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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

#31

Post by pyre »

dtf wrote: post #22
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.

So I guess Anonymous is more like a "brand name" for unconnected groups that perform terrorist actions and have a loosely shared ideology, rather than the title of any distinct, traditional faction having a centralised control and command. Yet it does seem that governments and certain sections of the media like to perpetuate the idea that there is a single shadowy entity called "Anonymous" responsible for all these a…

No offense, but you dilute the term 'terrorism' when you use it so wantonly. The point of attacks like this is to be generally annoying, disruptive, and maybe embarrassing (to government officials in this case).

TERRORism is about using terror to affect an outcome. Suicide-bombing is a terror attack. Kidnapping people and beheading them is a terror attack. Running around with a bunch of AK-47s, holding small villages hostage (raping,murdering,etc) is terrorism. Crap like this barely registers.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#32

Post by pyre »

vaksel wrote: post #14
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

They may have the whole 'we are everyone' thing going on, but there is no mastermind or organization. There are countless ideas such as this floated, but the only ones that actually happen are the ones that get a critical mass of people interested enough in them to participate and recruit others to participate.

Besides, the whole "we are everyone, don't fuck with us" thing was unrealistic. Do you really think that a government official wouldn't just notify the authorities in such a case?

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#33

Post by ytinas »

jonny_noog wrote: post #17
sorbus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Kudos for watching The Power of Nightmares, but did you miss the part where they pointed out [b]that these organizations are largely fictional and used as a tool by governments to appear more necessary than they are[/b]? The government isn't working on how to deal with fictional "flat, loosely organized and decentralized groups", it's working on how to make it look like we need government protection from the ultimate boogie man.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#34

Post by pyre »

ramchip wrote: post #20
itistoday wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, in this case anon is the botnet.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#35

Post by pyre »

dirtbox wrote: post #27
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…

Useless. They wouldn't find anything on the kid's computer, in all likelihood he clicked a link on an anonymously created website that ran a script from his browser. Once he's released all he need do is post his story on a blog and he'll be international news within a month.

They'll find something/anything they can on the kid's computer to charge him with a crime. Maybe a thumbnail of a kiddie porn image in his web cache because he happened to click the wrong link or view the wrong page?

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#36

Post by ramchip »

pyre wrote: post #34
ramchip wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, in this case anon is the botnet.

It's different, and that's the point I wanted to make. A botnet owner could use tor to hide his own computer's address, and let the bots flood freely. Even if a few were traced, he doesn't care. Tor gives him privacy (for his master computer) without compromising his attack potential.

A 4chan poster can't do the same thing. He's attacking from his own computer. Either he attacks through tor (slow) or he doesn't (unsafe). Hence why I thought the post above does not make sense for anon's case: he can't hide his traces without channelling the attack through Tor itself.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#37

Post by Quarrelsome »

jonny_noog wrote: post #17
sorbus wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes it was, by Adam Curtis. Watch his other stuff too. The Trap is particularly good.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#38

Post by monkeygrinder »

As an expat Aussie, the direction the government has taken has saddened, but not shocked me. This is a country famous for having what the Register used to call 'The world's biggest Luddite' Richard Alston appointed as Minister of the Digital Economy. There has been a change of government since those times, but not much seems to have changed.

While the idea of censoring certain content types like child porn may be seen as a good things, the issue is that the Net could become a tool of the government. The laws could extend to discrimination of minority groups - and Australia would become like China.

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/feb2008/gb2008...

This article points out that questions remain: there is a lack of detail on what will constitute illegal content, how decisions will be made, and how the filtering technology itself will work. It also said Australia is not the only Western democratic country to look at web filtering - Scandinavia and UK have web filtering. The Oz govt just failed to stem the tide of outrage and bad press.

I'm also against getting rid of anonymity on the net, ie forcing everyone to use their full name, for the simple reason that some rogue governments in some countries are persecuting groups and the internet can be a powerful tool for them. Imagine if Mandela and the ANC had the net in the 50s.

It's a hugely sticky issue though.

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#39

Post by wendroid »

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…

>It would be like punching mist.

Ask Dmitriy Guzner his opinion on that, though you'll have to wait until he's released from prison. You might help him with his $37,500 fine too.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/17/scientology_ddos_gui... http://www.scribd.com/doc/23263853/Dmitriy-Guzner-Sentencing...

Re: Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship

#40

Post by wendroid »

dirtbox wrote: post #27
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…

Useless. They wouldn't find anything on the kid's computer, in all likelihood he clicked a link on an anonymously created website that ran a script from his browser. Once he's released all he need do is post his story on a blog and he'll be international news within a month.

Can you name the US Anonymous member that was imprisoned for a year and fined $37,500 for DDoS ing the Scientology website ?
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