Operation Titstorm Hits the Streets 458
schliz writes "Hacker group 'Anonymous' is organising international, real-life protests of the Australian mandatory internet filter this coming Saturday. Protests will take place in major Australian cities as well as at Australian embassies around the world. The protests are said to be the second stage of 'Operation Titstorm,' which unleashed a prolonged DDoS attack on Australian government websites last week. Organisers of the so-called Project Freeweb said: 'If passed, this legislation will set a disturbing precedent at an international level. The public, not the Government, should have the right to decide what is deemed appropriate for you or your family to be exposed to.'"
IRC (Score:5, Interesting)
Curiosity (Score:5, Interesting)
So, I became curious when I read about this DDOS on the Australian websites. I wondered: how hard would it be to write a simple, DDOS tool? Something that didn't require anything fancy, that anybody could do without installing anything special?
So, I wrote something, and tested it on my own local webserver. Surprisingly, it took me less than 10 minutes to write a simple javascript webpage with iframes that generated in excess of a million hits an hour in about 20 lines of HTML + javascript, armed with nothing more than a browser and notepad. I didn't even have to host it; the file was saved locally on my HDD!
The method was simple: a webpage with a bunch of iframes that sourced the target, and a javascript onload that refreshed the page. How could it get any simpler? My conclusion? A DDOS attack is the digital equivalent of peasants throwing rocks. Anybody can do it. It requires nothing. It's still a rather effective form of attack!
"members of Anonymous" (Score:1, Interesting)
Why do I keep seeing this word "member". Anonymous has no "members", it's not some organization you join. The fact that I'm posting AC means I'm a "member" of anonymous.
Will be interesting, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Being an Australian I can tell you most Australians are apathetic to this issue and there likely won't be a huge turn-out. There probably won't be anything but fleeting mass media coverage, and that means politicians will ignore it and side with the "think of the children" majority who have no idea of the underlying implications.
If there was an upcoming election the issue *might* hit the media if the opposition declared a policy of no filtering and hightlighted all the negative aspects. But given the previous liberal government floated around similar ideas I wouldn't hold my breath on that, I think the position of both the major political parties is unfortunately much the same.
The public deciding (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd rather they didn't make the decision either.
Re:Will be interesting, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
No, more like getting pictures of their small-breasted wives or mistresses, and pointing out the pure hypocrisy of their proposed ban on small-breasted women pornography, while they enjoy their small-breasted women at home.
Yea, that's not going to go over well with any rational person.
Re:Well Then... (Score:3, Interesting)
Dunno if it's that much worse than the crap we have to deal with now in government. Mob rule is mob rule. One is participatory, one is representative, but at the end of the day, what's happening is what the majority hoots for.
Re:Will be interesting, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, more like getting pictures of their small-breasted wives or mistresses, and pointing out the pure hypocrisy of their proposed ban on small-breasted women pornography, while they enjoy their small-breasted women at home.
Yea, that's not going to go over well with any rational person.
... I'm sorry, what?
Putting up porn of politicians' small-titted wives is going to make them reconsider their policy on small-breasted porn?
More like, they'll ban the Internet altogether.
Every policy maker in the world is going to go into knee-jerk Ban Everything mode when they realise their own seedy private lives are in danger of being leaked by Internet vigilantes. If news stories out of the US are at all representative, it seems Senators touch more small children than just about any other demographic... do you really think they won't force through every free-speech-stifling law they can the moment they realise the threat?
Re:Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, indeed! Let's dry out any kind of outlet for those freaks! Once they wont be able to get off from something besides the real deal, they are bound to stop and suddenly turn into normal, heterosexual human beings.
Right? Right?!
Re:left or right (Score:3, Interesting)
How about all those students protesting against the Iraq war in the USA...? Was that a "left-right" issue.
Yeah. No duh?
I can't speak to your other examples, but I'm guessing you can't either.
It's funny, I keep hearing all these people solemnly proclaiming that "real conservatives" are opposed to foreign adventurism, and to fighting wars without paying for them. Of course, most of them started saying that only after Bush took a nosedive in the polls, and by all evidence they happily voted for Bush in 2004 and McCain in 2008 (and will probably vote for Palin in 2012) but supposedly there are a good many in America's right wing who thought the Iraq war was a bad idea from the get-go.
Anyway, if you look over the other examples GPP cited, it's blindingly obvious that student protests are not linked to the left-right axis. The young tend to be more liberal than the old, it's true (and anyone who digs out the quote commonly misattributed to Churchill at this point will be send back to remedial classes) but what constitutes "liberal" in any particular time and place is generally defined by opposition to the existing power structure.
Talk of assassination is utter madness (Score:1, Interesting)
Look, Conroy et al are a bunch of hopeless wallies and their censorship plan is nuts, but suggesting we should shoot them is completely and totally over the top. I can almost understand the giggling schoolboys behind the DDOS, but murder as a response to censorship? WTF?
If I had to choose between Conroy and this religious wacko mates vs you and your gun toting maniac friends, I'd take the Minister for Censorship and strap on my cilice with relish.
Re:Question (Score:2, Interesting)
Yes, indeed! Let's dry out any kind of outlet for those freaks! Once they wont be able to get off from something besides the real deal, they are bound to stop and suddenly turn into normal, heterosexual human beings.
Right? Right?!
[sarcasm] See, you just don't understand the government's logic.
Once you've eliminated any other outlet for deviant desires other than damaging and traumatizing children they'll be forced to reveal themselves through said unspeakable acts, then all authorities need to do is just look for large groups of irreparably-damaged children to flag a pedo's existence & location so they may be locked up at taxpayers' expense!
It's a perfect plan other than some collateral damage to innocent children, but then the demand for large numbers of pediatric therapists and prison workers will help keep the unemployment numbers low and the politicians' "unlike my pedo-loving opponent, I thought of the children!!!1one" factor high for the upcoming elections as well as provide a convenient excuse for raising taxes to pay for more police, prisons, and pediatric emotional-trauma treatment centers.
Win-win! [/sarcasm]
I tagged this sarcasm, but I'm afraid that it's frighteningly-close to the truth.
Strat
It is frighteningly close, but you both are a-miss on one point. I have yet to see a study that shows which part of the "pedo process" is actually the damaging part. We can all agree that children are capable of achieving orgasm. If the acts are consensual, and neither party are doing physical damage to the other, and both parties enjoy the process. I should take this moment to state clearly, Rape is Rape, the victim is almost always left psychologically harmed. In the case of consensual sexual interludes, I postulate that victimizing one party does more damage than the act itself.
I have no first hand knowledge of this
I just cannot trust anyone who would equate a "phile" with a sexual attraction. as the definition of "phile" is a non sexual attraction, or platonic love, or the love a parent has for a child. So in technical terms of the definition, most parents are peadophiles.
I will tell you what bugs me most about the entire situation.
Sex, that thing that brought the vast majority of us into the world, is shunned. While murder and violence are "acceptable" forms of entertainment.
Re:Well Then... (Score:1, Interesting)
making it TRULY a government of the people. . . As an Anonymous Coward, I welcome this opportunity to welcome my new Anonymous overlords.
Re:Question (Score:3, Interesting)
Today, most people in China and Russia support their regimes, including oppression of dissenters. Iranian death penalty for homosexuals law has widespread popular support.
Or so we are told by their state media...
Re:Question (Score:5, Interesting)
Or so we are told by their state media...
I'm Russian. At least with respect to my country, the state media is correct on this particular issue (even if they're a lying bastards on most other matters).
Elections are rigged, true, but only to get higher percent of the vote - the people in power don't need it to get elected. They do want high percent for the president to get more legitimacy (as Putin told regarding his opposition once, "over 70% of voted for me, so they're opposing the clear mandate of the people"), and they want 2/3 of the parliament to be able to amend the constitution freely (like they did not long ago extending the presidential term from 4 years to 6). In practice, with fair elections, they'd probably get somewhere around 55%-60%, but the true support base is higher - it's just that opposition is more politically active, and thus more likely to bother to vote.
I have little reason to believe that it's any different in China, especially judging by the stance of Chinese hailing from PRC whom I've met. If anything, their brainwashing seems to be much more effective than ours.
For Iran, all you need to know is that death penalty for homosexuals is mandated by Shari'a. Any country that deems itself Islamic will have that implemented.