Wikileaks Internet Fight- Channers Hit Back

[Marquis de Carabas]

Hopefully at least one of my other posts addresses this, but Sassy and I are equally confused as to what part of VISA, Mastercard and Paypal's websites are free speech in need of protection.

I think my last post addressed it, but I will reiterate: all of it.

We'd like the hypothetical answered too

Restate the hypothetical, or at least point it out to me, and I'll try.

 

[DreadNiK]

I didn't follow that, but I might have answered it above.

I was asking for an answer on:

If someone taking part in the DDoS attack had hosted a shell of the Master Card website, where you could view all the 'free speech' on there but not do any transactions, I suppose you'd be happy then?

as I think it would further the understanding of the precise point of disagreement

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

I was asking for an answer on:



as I think it would further the understanding of the precise point of disagreement

Ah.

No, I would not be happy then.

MC's website is their platform (well, one of their platforms) for communicating with their customers (and potential customers, and people who clicked the wrong link, etc.).

While their site is down, they are speechless (through it). You can host what they already had communicated, but the fact that their site is down means they cannot further communicate (again, through it).

If you are holding a sign, and I tape your mouth shut, I am still interfering with your free speech even if I start holding your sign.

 

[DreadNiK]

As for disagreeing with the counter, I don't. I know they were after the transactions, and everything else was collateral to their motives. But it is a known collateral, and therefore I feel justified in judging them on it.

Yeah, but come on - you're saying they are doing the antithesis (very strong term) of free speech, even in this case, where the 'known collateral' of free speech is admittedly a trivial example of it?

I think we're now down to the semantics of antithesis, as I feared.

If I steal all of someone's money to prevent them from donating to NAMBLA, I have still stolen all their money, regardless that my motive was just to keep NAMBLA from receiving a donation. If I take down a website to prevent it from conducting commercial transactions, I have still disrupted communication.

A decent point, however in stealing someone's money you are preventing them doing anything with money, in ddosing a site you've only prevented them using one particular server/web-app/whatever of serving up free speech - they can quite easily exercise their free speech via many other routes, including other web servers.

They aren't 'stealing all Mastercard's free speech' to prevent Mastercard from using its free speech against wikileaks.

 

[DreadNiK]

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/12/4chan_knocks_mastercard_offlin.html

These are interesting times.

You are aware of the chinese curse to that effect?

Also, we can probably get back on topic by asking MdC if wikileaks should be protected under freedom of speech...

How about it?

 

[DreadNiK]

Ah.

No, I would not be happy then.

MC's website is their platform (well, one of their platforms) for communicating with their customers (and potential customers, and people who clicked the wrong link, etc.).

While their site is down, they are speechless (through it). You can host what they already had communicated, but the fact that their site is down means they cannot further communicate (again, through it).

If you are holding a sign, and I tape your mouth shut, I am still interfering with your free speech even if I start holding your sign.

Yep, I was expecting this. True enough.

But you are still letting me express some free speech, and therefore your actions are not the antithesis of it...see post above, semantics.

 

[DreadNiK]

oh and ooi before I sign off for the night and catch up with this thread (hopefully when it is back on something resembling whatever the topic was in the first place) would your answer to this hypothetical follow similar lines to your answer to the previous one... (my god my syntax is torturous this evening)

What if they DDOSed a website advocating genocide or hosting child pornography?

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Yeah, but come on - you're saying they are doing the antithesis (very strong term) of free speech, even in this case, where the 'known collateral' of free speech is admittedly a trivial example of it?

I think we're now down to the semantics of antithesis, as I feared.

I think speech can be trivial. I do not think attacks on speech can be, particularly when they are, to me, hypocritically made in the name of free speech.

A decent point, however in stealing someone's money you are preventing them doing anything with money, in ddosing a site you've only prevented them using one particular server/web-app/whatever of serving up free speech - they can quite easily exercise their free speech via many other routes, including other web servers.

They aren't 'stealing all Mastercard's free speech' to prevent Mastercard from using its free speech against wikileaks.

Granted, but none of that would make it OK for me to steal just one credit card from a NAMBLA supporter, either. I shouldn't have gone with all the money in my initial analogy.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Also, we can probably get back on topic by asking MdC if wikileaks should be protected under freedom of speech...

Absolutely.

What if they DDOSed a website advocating genocide or hosting child pornography?

I'm OK with advocating genocide, up to a point. I'd need a more specific example of child pornography to decide. Some people would call Lolita child porn, after all.

That said, I do agree that not all speech is or should be protected. I still would not be comfortable with a DDoS, though.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

You are aware of the chinese curse to that effect?

Also, we can probably get back on topic by asking MdC if wikileaks should be protected under freedom of speech...

How about it?

y'know I'm actually OK with where this thread has gone

as for the chinese curse:

"Responding to decisions by Visa and MasterCard to stop processing credit card donations to the site this week, the CEO of Iceland-based DataCell said he is preparing to sue for damages."

Hey Pardalis, this one's for you:
"A Dutch teenager has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in cyberattacks on credit card company websites that have stopped providing service to the controversial WikiLeaks website"

Delicious sauce:
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/TopStories/20101209/wikileaks-payment-processor-to-sue-101209/

 

[ddt]

Hey Pardalis, this one's for you:
"A Dutch teenager has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in cyberattacks on credit card company websites that have stopped providing service to the controversial WikiLeaks website"

Yeah, when I read this thread I wondered how much knowledge Pardalis had of Dutch law. Especially for you, Pardalis: the maximum sentence is 6 years for a severe disruption of financial transactions. Which hasn't happened, the DDOS attack has barely touched the transactions.

Here's an article on Dutch site Webwereld, and the press communique of the public prosecutor (both in Dutch). The kid is 16 years old, lives in The Hague and has already confessed.

As to the principle: I agree it's dumb and it's wrong. However, it's not an abridgment of free speech. Taking the US standards of free speech: the First Amendment does not apply to commercial speech, and the sites of MC and Visa are clearly commercial speech.

"Responding to decisions by Visa and MasterCard to stop processing credit card donations to the site this week, the CEO of Iceland-based DataCell said he is preparing to sue for damages."

Rightly so. It's unheard that Visa and MC arbitrarily can shut down their services to a customer. The big issue here is that we see that those two companies hold a duopoly on credit card transactions and apparently can shut that down for someone whenever they like. In today's world, being able to make electronic financial transactions has become essential for life - try to get your employer to pay wages in cash, or your landlord to accept cash, etc. Shutting someone out of that is making his/her life impossible. I would argue for government regulation that this is impossible, were it not that the government of the most powerful country in the world (aka "the land of the free") in fact has called for these acts of Visa and MC.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

As to the principle: I agree it's dumb and it's wrong. However, it's not an abridgment of free speech. Taking the US standards of free speech: the First Amendment does not apply to commercial speech, and the sites of MC and Visa are clearly commercial speech.

Just to clarify: I don't think it's an abridgment in legal terms, but in ethical ones. I believe I have at least once or twice used the phrase "the ideal of free speech". It is the ideal I feel DDoS attacks violate, whether or not they are in breach of any actual code of law regarding free speech.

 

[ddt]

Just to clarify: I don't think it's an abridgment in legal terms, but in ethical ones. I believe I have at least once or twice used the phrase "the ideal of free speech". It is the ideal I feel DDoS attacks violate, whether or not they are in breach of any actual code of law regarding free speech.

Fair enough. I don't see it as an ethical breach of free speech either. I'm reminded here of an account I read on a webpage I already clicked away on a conversation on 4Chan, while the DDoS attack on the Swiss bank was carried out. Someone else chimed in and said: "guys, can you stop for a minute, I have to make a bank transaction". Shutting down the site of a bank or CC company is more akin to protesting outside the local Walmart and making it difficult/impossible for customers to get in.

 

[BenBurch]

Arrests have begun;

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20025215-281.html

 

[Bikewer]

I was listening to the discussion on this on NPR's Talk Of The Nation yesterday, and I was quite unaware of 4Chan and "imagegroups" and such...Even though I'd heard of Anonymous due to it's activities relative to Scientology.
Curious, I checked out the 4Chan site, and was amazed at the puerile nature of almost all the material....The average age must be under 15.
These are the folks organizing large-scale DOS attacks?

 

[ddt]

Arrests have begun;

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20025215-281.html

Nitpick: only one arrest. The 16-year old who was arrested was moderator of an IRC channel, and thus had the power to start a LOIC-botnet. He's been arraigned today, and I gather his pre-trial arrest is not prolonged.

Meanwhile, Anonymous have been able to DDoS the sites of the Dutch police and the Dutch prosecutor's office.

 

[PogoPedant]

... and now they seem to change their tactics

http://i.imgur.com/y5SrO.gif

Not quite as obnoxious this time.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

I was listening to the discussion on this on NPR's Talk Of The Nation yesterday, and I was quite unaware of 4Chan and "imagegroups" and such...Even though I'd heard of Anonymous due to it's activities relative to Scientology.
Curious, I checked out the 4Chan site, and was amazed at the puerile nature of almost all the material....The average age must be under 15.
These are the folks organizing large-scale DOS attacks?

Yes those sites are extremely puerile. They've been characterized as the 'apss hole of the internet'; not a bad metaphor.

'Anonymous' isn't a group. 'We are anonymous' is the slogan that gave rise to the idea that 'anonymous' is a group, when in fact it's just a reference to the anonymity with which people post on these sites. The average post, if a poster doesn't enter a name in the name field, is attributed to 'anonymous'; hence 'we are anonymous'.

THis is why I said it's like a town square. 4Chan etc. are just places where people gather to discuss things anonymously. Most of the time the discussions are basically retarded crap about nothing in particular.

So saying that these guys are 'organizing' an attack is slightly inaccurate. First of all, there's no 'these guys' to speak of- the people who attacked Scientology might overlap with the people who decided to harass the paymaster sites or they might be different people. What happens is basically someone on 4chan says 'hey, these guys suck!' and whoever agrees attacks the site. Lots of people might say 'these guys suck!' independently, each one 'recruiting' their own swarm of likeminded individuals. There's little real 'organization' involved- it's more like a swarming activity.

And yeah, the average age is about 15. Wonder what it'll be like when these kids grow up? There's clearly power in this anonymous swarming activity, and as lots of these teenaged nerds get into university and learn more about computers and so forth (assuming their willingness to engage in this kind of activism remains strong) I imagine the methods the individuals use will become more sophisticated.

4chan is the future.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Arrests have begun;

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921_3-20025215-281.html

And so have retaliations for the arrest:

"Just a day after Dutch police arrested a 16-year-old boy in connection with Wikileaks-related denial-of-service attacks, websites belonging to the Netherlands computer crime cops and prosecutors have been struck with a similar assault."

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/201...e-attacked-after-arrests-of-suspected-hacker/

 

[Captain.Sassy]

This is a good primer on how the attacks work:

http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/201...cannon-the-tool-used-in-anonops-ddos-attacks/