand heads before all the facts are known? How does that help?

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#182

Post by aaron695 »

danielweber wrote: post #169
aaron695 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I really hope "better educated" and "looking at the total issue" isn't code for "agrees with me."

No, it's meant as a 'don't drink the coolaid' and think just because you are part of something you are A. Right B. Don't have to accept any responsibility for the organisation you are part of.

If MIT did something wrong and you go to MIT you are responsible for being part of that organisation. No one is forced to go to MIT.

Take responsibility for who you support, be it a university, club or a job.

If you think MIT did nothing wrong, then say they did nothing wrong. Don't say I'm a member of MIT but nothing bad(= short internet issues) should happen to me cause I'm just one of the many in this organisation.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#183

Post by cshesse »

charliesome wrote: post #119
darkarmani wrote: post #29

Please let me read your blog page without needed to turn on lots of javascript. The page is blank without whitelisting JS content.

Blank screening even with JavaScript enabled.

It's blank for me in 3 different browsers, looks like some javascript errors.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#184

Post by aaron695 »

simonster wrote: post #163
aaron695 wrote: post #112

This cause is trying to change the access across the world for scientific articles and you're complaining for a short period "A few class websites are inaccessible, a few friends' blogs are down, and web development is a bit annoying" That's the most selfish thing I've seen today. No argument why this form of protest won't work just it interrupts your current lifestyle. And IMO it will help, it keep momentum and adds…

> This cause is trying to change the access across the world for scientific articles and you're complaining for a short period Many MIT professors make their academic articles freely available on their lab websites. As Anonymous continues to attack the MIT network, they are making it more difficult for members of the general public to access academic articles. This isn't about open access. It's about exacting revenge…

>"They are making it more difficult for members of the general public to access academic article"

Given what may happen if change can be made is this really anything? This is how most of the mostly 3rd world student/academics live 100% of the time for most articles.

They are not attacking students sites AFAIK they are attacking the MIT network I really doubt the Faculty are not seeing this and thinking.

This is an attack for unproportionately persecuting someone for trying to free up scientific information. I don't see it as revenge for his death.

DoJ won't change, but academics might.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#185

Post by hakaaak »

I think it is B.S. when hackers take down an easy target for no apparently good reason.

I respect those that take chances to risk their freedom for the good of humanity. For example, if a government were lying to its people about something that was negatively impacting them or their future, and only bad was coming from that information being restricted, then I could not argue with those that took on risk to release that information. I could not support doing anything illegal, but I would at least respect it. But, busting on MIT has no value I can see, and in-general attack-oriented hacking is just as bad as the Cobra Kai.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#186

Post by rdl »

Would there be any legal problem with essentially "hellbanning" those responsible from any online service you operate (with the possible exception of E911, etc.)? If we find out who at MIT was responsible, as well as Ortiz and Heymann, refusing to allow them to create accounts, or putting their accounts into a horrible tarpit with no outside connectivity, would seem like a much better form of protest than DDoSing MIT.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#187

Post by gfosco »

armored_mammal wrote: post #174
rprasad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, It's more like your 18th cousin 6 times removed raped someone... You don't know the guy, never met him, and some troll on the internet is blaming you for murder because you haven't publicly denounced him.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#188

Post by rdl »

The other great protest is that any HS senior (or grad student applicant) who has an offer from MIT and from another comparable school (Stanford, CMU, etc.), tell MIT no, and tell them why you're saying no.

I suspect if 5-10 people who got MIT "yes" did this, MIT admissions and the MIT President would go batshit.

(You can do this even if you were on the fence about MIT, or even if you intended to go somewhere else anyway.)

Anon should promote this plan to HS seniors on the admissions boards and other forums likely to be frequented by top school applying seniors.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#189

Post by leepowers »

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…

Administration and faculty should care about students and they should listen to their students. If a service outage occurs and effects thousands of students I have no doubt faculty is going to be made aware of it - regardless of who is responsible for maintaining the service.

Maybe we are giving the attackers too much credit. They may not be sophisticated enough to understand the relationship between the system they're attacking and the rest of MIT's infrastructure. More likely this was low-hanging fruit, an easy to attack, ergo it was attacked.

Re: Please Stop Attacking MIT's Network

#190

Post by rhizome »

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.

Yeah, well, people who aren't Aaron are kind of mad at MIT right now.

That said, MIT has some smart people, surely they can put their noggins together to figure out a way to stem the attack. Maybe once and for all, and for the good of the internet, they can contribute this tool for unilaterally turning off DDOSes to the public.

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