Anonymous Speaks About Australian Gov't. Attacks 235
daria42 writes "The loose-knit collective of individuals known as 'Anonymous' has broken its silence about the distributed denial of service attacks on the Australian government. An individual (who insisted he or she is not a spokesperson for the group) said the attacks were more effective at stopping the government's Internet filtering project than signing a petition, and that the attacks could go on for months." The site where some members of Anonymous are said to hang out, 4chan, got a visibility boost yesterday when its founder moot spoke at the TED conference.
We Are Anonymous (Score:3, Funny)
We are legion.
Let's just check this box to post as AC and...
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FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
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Pop culture, thanks for asking I learned a few things too
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legion_in_popular_culture
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I ... a verb on top of your verb so you can .... while you ...
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Re:We Are Anonymous (Score:5, Informative)
You're both right. It is the same meaning. The biblical story was written around 20-30 AD, during the time of the Roman (You know, the guys who nailed Jesus to a tree) Empire.
Here's (one of the variations) on the Biblical story of Legion [biblegateway.com]:
Loosely translated from KJVspeak to modern English: Once upon a time, there was a guy who was apeshit crazy because he was posessed. Jesus said "Yo, Demon! Who the hell are you?" The demon said "My name is Legion: for we are many." Sorta like a Borg collective. Jesus said "GTFO". The /b/tards said "Like, where?" Jesus said "There's so many of you, how 'bout that herd of 2000 pigs over there?" Legion said "good enough for me", and 2000 pigs ran into the sea like a bunch of crazed /b/tards. LOL!
2000 units. Right about the size of "a division of the Roman army, usually comprising 3000 to 6000 soldiers", or, a Legion.
They're an army, but they're nobody's personal army. They're a Roman legion's worth of individuals doing crazy shit, in unison, and it doesn't take much to set them running off in an unpredictable (even self-destructive) direction. Call them Legion, for they are many.
The argument about whether the reference is to the Roman military or the Biblical fable is (heh) moot; it's the same concept.
Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
I've never heard of this site, "fourchan". It seems like its a pretty cool activist site. Can someone tell me more about it? I'd go there, but my ISP is blocking it :(
Anonymous isn;t really a group (Score:5, Insightful)
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Exactly. You can either think of it as a group of individuals who merely believe the same ideals and co-operate in order to do what makes each individual happy. OR they are a collective consciousness where they are all controlled by one will, but they simply don't know it. I think its the latter.
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the men who dwell in the shadow of the net (Score:2)
As cheesy as it is to take phrases from anime, I really can think of no better term for this.
Anonymous is a Stand Alone Complex [wikipedia.org], a group of individuals acting as copycats with no clear original, produced by the confluence of thoughts caused by mass exposure to similar media. This sort of thing is easily caused by the Internet in general, and especially the echo-chamber effect and high information volume on 4chan (and others, including Slashdot, though we tend to be less active about it).
Also, though Anonym
Anonymous to Australian Government: (Score:5, Funny)
Pool's Closed.
Good Gravy (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah, let me know when you see Anonymous on there. They're totally a bunch of black shadowy figures hanging out in /b/. Also, last time I checked, this was 4chan rule #4 [4chan.org]:
4chan has a reputation for being a launchpad for this sort of thing, but it's not, at least, not any more. Go blame IRC, go blame any of the dozen clone boards, but it's not 4chan now.
--- Mr. DOS
Re:Good Gravy (Score:5, Funny)
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Whoosh.
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TPB doesn't have rules beyond the usage policy [thepiratebay.org]. Contrary to popular opinion, 4chan does, and is (for the most part) moderated by them.
--- Mr. DOS
Re:Good Gravy (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, let me know when you see Anonymous on there.
"Anonymous" is on 4chan all the time. He also posts on this site quite a bit, but we've made it our official position to question his courage. "Anonymous" shows up everywhere, and that's exactly the point.
We're not talking about a person or even a group called "Anonymous". The point is that it's a ad hoc collection of anonymous people. Are the anonymous on 4chan or the anonymous on Slashdot the same as the anonymous creating this attack? Well... not as a group. It's not like it's all the Slashdot Anonymous Cowards are a codified group somewhere making subversive plans. But I wouldn't be surprised to learn that someone involved in the Australian attack had posted here as AC at least once.
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We're not talking about a group called “Anonymous”, but TFA is, and the group they're talking about no longer uses 4chan as their plan incubator. Spawning ground, sure, but it's not their war room.
--- Mr. DOS
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The most likely long term effect (Score:2)
Way to go, guys. You need to learn some history and some sociology. Then you will understand that the most successful criminals DO NOT ADVERTISE their existence. At a certain nuisa
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The most successful criminals are actually those in government and big business, some of which are in very visible roles.
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Anonymous Users vs Anonymous Government (Score:5, Insightful)
It is an appropriate response to a figurehead politician making these rules, because it is a bunch of anonymous peons that are implementing them. The peons hide behind the facade of a government which they don't have to take responsibility for their actions.
Governments love when an individual speaks out, because they can release a bureaucratic horde of government employees to crush them. An individual who cannot be expected to address numerous rules, regulations and pressures a government can bring against them.
So Anonymous vs the government, as far as I am concerned is a fair fight.
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Very well put.
If the individuals in government can't be held accountable for their actions, neither should any individuals part of any collective group.
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That's an interesting take, when I read the section about how the group flooded the emails of politicians and DDoS'd their websites, my first thought was of politicians who don't even know they have a website and don't know how to use email. So basically, an anonymous, faceless group sending massive digital attacks against email boxes that never get checked and websites nobody reads.
It brings into full discussion the group's claim that attacks are more effective than petitions...are they actually more effec
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Question is - were you aware of the attacks of Anonymous on the Australian government before this article?
A large number of us were. This article is merely a badly formed follow up.
I would agree that even if the digital attack does nothing to the governments operability, its bringing light to the issues that they are against. That alone makes it more effective than a petition. This way - they don't have to form the petition, the public is informed and if its truly an outrage THEY will form a petition
Inconsistency. (Score:4, Informative)
Summary says:
"An individual (who insisted he or she is not a spokesperson for the group) said..."
TFA says exactly the opposite:
"...received a reply from an individual claiming to be a spokesperson."
Authenticity of said spokesperson: YMMV.
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Re:Inconsistency. (Score:4, Insightful)
The meme called "Anonymous" (it's isn't a "group") can't have a spokesperson because there is no official "group", no "membership", no shared beliefs, no secret-handshake.
Someone gets an idea to do something, and posts the idea on several popular websites. Anyone who agrees the idea is a good one and takes the suggested action is, for that moment, part of "Anonymous". An hour later someone posts a different idea, some different people agree with that one and take some action and for that moment THEY are "Anonymous".
Some people who may or may not have ever joined in on suggested ideas under the banner of "Anonymous" understand that there is strength in the concept of NOT having any set membership or agenda that can be attacked, responded to, or replied to. Although I, myself, have never participated in any actions proposed by anyone under the banner Anonymous, I can see that this can be important especially in this day of increasing surveillance and abusive governments.
The idea of having a spokesperson for an un-group is preposterous.
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Your explanation is far better than mine would have been, and quite correct.
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--Landers, Chris, Baltimore City Paper, April 2, 2008.
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What do you call it when you have 1,000,000 birds going in 10,000 directions, all joining, leaving, peeling off in other directions, and never actually meeting each other or knowing each others identity along the way? Never actually knowing how many other birds, if any, are traveling in the same direction as they are at any moment?
Sounds like a group you may or may not already be a member of. How would you know?
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Then you have 10,000 groups of 100 each. +-50 birds.
SPEECHPOCALYPSE 2010! (Score:2)
could transform the humble Icelander into a legal superman, virtually untouchable abroad for comments written
It's a word! It's a claim! No, it's FreeSpeechMan!
Whatever will we do when Iceland is overrun with people with the power to say whatever they want?
Freedom Of Speech -- It's Scary!
from the drek and morass (Score:4, Insightful)
of the stupidest lamest waste of time on the internet
comes the most effective force for progressive change
the one thing that an idiot has, that a wise man does not seem to have, is freedom to act
when your education acclimates you to acceptance of a lame status quo, then your education is worth less than being an idiot
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More like this:
AU gov't: The Internet is out of control! We need to impose draconian regulations in order to have law and order again!
Internet: Fuck you, and the horse you rode in on!
Democracy in action. (Score:3, Interesting)
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Australia has a very different form of rights protection, which is positively archaic. It isn't a great stretch to say that we have no rights protection at all, beyond a general assumption of democracy. There's one or two rights explicitly protected in the constitution (e.g. freedom of religion, right to vote), related documents, or High Court judgements (some limited form of freedom of speech is "implied" in the constitution). But the High Court tends to make its judgements so as to extend the Commonwealth
operation titstorm (Score:2)
Where can I sign up to be ddos'd by this?
The end doesn't always justify the means (Score:2)
"Don't Mess with Football" (Score:2)
Don't mess with football [wikipedia.org]
Jake Brahm [encycloped...matica.com]
Re:Impossible! (Score:5, Insightful)
Wooosh.
There aren't any spokespeople for anonymous, because there isn't any structure to the group. By definition, everyone in it is a "nobody." That's kind of the point.
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No, the point was that NOBODY is qualified to speak for “Anonymous”.
Only a large group of anonymous people can do that, and they do it by working together. The only reason they’re there in the first place is because they have some common belief (okay, and for the lulz). Anybody claiming to speak for the group is, by definition, not. 30 seconds from now, 90% of them could decide to do something else entirely and then what happened to your spokesperson’s credibility?
You are somewhat right and somewhat wrong. (Score:2)
Anonymous is a non-hierarchical group with no objectively defined membership and no legitimate representation, but saying that it is nonexistent is strange.
That would be like saying coffee-drinkers or speakers of American English are nonexistent, just because they have no representative and there is no objective way to determine who belongs to this group. (Does drinking a single cup of coffee once in your life make you a member or only regular consumption? And what qualifies as regular? ... )
Anonymous e
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anonymous is kinda interesting when you think about it.
With no real membership just a huge number of random people who may take part in it's activities whenever they feel like it with no real leadership and as such no concrete goals or objectives.
it could be described as an expreassion of discontent or possibly boredom or just an expression of whatever a lot of people feel but can't openly express.
I'm sure there's some projects in there for some psych students.
Ok I'm overthinking this way too much.
it's just
Re:Impossible! (Score:4, Informative)
Except "Anonymous" is the bastard hybrid of a punch of bored 14 year old script kiddies, an unholy horde of angry-at-the-world genuinely decent at coding 20 somethings, and a frightning legion of bored in-it-for-the-lulz near or middle aged men.
Re:Impossible! (Score:5, Funny)
Hello, I am a middle aged man but in it for the CP.
Re:Impossible! (Score:5, Funny)
Except "Anonymous" is the bastard hybrid of a punch of bored 14 year old script kiddies
Wrong, because this would be a blatant violation of 4chan rules:
If you are under the age of 18, or it is illegal for you to view the materials contained on this website, discontinue browsing immediately.
So it is obvious that 14 year olds (along with people from Australia and Iran) are not allowed to access 4chan because of the rules.
Ref: 4chan roolz! [4chan.org]
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Re:Impossible! (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually its a bit more than that. You could say that slashdot is the "Bastard hybrid of a punch of bored 18 year old CS students, a completely misinformed group of editors, and a legion of bored in-IT-for-the-money near or middle aged men. The only difference between Slashdot readers and Anonymous is that Anonymous makes an impact on the world.
So - whatever your views about them are, positive or negative, realize that they do earn some merit.
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Many Slashdot readers are also Anonymous members.
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Many Slashdot readers are also Anonymous members.
I can confirm that this is 100% false. No member of Slashdot is now or has ever been involved with the terrorist organization known as Anonymous.
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I guess I better leave then.
Yes that would be for the best, unless you plan on paying the filing fee down in South Carolina. If so, than legally we shouldn't have any problems.
Re:Impossible! (Score:4, Interesting)
Like the sibling post says, many slashdotters ARE 4channers.
I never really said they were bad, I don't consider 4chan any more evil than I do a hurricane. If anything I think of Anonymous as a sort of physical collective superego and id for the internet with no mediating ego, they're more like a force of nature than anything else.
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Yes, I laugh but in an odd way that's a really good description.
I've heard people say they find 4chan scary but it's only scary in the same way that tornados are scary.
Sure it suddenly might focus on you and really really ruin your day, it might randomly cause some destruction but it will never bring down a government or wage a real war because it has the attention span of a squirrel on caffine and all the focus of a reflection in a rusty spoon.
Re:Mission Impossible /b/ (Score:2)
If anything I think of Anonymous as a sort of physical collective superego and id for the internet with no mediating ego, they're more like a force of nature than anything else.
Stop trying to put a fucking label on me jackass. It's people like you that eat babies because they are so very fresh and rather delicious but then have the nerve to go and never file your tax returns because the government 'disagrees' with your child molesting church hobby deduction. I mean seriously, when are you going to respond to the fact that in 1997 you raped and murdered a 97 year old man just to see if it was something you'd be interested in majoring in up at the local community college?
Not posted
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So, basically, a nobody commented.
This is Anonymous -- if they weren't a nobody, then their opinion would be invalid. As it is, they are the most appropriate person to ask.
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Re:How isn't this a form of terrorism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not a sit in (Score:2)
If they used their *own* machines to do the loading I'd agree. But they almost certainly used a small botnet or at least the compromised machines of others to do the dirty work, so they would remain, er, anonymous. Taking over other peoples machines isn't civil disobedience, its quite uncivil. Part of civil disobedience is getting hit by the water hoses to make a public point. If there are no repercussions, its just ignoring laws you don't like, not civil disobedience. A more appropriate analogy would
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"Do you really think that 4chan could have done this [buzzfeed.com] without a botnet?"
I can bring down shitloads of sites by myself using NOTHING BUT FIREFOX AND RELOAD-EVERY plugin.
The LOIC is much worse than the reload-every plugin.
God you people posting here need to at least have SOME modicum of network knowledge before opening your mouth!
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Also, browser plugins are not 'network knowledge' any more than HTML is a programming language. If you're going to pretend to be smarter than other people you really need a deeper foundation, but then at that point you might not be pretending anymore.
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Hint: I'm one of the ones that gamed that poll - Reload-Every was actually a nice crucial tool to help organize it all. Slow the site down so we could muck about without too much external voting screwing up our plans.
Don't open your mouth unless you were involved, yea?
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As a veteran of 4chan from its beginnings, I also instantly distrust anybody who claims partic
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"As a veteran of 4chan from its beginnings"
Ahha! Ahahhahahahah! Son, with your UID, you probably don't even know what the fuck spawned 4chan. Give you a hint - we're on the origin site - trolltalk/gnaa spawned from here, turned into the Something Awful group, of which moot was a member. From there, wanting a reliable and simple image posting board, 4chan was created.
Slashdot is the unspoken bastard father of 4chan, can't you even do some basic website genealogy?
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Yes. [musicmachinery.com]
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But they almost certainly used a small botnet or at least the compromised machines of others to do the dirty work, so they would remain, er, anonymous.
But see, therein lies the hilarious part. These people don't know how to internet mastermind. They don't have botnets, and half of the people taking part in this "raid" probably have little more than a vague idea of what that word even means. They're using a tool called Low-Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) which essentially turns your own computer into a voluntary self-controlled DoS bot. In order for it to push enough packets, it cannot work through a proxy.
So basically all these people are ddosing government serve
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"In order for it to push enough packets, it cannot work through a proxy."
BZZZZZT! Wrong!
As long as proxy and you have sufficient bandwidth, it doesn't fucking matter - you're restricted primarily by YOUR uploading speed if the proxy has a better pipeline than you.
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BZZZZZT! Wrong!
As long as proxy and you have sufficient bandwidth, it doesn't fucking matter - you're restricted primarily by YOUR uploading speed if the proxy has a better pipeline than you.
BZZZZZZZT have you ever used a proxy that wasn't slow as balls? I haven't. And surely not a public one, and surely not a public one that wasn't simply an HTTP proxy.
I know that it's possible to DDoS through proxies... but does it work in practice? It does not.
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"BZZZZZZZT have you ever used a proxy that wasn't slow as balls? I haven't."
That's what you get for not setting up your own dedicated proxies from a reliable data-hosting center.
"I know that it's possible to DDoS through proxies... but does it work in practice? It does not."
Most DDoS attacks are done via high-bandwidth proxies - IE rootkitted/zombified machines. You simply send one command out (assuming you've got the bandwidth to simultaneously contact every proxy to send the flood command) and away you go
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That's what you get for not setting up your own dedicated proxies from a reliable data-hosting center.
But that would completely negate the reason for using a proxy, now wouldn't it? You use a proxy for anonymity... but oh let's rent a server and setup a proxy through it. What do you think will happen when your host gets letters from the government about your illegal activities?
Most DDoS attacks are done via high-bandwidth proxies - IE rootkitted/zombified machines. You simply send one command out (assuming you've got the bandwidth to simultaneously contact every proxy to send the flood command) and away you go.
Yes, that's called a botnet. Good job. If you had read my original post, you would know that I was specifically talking about the fact that these people are not using botnets... they're using LOIC on their own computers from their own
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"But that would completely negate the reason for using a proxy, now wouldn't it? You use a proxy for anonymity... but oh let's rent a server and setup a proxy through it. What do you think will happen when your host gets letters from the government about your illegal activities?"
No sir - that's why you host the proxy server OUTSIDE of your country of residence. Then you set it to route anything sent its way so it's not picky/choosy, and you also set it to NOT KEEP LOGS. Do you know ANYTHING about server con
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"If they used their *own* machines to do the loading I'd agree. But they almost certainly used a small botnet or at least the compromised machines of others to do the dirty work, so they would remain, er, anonymous"
Someone has no fucking clue how the LOIC works, it appears.
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If they used their *own* machines to do the loading I'd agree. But they almost certainly used a small botnet or at least the compromised machines of others to do the dirty work, so they would remain, er, anonymous.
Got any evidence for that? because criticizing a group based purely on your wild conjectures as to their methods seems... cowardly, to me.
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It would be the equivalent of a 'sit in' if the response would be the equivalent of getting hit with the hose. When instead the response is 'evil child-porn-network-supporting terrorist hackers' you know no-one is going to stand up to identify themselves...
This could possibly escalate to the point where freethink will get you executed, by that time the only protest by that point is deep underground and more and m
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If your response to a DDOS attack on the a few websites is "a state of intense fear", you need to get out more.
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It's no more a form of terrorism as is honking a horn at a car that cuts in front of you. (car analogy, just for you)
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How isn't this a form of terrorism?
*ahem*
terror is defined as a state of intense fear
My work here is done.
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I'm glad you pointed out the definition of 'terrorism'. Those particular words were well thought out, I believe.
How much real fear in instilled in you, the Australian people, the Australian government, or the target site's admins as a result of this event? Any fear at all? Is this fear a reasonable response to this event? It's just computer systems and public websites, after all. Do you equate 'inconvenience' with 'danger'?
We're being conditioned to experience fear when we're told, on demand. We're tol
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According to Merriam-Webster, terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion while terror is defined as a state of intense fear.
Sounds to me like quite a few fear mongering politicians are guilty of terrorism.
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yes, completely agreed. it's so stupid. i mean, governments all over the world have been so reasonable - there are no censorship attempts at all, flying is very pleasant, we haven't heard about any torturing taking place for centuries.
now, just now, because of this action people will turn against any free speech attempts and governments will have to take the only legitimate choice left to them - revoke all the free speech that's currently freely available, install cameras - first on streets, then in pubs, t
you are an idiot (Score:2)
A denial of services attack by numerous individuals is civil disobedience, obviously.
A bot-net based denial of services attack is more like civil clashes between economic entities, like if amazon pulls some publishers books, although the bot-net was obviously illegal anyways.
A even more criminal version of a denial of services attack would be identifying all the government employees involved, identifying their personal information, and giving it all the nigerian scammers.
A good rule of thumb is "It's not te
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Wow, you post contained more usefull information than that article, LOL not. You deserve it. Someone please step in and mod of -1 too. This is no fscking Digg.com where whinish opinion comments are respected... _'