Anonymous Attacks US Government

[BroJing]

Seriously?

I think we all need to calm the hell down. Sure when I was a kid I downloaded my fair share of illegal music but I never laboured under the assumption what I was doing was 'right' or 'proper'. Lets face it guys, widespread piracy was a good gig while it occured but they were always gonna start cracking down eventually, it was inevitable.

Secondly to those who think the Govt will either: A) Start paying more attention to the issue or B) Retaliate hard you also need to take a step back.

Seriously, in the first instance all this proved is that people on the internet have too much time on their hands. I don't know the figures but I imagine the site hits on the copyright website in a half hour are probably in the hundreds, not the thousands. Noone probably noticed except the IT guys who fixed it

Secondly, any government response would, I think, have to come from the cyber-terrorism units of the FBI, NSA etc. I'm pretty sure they have alot bigger issues at the moment then a bunch of whiny computer nerds. You know like China, North Korea all those pesky Al-Qaeda websites.
Things that actually matter to the United States government.

It was a neat trick but mostly useless and for a cause that's pretty much indefensible except by extremely loose readings of 'natural rights'.

 

[manic_depressive13]

Is anyone else starting to get the impression that DDOS attacks are really the only thing Anonymous CAN do? That's like, a gradeschool bully only picking on kids in wheelchairs because he can't even take on a healthy kid.

I've heard comments of this nature made before, but I'm quite clueless about these things so I was hoping you could enlighten me. I've seen people comment that (and I'm paraphrasing) 'Anon think they're so cool because they can DDoS, but they probably can't really hack'. So what is "real hacking", and are DDoS attacks really that easy?

 

[Scars Unseen]

I have no problem with the existence of copyright law. I merely think that its reach now extends much further than it was ever meant to, both in coverage and time.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."

Pay attention to the bold print. As of now, copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the author. Or 98 years after publication if its a hired job. In what way does that promote the progress of useful arts? It doesn't. It stifles creativity, and funnels its control into the hands of the few. To make things worse, this time "limit" is the result of a law passed by congress that extended the previous limit. But if congress can just extend the limit by such large magnitudes whenever they wish, in what way is this a limit at all?

Just because pirates oppose current copyright law does not mean that current copyright law is good. As for patent law, I got nothing. It's reasonable as is.

 

[Dogstile]

My two cents. Cheers!

Your two cents fail to realise that anonymous is not just one group of people. Anonymous is everyone on the internet.

Which is why everyone thinks Anonymous is this weird, strange group of people who do everything for "teh lolz". There are multiple Anonymous groups all pushing for different things, but the news lumps them all together >.>

 

[WanderingFool]

So... what are they trying to accomplish?

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

. So what is "real hacking", and are DDoS attacks really that easy?

Basically, a DOS(Denial of Service) is one user trying to repeatedly ask a server for resources by, for instance, calling up a webpage with a video link.

A DDoS(Distributed Denial of Service) is where multiple users try the same thing at once, taking all the bandwidth from the server and denying anyone else the chance to use the site.

You'll see a similar effect when a new Zero Punctuation comes out, as the amount of people wishing to see it temporarily overcomes the Escapists poor hamster wheel.

This is actually very simple to carry out as all you have to do is open multiple windows to a content heavy page, and as long as your bandwidth holds, you will strangle the site until your requests are denied.

REAL hacking is where you manage to get root or administrator (Boss) access to the site and then re-program it to do something extra; without it being spotted, or being able to be reversed.

It's even more real if you're not using one of the hacking tools left about the internet.

For instance, in the recent attack on GeneSimmons, Anonymous first launched a DDOS as a group, its kiddie hackers changed the front page to link to the Pirate Bay, but its REAL hackers managed to lock it so it stayed that way. Allegedly.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

As of now, copyright lasts for 70 years after the death of the author.

Its worse than that. Copyright exists for 70 years after the death, on the media formats available. If a new media format comes along, the 70 years is reset, including on formats that were included in the original 70 years.

Thats why a number of the B/W Silent Movies are still under copyright, despite their creators being dead for over 70 years.

 

[radicaledward92]

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.

Moron, don't you get it? THEY MADE A GOD BLEED. By taking down their websites theyve shown that their just as vulnerable to attacks as any person who hosts servers is

 

[manic_depressive13]

-snip-

I see now. Thanks, I appreciate it!

 

[Anton P. Nym]

Its worse than that. Copyright exists for 70 years after the death, on the media formats available. If a new media format comes along, the 70 years is reset, including on formats that were included in the original 70 years.

I blame Disney. I'm not entirely joking, either; though I admire the creative work by Disney Studios, their lobbyists have done immense (perhaps irreparable) harm to the concept of "copyright". I was perfectly happy with the 25-years-from-first-publication timeframe that existed before this absurdity.

That, however, doesn't mean automagically that piracy is good. There's a middle there that Anonymous is excluding in its vast, collective, logical-fallacy-driven n3rdraeg.

-- Steve

 

[Gudrests]

I had thought that Annonymous was an organisation against the church of Scientology since when does they attack things about copyrights?

they are many things....but looking at them from afar you see they fight for something really scarry....freedom....especally the ACTA i think its spelled...i cant give you any sites but...there scarry when there fighting to keep up the constitutional rights we were all given

 

[Ewyx]

pff.. I used to respect the hits they made about Scientology... but i can,t habide on people who promote stealing intellectual propriety

Copyright is more than an issue in just games. Sure, you might think IP is nice, but it's fucking over the entire technological world. We are stopping progress because of dumb copyright laws.

How fun huh? You know why it's there? Because of dumb copyright laws, because of dumb intellectual property laws. While this fight might be about piracy, the issue as a whole is a fucking mess.

Oh... and also, Oracle's acquisition of Sun? You guessed it. So they can go around suing other companies.

IP in it's current states causes more harm than good.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

and people called me "Fox News" when i called these people "internet terrorists"

does everyone believe me now? they're ATTACKING the GOVERNMENT.

if that's not terrorism i don't know what is. these people need to be stopped.

 

[Marsell]

Double Quad get
that's pretty damn impressive tho.

 

[Electrogecko]

They sound like a bunch of highly immature assholes to me. Kinda like most of the people on the internet. (Escapist folks not included)

 

[Vault boy Eddie]

Actual protests? Highly doubtful. Anon is a bunch of neckbeards too busy screaming at people on MW2 or playing wow and fapping to dead dog pics.

 

[Eponet]

Anonymous targeted the site because it is "Perpetuating the system that is allowing the exploitative usage of copyright and intellectual property."

Wait, Anonymous wants stricter copyright? That I did not expect

 

[Claptrap]

They know this won't help, But infact hurt the video games case, Right?

 

[KEM10]

-Intellectual show of why we should have copyright-

I have been trying to say something like that for a while. I went to school for economics and I appreciate that someone else has the same capacity to understand why they exist and need to stay in the books.

 

[Twad]

So much "power", and yet all they do is basically screaming really loudly. Im all for taking action, but do something constructive.