Anonymous Attacks US Government

[GrinningManiac]

I'm guessing that was the final straw

I'm no expert, but I think the CIA can track down a bunch of basement-dwelling pirates

 

[tofucyborg]

Ignore this post, misclicked.

 

[Marowit]

They probably do it for the lulz....

I am just don't see how this is going to achieve any of their goals by crashing websites.

 

[deonte9109]

Well damn we need Anon to take over the American gov't cause they actually get their shit done. Poverty over at the end of the week. Unemployment done next month. Financial crisis end of this year.

 

[SenseOfTumour]

Gah it's not about 'piracy should be legal'.

It's about the ridiculous new laws coming in, allowing the richest in society to screw the poorest for even more than before, and us giving up rights that we used to consider absolutely set in stone.

Like for example 'innocent until proven guilty'. Nope, that's going out of the window in the UK at least, now if you're 'accused' 3 times, you're banned from using the internet, which I imagine in today's society and the future will be like being banned from using roads, or the telephone. Could make getting work quite tricky.

"yeah, but surely to be accused 3 times, must be something in it". Firstly no, I want proof of guilt before punishment is served. That's a basic rule of human society, and shouldn't be discarded like a bag of Dan Brown novels handed into a charity shop, and secondly it seems they're going to be basing 'proof of copyright infringement' on..get this..level of bandwidth usage.

At present, watching an hour of TV on the BBC site is around 600mb, a large WOW patch is 5gb, a purchase from Steam 5-15gb, I don't know how much per hour playing games online adds up to.

But, if you want true blood on the streets revolution, just go ahead and disconnect every wow player in Europe.

Tho personally my choice of revolution is to just send 3 letters to every politician, every CEO of every entertainment company in the UK, etc, accusing them of copyright infringement, and demand that they're banned from using the internet. After all, if you're not going to ask for any proof, surely it applies to everyone, right?

EDIT: gah, my first post didn't show up, so sorry if you've read half the same rant twice.

 

[BrownGaijin]

...and has organized actual physical demonstrations to take place tomorrow in various cities around the world.

Physical demonstrations you say? Cue the INTERPOL, MI5, FBI and/or CIA in 3... 2... 1...

(Any of my fellow Yankees know what the first two are? I'll give you a cookie the the first one who answers correctly.)

I believe Interpol is the International Police, who I assume work for either the UN or NATO. MI5 is British Intelligence, the equivalent to the American CIA if I'm not mistaken.

Here you go.

 

[Okysho]

Well I don't particularly support what they're fighting for, but to their credit, at least Anonymous gets shit done. How many other protest groups can say the same?

OMG YOUR AVI IS SIMANT!!! I LOVE THAT GAME!!!

OT: I don't really support them either, and yes they do get it done, but at the same time, maybe there's some merit to their cause? There's some good points about the Copyright office in the article. Exploitations aren't fun... I think we can all agree on that

 

[esperandote]

A site was down for three hours? wow.

On the other hand it takes balls to take a swing at the US goverment.

 

[Bretty]

Thing is they've not actually achieved anything.. all they've done is take down a website for 30 minutes, and lets be honest.. who would actually go to that website? Anonymous only seem capable of doing DDoS attacks which doesn't actually, you know, do anything. At most it's a minor irritation.

By the fact you are here talking about means that they have done 'something'. If it was nothing no one would be here commenting.

Oh and by the way, there is a big difference in taking down someones personal site to taking down a gov't one.... one requires balls.

 

[Daverson]

Anonymous can only exist because, despite what they might think about themselves, they're "under the radar" compared to more... shall we say "physical" groups, such as the ALF (actually, the ALF is a perfect comparison). Attacking a government institution is a great show of force, but I'm not too sure anonymous has the resources available to put up with the fallout from such actions.

 

[fullbleed]

Thing is they've not actually achieved anything.. all they've done is take down a website for 30 minutes, and lets be honest.. who would actually go to that website? Anonymous only seem capable of doing DDoS attacks which doesn't actually, you know, do anything. At most it's a minor irritation.

This, how about branching out if you seriously want to declare war on Copyright Industry. Make the front page just a giant cock or link to 2 girls or something.
I don't agree with them but it would be funny.

 

[RobCoxxy]

Fair play to them!

 

[Choppaduel]

Well I don't particularly support what they're fighting for, but to their credit, at least Anonymous gets shit done. How many other protest groups can say the same?

an impressive feat indeed.

While pro-piracy is a bit too much of 17th century of a concept to logically get behind, I do think there needs to be more strength in the "fair use" argument. I've a lot of montages on youtube get muted because they contained (and not just explicitly featured) tracks by some publisher/producer/recordlabel with a rod up its ass.

I wish I could think of another example right now.

 

[PurpleSkull]

It's official.

Anonymous has declared war on America.

My money is on Anonymous then.

 

[Danny Ocean]

Oh Anon, you're so fucked. First rule of politics: If you piss off the USA they will fuck your shit up.

Not entirely true, and, even if it was, I doubt it would be the first rule.

I should think the guys who did this will be tracked down, then hired. That'd keep them quiet and benefit the country.

...and has organized actual physical demonstrations to take place tomorrow in various cities around the world.

Physical demonstrations you say? Cue the INTERPOL, MI5, FBI and/or CIA in 3... 2... 1...

(Any of my fellow Yankees know what the first two are? I'll give you a cookie the the first one who answers correctly.)

I believe Interpol is the International Police, who I assume work for either the UN or NATO. MI5 is British Intelligence, the equivalent to the American CIA if I'm not mistaken.

Here you go.

Interpol are separate from the UN and NATO.

MI5 is one branch of British intelligence. It's closer to the FBI in the sense that it operates internally. MI6 is the branch that operates abroad, and so is closer to the CIA.

 

[The Bandit]

Bet Firefox is regretting putting that refresh button on their browser now...

Seriously though, what's wrong with copyright law? This isn't a question to goad people, but I don't understand what they actually want

It infringes on already existing rights; so-called 'natural rights'. These are ideas that go back to the Magna Carta and were given distinct form in the Enlightenment, which is reflected in the constitution of the United States. You have the right for example to write stuff and pass it around; by what right does anyone else have to physically stop you putting a pen to paper? The First Amendment forbids the US government from making any law that infringes on this. But a special exception is made for copyright.

The original justification for copyright laws in light of the rights they infringe on was that they were there to protect public access to information; so supporting the principle of free expression rather than interfering with it. The argument was that if authors had some limited copyrights over their work then they would get a return on their investment in it, encouraging them to make more original work. It would all eventually be freely available in the public domain once the exclusive copyrights expired.

A far cry from modern copyright law; which exists for and serves the polar opposite purpose.

What is it's modern purpose, then?

 

[Legendsmith]

*sigh*
remember everyone, this is only one part of anonymous doing this, not all. There are parts of anonymous is anti-piracy.
Quite a bit of anon was against this.
Finally, anon does not comprise of idiot teenagers. I have seen members ranging from 15 (underage b&) to over 30.

 

[Kill100577]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11695416

There you go. Mabye not directly but the UKIPO and FACTUK were both taken down.