Hackers Attack AU Websites To Protest Censorship 334
An anonymous reader writes "A band of cyber-attackers has taken down the Australian Parliament House website and hacked Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's website in coordinated protests against government plans to filter the Internet. The group responsible, called Anonymous, is known for coordinated Internet attacks against Scientology and other groups in the past. It recently turned its attention against the AU government after it said in December that it would block access to sites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse."
Where is the so called democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
In my opinion, the result of democracy should be that everyone can do as they please as long as their actions do not hurt "little ones".
That's why the west's implementation of democracy leaves a lot to be desired. Why? Because governments only practice "democracy" when the practice suits their [selfish] ends.
I know there is a way round all this nonsense so let's inform our colleagues down there about ways of circumventing this rubbish.
Of course (Score:5, Insightful)
They'll just swat ineffectually at anonymous, like a man being swarmed by bees. /b/tards will laugh.
They might even arrest one or 2 people.
And the
Ambiguous headline (Score:1, Insightful)
You can't just write 'Australian'? Really? Because for a moment I thought you were talking about American University.
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:5, Insightful)
I believe the concept of Anonymous escapes you (Score:5, Insightful)
"The group responsible, called Anonymous, is known for coordinated Internet attacks against Scientology and other groups in the past."
Right. Because anyone calling themselves anonymous are the "same group". Specifically because "Anonymous" means "of unknown name". Heck, we have a bunch of Anonymous Cowards here on slashdot too! Let's track down their IP's and throw them in jail like the terrorists they are! After all, they've been seen on TV to blow up yellow vans, so they must be evil, right?
This seems unfairly biased (Score:1, Insightful)
[QUOTE]
"It recently turned its attention against the AU government after it said in December that it would block access to sites featuring material such as rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse."
[/QUOTE]
I believe this interpretation unfairly portrays Anonymous as a bunch of sadistical, criminalalistic bottom-feeders. While Anonymous is a giant group that contains many criminals it also consists of regular people that do not want what they believe are fundamental freedoms restricted.
What the OP does not realize is that internet censorship is a slippery slope phenomenon that includes the blockage of many other types of unnecessarily censored content blocked by this filter.
I hope this clears something up.
Re:Do you agree? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh it's easy to pick out a few things and say "these, these are ok to put on the blacklist"
The problem being of course that once there *is* a blacklist, esspecially one which nobody is allowed to see or even talk about then pretty soon other things start getting added to the backlist and after a while you might as well just move to china.
Lets look at it from the fundamentalist crazy point of view....
"Abortion = murder and well murder is worse than rape and murdering children is worse than raping them"... them so pro abortion sites quickly end up on the list.
and so on and so on.
Given the real world examples of exactly this kind of situation is anyone here going to try to argue that this isn't a *real* slipppery slope?
Re:Dumb... Dumb Dumb Dumb (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, unfortunatly the news sites write what they're told and trying to get the point across that they're protesting the existance of the blacklist rather than whats supposed to be on it is a little too much of a fine distinction for most journalism graduates to understand.
Re:Where is the so called democracy? (Score:3, Insightful)
As soon as you attempt to implement such a thing, you'll find a bunch of people presenting themselves as fragile "little ones" who must be protected from those big bad others. What you've posted is necessary but not sufficient for freedom; you also have to be able to say to those who would use their putative weakness as a tool of oppression to toughen up or suffer; those pictures won't REALLY hurt you, no matter what you say.
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:5, Insightful)
Censorship is like violence. If it doesn’t solve the problem, use more.
Re:Do you agree? (Score:3, Insightful)
As long as the list is publicy managed, this shouldn't be a problem.
Yeah, then if anything gets on the list that shouldn’t be censored, people will find out... oh wait, no they won’t. That would require visiting the site and seeing whether or not it had illegal stuff on it, and I can’t do that if the site is censored.
Re:Do you agree? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which they never do because (this is the argument) if you let everyone see what's on the list then it's just a guide to pedophiles for where they can get child porn.
So tell me.
With a publicly managed system in a country where downloading *list of bad things* or attempting to access any site on the blacklist is a serious crime how exactly does any particular member of the public check the contents of any site on the list without risking jail time?
(bonus points: work this out without also demonstrating how useless the blacklist really is for it's intended purpose.)
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yet, he’s a senator...
Re:Do you agree? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't agree about censoring drug-related sites, but about the other contents...
The submitter of this article is a cock for including that summary, as is the editor who greenlit it.
Anonymous is not protesting this because the AU government is proposing censorship of "rape, drug use, bestiality and child sex abuse." They are doing it because they are proposing censoring "small breasted women" (because, you know, small breasted women MIGHT be under 18), among other things.
They are lashing out at the “ambiguity” of the often-used term “unwanted content”, the Australian Government is trying to crack down on pornography featuring female ejaculation and women with small breasts... yes, those things that are a threat to modern society. I mean, if females start ejaculating, we are all doomed!
So the entire article is a load of shit. I expect better from Slashdot editors than greenlighting a load of sensationalist horseshit about a technical issue.
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:5, Insightful)
remember: this system will still be there when his party next gets into power.
Then he'll add everything he wants to the blacklist.
Re:Sure, that sends the right message (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Do you agree? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's a red herring. If people do not have a reasonable assurance of privacy, they don't live in a free society.
So it isn't about protecting the ideals, it is about balancing the inevitable compromises of those ideals. Certainly there will be a vigorous discussion about where that balance lies, but it is very much a discussion of the compromises that must be accepted, not a discussion about the evil of compromise itself.
Re:Please research what your writing about IBT (Score:2, Insightful)
Calling Anonymous "a group"? WTF? This is almost as bad as that FOX news report.
YES, editors, I just compared the quality of your journalism to FOX.
Re:Do you agree? (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole issue is a red herring. Looking at a picture isn’t a violation of someone’s privacy because taking the picture was the violation of their privacy. Lost privacy can’t be regained, and privacy you no longer have can’t be violated.
The whole issue is a red herring thrown up to avoid the fact that what happened happened and there’s fuck-all we can do about it.
Re:Do you agree? (Score:5, Insightful)
child abuse violates the freedom of the child.
absolutley.
But censorship in no way un-violates the freedom of that child.
it gains nothing.
it achieves nothing.
it help nobody.
The pictures are out there and they don't stop being out there.
It's called civil disobedience. (Score:3, Insightful)
The point is to remind the powers that be that they rule only because they are *allowed* to rule. The message sent by Anonymous is a simple message:
Remember your place while you still have one.
Re:It's called civil disobedience. (Score:2, Insightful)
"Civil disobedience" isn't a catch-all for 'I'm breaking the law and I think I'm doing it for a good cause'. It means you are publicly breaking an unjust law and expect to be arrested for it. Blacks sitting at a white lunch counter in the face of Jim Crow laws was civil disobedience. Ghandi defying the British Army and making his own salt was civil disobedience.
A bunch of chantards doing DDOS attacks is not.
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Do you agree? (Score:3, Insightful)
1: Asuuming you have contact info for the site owners and that they have time,care or can afford to give up anonymity to appeal.
This is a big deal for political speach, with a focus on the kind where people feel the need to remain anonymous to avoid becoming part of amnesty internationals statistics.
2: Assuming that people who type in an address and see a
"The site you are trying to access has been blacklisted for containing child pornography, your IP has been logged, remain where you are until officers collect you"
message will be willing to publicly state that they ever saw that message ever.
3: Lets say the appeal turns out to be a kangaroo court setup.
How exactly will the owners or people who liked to read about Tiananmen Square go about publicising that they've been wronged?
Publishing the address of a site on the blacklist is illegal.
4: Who's double checking?
when some random user emails to complain that some forum they use got blacklisted who exactly is responsible for double checking it?
the same people who added it in the first place?
their friends?
5: that's a big hopefully.
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not to say we shoudln't pro-actively target those who want to rape children and post pictures of it.
No matter how heinous and vile any particular crime may be, pro-actively targeting someone for merely wanting to do something is far, far more evil.
Re:I'm pretty sure this is Terrorism. (Score:2, Insightful)
Doesn't that make them terrorists under the patriot act?
Just a guess - you're American right?
Officially Australian is NOT and American state
Just saying.
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:2, Insightful)
Free speech
"Free speech" requires rights - it's an American term, derived from a Bill of Rights (correct me if I'm wrong). Whereas here, in Australia, which is a "monarchiac democracy", we have NO Bill of Rights. Further, our Constitution only grants us "the right to free trade between states" - which is arguably not the case.
Re:Do you agree? (Score:3, Insightful)
It not about agreeing, censorship is bad no matter what.
Using ISP's to check traffic is kind of like stopping people on the road and checking their identification papers, to ensure they're citizens or have the legal right to be on the roads. It may be effective compliance technique, but it's egregiously inappropriate behaviour on the part of any government. People do not like to be searched, however innocent they be.
So stay out of my briefcase. There's nothing illegal in there. I have nothing to hide, but those papers are mine and mind your own business!
Yay, human swarms! (Score:1, Insightful)
I'm excited to see how this goes, because in my eyes it's the first time something "real"* is protested without any leader. Also, as could be seen in Project Chanology, the mob turned out to be more intelligent than some of it's component individuals. To throw some buzzwords / catchphrases at it, if this works out, we'll have seen enough quantitative change in how the internet is used (and what all that communication is doing to us) for it to have become a qualitative change; it will have become /real/, so to speak.
*Not to trivialize the damages done to people by Scientology, but, well, it's not something most people had opinions on. Government censorship /is/.
Re:That'll teach 'em. (Score:4, Insightful)
Barnaby Joyce is a member of the opposition, not the ruling government. Joyce is the second largest reason the coalition will not be elected this year, they are a party of extreme religious nutcases (right and left, our parties arent divided along those lines for the yanks playing along at home). The moderate liberals (I use the term "moderate" lightly) like Hockey have already threatened to cross the floor over one populist issue or another.
This is for the people who think voting liberal will fix the issue of censorship, Joyce is proof that it wont. If you want to help against censorship you need to vote against individauls like Conroy, Atkinson and Lundy in state electoins and vote for moderate independents or minor parties like the Greens and Xenofon in federal elections. With fewer extremists Rudd will simply make desisions based on what is popular, could we say the same about Abbot.
Re:Do you agree? (Score:3, Insightful)
No-one is trying to ban depictions of a crime taking place, and the aim is not to "prevent crime".
Youre trying to re-write the entire history of the logic and motive behind anti-CP legislation. I’m not falling for it.
The principle here is that a human should by default own the copy right on his likeness. The same would apply if your mother was just walking around naked in her house and you published pictures with a telephoto lens.
That’s bullshit. The principle here has nothing to do with that, and that principle is flawed anyway: we only have this supposed “copy right” on our likeness when we expect to be in private. In public, people can take as many pictures as they want, without any permission whatsoever. Displaying a copyrighted painting in public doesn’t give people the right to photograph it, so this whole argument is rubbish.
The principle here is that we think people who look at pictures of naked children are creepy and we want them to be put in jail. So we made laws to accomplish this, and we said it’s “for the children”. Then we use the laws to prosecute kids who shared photos they took with their camera phones, ruining their lives with the very laws that we said were for their protection.