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Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

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Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#241

Post by danssig »

nerfhammer wrote: post #82
badclient wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only of you believe myriad of attacks such as the Boston Tea Party were not well thought out. In the short-term, they may have a negative impact on the general population. But the goal by many such actions is very longterm and seemingly worth the temporary raise in price etc. in the eyes of the protestors.

Why do they get to decide what's a good tradeoff for the general population?

Why did Boston Tea Partiests? I'm sure there were plenty of cowards like yourself complaining about upsetting the King.

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#242

Post by danssig »

GHFigs wrote: post #212
dwilson718 wrote: post #122

I'm sure most of the people here missed the fact that this is a wake-up call. its meant to make people THINK long and hard about the real issues at hand. I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a lot of critical thinking going on. It's this reason I support these groups.

I see the exact opposite. I see a call to stop thinking and align yourself with an ideology. e.g, "Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir." See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_true_believer

You have to do that in any case. Some prefer the ideology of "status quo at all costs".

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#243

Post by danssig »

jxcole wrote: post #125

Why does Anonymous focus so much on attacking the US government (and related rich democratic countries) when it could instead be focused on fighting the governments that are actually oppressive? Nothing the US has ever done, even at it's most oppressive, could ever compare to what North Korea does to it's own citizen's on a regular basis. I would probably be much more sympathetic towards their cause if they focused m…

>Why does Anonymous focus so much on attacking the US government (and related rich democratic countries) when it could instead be focused on fighting the governments that are actually oppressive?

I think a very large chunk of the world would tell you that the US is the most oppressive one. NK is oppressive to its own people, but the US' oppression goes far beyond its own borders.

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#244

Post by innes »

jackpirate wrote: post #162
innes wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem of misdirected anger is unsurprising. And it's especially predictable with groups such as Anonymous who in their writings come off as pompous, childish, self-centred, and self-aggrandizing. Not the kind of traits that correlate with empathising with people on the other side of the planet. Their strategy (setting aside the more base stuff that is just bullying and focussing on their attempts to appear…

No, the problem of misdirected anger is unsurprising. To be clear, the gp is describing correctly directed anger, so the rest of your post addresses a different (although also important) issue.

NB: I deliberately characterised the anger as misdirected, despite the parent thinking otherwise.

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#245

Post by innes »

dlikhten wrote: post #139
innes wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the problem of misdirected anger is unsurprising. And it's especially predictable with groups such as Anonymous who in their writings come off as pompous, childish, self-centred, and self-aggrandizing. Not the kind of traits that correlate with empathising with people on the other side of the planet. Their strategy (setting aside the more base stuff that is just bullying and focussing on their attempts to appear…

This is all well and good, but in reality the phrase "fix your own house before fixing someone else's" applies. If we can't have a good and fair government by the definition of the people, then can we really expect to fix other governments? Do we bring our own government in like we did with Afghanistan and Iraq and royally fuck up a country (not to say that those countries were in good shape in any way, nor to say we…

No. Human rights are the same for 'brown people' - their concerns are as important as those of privileged westerners. Their plight is much worse than that of young white hackers in the western world. Western hackers can by all means massage their egos by playing the rebellious teenager, but to claim that it's justifiably their top priority is not defensible.

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#246

Post by peterwwillis »

munin wrote: post #211
peterwwillis wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, sorry, that's bullshit. AntiSec is a movement against the computer security industry . They want everything to be insecure. And it's not a write-off... they literally have no skills. Only idiots would start a campaign like the one they have and continue to shift their ideology to support whatever bullshit deface they've done now. They pick whatever low hanging fruit has a .gov, .mil or corporate presence, or take…

they don't want things to be insecure, they want the computer security industry to stop being bullshit. the true irony of course is that all the flailings of the antisec movement will result in is greater revenues for the same computer security industry they hate. hacktivism isn't working.

i agree on the last two points. it's been fun, but at the end of the day the kids go to jail and the people in suits get bigger contracts.

once i was on a panel answering questions about the roles of 'malware authors' and vendors of security products (reps from M$, symantec, mcafee, etc). i was in a ski mask representing malware. what i reminded them (and everyone in the audience) was that without me, they wouldn't have a job; they need malware, black hats, etc in order to have something to sell. and if it works too well, they wouldn't be able to sell new versions of it. funny.

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#247

Post by zer0her0 »

cpeterso wrote: post #177
walru wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we're even able to have these thoughtful discussions means that at least we're evolving as a species. For the sake of our survival, may we eventually get to a point where people are judged more for how they treat others, rather than what they are able to purchase.

Cory Doctorow's novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom , "whuffie" is the ephemeral, reputation-based currency. The book describes a post-scarcity economy: All the necessities (and most of the luxuries) of life are free. Whuffie has replaced money, providing a motivation for people to do useful and creative things. A person's Whuffie is a general measurement of his or her overall reputation and is gained (or lost) a…

That's the one book I haven't read by Cory, I wonder if one can modify bitcoins into this(yea i had to bring up bitcoin, it's hacker news req right?)

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#248

Post by GHFigs »

danssig wrote: post #242
GHFigs wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see the exact opposite. I see a call to stop thinking and align yourself with an ideology. e.g, "Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir." See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_true_believer

You have to do that in any case. Some prefer the ideology of "status quo at all costs".

You have to do what in any case? Stop thinking for yourself? I disagree.

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#249

Post by wnight »

gdcbyers wrote: post #197
wnight wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you suggesting that my distain for LulzSec and its methods are some how the result of brain washing or extreme trama? Yes. Absolutely. If such an organization did not exist, such that you weren't conditioned to accept their abuses, you would be appropriately horrified to hear about the abuses that are currently being committed. By exposing you to ridiculous premises like a color-coded terror threat level and li…

This response reeks of inaccurate presumptions about my beliefs, options and reasoning. Not to mention, you aren't even the guy I was replying to. But I will respond none the less because I believe in open conversation. >That you fixate on minor website inconvenience to these organizations ("vandalism") while ignoring the scale of the injustices going on shows you're hardly able to even think ill of these organizatio…

> Do I consider [Lulzsec's actions] vandalism, on par with graffiti? No.

You speak of your disdain for them, though. Why do you even know about them? Banks are hacked regularly and it's not news at all, but leak a few documents and you become public enemy #1.

> If you want to talk about "horrifying abuses" by the government "with its boot on my neck" then lets talk about that. What does LulzSec have to do with it?

Nothing, mostly. That's sort of the point. They're really nothing at all and they're getting a completely jackbooted response - far beyond what an unsolved murder would get.

> Please give me one piece of evidence (hell, I'll even take conjecture) that these acts of "vandalism" are even related to the "horrifying" injustices the big bad government and security forces commit.

They've leaked some documents from Arizona because of their dislike of the new identification laws. They hacked PBS because they didn't like their coverage of Wikileaks. They hacked Sony because of Sony's previous unfair dealings.

They clearly are politically and accountability motivated, even if you don't agree with their goals or perceptions.

> Parading them around as heros of a cause they clearly have little concern for

Heroes? No. But to be commended for putting their comfort on the line to do something they believe in.

We're only hearing about them because of the disproportional response to them. Other than making work for a few web admins they hurt nothing that didn't need hurting - like the reputation of a company running an insecure service. The passwords were already leaked to anyone who asked. If they were legally treated as the 'trivial vandals' they're denigrated as there wouldn't be misinformation and ham-handed raids in response. The story is the government overreaction.

> only serves to weaken your position

My position being that the government is beholden to special interests, allergic to transparency, technically incompetent, vengeful, willing to hurt many bystanders to get a perceived enemy, etc? Nope. I think that point is doing pretty well, thanks.

Re: Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

#250

Post by wnight »

gdcbyers wrote: post #223
burgerbrain wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh whoa is you. I don't respect the rights of multinational corporations. The horror!

I'm not talking about multinational corporations! I'm talking about the people, individuals that did nothing more sinister then reuse a password, who's personal information was released without their consent. Whoa is everyone except you, who's rights you scoff at.

Not at all. Those people were hurt by the corporation not securing their information. They were hurt the moment they used the service. The hack didn't open an otherwise locked door, it just made public (to the likes of you) what anyone with knowledge of escape sequences and SQL could have already seen.

Lulzsec's hacks hurt the companies whose reputation was right-sized, but justly, and helped the people by exposing the weak security. I'd rather know my CC was leaked so I could cancel it than learn years later I'd been subtly overcharged while under a false sense of security.

Nobody is glad more people died in crashes before seat-belts, even though we're glad that we now have seat-belts despite and we know we only have them because so many people died. Similarly, we aren't specifically glad that people's accounts were leaked, but when we're using a more robust service in five years, largely due to this publicity, we'll be thankful regardless.

btw, you mean 'Woe'.

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