Anonymous Takes Down DOJ, RIAA, MPA and Universal Music 649
First time accepted submitter EW87 writes "Shortly after a federal raid today brought down the file sharing service Megaupload, hackers aligned with the online collective Anonymous have shut down sites for the Department of Justice, Universal Music Group and the RIAA. 'It was in retaliation for Megaupload, as was the concurrent attack on Justice.org,' Anonymous operative Barrett Brown tells RT on Thursday afternoon."
Not Anonymous.. (Score:2, Interesting)
..but regular internet users.
The summary sounds like it was a specialized group of hackers - it wasn't it was anyone who followed a link like the following:
http://pastehtml.com/view/blaoyp0qs.html [pastehtml.com]
Staged? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think it's quite likely this entire thing is a staged PR stunt by the SOPA/PIPA cartell to generate a little counter-press. Call me paranoid, but It apprears to me all to convenient that something like this happens just now. At least it's a theory worth entertaining, imho.
War (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, instead of the revolt that is needed over copyright, we'll probably just end up with some kids in gitmo for the rest of their lives and another SOPA/PIPA copy passed in a few months.
Wake up, now is the time to stand up.
Re:wow (Score:5, Interesting)
Do not stand for this flagrant abuse of our farcical democracy!
Megaupload has been forcibly closed by the FBI. In a sickening undermining of the people’s will, they are making an example out of an historic, legitimate, useful and well-known website. This is a prophetic glimmer of the coming war against pure free speech- the internet.
This happened once before. Here in the UK, the IWF (Internet Watch Foundation) is a censoring system for the internet. In 1996, the Metropolitan Police started requesting the banning of illegal content by ISPs in the UK. With veiled sly threats they asked that ISPs engage in ‘self-enforcement’ rather than forcing them to enforce the law on them.
Most of the ISPs complied except Demon internet. Demon was a British ISP that contributed to the Open Source community, ran several IRC servers and were pioneers of their time. They objected on the grounds of it being “unacceptable censorship”. A few days later, a tabloid expose appeared in the Observer newspaper alleging that the director of Demon was supplying paedophiles with photographs of children being sexually abused.
Then the police let it be known that during that summer, they were planning a crack-down on an unspecified ISP as a test-case (translation: making an example of them). Between the threats and pressure, the IWF was formed- a supposedly voluntary organisation but in fact a fake-charity and a quango. The IWF is a disgraceful secretive group with an awful corrupt history and no public oversight.
Now we see the same tactic has been used against Megaupload. They are using the threat of violence to coerce companies, how the British police did to create their own laws. The SOPA legislation did not go their way, so they have resulted to immoral tactics of repression.
From ACTA which is decided behind closed European chambers, the DEA which was pushed through undemocratically at alarming speed before elections, evil La Hadopi and now SOPA/PIPA in the US, there is nowhere to run. The nepotists are determined to push through these legislation. At all costs. This is not about piracy- it never was and will not do a thing. It is about control.
We have built a tool. For all their false talk of democracy we have for the first time in history reached this epochal moment. Self determination. If they truly believed in democracy, we could have a direct-democracy tomorrow. The tools exist. Instead we see this flagrant deception. It has become acceptable for politicians to cater to the greatest common denominator. We let them off the hook on the truth like Cameron pretending to be pro-NHS or Obama pretending to be Christian because it is for voters. Since when did it become acceptable to lie! Now today we see this limp-wristed hand wringing by the US president about how he will veto SOPA. Oh shut up.
Was it Gordan Brown who said that voting levels were dangerously low in the below-30s because youngsters today are apolitical. He wanted mandatory attendance for voters. No, we are not apolitical, we are sick of your lies and deceit. This generation is probably more political than any generation in history. In the 80s, only 5% of people in the US were members of organisations. In the 90s, 70% of Americans belonged to some kind of organisation. People are mobilising and prescient of issues.
Libel law is atrociously bad in the UK. Payouts are 10 times greater than in main-land Europe and you get a situation where billionaires use law firms like Carter-Ruck to keep news publishers (which are poor) in court and bleed them dry. Time magazine did an undercover piece of reporting and was sued for libel. They won the case but it ended up costing them $1 million. That’s effectively a fine of $1 million for undercover journalism.
Of course when the law is broken, what do we do? Make more laws! That is why California has brought in anti-SLAPP legislation.
Patent law is so stupid and I won’t even go there.
Copyright is fascist. I find it revolting that
Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)
Do not stand for this flagrant abuse of our farcical democracy!
If it's farcical, then surely abuse of it isn't a big deal? Kind of like making fun of a clown.
It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist. Just another side of the Machine, from my perspective.
Re:War (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, instead of the revolt that is needed over copyright, ...
indeed: [gonzotimes.com]
Intellectual Property is a myth. It is invented with the backing of the threat of force of the state. It is the idea that knowledge or information can be owned by one certain company or person. The myth is perpetuated that people who copy are pirates or thieves. Even those who file share and copy movies and music have come to call themselves pirates. The problem is that it is not piracy or theft. It is theft if I take something of yours. If I copy something of someones or my own it is simply not theft, it is copying.
Re:wow (Score:2, Interesting)
It's not like MegaUpload was some kind of charity ... CEO seemed to be making money hand-over-fist. Just another side of the Machine, from my perspective.
That's because when such sites are few in numbers, any one of them will have a lot of users. The more of these will appear, the less revenues any one of them will get.
The barrier to getting into that kind of business is pretty low. Interesting the little play on creating a corporate veil, holding company, to shield the owner. I figure the feds puncture that one in record time.
Re:wow (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder if this is going to be the first of many instant responses to actions like this.
I wonder the effectiveness of these actions. I mean, how long can a DDOS be sustained? If they started really hosing systems in these retaliatory attacks, would the net effect be in their favour or against it? I mean, to me, this retaliation smirks of "Stop messing up our playground!" but the actions are merely name calling, I wonder the outcome if bloodied noses were created in the counterattack.
Re:Justice down? I think not. (Score:5, Interesting)
Here's some "accounting" for you:
MPAA has 6 members: Disney, 20th Century Fox, Universal, and these three, with a yearly operating income of...
Sony Pictures - $300 million ... Google - $10.381 billion
Paramount - $300 million
Warner Bros. - $845 million
Now THAT is what I call voting with your dollars :)
Re:Can't help but think (Score:5, Interesting)
soon the internet will be reduced to posting xkcd comics back and forth... and millions of years from now, when the first hard drives are finally restored, they will think they are hieroglyphs, and we.. while a generally advanced civilization, resorted to an alphabet that was 4095 comics long.. because I believe in the Randall.. but really.. who needs more than 4 gigs?
Re:good luck (Score:1, Interesting)
"Very, very elite hackers?" You do realize you're talking about Anonymous, right? They're a bunch of basement-dwelling twats with a V for Vendetta fetish. They don't CARE about activism, they never have. They've been quite clear about their goals from day one; "we do it for the lulz." They don't care about SOPA or any of the other four-letter words the US government is trying to pass as law these days, they don't care about the people who are affected. Hell, they don't even care about their own members being arrested. The only thing they DO care about is amusing themselves, that's it. Everything else is just so much propaganda on their part in an effort to bolster their own reputation.
Re:Wow. They did dare! (Score:5, Interesting)
My state had a judge sentence kids to a private prison that made donations to him. Pennsylvania.
You see 50 million "pirates". The military complex and privately run prison system sees 50 million scapegoats that just paved the golden road to profits.
Re:wow (Score:5, Interesting)
"It" is the beginning of a precedent whereby Sony, Universal, or Disney, when caught violating a Creative Commons license, can expect to have its assets seized, its operations shut down, and its executives arrested, jailed and charged with "piracy."
"It" is also a precedent whereby you can claim $500 million in losses that you don't have to report to shareholders, insurers, or the IRS.
This could lead to seriously awesome unintended consequences of chaos.
Re:wow (Score:0, Interesting)
All that proves is that MegaUpload was providing value to people.
So I assume you'd see the same parallel with drug dealers?
Just because it provides "value" to somebody, doesn't make it correct.
What I want to know is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Can't help but think (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the most constructive thing we can do is re-engineer the DNS architecture so that it cannot be destroyed so easily.
This would be a great victory of intelligence over politics - something that is way overdue.
Perhaps some kind of Beowulf DNS Cluster arrangement. Or a RAID/striped/mirrored DNS database. One that cannot be centrally administered. In order to take down a website/DNS/Server - you need to physically shut down the server.
Now, I have no doubt that DoJ would seek out ways to accomplish this task, but at least other countries (with more sane governments) would have the opportunity to oppose such sloppy legislation.
Re:Political channels (Score:5, Interesting)
Given the level of momentum turning toward the Big Brother state, there may not be that many "mature" political channels left. In case everyone missed it, they found a new weapon against "peaceful protest" - ridicule.
Occupy Wall Street was the first/best civil protest we've had in *decades*! The result? The media planted a few Laugh Off stories about some of the "Boys Will Be Boys" activities going on the sidelines and then the cops busted it all up, and we didn't have a followup. That's because they quietly destroyed B.W.B.B. those same decades ago, with the final lock as a nifty side effect of the 9-11 theme. "Oh look, ten thousand protesters aren't as orderly as school children or cowering workers!" Uh... protesters are ... angry, that' the definition, right?
The interesting thing is Slashdot has chosen to let the trolls post come ill or shill, because it's part of Taco's original foresight to the abuses of over-modding TOS policies now creeping everywhere else. The mod system could use a couple more finesses, but it's *us* modding each other, not the editors. That's starting to become a Meta-Experiment in the current climate.
I'm quite lenient with my mod scores - I only mod down the absolute lowest of the vulgar offtopic junk, or the "random word generator" posts, or the shock pics. I stay out of the "Shill - Anti-Shill" wars.
Re:wow (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt seriously that Disney's ride controls are connected to the internet. Afaik nothing is much different at Disney World now than when I worked there in the early eighties. And the engineers there (Disney calls them "imagineers") are pretty damned sharp, I can't see them doing much very stupid when it comes to engineering -- mechanical and electrical, at least.
However, your "social engineering" is a bit frightening. The engineers there must have never taken any psychology courses, as evidenced by a mishap on a new ride when I worked there.
One of the perks of being a Disney employee is you got to ride the new rides before the general public -- Guinea pigs. They had a new roller coaster in Frontier land that was supposed to be a runaway mine train. I rode it , and WOW. It went sixty miles per hour (about 100kph). If you ride it, it's only 20 mph. What happened was one stupid employee decided to stand up in the car as it went into a tunnel, and the idiot obviously thought that the rock ledge would move out of the way. It knocked his head completely off! See, there IS a cure for stupid! They reduced the speed after that particular accident. Pity there are so many idiots, that was a hell of a ride!
If you visit the Haunted Mansion, keep in mind that someone died there! Makes it a lot more fun. One idiot tourist decided to get out of the car to get a closer look at the witch head hologram, not realising he was a hundred feet off the ground.
Twelve people died building the EPCOT "golf ball" (I forgot its real name). Disney nor any other corporation gives a rat's ass about your safety unless it costs them money. Corporations are by nature sociopathic. Everything they do is designed to garner more profit.
But still, driving there from Kissimmee is more dangerous than any of the rides, even if the SCADA systems get hacked. People in Florida drive like the dumbasses they are. So if you want to hack Disney's SCADA, go ahead. The death toll won't rise much.