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Crime Your Rights Online

FBI Cybercrime Director Comments On Hacktivism 254

bdcny7927 writes "In an exclusive interview with CIO.com, the FBI official in charge of cybercrime speaks for the first time with the media specifically about hacktivism. Here, Assistant Executive Director Shawn Henry describes the threats hacktivists pose, the challenges associated with investigating them, and the FBI's success disrupting these groups. He also delivers a special message to hacktivists." The so-called special message: "My organization is a believer in civil rights and civil liberties, and the first amendment is something I hold very dear personally and professionally. I have no problem with people picketing and protesting in the street. I get all that. But the freedom for me to swing my arm ends where your nose begins. If you are impinging on others' rights, that's illegal."
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FBI Cybercrime Director Comments On Hacktivism

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  • by InsightIn140Bytes ( 2522112 ) on Monday December 19, 2011 @09:16PM (#38429046)
    FBI, because Anonymous is just bunch of script kiddies.
  • by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Monday December 19, 2011 @09:37PM (#38429180) Homepage Journal

    Introduce your friends and family to The Onion Router [torproject.org].

    Set up a Tor node yourself. Amazon will provide an entry level EC3 host to anyone free of charge for a year.

    Register a domain that is not under US control and so cannot be taken from you by the Feds. .is looks good - Iceland.

    Mirror some Samizdat at PRQ AB of Sweden. They have a full time legal staff to defend their customers against takedown orders. you can host anonymously and pay them with anonymous money orders.

  • by hedgemage ( 934558 ) on Monday December 19, 2011 @09:39PM (#38429198)
    Sure, saying my rights end at the end of my nose etc. makes for a good soundbite but the problem is that especially with digital media you have large monied interests who get to define their own nasal boundaries. SOPA is a good example where the mere implication that someone is TOUCHING MY CORPORATE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY'S NOSE can have far reaching penalties without any actual proof that there was harm done.
  • Re:Exactly (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jeremiah Cornelius ( 137 ) on Monday December 19, 2011 @09:54PM (#38429314) Homepage Journal

    "My organization is a believer in civil rights and civil liberties"

    Yes. We know: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO [wikipedia.org]

  • by InsightIn140Bytes ( 2522112 ) on Monday December 19, 2011 @10:30PM (#38429576)
    DDOSing can be easily separated from actual attacks do nothing to "evaluate responses and defenses". It's only a nuisance and does nothing else than overload the systems or bandwidth. It does absolutely nothing to hide traces or provide information about security vulnerabilities.
  • Re:Mod parent up. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Tastecicles ( 1153671 ) on Monday December 19, 2011 @10:59PM (#38429720)

    Commercial Law invented the Legal Fiction that is the PERSON. The plural form of PERSON is PEOPLE.

    You don't hear about Man or Woman in a commercial court or read it in a contract because you cannot contract with a Man or a Woman. You can only contract with the PERSON.

    So, yes, Corporations ARE PEOPLE. A Man is a Man and a Woman is a Woman. When you talk about a Man as a PERSON you are associating him with his Legal Fiction. You do this if you don't know the difference between a Sovereign Being with a Soul and a Contractual Partner, or you are deliberately referring to the PERSON.

  • by MichaelCrawford ( 610140 ) on Monday December 19, 2011 @11:56PM (#38430228) Homepage Journal

    Sure if I were to ride in your own personal car then I would be obligated to follow your rules. But if I wanted to ride in your bus, despite your bus company being privately owned, your bus is a "public accommodation". That's a legal Term of Art that enables the government to require that YOU follow certain rulers and that I have certain rights.

    Some Americans are heavily into the ideavthat property rights are absolute and inalienable, but that is not and has never been the case.

    I have quite a serious mental illness. I have spent quite a lot of time being one of those bums in the street that you claim has no right to elected representation. the very fact that the stigma against mental illness led someone to direct three security guards to beat the living crap out of me for no other crime than that I was photographing my own hallucinations is the reason I devote psych tireless effort to pointing out the error of your ways to gentlemen such as yourself.

"Bureaucracy is the enemy of innovation." -- Mark Shepherd, former President and CEO of Texas Instruments

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