Exxon's Brute Squad Hacks the Yes Men 308
tom_evil notes a story up on Infoshop.org about a parody site and the lack of a sense of humor in a large multinational. "One day after the Yes Men made a joke announcement of ExxonMobil's plans to turn billions of climate-change victims into a brand-new fuel called Vivoleum, the Yes Men's upstream internet service provider shut down Vivoleum.com and cut off the Yes Men's email service, in reaction to a complaint whose source they will not identify. 'Since parody is protected under US law, Exxon must think that people seeing the site will think Vivoleum's a real Exxon product, not just a parody,' said Yes Man Mike Bonanno. Exxon's policies do already contribute to 150,000 climate-change related deaths each year,' added Yes Man Andy Bichlbaum. 'So maybe it really is credible. What a resource!'"
*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:2, Insightful)
Not to mention that their ISP couldn't cut their pipe fast enough after Exxon complained. No due process here, just cut it off.... Only in America....
Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:4, Insightful)
Not to mention that their ISP couldn't cut their pipe fast enough after Exxon complained. No due process here, just cut it off.... Only in America....
Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:5, Funny)
No. wait...
Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not to mention that their ISP couldn't cut their pipe fast enough after Exxon complained. No due process here, just cut it off.... Only in America....
Unlike, say France, where it is crime to insult various people or groups.
Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:5, Insightful)
Ask the people who dared publish cartoons depicting Mohammad. (Meanwhile, in the US, I don't recall violent protests of "Piss Christ" that ended with any buildings being set on fire...)
Yes, there are many examples of freedom of expression being squashed in the US. But to imply "Only in America..." Wait, *seriously*? You *HONESTLY BELIEVE THAT*? C'mon!
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So a "whites only" sign on the door is ok?
Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:4, Insightful)
Then the asshole with said sign will be on display for what he is, the media will come around, and no one will ever go in there for fear of being associated with racism.
Exactly (Score:3, Interesting)
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There didn't have to be, because a phoney-baloney catholic mayor who was banging some tootsie who wasn't his wife fell all over himself shutting down the art exhibit before the Christian Right could load their letter-writing campaign.
You don't need guerrilla violence when you've got all the power. All in all, these latest "terror-bombers" in the UK didn't hurt anyone but themselves, but Exxon kills hundreds of
Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, my original point wasn't that Exxon kills more or less people, or even to do with terrorism. Just that it's ridiculous to claim the US is the only nation where this sort of thing goes on. Seriously -- try saying anything remotely anti-Islam in Iran. You are very free to criticize Bush, and Exxon, here (other than the pussy ISP in this case), but try badmouthing the Chinese government in China.
I'm not even saying the US is without blame -- just that saying "Only in America" is really very ignorant. I'm sure if I tried I could find examples of worse happening in Europe.
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More and more, I'm blaming the media, which has become so thoroughly owned by corporate interests that they've completely forsaken their
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It wasn't always like that. If we have the courage to confront the root cause: it's global warming. Human brains only function well within a narrow range of temperature. Since Bush was elected, sending global temperatures skyrocketing, slashbots have been spewing sparks like so many malfunctioning androids.
Or maybe it's because, since the antitrust trial, Microsoft doesn't act that evil any more. Every religion needs a devil. (Almost every).
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Re:*sigh* Corproations have too much power (Score:5, Insightful)
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To be honest, you don't account for some cultural differences. How about pissing on the American flag. That would get people in certain regions protesting for sure.
Otherwise put, I'm not sure why it's shocking that corporations have more power than people. Well "people" (an entire nation) in US are more than the employees of
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Don't you agree?
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Here, here! You don't see individuals wielding power to squelch opinions they don't agree with in other countries! Unless, they're a King of Queen... sure. Or a totalitarian ruler / despot. OK. Only by Kings, Queens, and despots... and other various heads of state. Maybe the wealthy. So power is only used outside America by Kings, Queens, despots, var
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An experiment (Score:2)
Where are the mirrors? (Score:2)
Blame game. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Of course, that doesn't change the fact that the statement "Exxon's policies do already contribute to 150,000 climate-change related deaths each year" is, at best, ingenuous. It's not as if Exxon is burning the hundreds of millions of barrels of gasoline/oil/natural gas per year--they're just supplying a commodity for which there is a large global demand. Blaming Exxon for global warming is worse than blaming gu
Cue all the apologists (Score:5, Insightful)
(Sarcasm-impaired mods: This post is a parody, much like the Yes Men's Vivoleum)
~Rebecca
They Have A Right (Score:5, Funny)
It is their right to have no sense of humor, especially if the joke is at their expense. Please be more sympathetic.
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Det solar power are save money too: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
Re:They Have A Right (Score:5, Interesting)
When the owners sign on the line, begging The People to permit their incorporation, they agree to go by the regulation The People impose.
It is very much like your drivers' license.
You OWN your car, and theoretically, in a Free Nation , that Property Right is absolute, and you may do with your property, your car, whatever you wish.
UNTIL you sign your Drivers' license application. At that moment, when you AGREE to abide by the Regulations for Vehicles and Traffic, that you surrender your Rights.
Exact same thing with the incorporation of ALEs. We *could* make them do whatever we want, and if they don't like it, they can just close up shop, and liquidate their assets back to the shareholders.
But somehow, this idea of them being just as good as a Flesh-and-Blood came about.
Re:They Have A Right (Score:5, Funny)
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Why bother having the Secretary of State even bother filing the paperwork?
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So, WHY would The People bother doing any of that? Last time I checked the Constitution of New York, and the Constitution of the United States, there was no requirement of any Governmental body to provide for the creation of Artificial Legal Entities.
So, again, why would The People bother? It's not taxes. If
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Which side do I put the sarcasm? Aside or beside
not an apoligist, just the truth (Score:2, Informative)
"Since parody is protected under US law"
You see, they are in a business relationship with the hosting company. The hosting company can break that relationship for pretty much whatever reason they see fit, including parody -- might not be smart but those are the facts. If the Yes Men put this out u
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See, here is the problem: yes it is censorship, no it is not a violation of U.S. law nor the First Ammendment ...
If you ask me, using the threat of US Government action is just as much a violation as the government taking that action on their own accord.
I wouldn't be one to claim that a "First Amendment" or "Illegal Censorship" issue takes place when legal, private action (such as a store refusing to stock your product) is the stick used. However, using the government itself as the stick (via a lawsuit), is very much the same. I will grant you however, that our current SCOTUS staff that ru
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In an ideal world, and I admit that we are far from that ideal, then if someone was clearly covered under provisions to copyright law, such as by means of parody as in this case, then they would have little to fear from a lawsuit, because they could easily show that there is no violation under the l
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That may be your own weird little definition of the word, but if you check a reputable dictionary, you'll find that "censorship" does not require that the censoring be performed by a government entity.
Hardly a "hack" (Score:2)
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Re:Hardly a "hack" (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd say this qualifies.
Soylent Green fuel (Score:4, Funny)
Legal matters (Score:2, Informative)
IANAL, though, so I could be wrong.
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Back to energy basics: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html [blogspot.com]
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Re:Legal matters (Score:5, Insightful)
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Hmm, I'm fairly sure that it's not quite so simple, unfortunately. I doubt that it would take much to convince a court that, as an edited contribution of a news (not opinion) piece posted onto the front page of the website, the article would be expected to be considered
Vivoleum (Score:2)
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But is it Green? (Score:2)
Where are the facts (Score:2)
I can imagine that Exxon's logo's are protected by trademark etc, but I think they still can be used for parody.
However, I guess the initial site looked like a real Exxon site, and it wasn't apparent that it was a parody, looks like a legitimate reason for Exxon to complain.
Still what "threats" did they make, I so no copy of an email or letter.
After the Yes men removed the logo's and made it clear it was a parody, the ISP still blocked it.
Has E
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A small quote
"Masquerading as officials from ExxonMobil and the U.S. National Petroleum Council, the two appeared before an oil industry audience and the buzz was that they would deliver long-awaited conclusions of a study commissioned by U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman."
Maquerading!=parody
Parody it is. (Score:3, Insightful)
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Break free of fossil fuels: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com]
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Actually, that's not even a fact either. Well, not one anyone here can say. The article states; in reaction to a complaint whose source they will not identify..
It's a fair bet it was Exxon, but only the ISP or Exxon can state that as a fact.
Re:Where are the facts (Score:5, Insightful)
Also if you are worried about the 150.000 deaths, don't use oil, except it's used in everything, even lubricant for windmills...
And how many lives have been saved by oil, might I suggest many of millions each year that rely on the fuel to transport food and drugs...
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Just because we USED petrol doesn't mean that the petrol was the HERO in the equation. There are many other fuels that will make a vehicle go.
What else are you going to use, hot air? We generally grossly underestimate our quality of life improvements due to cheap energy sources. And even with recent increases in petrol prices, it is still relatively inexpensive for what it does. Lets take a recent 1 week trip to BC. Expensive gas in BC too.
$360 fuel (F150 V8), 1200Km one way, $100 night lodging, $120
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These guys were written up in Harpers Monthly (Nov '01) for creating a WTO web-site, convincing organizers for an international conference (textile manufacturers?) that they were legitimate reps, and actually carrying through with a presentation at the conference. The presentation apparently included a large inflatable penis, and a gold jumpsuit
150,000 deaths per year (Score:2, Insightful)
how about, that even IF climate change is man made (that's a big IF) there is NO CREDIBLE way to link someone dieing in a storm to exxon. The storm could have happened without climate change, the person could have not walked into that torrent of water, there's no way to trace emissions to a specific company as the cause for a storm or any kind of weather.
It just shows the absurd claims global warming cult members will make in order to feel self
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With that being said, on the political side, I clearly see a shift coming at some point... Meaning, more people are feeling that their lives are being actively manipulated by corporations, and manytimes they are probably right. Actually, the original 1960's "movement" was to
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Oh well, this is slashdot, so the cultists modded you down for not subscribing to the hive mentality.
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150,000 absolutely sounds like a number of proper accuracy in this case. If 150,000 is a correct number is another matter (I do not know).
Remember, 68.42%
Why not start here? (Score:2)
Their are deaths that can be even more directly tied to warming: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/04/doom.html [blogspot.com] as well. You should look into things a little more closely I think.
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But seriously, read the article and see if malnutrition is not mentioned.
Are you thinking of the Gaia hypothesis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaia_hypothesis [wikipedia.org] as your control mechanism?
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That's completely false. ExxonMobil and the other Gas/Oil companies are directly in league with the automobile companies. Their chairmen serve on each other boards. They cooperate in the "buying-up" of alternative energy tech, and soaking up federal tax dollars via grant monies and tax breaks. Ie. They do everything they can to perpetuate demand for their product.
Your rational on the use of illicit drugs is also mis-oriented. Al
Re:150,000 deaths per year (Score:4, Insightful)
how about, that even IF climate change is man made (that's a big IF) there is NO CREDIBLE way to link someone dieing in a storm to exxon. The storm could have happened without climate change, the person could have not walked into that torrent of water, there's no way to trace emissions to a specific company as the cause for a storm or any kind of weather.
It just shows the absurd claims global warming cult members will make in order to feel self righteous.
You know why people get pissed off with positions such as yours? Because there's a long history of the pro-corporate or pro-money side of the argument being utter bullshit. This can lead to some mistakes of bias such as automatically assuming the government is lying whenever a claim is made. But consider the history of lies we've seen. The air at Ground Zero is perfectly safe...except people are dying now. The Iraq WMD intel was a slam dunk, only we now have 100% proven fact that it was all fabricated in support of a war Bush already planned to fight back when he said he was still gathering evidence. Tobacco companies insisted for years that cigarettes were neither addictive nor harmful. Free markets and deregulation work except for rare instances like Enron and everything else where they don't.
When it comes right down to it, we're not talking about a complicated issue where honest people fall into two different camps and are interested solely in discovering the truth of the matter. Global warming is just another issue where 99.9% of apolitical experts find themselves on one side of the issue and the corporate-sponsored
I have no idea what your opinion on health care is but I bet you hate France and think Michael Moore's SiCKO is just a bunch of hippie propaganda. I'm not going to try and convince you that France's health care system is perfect, I'm sure there are flaws. But is it working better than ours at this point? More importantly, if we're the best fucking country on the planet, shouldn't we be able to provide the best fucking health care on the planet? And don't even try to tell me what we have is good right now, that just means you're divorced from reality. Even the staunchest conservative should be able to agree with that point, "we should be able to do better than France."
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Trolling is generally defined as saying something assholish to get replies ("why the fuck would anyone use vi?" or "why the fuck would anyone use emacs" for examples). While flamebait is trying to instigate a flamewar, like: "vi is clearly better than emacs because it has a simpler interface" or "emacs is better because it has more features." Off-topic -- well, if you can't figure that one out, you ought not be m
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6 billion in 1999, 6.7 billion now, scary isn't it.
http://www.ibiblio.org/lunarbin/worldpop [ibiblio.org]
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Here's another example: "It just shows the absurd claims emacs cult members will make in order to feel self righteous."
Hmmm... that looks somehow familiar.
Nice headline, guys! (Score:5, Insightful)
Second, filing a complaint with an ISP is not the sort of action one implied by "Brute Squad".
Third, there was no hacking involved.
You know, the only way to improve this headline would have been to name a group other than the Yes Men as the ones who were cut off.
Re:Nice headline, guys! (Score:5, Insightful)
1) We know the Yes Men have previously masqueraded as ExxonMobil executives.
2) This takedown has generated additional publicity for the Yes Men.
Wouldn't it have been a master stroke by the Yes Men if they had faked their own ISP into taking them down by making the complaint themselves?
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Really, it's gold all around for people who want to bitch about America/Bush/global warming.
I'm more interested in naming and shaming the shit ISP who simply collapsed after one threat. Their name isn't even in the summary (as of the time of this
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I'm on the Brute Squad...
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nature of satire (Score:5, Interesting)
On the other side of the argument there are persons who believe corporations should have no rights at all. These people believe that they can say the Microsoft sponsors the mass killing of anyone who disagrees with them. This is ok a the accusation is so extreme that no one would believe, so it is clearly satire. The problem, of course, is where to draw the line. Is it ok to say that MS regularly sanctions threats of any medium ranking figure who threatens their monopoly? Where does satire end and stock manipulation begin?
Ultimately, I think we get into the nature of satire, and the death of the art form. Traditional satire abstracts some tyranical figure that is simply to dangerous to attack directly, and cleverly illustrates the tyranny and negative impact of the figure. Or satire highlights some social policy, and then proposes a ridiculous solution to it. Satire is useless when launched at figures that can be attacked directly or when is simply attributes characteristics that the figure probably does not possess.
It saddens me that meaningless verbal attack is put forth as satire. In this case the article could have proposed that ExxonMobile convert the people into a product. Such a modest proposal would not be original, but at least would be an attempt at satire, rather than just the ranting of thugs. Or they could have attributed the action to Butthole Petrol Incompentated(BPI), or EXpat Oil Nation MOBlized , or whatever. Just make it interesting satire, not school house insults.
Oh Wait... (Score:2)
How about Vivoleum(TM)?
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Re:nature of satire (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporations (in the US and elsewhere) employ entire squads of lawyers whose sole job it is to navigate the most profitable path through the jungle of laws. That includes demanding to be treated as a "person" whenever it is profitable to do so, and on the other hand demanding to be treated as a purely legal entity whenever that is more profitable.
Did the ISP do the right thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Secondly, if they didn't receive a section 512 take down notice, they should have asked for one (thats assuming that the ISP was told to take the content down for copyright reasons, if it was for other reasons, there are other procedures to be followed)
grass--greener (Score:3, Informative)
expression currently benefits from a friendlier legal climate than in the US,
I think these people are in for a rude awakening. AFAIK, Germany doesn't even have a parody exemption, and mere mention of a corporate trademark on your web site can make you subject to large fines.
If you want to get this kind of message out, don't introduce a single point of failure (web hosting). Instead, make it funny, put it in the form of a press release, make it easy to cut-and-paste, and people will be mailing it around widely. Bonus points if you can get various news wires to pick it up. If you need pictures, make them free of any trademarks, potential copyright issues, or other obstacles and you can host them on Flickr.
Just an example of the power of lawyers... (Score:3, Informative)
If the notice came from a credible lawyer for an individual, it would still have to be honored.
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I'd certainly call it funny if they produced the parody and uploaded it, but they didn't. They tricked someone into fronting the expenses for their stage and audience and did "performance art".
Not funny when it costs someone else's money. More like parasitism.
Re:News For Nerds How??!! (Score:5, Funny)
See, that's the funny part.
because the retaliation was to disconnect them (Score:5, Insightful)
nevertheless, their internet connection was turned off because exxon didnt like what they were saying. it's kind of disconcerting. had this been any group conservative, liberal or otherwise it is troubling that they can be wiped off the face of the internet.
that's why it's news for nerds and why you're flamebait.
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That's purely conjecture at this point.
Re:because the retaliation was to disconnect them (Score:5, Interesting)
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Conjecture My Ass (Score:5, Informative)
"Broadview did restore both IPs on Wednesday, after the Vivoleum.com
website was completely disabled and all mention of Exxon was removed
from TheYesMen.org."
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Get this guy: "Exxon=no tech connection". I guess he's using solar power to run his WebTV. He must be so hi-tech he's running his Amigo on Brylcreem.
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I just love how the three UK terror attacks (well, two were *attempted* attacks) have received ABSOLUTELY ZERO coverage on Slashdot, but this small story is front-page news here.
I'm sure that if the two cars loaded with explosives would have had WiFi triggers rather than plain old cell phone triggers it would have shown up on /. Better yet, if those cars were full of Vivoleum instead of gasoline Exxon could have sent their Brute Squad after the bastards that planted those bombs.
Of course, it would be horribly ironic if they came forward and claimed they did it as retaliation against their ISP.
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1. Wait about three weeks.
2. The terrorists used low tech non-functioning methods, and were noticeably inept. More of "your government at work" sort of stuff.
Are you ready for a drink from the Firehose? (Score:2)
The War on Terrorism is a bumpersticker, not because of a lack of very real terrorists, but because the war bei
Re:News For Nerds How??!! (Score:4, Insightful)
These are my favourite type of terrorists: incompetent ones.
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