People are mad at anons, only god knows why. Good old "Do not fuck with the Goverment! Goverment fucks with you!" statement. People sitting on their grease asses asking why wont anyone do something to this "situation". Couple incorrect statements about the laws. Some demands for blood. Others shaking their heads in shame. You and I laugh. And a poem or two for Anonymous.
Here's a statement that everyone in the world would be well-advised to follow:
Do NOT tangle with the United States.
...
Immoral? Well, morality is a matter of comparison. Is it more "right" to sit by and watch your laws be broken and subverted by someone sitting in front of a screen or send him to be a very large man's prison wife? I think Big Al will be very pleased with the result.
I still don't see why it would be better to support the men and woman who robbed a man of his social security, hacked his twitter account and comprised his personal information all because he was doing his job. Appealing to the stick would be better then appealing to cyber criminals.
I still don't see why it would be better to support the men and woman who robbed a man of his social security, hacked his twitter account and comprised his personal information all because he was doing his job.
I still don't see why it would be better to support the men and woman who robbed a man of his social security, hacked his twitter account and comprised his personal information all because he was doing his job.
But to protest on public property (or even assemble) you need a permit. You do not have the right to protest on private property (unless it belongs to you) without the permission of the owners of that property. And here's a funny thing about the internet, it's all private property. The websites you visit are owned by someone, somewhere.
You also do not have the right to interrupt business practices when you protest. Like I said, you can protest against Starbucks, but you cannot bar someone the right to entry. (What exactly did those DDoS attacks do? Oh right, customers could not access those websites.)
Sure, okay, you've got the right the Freedom of Assembly, but it's not limitless and certainly not without restriction. When you gather on the internet it is always at someone's sufferance. It's important to remember that.
That's fine. I'm simply here to point out that your statement "...protesting is not a right." was erroneous. If you want to be more persuasive, you must clean up your methods of persuasion.
Also not ALL public property requires permits to assemble there, there are exceptions to every rule and to provide an example I will note the local park here in my hometown where you have the right to assemble without a permit. Granted these are *exceptions*.
While technically correct, you've completely missed the above author's point, which is to say protesting is not a protected form of assembly. It is a political action with a long and fine tradition in this country, but it is not without serious limitations. When you stage a protest you are, trespassing. If you do it on private property without the owner's consent it is trespassing, you can be arrested and hauled off. When it is on public property and you do it without consent... holy fuck, it is still trespassing. Now you can get consent, but without it, you're still committing a crime and can still be arrested.
BVBFanatic said:
The issue with e-protests is that it is very difficult (legally) to determine property due to the globalized nature of the web.
Yeah, it's the property of whomever is hosting it, which, almost without exception is a private company. Like you said "difficult", you know, unless you can think, or look at site certificates.
The ocean is terra nullius, the internet is not. So, yes it is entirely unlike the ocean.
BVBFanatic said:
The DDoS attacks did bring down the websites however the rumor that somehow the services provided by those companies were interrupted is just that - a rumor.
Right, the website was down, but the ability of the website which was down to function while it was disabled was not affected? How does this make sense? Either the DDoS did not work and no business was affected, or it did work and traffic to the site was blocked. Pick one.
BVBFanatic said:
The reason that you cannot bar entry to a business like Starbucks is because it prevents them from doing business. The DDoS attacks did not prevent any business from occurring.
I fail to see how the penalties under USC Chapter 18 have anything to do with anything unless you're admitting to failing in an attempt to assassinate a member of congress, in which case, fuck, I need to keep an eye on CNN more often.
Unless The Escapist is being admin'd by moonlighting members of this testament to Planned Parenthood, may I humbly request that you stop posting stories about these children? It seems like we are seeing weekly updates on what 4year old Chan is up to, and all it seems to be doing is legitimizing their actions. Anonymous is neither news, nor interesting, nor relevant to the internet. Unless we make them.
Judging by the amount of responses to this thread, and how much people are enjoying it and reading it, I'd say it's both News AND Interesting. If you don't like it, stop reading it.
Constructive post. Ive honestly never seen the "If you dont like X, Don't Y" before. I see where it addresses the fact that posting articles about fools and morons makes it seem like being a fool and a moron are a good thing, worthy of being lauded and/or followed.
Its good that you didnt choose to attack what I typed, and kept your focus on what my over-arching point was. Sometimes it seems as though people lose track of whats really important so that they can focus on things like their ego, or e-go as it would be.
I am suddenly compelled to like you, you just give me the impression of an intelligent, nice person ^^
OT: I've been finding Anonymous childish as of late, a former shadow of the menace it once was (I've always believed it to be menacing cos I'm damn paranoid >.<). Still, cracking into a security firm so easily, FBI can't be feeling too happy. I'd like to see this black hole just...swallow itself up. It's kind of inevitable.
most sucessful protest would be viewed as illegal. ^^ go to egypt and tell them that they need a permit to protest. : D and also see if the president would step down after al of them signed a petition.
most sucessful protest would be viewed as illegal. ^^ go to egypt and tell them that they need a permit to protest. : D and also see if the president would step down after al of them signed a petition.
I was talking about American laws. If Egypt has become a state of the United States of America and now subject to the laws of that country, someone really should have let me know.
Pretty sure Government's have already done just that...this particular stunt by Anon members was in retaliation for that very thing. What's funny is, do they not realize the more they make themselves visible to the Government, the more their members are going to get picked off one by one?
But seriously though, what's going to be cool is how these dumbasses are going to get turned into someone's ***** in Jail. Jail-house rape, now that's funny.
thats just the thing, they can pick off "one by one" but seen that there are a lot of guys out there, i dont think they can pick them all
its not an "organization" there is not a single group of people behind this things, and there are people that just for the hell of it do it and disapear, and if they realize the gov is getting closer, the ones that get scaret will leave, and the others that were just "watching" might take their places, its going to cost a lot of money and time to try to "catch em all", and even though the "movies" show a lot of Sci Fi regarding internet security, the reality is far from those things
They don't need to catch them all, they just need to show what happens to the internet tough-guys they DO catch. Which is likely, as I said, a ***** in jail. Weak computer geeks vs hardened jail criminals? Yeah, that should be freekin hilarious.
thats just the thing, most of this guys are "geeks" "nerds" guys that have spent most of their time bullied by EVERYONE else, so, psicologically speaking, they are more inclined to "act" in the belief that they will get away with it (considering all that i stated before) and as i see it, the Gov trying to capture them is like putting more gas in the fire.
and ultimatelly, the Gov HAS to prioritize, catch a few nerd guys on the web, or keep track of the various other crimminal organizations that actually harm people
its all about numbers and face, how much are they willing to spend in time and money catching a "pirate" that could be a kid, and how much would they will be willing to spend to catch a, say "murderer" or a "armed robber", and how will the people react when they get that oh so evasive anonimous and its just an 18 years old kid, living with his parents that hasnt got two pennies to rub toguether?
Sorry, I'm taking this one apart with tweezers because I don't have the fortitude to deal with it in one pass.
Therumancer said:
Well, again, understand this is a huge non-organization. This is the same group that has had guys in Guy Fawkes masks show up to protest scientology and similar things. This is to say nothing of all the meme based jokes and the like.
The catch is there is an organization. They keep denying it, and I genuinely believe they believe that to be the case, but at the end of the day a non-organization does not put out press releases, and a non-entity cannot coordinate DDOS attacks. A non-organization cannot tell when it's members are arrested, even from news reports.
Now, Anonymous may not have a concrete leadership structure, which seems likely, but that, in turn, does not mean it isn't an organization. It is something, and the best term for that is "organization", whatever they'd like to believe about themselves. By rallying under a common banner, behind a common cause, and acting in unison they have become an organization.
Therumancer said:
Everything your seeing there, and talking about is true, my point is that I don't think that is all there is to Anonymous. Just as Anonymous and /B/ are not the same thing even if Anonymous has been known to hang out there or have their ear to that forum.
Yeah, on one hand we're never going to get a full accounting of who was in Anonymous, you're right. On the other hand it's going to be absolute hell for Anonymous to recruit new members when convictions start coming down for members that are currently under investigation.
In gauging political participation there's two responses a movement can have once it starts losing members, either more people can rally to the cause, or they flee from the cause. Anonymous falls solidly into the second camp, these are not the kind of people that will continue on in the face of adversity (despite their claims) because there isn't really a cause they're backing that has mass public support.
Therumancer said:
Yes, you have people who are genuine hacktivists, just as you have people who are simply trolls, you also have tons of scriptkiddies of all stripes in the ranks, those people are part of Anonymous, but they are not all it is. If they were, it would never have gotten this far.
See there are the guys in Anonymous who did this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4o4QLsKrRs
That is one side of the coin, and largely what we're seeing at the moment from the people speaking (for the 5 minutes of fame). That side of things however does not represent the people who have done things like tell the Australian goverment they were coming, and then still managing to paralyze a lot of govermental systems for nearly an hour. Granted the hordes of script kiddies were involved in that with the black faxes and such, but there is a tiny minority of people within Anonymous as far as it seems to me that does the heavy lifting during their successful attacks.
I'll also be honest in saying that someone had to make those programs that have been getting someone tracked and caught. I suspect that these programs were intended to get the kiddies using them caught as part of the entire performance we're seeing now. As an entity, exploiting it's unskilled masses of members for it's own benefit so to speak.
Again, as you've said, the script kiddie rank and file are basically expendable human shields. That's their current role, and expendable meat-shields become very hard for a movement to replace once their casualty rate starts to become apparent. I'm not saying we're going to get the leadership, I'm saying it doesn't matter. The decimation of the rank and file will reduce the hacktivists to lone wandering nuts, who will be left without any resources to hide behind. Once that happens I seriously doubt they'll be willing to put it on the line either.
I feel that the US needs to get over it's current standards of morality and start acting more realistically for the world we live in as unpleasant as it is. The stupid thing about America is that we play the role of a mindlessly stupid D&D Paladin and then QQ when it doesn't work and people don't like us anyway.
Like going to war based on the lies of WMD's to the public? 9/11 attack and coverage replayed for weeks/months for propaganda purposes. Declaring America at war before even invading? Paying for child prostitutes? Killing 90% civilians in this war and supporting torture through the use of IRAQ prisons?
"The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa'ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology," says Major Matthew Alexander, who personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq.
What recruits a suicide bomb better then anything else is foreign occupation. Al Qa'ida is only a explosion of anger, emotion reaction to American reactions in the region. America is handing al Qa'ida an immoral justification for their actions and the ability to recruit a growing number of often disillusioned members.
Since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001, privacy laws in the US have gradually eroded. Critical aspects of the investigation conducted by HBGary would simply be illegal in most countries.
Control of information is critical in corrupt governance as was demonstrated in Egypt when the Mubarak dictatorship used the very controversial ?Internet kill switch?.
Anonymous is a leaderless, hierarchy-less group where good ideas and bad ideas are naturally permeated or ignored respectively. Any form of directorship is quickly quelled as pride is one of the few taboos in the Anonymous community.
"The issue of knowing who was behind the 9/11 attacks is of paramount importance to the future of our country, because the "official" story ... has led directly to the deplorable Patriot Act, the illegal Iraq war, NSA spying on ordinary Americans, repudiation of the Geneva Conventions, and the repeal of habeas corpus (a fundamental point of law that has been with us since the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215)"
Yep, morality. That's a pretty typical left wing "peace at any price" rant and hits most of the typical rhetoric pretty much head on. The truth be told a lot of those complaints stem from the lack of desire among the goverment to outright invoke war powers. Now granted, I'm not entirely comfortable with half measures like "the patriot act" but I understand WHY it exists. I am also one of those people who believes that in an actual war there are no rules and morality, and truthfully while people like to talk about our excesses, rarely do people bother to touch on how we could have been approaching this to begin with. What's more I find the idea of an "illegal war" lulzworthy when a decapitation strike is launched at our country, and the nations protesting it are found to be doing so because of their own illegal activities in the region. For example France was caught using the "Oil For Food" program to bypass embargos with Iraq and make tons of money on trade. They were caught largely because of the invasion, which is why they opposed it.
Now truthfully I'm of the opinion that the proper way to do this was to go in and pretty much wipe out the culture of the entire region, causing millions upon millions of deaths,
but ending the problem more or less permanantly. I've said this before, I pretty much feel that's what a war is, we destroy the other side utterly. No prisoners, no need for torture, none of this. You just keep killing them until you end the problem. This is simply put called "Total War" which was practiced by the Roman, and I believe it's the one and only kind of war.
But you know, we decided not to do that. Really nothing stopped us from doing it, nobody could despite their pretensions. Instead we ourselves decided that we were going to go down there, remove leaders, and try and win the peace. A lot of the unpleasantness you see is a way of trying to limit the damage. When you look at things like the torture, imprisonment, and similar things, consider that this is only affecting a few people compared to the millions upon millions of deaths that turning all those nations into the world's biggest graveyard would. What's more for all of the bad things people accuse to the US of, it's largely forgotten how we have Americans dying to ambushes as attackers fire RPGs at vehicles and then fade back into crowds of friendly supporters who provide a human shield without retalation. People forget that we do things like replace the explosives in the bombs we've been dropping to minimize collateral damage (http://www.fas.org/news/iraq/1999/10/991007-iraq.htm ). See if your anti-war you don't even consider things like this.
Understand our entire military is designed to pretty much end nations and cultures. We developed all kinds of nasty carpet bombing systems, things like daisy cutter bombs designed to wipe out entire towns with one shot, missles designed to bore into catacombs and sewer systems under cities before exploding so as to cause the cities to fall in on themselves, and similar things... and you know, we really haven't been using much of that stuff at all, people whine about all the people who die or face discomfort but don't realize how much we are holding back for moral reasons. Heck, I'll even go so far as to say this is unfair to our own troops because I'll be honest in saying that I think it's irresponsible and a waste of our own people to send them in to face insurgents rifle to rifle, when we pretty much downsized our military based on the very idea that we wouldn't ever have to do this since we would just take out those enemies and the entire city block/town around them (along with it's occupants) from so far away that our guys were not going to be at risk. Infantry being intended for very specific situations.
Also, when people think about the 9/11 attacks they think of the world trade center. What people forget is that that wasn't the only target. The Pentagon was also hit, and only survived due to luck. We also had other planes heading for DC which were shot down (the passenger uprising is BS) presumably heading for the White House and/or Capitol building. Losing the WTC caused some signifigant economic shockwaves (it was called The World Trade Center because it was central to a lot of business), just imagine what would have happened if we also lost The Pentagon (centerpiece of our military command structure, and also an administrative hub used by a lot of our allies), The President, and whomever happened to be there from the Senate/House Of Representitives when the capitol building was hit all at once. The damage to the US would have been catastrophic, heck the damage to the entire western world probably would have been signifigant due to all the pies we have our fingers in. I do not think the USA would have survived in a form anything like it is now if this suceeded. People do not seem to grasp how close the USA came to being destroyed on that date, it's terrifying when you contemplate what a total success would have meant... and honestly, I don't think any other nation would have been anywhere near as forgiving, or as measured in their response to something like this given our level of power. They might say so, but I don't for a second believe it.
It's easy to pick on a lot of the things we've done, but at the same time you can tell just as much, if not more by looking at what we HAVEN'T done, and yet have the full capability of doing. Let's be honest, people oftentimes think I'm a maniac, and I do understand why, but we developed all of these weapons for exactly a situation like this. We have a lot of things between "guy with an assault rifle" and "nuclear response". I think we could decimate most of the region without ever needing nukes, or chemical/biological weapons. It says a lot when our society as a whole chooses NOT to use these things despite having every justification we would ever need.
Likewise, singling out "Al Queda" and "Terrorists" as the enemy is also a matter of over-morality. Honestly, we've had problems with the whole region going back decades. It's an issue with the culture through the region, rather than any specific nation. Today it's Iran, tomorrow it's Libya, the day after that it's Iraq, then it's Pakistan threatening India with nukes. We've been trying diplomacy and measured responses for years. What's more I do not think we're dealing with "radical fringe elements" so much as a culture that produces terrorists and groups like "Al Queda" and that defeating one group of terrorists simply means another will appear as long as the regional culture persists. Many people disagree with me, but that's how I see things. I think wanting to see the best possible side of things, even when wrong, is also a sign of over morality. We look so much towards the sunny side as a people, that I think it frequently blurs our abillity to react correctly in a very dark world where there are no magical, or moral solutions, no absolute good guys or bad guys, and there isn't always a minority of radical oppressors responsible for those opposing us.
We're going to have to agree to disagree of course, most people here don't agree with me on a lot of this. The simple point here is that there is an entirely differant perspective on these things, whether you agree with it or not. You look at the torture, imprisonment, and other things, what we're doing. You don't put that in perspective of what else we could be doing, and indeed planned to do if we were ever in this situation. Why were we not dropping Daisy Cutters on villages? Because of the collateral damage. Why were we concerned about the collateral damage? Because we like to think most of the people in those villages are being oppressed and killing them would be wrong. Why do we torture people? We do so to get information to hopefully engage in surgical strikes to minimize casualties. We want to know where the guy is in that town or village, so we can drop a concrete block on that area where he he is specifically, as opposed to just taking the bombs we made ahead of time, blowing the whole place away, and being able to rest assured we got him... along with everything larger than a cockroach in a two city block radius. Which do you prefer? Well for most people who want to claim the US is behaving immorality, it basically comes down to "I'd prefer to not be at war at all, believing in peace at any price, and anything I can do to derail this saves lives, and that's the bottom line above and beyond anything". Pretty much that the US shouldn't do anything even when attacked.
While technically correct, you've completely missed the above author's point, which is to say protesting is not a protected form of assembly. It is a political action with a long and fine tradition in this country, but it is not without serious limitations. When you stage a protest you are, trespassing. If you do it on private property without the owner's consent it is trespassing, you can be arrested and hauled off. When it is on public property and you do it without consent... holy fuck, it is still trespassing. Now you can get consent, but without it, you're still committing a crime and can still be arrested.
I am aware of his point. I am pointing out a technicality. "Meatspace" legislation on the right to assemble has only abstract connections to what we're discussing and would not provide suitable reason to prosecute in a court of law as you are not on the property. There are much more efficient ways to pursue criminal charges, which I will point out later.
Starke said:
The ocean is terra nullius, the internet is not. So, yes it is entirely unlike the ocean.
Allow me to clarify: the Internet is like the ocean before things like international law. It is a realm that is possessed of a lot of gray and lawless areas that need to be clarified in our court system.
Starke said:
Right, the website was down, but the ability of the website which was down to function while it was disabled was not affected? How does this make sense? Either the DDoS did not work and no business was affected, or it did work and traffic to the site was blocked. Pick one.
The DDoS did not target the servers that are responsible for handling transactions. People with a MasterCard or a Visa account could still use their card. I bought a textbook on eBay using PayPal during the DDoS in question. Business was not affected. No information was stolen.
Starke said:
Only news reports from reputable sources, unlike, you know, the vast empty expanse of terra nullius you're extracting your information from.
Maybe you'll find something different, but between Reuters and BBC I don't remember anything other than complete denial from both MC and Visa that any information had been compromised in the attacks.
Starke said:
I fail to see how the penalties under USC sec 18 have anything to do with anything unless you're admitting to failing in an attempt to assassinate a member of congress, in which case, fuck, I need to keep an eye on CNN more often.
Title 18, not section. Also, you're referring to Chapter 18 - and you are correct that has nothing to do with the topic. I'm referring to Chapter 47 which, in my opinion, would provide the easiest ways to prosecute someone who participated in a DDoS attack but if you read Chapter 47 I think you'll find it fairly shaky ground to form a case on. That being the case, you would most likely need the legislative branch to form a new law that specifically deals with this sort of "e-protest".
Now truthfully I'm of the opinion that the proper way to do this was to go in and pretty much wipe out the culture of the entire region, causing millions upon millions of deaths, but ending the problem more or less permanantly. I've said this before, I pretty much feel that's what a war is, we destroy the other side utterly. No prisoners, no need for torture, none of this. You just keep killing them until you end the problem. This is simply put called "Total War" which was practiced by the Roman, and I believe it's the one and only kind of war.
The death of millions who are not combatants is not total war. It is not war. It is typically referred to as genocide, or something else ending in "-cide". War, as defined by Clausewitz (a definition the US government practices in its own military policy) is imposing the political will of one country on another by use of force. Total war (the definition is much less clear) is generally accepted to be war + a full scale mobilization domestically so that all aspects of the nation support the prosecution of combat.
Also, the Romans didn't ever really practice total war as we define it today. Total was is very much tied to the military revolution of the 16th/17th centuries and most notably the Great Wars of the early 20th century.
Most likely, killing millions of Iraqis and Afghans with our downright impressive military arsenal would quickly turn the rest of the world against us, considering that so many nations already found our pretext for invasion falling quite short of a "casus belli". America is not in the business of making enemies of everyone because America is smarter than that.
Therumancer said:
People do not seem to grasp how close the USA came to being destroyed on that date, it's terrifying when you contemplate what a total success would have meant... and honestly...
I don't think that is a fair assessment. The efficacy of a strike at the head of governing body is that it is followed up with a more concerted effort to occupy land and subjugate the populace. Not only is it extremely unlikely that a plane would've been allowed anywhere near the White House, it is even far less likely that any sort of occupying force could've somehow found a tenable position on American soil. The populace owns a lot of guns, and even without a POTUS we still have a military capable of thinking on its own and more than willing to defend its homeland.
most sucessful protest would be viewed as illegal. ^^ go to egypt and tell them that they need a permit to protest. : D and also see if the president would step down after al of them signed a petition.
As good as the people working for the feds are, the best hackers out there will always be the ones living in subterranean caverns with a permanent CRT tans.
While technically correct, you've completely missed the above author's point, which is to say protesting is not a protected form of assembly. It is a political action with a long and fine tradition in this country, but it is not without serious limitations. When you stage a protest you are, trespassing. If you do it on private property without the owner's consent it is trespassing, you can be arrested and hauled off. When it is on public property and you do it without consent... holy fuck, it is still trespassing. Now you can get consent, but without it, you're still committing a crime and can still be arrested.
I am aware of his point. I am pointing out a technicality. "Meatspace" legislation on the right to assemble has only abstract connections to what we're discussing and would not provide suitable reason to prosecute in a court of law as you are not on the property. There are much more efficient ways to pursue criminal charges, which I will point out later.
Then here's a simple solution, don't bring it up. You're the one who seemed to think this was in the same territory as protesting a store, but then you go flying off into a weird semi-tangent crazy land. Let's try to keep this grounded. This has no relevance to anything? Check. You shouldn't have brought this up in the first place? Check. This has no bearing on this conversation? Check.
BVBFanatic said:
Starke said:
The ocean is terra nullius, the internet is not. So, yes it is entirely unlike the ocean.
Allow me to clarify: the Internet is like the ocean before things like international law. It is a realm that is possessed of a lot of gray and lawless areas that need to be clarified in our court system.
Except, there is international law at sea. There is no international law with regard to the internet because, wait for it... holy fuck, it's not international territory. The entire goddamn internet, all of it is the property of individuals, who are, without exception, in a country. There is no unclaimed stretches of cyberspace, it all belongs to someone. Now, just because Indonesia has shitty IP laws, and is loathe to respect American copyrights, or because Sweden doesn't think Pirate Bay has committed any crime doesn't mean these are under international law. In fact they're not. International law defines an erga omnes to hunt down pirates. Now, if only we could have that on the internet.
BVBFanatic said:
Starke said:
Right, the website was down, but the ability of the website which was down to function while it was disabled was not affected? How does this make sense? Either the DDoS did not work and no business was affected, or it did work and traffic to the site was blocked. Pick one.
The DDoS did not target the servers that are responsible for handling transactions. People with a MasterCard or a Visa account could still use their card. I bought a textbook on eBay using PayPal during the DDoS in question. Business was not affected. No information was stolen.
So the site that anon put up after the fact that was a list of card holders and card numbers, that was... what... the conjured it out of thin air? Oh... I get it, it was magic.
Now, as to your other question, yes, the businesses were affected. Their POS backend wasn't affected, but so what. You're telling me you've never been on your bank's website for any reason? You don't go there to conduct other business, like checking on a card balance, finding out why your card isn't working, reporting it stolen, contacting someone about changing your account setups? Combine that with the fact that a lot of the major credit cards have been moving away from phone to internet customer service systems in the last few years because of the expense of running call centers. Which means, yes, you are fucking with them.
By your analogy it is like blockading a storefront, while claiming that the business isn't affected because the service entrance was unmolested. Sorry, but that's bullshit. I know it. You know it. We all fucking know it. You just refuse to admit it. Why? Who cares.
BVBFanatic said:
Starke said:
Only news reports from reputable sources, unlike, you know, the vast empty expanse of terra nullius you're extracting your information from.
Maybe you'll find something different, but between Reuters and BBC I don't remember anything other than complete denial from both MC and Visa that any information had been compromised in the attacks.
CNN, NYT and The Register all had stories on compromised card lists, I'm not going to go hunting now, and I'm definitely not going to use Bing to Google it up now.
BVBFanatic said:
Starke said:
I fail to see how the penalties under USC sec 18 have anything to do with anything unless you're admitting to failing in an attempt to assassinate a member of congress, in which case, fuck, I need to keep an eye on CNN more often.
Title 18, not section. Also, you're referring to Chapter 18 - and you are correct that has nothing to do with the topic. I'm referring to Chapter 47 which, in my opinion, would provide the easiest ways to prosecute someone who participated in a DDoS attack but if you read Chapter 47 I think you'll find it fairly shaky ground to form a case on. That being the case, you would most likely need the legislative branch to form a new law that specifically deals with this sort of "e-protest".
No, the easiest would be interference with interstate commerce, which is how the FBI got into this in the first place. Though, Chapter 73 should be scaring the shit out of them right now.
Then here's a simple solution, don't bring it up. You're the one who seemed to think this was in the same territory as protesting a store, but then you go flying off into a weird semi-tangent crazy land. Let's try to keep this grounded. This has no relevance to anything? Check. You shouldn't have brought this up in the first place? Check. This has no bearing on this conversation? Check.
We are not in disagreement, the Starbucks analogy was not mine and the comparisons to meatspace protests were spawned well before I showed up. My intention is to point out that they are untenable legal positions when dealing with a "cybercrime".
Starke said:
So the site that anon put up after the fact that was a list of card holders and card numbers, that was... what... the conjured it out of thin air? Oh... I get it, it was magic.
Yes, that was a rumor that was originally spread on 4chan intentionally by /b/tards to sensationalize what was going on and reported on later. I remember seeing it mentioned on CNN followed immediately by claims from MC representatives that the rumor was completely baseless.
Starke said:
Now, as to your other question, yes, the businesses were affected. Their POS backend wasn't affected, but so what. You're telling me you've never been on your bank's website for any reason? You don't go there to conduct other business, like checking on a card balance, finding out why your card isn't working, reporting it stolen, contacting someone about changing your account setups? Combine that with the fact that a lot of the major credit cards have been moving away from phone to internet customer service systems in the last few years because of the expense of running call centers. Which means, yes, you are fucking with them.
From Chapter 47 -
"the term ?loss? means any reasonable cost to any victim, including the cost of responding to an offense, conducting a damage assessment, and restoring the data, program, system, or information to its condition prior to the offense, and any revenue lost, cost incurred, or other consequential damages incurred because of interruption of service;"
"a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(1) of this section which does not occur after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph;"
Ten years is significantly harsher than the sentences for obstruction charges.
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People like you are the reason humanity will eventually destroy itself.
Sure, we could full well murder everyone who disagree's with us, but what is the point exactly? Do that for long enough and you are gonna end up in a room alone after killing everyone.
Different sections of humanity can peacefully co-exist given the right situation, but what stops the situation is cunts like you who think that the answer to everything is nuking it to kingdom come.
Give peace a chance, lest we end up with people like this wanker in control.
Try and keep it civil, and "OMG I disagree with you so much" is not really an excuse. I feel the same way when argueing with people who argue the extreme other end of the point, yet I don't engage in attacks on them.
That said, it's people like me who are liable to wind up saving humanity to be entirely honest, assumine we do survive that is. It goes well beyond the specific context of this arguement, but the bottom line is that humanity needs to unify under a single global culture and goverment. Lacking some kind of magical disaster that reduces the population for us and brings everyone together (like in a lot of science fiction), we pretty much have to do it ourselves. Truthfully I think a good portion of the work will be done through the simple spread of ideas, and we already see this happening, but there are always going to be closed cultures and those who are going to demand independance and local self goverment. To work there can be no exceptions, and that means there is going to be a global bloodbath. In the end either the large unity that comes together first and starts the war will win, or the hold outs will unite as the only way of stopping this, and then fundementally become a unity themselves.
The reason why this is nessicary is because we're depleting resources on earth. As long as there are multiple factions, there is always going to be concern over what the other guy has, and their comparitive standard of living compared to your own. What's more the only way to get more resources is from space exploration, we already know there are minerals in the astroid belt and on mars from soil samples and the like, expense aside, the bottom line is that we'll need the materials in an absolute sense, and it's going to happen. The need for a world unity here is also because with multiple factions all of them are going to be concerned about what the other guys are bringing back, or simply about what is being done in space. Right now there is already massive paranoia about what various satellites can do (is the other guy hanging a missle launch platform above our head?) with any kind of serious space activity it's just going to be worse. There are numerous other reasons, but the bottom line is that we either get to the point of a single united humanity, no matter the cost, or we all die out. This will happen due to resource depletion (and losing the abillity to gain more resources off planet) and our sun dying if nothing else should we fail.
The death of billions in warfare is worth it in the long term if far more people wind up living and the species as a whole survives.
Now, viewed from that perspective overall, understand that I'm both a cynic and a militant. The bottom line is we still have to survive and get by right now. We in the US can't sit back and just let everyone kick our can around constantly, and we do indeed need to be willing to represent our own interests. I *DO* suggest a lot of military aggression for a lot of things, but not everything. I think right now we're too scared to stand up for ourselves despite being a superpower and employ muscle when needed. We are far too receptive to the "QQing" of other nations. To put things into perspective if you look at how Russia behaves, you'll notice it doesn't even remotely worry about the whining of other nations, or some kind of unlikely "united response" when it acts in it's own interests. A good example of this was how it invaded georgia, threatened poland for hosting a missle base which was hedging them in (by making it harder to launch missles into or accross the EU), and also cut off the fuel pipelines into the EU pretty much to show it was the bigger bully and there was nothing
that the EU could do to stop it. Was there a nuclear response? Some kind of massive united "we must trash Russia!" offensive to stop them? No there most certainly was not... and guess what, we're a much more powerful nation than Russia is right now (being a shadow of it's former self). I really do think we're far too nice, and I think that's the reason for a lot of the problems the US is facing.
Now all of this aside, understand that I never said we actually SHOULD start going into other nations after Anonymous members. I don't think they are that big a deal (which I believe I pointed out), I simply said that we were fully capable of doing it, and that we simply choose not to. You might not LIKE that point, but it happens to be true. It doesn't mean that I think it would be a worthwhile endeavor. The USA could probably forcibly annex Mexicon and Canada too in an absolute sense, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea or that there would be any practical benefit to be gained by doing so, certainly none that would justify the effort. Mexico for example is a comparitively poor country and by absorbing it we bring that poverty and all those poor people that are left into our fold. What's more we use it as a buffer between us and Central/South America and countries even worse off than they are, as those people have to cross through Mexico to get here, and the Mexicans for all the problems are easier to deal with. If we made Mexico the 51st state we would not only lose out economically, but then those nations further south would be directly on what is now our border and would become a direct problem. Not a nice way of viewing it, but generally speaking Mexico benefits us more being what it is right now, so hypothetically pointing out we could conquer it is nothing but an academic point, there is no benefit for us in doing so. Perhaps I was misunderstood, but my point about Anonymous was intended in a similar sense. Wiping out Anonymous would in no way justify the costs involved for the benefits provided.
To summarize if you read this far, I do believe in leading with diplomacy first. I simply believe that while War is a final option, it's not one that should be viewed as off the table to the extent we do now. I am a fan of "speak softly, and carry a big stick", however for that to work people need to be afraid of that stick, and I generally suggest being more forceful and militant for that reason. If nobody believes your going to bust their kneecaps with that stick when they don't listen, they are just going to ignore you and your interests.
I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your alternative view point.
Personally I believe it is an unnecessary war that was based on lies. In retaliation to 9/11, I would have fully supported the U.S. dispatching various military tasks force with the objective on taking out Saddam and his Regime. As well as gaining Intel and taking out al Queada covertly - without shoving your troops in their face every day, fully open to many forms of attack. What the U.S. have done with a full on invasion like this, is created so much more enemies and stirred hatred that will go on and on. Also, wasting billions upon billions, contributing to a ****ed economy and high unemployment.
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