Imperva: Anonymous Used LOIC to Attack DoJ, MPAA

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Not like the FBI is going to lose ad revenue from this...
Can someone explain to me what this accomplishes besides making the government angry and feel like they should impose stricter laws?
 

Pawessum16

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I don't know about anyone else here, but I like the fact that megaupload was taken down. It was a scumy site in the first place, and it profited off of others' work. As the gizmodo article states, this is a win for the anti-SOPA cause because it shows the government already has the tools it needs to take down illegal sites. I'm for file sharing for the sake of freely sharing awesome stuff, but when someone's doing it to make a profit (and in magaupload's case, a huge profit!)....that's just plain wrong! Anonymous, you make absolutely no sense right now.
 

fyasko

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[citation][nom]pawessum16[/nom]I don't know about anyone else here, but I like the fact that megaupload was taken down. It was a scumy site in the first place, and it profited off of others' work. As the gizmodo article states, this is a win for the anti-SOPA cause because it shows the government already has the tools it needs to take down illegal sites. I'm for file sharing for the sake of freely sharing awesome stuff, but when someone's doing it to make a profit (and in magaupload's case, a huge profit!)....that's just plain wrong! Anonymous, you make absolutely no sense right now.[/citation]

the problem is the FBI and congress using fear to create more "laws" to control the people. it's less about $ but more about control.
 

rawful

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[citation][nom]pawessum16[/nom]I don't know about anyone else here, but I like the fact that megaupload was taken down. It was a scumy site in the first place, and it profited off of others' work. As the gizmodo article states, this is a win for the anti-SOPA cause because it shows the government already has the tools it needs to take down illegal sites. I'm for file sharing for the sake of freely sharing awesome stuff, but when someone's doing it to make a profit (and in magaupload's case, a huge profit!)....that's just plain wrong! Anonymous, you make absolutely no sense right now.[/citation]

You make no sense at all. Reading your post gives me the vibe that you're dumb. You are making the claim that megaupload was selling pirated copies of software to people. If you do not understand the stakes at this point, you are an idiot. You have no grasp of liberty, no desire for freedom. You are a sheep.
 

nebun

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[citation][nom]fyasko[/nom]the problem is the FBI and congress using fear to create more "laws" to control the people. it's less about $ but more about control.[/citation]
isn't this the main reason why the bible was written? you get control of the people and you have control of the world....
 

NuclearShadow

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For those who doubt Anonymous just remember that Anonymous is open to everyone it is not a closed group. Due to this it is obvious that most "members" would not have advanced hacking skills as they are just the average Joe. This does NOT mean that Anonymous is composed of just those people however. Just because America isn't full of Olympic sprinters doesn't mean we don't have any.
Same rule applies Anonymous and skilled hackers.
 

mayne92

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[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]Anon aren't hackers...lol Nothing more than script kiddies using tools other people wrote.[/citation]
Anon has hackers I'm quite sure. You think they are made of people who only know how to "Launch" a LOIC? Being a "script kiddie" means using scripts someone else wrote than themselves...I find it quite humorous you stated that twice in the same sentence - awesome job! Also, why reinvent the wheel?! Since when is being a script kiddie a bad thing? I'm also quite sure that you are 100% a script kiddie yourself...
 

nottheking

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In a nutshell, they were sloppy and openly expressed their disregard to copyright holders.
This, however, isn't sound justification for any criminal charges; if they did indeed openly state how they were acting, it would simply prove evidence that they were not acting in good faith, and would lose much of the protection from the "Safe harbor" provisions of the DMCA. This would still not be viable reason to immediately take down the site; as I've seen in the law, this would require that the FBI and Justice Department achieve a ruling in their favor from the courts; this is how civil law works.

In other words, it was the (apparently fabricated) claims of criminal activity (money laundering) that allowed them to get a warrant to attempt to shutter the site themselves; that is how criminal law works. I very much don't like this: given that the Justice Department has effectively no chance of winning the criminal cases, (as I explained in a lengthy section on another article) this poses a huge chance of backfiring, as then the Justice Department is then liable for all the harm brought by the improper actions. This could likely mean that any damages MegaUpload would be liable for through their DMCA violations... Would be made up for by what the Justice Department would owe them.

That'd be just perfect: paying the MPAA and RIAA for all their claims, right out of taxpayer dollars! However indirect this may be, I just don't like the sound of that.

[citation][nom]Johnny Doe[/nom]Can someone explain to me what this accomplishes besides making the government angry and feel like they should impose stricter laws?[/citation]
That is certainly a possibility. Of course, a push by some that more oppressive legislation is required itself could have a backlash... Or the backlash could simply come directly from this. It's an open question at this point, but certainly the point you raise has a lot of merit to consider... To the point that a number of more-active members of anonymous, I saw, took note of this.

[citation][nom]NuclearShadow[/nom]For those who doubt Anonymous just remember that Anonymous is open to everyone it is not a closed group.[/citation]
That is correct; I personally liken Anonymous to less a "group" as people understand it, and more a "mob." It seems to consist of whoever wishes to decide to take part that particular day. A "mob" also fits its organization, or lack thereof.
 

jhansonxi

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There is the possibility that "Anonymous" is actually a tool of the MPAA/RIAA and being used to justify stricter laws that benefit their business models.
 

TheKurrgan

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Frankly I expected a little more out of the Anonymous "mob" than a DDoS, however it would seem that they excel in the simple as well as the complicated.
However such a massive DDoS is not going to go with out some kind of consequence, and it is only a matter of time before the asshats up in washington get some kind of real technical advisor and find really good ways to violate freedoms beyond SOPA/PIPA.
Doing this is feels good I imagine, however it is short sighted;
Clearly showing to me anyway that whoever leads anonymous, be it a single leader or the conglomerated democratic process of the whole bunch, is of a teenage mindset.
Spock said it best in STII: "He is intelligent, but inexperienced. His pattern shows 2 dimensional thinking"
They could be an effective rallying group, and probably gain real exposure for issues to the masses, however they are still operating in a knee jerk fashion, that shows their strength quite clearly, but unfortunately accomplishes nothing.
 

willard

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[citation][nom]TheCapulet[/nom]That's the point. ANON, or rather "We The People" should scare the hell out of the Government. But it doesn't. Because the government knows that there is no short term accountability. So ANON uses the only weapons they have at their disposal: Technology.[/citation]
Because launching denial of service attacks on the DoJ's website is SO DEVASTATING. Oh wait, nobody cares.

This kind of crap just underscores how ineffective Anonymous is. DoS attacks don't do ***. It's not like they're stopping a revenue stream, pissing off customers, or even inconveniencing somebody slightly. There is literally no net change. Nobody cares.

Their tactic seems to be scream as loud as you can as long as you can, label it activism and brag about how you used well known and simple techniques to exploit vulnerabilities with tools somebody else wrote to deface a web page.

DoS isn't hacking. Defacing the DoJ's web page isn't hacking the DoJ. The only people taking these guys seriously are those who have no clout, and the media which stands to profit from the sensationalism. Anonymous has about as much chance of affecting policy change as your average crazy homeless man preaching about the end of the world and aliens, with maybe a little less credibility.

Anonymous is a joke, and a bad one at that. If they had any talent, they'd be using it. The fact that none of their targets have suffered any real hacks show that Anonymous cannot in fact perpetrate such hacks. Any kind of competent security totally shuts them down. Now that they've run out of insecure web pages, all they can do is DoS.

Congrats guys, your fifteen minutes are almost up.
 

willard

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[citation][nom]mayne92[/nom]Anon has hackers I'm quite sure. You think they are made of people who only know how to "Launch" a LOIC? Being a "script kiddie" means using scripts someone else wrote than themselves...I find it quite humorous you stated that twice in the same sentence - awesome job! Also, why reinvent the wheel?! Since when is being a script kiddie a bad thing? I'm also quite sure that you are 100% a script kiddie yourself...[/citation]
Being a script kiddie IS a bad thing. Using scripts is not. A script kiddie is somebody who ONLY knows how to use others' scripts. It's not about reinventing the wheel, it's about not knowing anything about security, and being unable to do anything unless somebody hands it to you, ready made.

Hackers are to Van Gogh as script kiddies are to paint by numbers.
 

tokencode

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Kim DotCom is scum and megauploads should have been taken down. The DOJ moved in not because it's users posted copyrighted material, but because Megauploads itself was posting that material to attract traffic and therefore advertising revenue. Anon should have done their research before lashing out at the DOJ. Kim DotCom is the REASON awful legislation like SOPA is being proposed, stop defending thief that is giving an excuse to those who want to censor the internet.
 
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If They want to do something for the people, how about targetting the misused and misappropriated funds of the senators and comp that support this bill.... and I dunno, depositing it in the accounts of the people that don't support the idea.
 
[citation][nom]2314[/nom]If They want to do something for the people, how about targetting the misused and misappropriated funds of the senators and comp that support this bill.... and I dunno, depositing it in the accounts of the people that don't support the idea.[/citation]

well, for starters they can't, but if they could that would actually have an effect, mostly actual attempts to catch them. Which would be nice. But having an effect isn't really anonymous's thing. they are more the "hey look we tore down a poster the FBI put up. Yay us!" while damaging the efforts of people who actually protested these bills.
 

rex86

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[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]Anon aren't hackers...lol Nothing more than script kiddies using tools other people wrote.[/citation]

yup, and these kids with scripts manage to bring down the government sites of the most powerful country in the world for the hundredth time.

yup, kids... with scripts.

still, I completely support them.
 

Tomtompiper

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The thing is this was meant to be the first and certain proof that SOPA was needed, but they never needed SOPA and when it was resisted they took down the site anyway. It is not about controlling the internet, it is about controlling you. Be Good, be Vigillant Behave.
 

MasterMace

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[citation][nom]pawessum16[/nom]I don't know about anyone else here, but I like the fact that megaupload was taken down. It was a scumy site in the first place, and it profited off of others' work. As the gizmodo article states, this is a win for the anti-SOPA cause because it shows the government already has the tools it needs to take down illegal sites. I'm for file sharing for the sake of freely sharing awesome stuff, but when someone's doing it to make a profit (and in magaupload's case, a huge profit!)....that's just plain wrong! Anonymous, you make absolutely no sense right now.[/citation]

A website will always make money via advertising. How do you think Google does it? And their profits make Megauploads look tiny.

There is no real justification for it TBH. I had a lifetime MU account and used it to move large files around easily for work. But whats done is done.

Another strange thing, Filesonic is not allowing files to be uploaded or shared. If you have an account you can access what you have uploaded but you cannot upload anything else.
 

Wamphryi

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This actually all went down in my country. In New Zealand the authorities do not have a history of chasing copy right breaches with any real degree of enthusiasm. That is not to say that they wont but civil litigation has never really been a large component of the New Zealand psyche. If you keep an eye on these sites you can observe quite a bit. This is a big story over here right now.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10780514

http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/6297454/Prosecution-Gun-in-Kim-Dotcom-mansion-was-loaded
 

Northwestern

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[citation][nom]otacon72[/nom]Anon aren't hackers...lol Nothing more than script kiddies using tools other people wrote.[/citation]

Fourteen year olds with IP addresses and an abusive program. Literally.
 
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