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Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

smh.com.au

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Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#11

Post by tdm911 »

itistoday wrote: post #5
tdm911 wrote: post #2

whilst i agree with their protesting of our governments unnecessary proposals on censoring australia, their methods are not helping. a ddos attack on the government only gives the government more ammunition to paint the average protester as a criminal or someone who is trying to harm the government. a peaceful protest is far more effective.

The notion that peaceful protest is always better than violent protest is simply historically bankrupt. There's a time and a place for both. To be honest, what they're doing, at least by revolutionary terms, might as well be considered "peaceful protest."

the issue i have is that the government will tell the uniformed voting public that 'we', (those who protest these moves), are trying to harm the government through these hacking attempts.

to mrs and mrs family voter, this makes those who protest look bad and can sway their opinions on the censorship.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#12

Post by esonica »

dirtbox wrote: post #8
esonica wrote: post #3

I thinks its only a matter of time before Anonymous gets labelled a terrorist organisation to increase the counter measures / invasive laws that can be used against them. Disrupting Goverment sites and services would be considered as an attack as per the Australian Terrorism definition: (e) seriously interferes with, seriously disrupts, or destroys, an electronic system including, but not limited to (i) an informatio…

It wouldn't make any difference. Anonymous isn't a set group of hackers, it's quite literally anyone and everyone that wants to get involved at any moment for any cause whether for fun, such as sabotaging Time's most influential people list, to objecting en-mass to outlandish proposals such as these censorship laws. Labelling Anonymous as terrorists is essentially labelling the general public as terrorists.

I feel it would. Imagine a script kiddie in Australia decides to join the DDOS attack on the government site.

He is easily traced by IP, and the Australian Federal Police come to visit.

His new 'rights', now that he is part of a terror group include:

Being held for up to nine days in detention without being formally charged.

Warrantless searches

The seizure of any objects associated with the terrorist act (this is quite a wide open definition, basically anything you own is up for grabs)

Also the AFP have some quite invasive computer techniques that are used to go wandering through your system before they knock on the door.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#13

Post by itistoday »

esonica wrote: post #12
dirtbox wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't make any difference. Anonymous isn't a set group of hackers, it's quite literally anyone and everyone that wants to get involved at any moment for any cause whether for fun, such as sabotaging Time's most influential people list, to objecting en-mass to outlandish proposals such as these censorship laws. Labelling Anonymous as terrorists is essentially labelling the general public as terrorists.

I feel it would. Imagine a script kiddie in Australia decides to join the DDOS attack on the government site. He is easily traced by IP, and the Australian Federal Police come to visit. His new 'rights', now that he is part of a terror group include: Being held for up to nine days in detention without being formally charged. Warrantless searches The seizure of any objects associated with the terrorist act (this is qu…

> He is easily traced by IP

I have a feeling that a group of people calling themselves 'anonymous' have probably heard of torproject.org

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#14

Post by vaksel »

esonica wrote: post #3

I thinks its only a matter of time before Anonymous gets labelled a terrorist organisation to increase the counter measures / invasive laws that can be used against them. Disrupting Goverment sites and services would be considered as an attack as per the Australian Terrorism definition: (e) seriously interferes with, seriously disrupts, or destroys, an electronic system including, but not limited to (i) an informatio…

To me anon is like the guys from fight club. If someone starts fighting them seriously, it's only a matter of time before they get cornered in a bathroom and given the whole "we are everyone..don't fuck with us" speech

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#15

Post by knome »

itistoday wrote: post #13
esonica wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel it would. Imagine a script kiddie in Australia decides to join the DDOS attack on the government site. He is easily traced by IP, and the Australian Federal Police come to visit. His new 'rights', now that he is part of a terror group include: Being held for up to nine days in detention without being formally charged. Warrantless searches The seizure of any objects associated with the terrorist act (this is qu…

> He is easily traced by IP I have a feeling that a group of people calling themselves 'anonymous' have probably heard of torproject.org

Wouldn't using an encrypted onion routed network put a bit of a pinch on the amount of DDOS traffic one could push? Not to mention that there is probably an upper bound to the amount of traffic any given exit-node is willing to allow for. How many exit nodes restrict outbound connections to common ports?

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#16

Post by itistoday »

tdm911 wrote: post #11
itistoday wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The notion that peaceful protest is always better than violent protest is simply historically bankrupt. There's a time and a place for both. To be honest, what they're doing, at least by revolutionary terms, might as well be considered "peaceful protest."

the issue i have is that the government will tell the uniformed voting public that 'we', (those who protest these moves), are trying to harm the government through these hacking attempts. to mrs and mrs family voter, this makes those who protest look bad and can sway their opinions on the censorship.

I understand, but I question the effectiveness of the prior peaceful protests in fighting the legislation in the first place. They obviously didn't go over too well.

It's possible that Anonymous' muckery could stir up discussion about this topic that otherwise would not have existed as the average Australian lapsed back into complacency. It's also possible their attacks will end up being counter-productive. Either way, I have to admire their reckless vigilantism against censorship, and can only imagine the LuLz being generated in the formal setting of Australia's bureaucracy.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#17

Post by jonny_noog »

sorbus wrote: post #10
esonica wrote: post #3

I thinks its only a matter of time before Anonymous gets labelled a terrorist organisation to increase the counter measures / invasive laws that can be used against them. Disrupting Goverment sites and services would be considered as an attack as per the Australian Terrorism definition: (e) seriously interferes with, seriously disrupts, or destroys, an electronic system including, but not limited to (i) an informatio…

It would be like punching mist. Hell, if someone gets in jail for being part of anonymous (or, more accurately, for participating in a DDoS advocated by people under the banner of anonymous, or even more likely for having their wifi used by someone to participate in such a DDoS), it will just make all the others more angry. Fighting them would be like fighting tor, or bittorrent; highly distributed, highly decentrali…

I'm not wishing to argue that labeling Anonymous as a terrorist orgainsation would be a good thing (it would be monumentally retarded, which is why I also think there's a good chance it will happen at some point, I have little faith in government common sense these days) but this problem of how to handle these distributed non-orgnaisations that we see today is quite relevant to the way governments were/are trying to handle terrorism. I remember watching a documentary - I think it was called The Power of Nightmares - that stated amongst other things that after 9/11 the US Government basically began using laws originally designed to combat organised crime (Mafia et al) and applying them to these new, relatively flat, loosely organised and decentralised groups with very little success, primarily because there was no command structure similar what they had been used to dealing with.

Governments are still wrestling with what to do about this issue I think. It seems that the best solution they have so far come up with is reducing civil liberty and surveilling everyone. Not ideal from my POV.

Not to mention that as the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#18

Post by itistoday »

knome wrote: post #15
itistoday wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He is easily traced by IP I have a feeling that a group of people calling themselves 'anonymous' have probably heard of torproject.org

Wouldn't using an encrypted onion routed network put a bit of a pinch on the amount of DDOS traffic one could push? Not to mention that there is probably an upper bound to the amount of traffic any given exit-node is willing to allow for. How many exit nodes restrict outbound connections to common ports?

I'm wasn't suggesting that they'd use Tor itself for the DDoS, only that through it they can hide their traces.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#19

Post by ramchip »

esonica wrote: post #12
dirtbox wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't make any difference. Anonymous isn't a set group of hackers, it's quite literally anyone and everyone that wants to get involved at any moment for any cause whether for fun, such as sabotaging Time's most influential people list, to objecting en-mass to outlandish proposals such as these censorship laws. Labelling Anonymous as terrorists is essentially labelling the general public as terrorists.

I feel it would. Imagine a script kiddie in Australia decides to join the DDOS attack on the government site. He is easily traced by IP, and the Australian Federal Police come to visit. His new 'rights', now that he is part of a terror group include: Being held for up to nine days in detention without being formally charged. Warrantless searches The seizure of any objects associated with the terrorist act (this is qu…

Your list makes me feel a little sad. In Japan you can be searched or held for up to one month without being charged - no need for even a terrorism excuse. Heck, according to the laws I could be banned from the country for forgetting my ID card at home. I hope Australia and the US don't go further down that slope.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#20

Post by ramchip »

itistoday wrote: post #18
knome wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't using an encrypted onion routed network put a bit of a pinch on the amount of DDOS traffic one could push? Not to mention that there is probably an upper bound to the amount of traffic any given exit-node is willing to allow for. How many exit nodes restrict outbound connections to common ports?

I'm wasn't suggesting that they'd use Tor itself for the DDoS, only that through it they can hide their traces.

AFAIK anons don't have access to botnets and such, they flood from their own computers. Their sheer number makes it 'distributed'.

Like when they modified the Times most influential person ranking, it was just a lot of people running an auto-voter on their machine.

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