Human rights: Getting stamped on all over the world.

[Le Scratch]

Recently I've begun delving into the hactivist (shortened from 'hacker activist', i.e one who protests through online activities) collective and idea known as Anonymous. In the past three years they have gained momentum and media attention from their actions and protests against extremist religious groups like those of Scientology and the Westboro Baptist Church (godhatesfags.com, anyone?), to corrupt governmental and legislature maneuvers, such as the silencing of internet and cell phone service in Egypt, the questionable detention and treatment of a US soldier, which was approved by President Barrack Obama himself, who leaked files and documents to WikiLeaks, and the recent passing of the Copyright Infringement Bill in New Zealand under debatable circumstances and without public notice, to movements and attacks against corrupt corporations that have abused copyright laws for their own favor (Broadcast Music, Inc, Sony Computer Entertainment America, most major film and music companies), influenced political processes for tax cuts (Koch Industries) or tried to silence and censor information that may be detrimental to their so-called integrity (Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal through cutting of funds to WikiLeaks, Bank of America through the use of security firm HB Gary in a planned attack on WikiLeaks). Edit, 5/22/2011: Now the US Chamber is attempting to pass legislation that would allow the US government to "disable access to so-called rogue sites [. . .] through domain seizures, ISP blockades, search engine censorship, and cutting funding of allegedly copyright infringing websites; the bill takes Internet censorship to the next level."

All of these actions by the collective Anonymous are centered around a primary objective: The promotion of freedom of speech, freedom of information, and freedom from censorship and corruption in the government and corporations. The group has used a number of questionable tactics and illegal activities under normal circumstances in this ongoing cyber war, including DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) and similar attacks designed to clog up bandwidth and make a site or server unavailable to its intended audience, exploitation of security flaws in SQL injections or the like, and social engineering tactics such as posing as administration for a domain in order to gain access to it through its employees or other administrators. The collective as a whole claims that these tactics are necessary to gain publicity and attention from the common people, and these attacks do no real damage to hardware (DDoS attacks only take up system resources and bandwidth; security breaches are usually used only to retrieve data or documents or to deface the site under attack) or, in most cases, even to software or programs on the system or server. The collective also regularly hosts protests in highly public areas and flyer distribution (recommended under cover of darkness) to gain attention to their causes and ideals in real life, as well as to bring attention to the issues they are taking action against.

So I want to know, LGBT guild members: what do you think of the actions of Anonymous? Are they justified through their means, which have been compared by the group as "comparable to a peaceful demonstration in a public area", or do you feel that they should seek other, less public methods to address these issues? Please bring a mature response or do not post at all; addressing the group or their actions negatively is fine but I do not wish to see blatant, generalized insults (e.g. fat nerds who live in a basement and need to get laid). Bring constructive criticism, comments, or arguments or please don't post.  

[Le Scratch]

Bump for justice and publicity. ninja  

[Le Scratch]

ninja  

[Le Scratch]

ninja  

[Prince Ikari]

I'm having a rough night so I figured I'd come in post here to take my mind off of things.

I've honestly never heard of hacktivism before. I assume that's what someone who is a hacktivist would call their movement. I didn't know they had protested the Scientologists and the Westboro Baptists. I don't think that those religious extremist groups have any sway in corrupting governments though. Here in the United States, we all know about the Westboro Baptist Church with its anti-gay protests outside of military funerals, but even those who don't accept homosexuality or gays serving in the military would never go so far as to buy into there hateful rhetoric. A town in Mississippi, probably the most socially conservative state, actually stopped a protests by the church from being held. As to your remarks about Egypt, if I'm not mistaken, Mubarak's government was secular so I wouldn't equate religious extremism to his silencing of the internet and cell phone services. He was a dictator of sorts, more of an authoritarian president, and he was facing civil unrest in his country. I'm not sure if he should have taken that step, but he did. As to your remarks about the solider in detention being treated harshly, and I know you won't agree with this, but I don't mind if he's treated badly, because he is responsible for treason against his country, and that can never be forgiven. His leaking of classified State intelligence documents could have put soldiers lives at risk. As for the Copyright Infringement Bill in New Zealand, I am strongly opposed to that. I don't even like that Democrats in the Senate along with the FCC wants to give President Obama the power to control the internet and in essence pull the plug in the case of a cyber attack on the nation. The internet is the one place the government should not have control over. I don't mind the government trying to stop fraudulent activity on the internet, like someone scamming people out of money, but the government should not be able to go and spy on what I'm doing on the internet, or take my internet away. Relating to major film and music companies, we've long known that they abuse copyright laws for their own favor. I remember reading awhile back about a mom who downloaded a few songs off of the internet from a file sharing site, and the music companies wanted to fine this mom who was struggling just to pay the bills and feed her kids, over a million dollars. It's utterly ridiculous. It's why I refuse to buy DVDs and CD's anymore. Nothing to make those greedy companies any richer. If I want to watch a movie I'll check it out from the library, and if I want music, I can get it from sites like iTunes or Rhapsody. I do think it was wrong for Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, and Bank of America to censor that information. I'm glad they cut off funds to WikiLeaks, but they could have been honest about it. Honesty and integrity go hand in hand.

I'm not sure what I think of Anonymous though. I support freedom of speech, freedom from censorship, and freedom of information, but I think doing it through illegal activity is a negative. I'm strongly opposed to clogging bandwidth to make sites and servers unavailable for people to view, because that is in my opinion, denying freedom of speech. You may hate what one side has to say, but they do have the right to say it, even a group as hateful as the Westboro Baptist Church. Trying to essentially crash sites like that, are infringing on those groups civil liberties and freedoms to express themselves and say what they wish. I also do not agree with the group exploiting security weakness to steal data and documents. That's highly illegal activity that could result in the hacker facing many years in a high security federal prison. So overall, I do not agree with the actions of Anonymous. It is participating in some cases, highly illegal activities to steal classified information, or to prevent one sides freedom of speech.  

[Prince Ikari]

That was fun to type. It got my mind off of some of my troubles. It almost sounds like you take a hardcore libertarian view as far as freedoms go. And everything was kept civil by the way. I like good intellectual debate. Your post also taught me a lot about hacktivism and Anonymous. It's nice to see you care about individuals freedoms and liberties, even if I don't agree with the form of protesting you're involved in. I'll admit I've protested in the past. I've participated in so many Tea Party protests on the internet and signed many petitions in protest of an ever expanding government that is taking away our liberties and freedoms. I also signed a petition a week ago to protest Uganda's anti-gay bill.  

[Le Scratch]

I see where you come from about clogging bandwidth; it is illegal to use a DoS attack or to deface sites, and stealing information is more illegal than the rest. I compare it to a sit in or a similar type of protest though; the only ones that are truly harmed in the process are the companies themselves. Most people will go to other websites just as they would go to other stores or restaurants in the real world as there are few who aren't at least somewhat flexible in choice of brand or the like. If someone hosted a sit-in at a McDonald's, I'd likely go to Burger King instead and avoid the hassle of trying to get in or going to another location. Similarly, I imagine a majority of people sought out other companies for what they needed while the minority are the ones who complain about it. Those are the ones that are visible and those are the ones that make the actions Anonymous takes like a war against the people.

I access nearly all of my music from file-sharing sites now. Major movies and the like are still hard to produce and promote without the help of major companies, but music is falling away from that now. It costs little in comparison to produce, record, and distribute music in any form due to the internet, and this record companies are falling out of necessity. Those companies know this and will do whatever they can to stay in business, including the case you mentioned. The RIAA wanted to fine the file-sharing service LimeWire 75 trillion dollars for 'copyright infringement and damages in lost sales' ... the GDP of the entire world in a year's time is less (around 62 trillion USD) so that's entirely ridiculous. They wanted to purposely force LimeWire to bankrupt itself and go out of the picture in order to protect their sales; the problem with this sort of thing is that it quickly becomes public and more such services pop up in the place of anything that is taken down. If I want to support an artist, I increase their publicity by letting my friends know about their music (or, in the rare case, I'll buy an album or donate to them). The added publicity is what most artists seek. They don't do that for the money; they do what they do for the enjoyment of their fans and the public.

Most of the rest of that is older or lesser known news, as well, and I think the public tends to ignore issues in other countries if it doesn't directly involve them. I never saw or heard anything about the protests in African nations until I found the Anonymous sites and saw that there and I was in a bit of disbelief. I knew things were hard over there, but I didn't know the governments had taken such extreme measures. If there's one thing that makes unrest worse in history it's hiding information from the public. I can understand government secrets for security reasons, but there should be a level of transparency to the public if they seek it.  

[Prince Ikari]

Both activities are indeed illegal. That's mainly where I have an issue. I think in terms of illegal protesting, there's two types. An example of the first would be sit ins at segregated lunch counters back during the Civil Rights Movement. The signs said like "white only" but blacks would go and sit at those counters anyway. That's civil disobedience. And change brought about through means like that benefit the entire population as a whole. An example of the second type would be the kind of things you're mentioning, such as attacking servers and stealing information. The way I see it, it only benefits the people who do the hacking. Such as with WikiLeaks. I didn't need to know all of that information about the government. It only serves the purpose of the anti-war side, not the general public as a whole. It's more shifty. I'm not sure if any of that make sense. Your logic makes sense though I personally wouldn't equate what your organization is doing to a sit in. Lucky for me I don't eat at McDonald's so protest there all you want. I don't like there food to start with, but after McDonald's sued a women who was running a charity, I started boycotting them along with several other people I know. A women stated a charity and called it McDonald something, because that was her last name, and McDonald's said they have all rights to anything with the name McDonald in it, and sued her over it. She had to use all the money she raised to pay for legal expenses. After I heard about it I wanted to go out and burn a McDonald's I was so upset. To me, McDonald's is the evilest, greediest corporation in the world, and I would love to see them taxed into oblivion. Sorry for the rant. Now back to the subject. I don't think Anonymous should be taking war against the people. I'm not sure if I read what you wrote right but it sounded like you were saying they go after the majority of people who go to other companies for what they need.

You should be careful doing that, since it is illegal. I access my music using music recording software. The software coasted I think $50, and with it, I can record any song I want for my iPod. I read the legal contract and it is legal, and the RIAA won't come after you, as long as you don't upload the music you record to file-sharing sites, or sell your music. So I'm set forever when it comes to music. Oh God, the RIAA. The RIAA comes second to McDonald's on my hate list. They will try and rob as much money as they can from people. Are you serious? 75 trillion dollars? There's not even 75 trillion dollars in the world, even if you added the GDP of every nation's economy together. As you just said of course. The problem is that the RIAA makes CDs for example so expensive to make a high profit, that of course people would turn to LimeWire. I don't think LimeWire has put that much of a financial hurt on the RIAA though. I think they over exaggerate. And I agree with what you said for the last part, about artists wanting the publicity and not the money.

I do think the public ignores issues in other countries if it doesn't directly involve them. I've followed the uprisings in the Middle East pretty closely. I even followed the Canadian Parliamentary Election a few weeks ago closely, and it hardly had any impact on me except that the NDP Leader wanted to cut off trade agreements with the United States. That's the way it is over there. Most African and Middle Eastern nations are ruled by authoritarian leaders. Israel being the only exception. And I agree, there should be a level of transparency to the public. I personally feel like the Obama Administration has been the worst when it comes to transparency.  

[Le Scratch]

I suppose it does depend on your viewpoints. The way Anonymous conducts the majority of activity is done with respect to the people who access those sites don't get any harm from it, if that makes sense. A DoS attack merely shuts off access and eats the company's bandwidth (which costs money, even though bandwidth is cheap); it does no harm to the infrastructure or data. I digress on that, though. The ultimate goal of the activities and operations Anonymous conducts is to not harm the people or the spread of information; that reason is why even obviously corrupt and highly biased news outlets and the like aren't attacked by the collective. With the attack on Sony, Anonymous actually backed down from their strike because it caused interference with the PlayStation Network, which harmed the gamers (a number of whom still lashed out at Anonymous, even though Anonymous apologized for inadvertently bringing the network down). So yes, that was read wrong and was probably my fault due to the wording.

I realize this. The problem with companies pursuing that through file sharing is that most file sharing sites are entirely legal, even for music and other such things. I believe the only things illegal to share via those sites and services are games that weren't developed by the users themselves (i.e. someone who developed their own game could share it that way if they chose to), and companies can have material taken down at their request. The site I access for music and the like makes it their priority to not infringe upon copyrights.  

[Prince Ikari]

I do think it depends on our viewpoints. I think your sentence was worded a little loosely. It could mean that Anonymous attacks the DoS in order to prevent people from accessing sites who post material the organization does not agree with, or, it could mean Anonymous attacks the DoS in a way that does not harm the computers of anyone trying to view the site. Either way I still stand by my earlier comments, that clogging the bandwidth to make those sites unavailable is denying freedom of speech to those posting the site, whether you agree with them or not. I mean there's plenty of sites I'd like shut down - anything spreading religious extremism or radical views like anarchism and communism, but I still respect there freedom of speech to have sites and post what they wish. I think it's up to the internet user to make their own call. They can avoid sites like that, or access sites like that. You got that right! I know several, and one news outlet in particular that is highly biased. MSNBC. No offense to you, but I've heard the hateful rhetoric there commentators like Chris Mathews say about those on the right. And then they go and attack Fox News for being biased, when I'd say, it's the most fair and balanced news outlet. For every debate they have, they always have a liberal and a conservative, and sometimes a moderate, whereas with MSNBC, it's just two hardcore liberals. And the ratings speak it all. Fox News is the most watched cable news outlet over MSNBC and CNN. That was Anonymous that crashed the PlayStation Network? I don't play PS3 but I did hear about the network getting shut down. Gamers don't like it when you shut their network down. I know I'd be upset if Xbox Live got shut down if I played on it more. At least you went back and explained your wording more clearly.

I could see why sharing games by other developers would be considered illegal. That's a reasonable copyright infringement. I'm glad the music site you access makes it a priority not to infringe upon copyright laws. That way you get your music cheep, and don't get in trouble with the RIAA.  

[Le Scratch]

The attack on Sony was aggravated by Sony's lawsuit against an individual who 'jailbroke' (enabled through hacking of the system's software and security) the PS3's Other OS which was developed by Linux, I believe. Sony removed the Other OS on the basis of 'security reasons' and never reinstated it, even though it was an advertised feature. It's illegal for a company, especially in technology, to remove features that they have advertised entirely and any temporary removal (such as for security reasons) has to be on the basis that it will be returned to the product in as short a timeframe as possible. The individual who made that available again distributed information on how to do so and Sony brought the case that he was promoting piracy, among other charges. Sony eventually backed off the case after Anonymous attacked their websites using a DoS (denial of service) style attack. Their servers and information was later compromised by an outside party that framed Anonymous, but that's a story for another day.

I should note that the 'DoS' is a type of attack, not a system or similar. As above, it stands for 'denial of service', which is as the name suggests: it denies service to the servers and domains of the targeted site. The site I obtain my music from is also free to use, though they do have premium features like many other sites do. In any case, I doubt the RIAA would make a fuss over me as an individual, both because of the small volume and because of the attacks made against them these past months for their pursuit of unreasonable lawsuits for those reasons.  

[Prince Ikari]

I didn't see that you responded to what I said. ._.
I haven't been on the computer much lately because of health problems.  

[Prince Ikari]

Le Scratch

I stumbled across this article and thought I should bring it to your attention, if you didn't already know about it.  

[Le Scratch]

kh.ikari

Le Scratch

I stumbled across this article and thought I should bring it to your attention, if you didn't already know about it.

I saw that. I can understand the city not wanting to be in trouble for being associated with the charity, but it's a clear violation of the right to assemble. Charity is charity and the government should be satisfied that anyone is doing that at all.