Anonymous Threatens to 'Erase NYSE from the Internet'

[C_Felix]

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2394071,00.asp#fbid=GyycdNN5pgL


This might be interesting.

Do you think "they" really can?

 

[richardm]

Do you think "they" really can?

Probably, up to a point. A well-orchestrated DDoS attack is pretty difficult to stop and would take down the web side which most of the media would probably highlight as a "success". Whether they can do more than that is less certain.

 

[JJM 777]

Random attacks are possible, but a constant attack system is quite impossible without risking betraying your own ip address, which for FBI is as good as a street address complete with a flat number. You would need a virus to create an attack that keeps going on without your personal attendance, and the virus would soon be discovered and neutralized.

 

[C_Felix]

I used to play Dungeon and Dragons Online. One thing I've noticed was that when "they" changed some parameters of the game (changed the damage done by a spell, the recharge time before you can cast the same spell again, how much damage this sword did against skeletons) it only took a week or so for the more astute players to find a new method or exploit to do an end-around the change.

Then "they" would change the parameters to undo what the gamers have figured out.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

After all, didn't gamers crack some code to the HIV a few weeks ago?

It took a community of gamers three weeks what a decade or more of scientific research couldn't accomplish.

http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html


People with determination, computer knowledge, and nothing better to do just might be a force to reckon with.

 

[richardm]

Random attacks are possible, but a constant attack system is quite impossible without risking betraying your own ip address, which for FBI is as good as a street address complete with a flat number. You would need a virus to create an attack that keeps going on without your personal attendance, and the virus would soon be discovered and neutralized.

There have been whopping great botnets out there in the past; I would not be entirely surprised to learn that they're still there.

What surprises me most is to learn that the physical protests are ongoing. They've not really been given very much prominence by the press over here at all.

 

[IDB87]

Random attacks are possible, but a constant attack system is quite impossible without risking betraying your own ip address, which for FBI is as good as a street address complete with a flat number. You would need a virus to create an attack that keeps going on without your personal attendance, and the virus would soon be discovered and neutralized.

How is it impossible? Falun Gong members circumvent detection in China when using the internet by accessing proxy servers that refresh their IPs a few hundred times an hour, maybe more. No reason why anonymous couldn't do the same, or employ the same technology.

Besides that, yes, I'd say a good amount of DDoS attacks occur through viruses, most likely through a person opening non-threatening e-mails.

 

[Checkmite]

Crashing the NYSE website won't do anything but piss off middle-class daytraders and retirees who use the web for trading. Banks and financial corporations have actual people in the building; they're the folks you see swarming all over the floor in photographs and videos, with headset phones looking at live data.

Once again, Anonymous comes up with a "great idea" that a few seconds' thought would discredit. I swear, sometimes they're like a seven-year-old who insists on trying to "help" and manages to burn down the house.

 

[IDB87]

Once again, Anonymous comes up with a "great idea" that a few seconds' thought would discredit. I swear, sometimes they're like a seven-year-old who insists on trying to "help" and manages to burn down the house.

No. They're sever-year-olds who want to simply burn the house down.

 

[geni]

Crashing the NYSE website won't do anything but piss off middle-class daytraders and retirees who use the web for trading. Banks and financial corporations have actual people in the building; they're the folks you see swarming all over the floor in photographs and videos, with headset phones looking at live data.

Unlikely. The majority of modern trading doesn't involve people. Dedicated lines are more likely.

 

[Checkmite]

No. They're sever-year-olds who want to simply burn the house down.

Then the "Occupy Wall Street" folks are idiots for embracing them.

 

[geni]

Then the "Occupy Wall Street" folks are idiots for embracing them.

The "Occupy Wall Street" folks are a leaderless heterogeneous group with only the vaguest traints in common. They can't be said to embrace anything.

 

[Checkmite]

The "Occupy Wall Street" folks are a leaderless heterogeneous group with only the vaguest traints in common. They can't be said to embrace anything.

Explains why they don't seem to be accomplishing much, I suppose. Maybe they should stick to crashing websites for fun.

 

[richardm]

Explains why they don't seem to be accomplishing much, I suppose.

That's what they said about the Green Revolution in Egypt and look what happened there..

Mind you they also said it about the Green Revolution in Iran and er um yes well.

 

[geni]

Explains why they don't seem to be accomplishing much, I suppose.

Given that the majority of their aims would at minium require a significant reform of capitalism and there doesn't appear to be a world war handy I doubt any other approach would work much better.

Maybe they should stick to crashing websites for fun.

I'm sure bits of anonymous will.

 

[Ethan Thane Athen]

Random attacks are possible, but a constant attack system is quite impossible without risking betraying your own ip address, which for FBI is as good as a street address complete with a flat number. You would need a virus to create an attack that keeps going on without your personal attendance, and the virus would soon be discovered and neutralized.

I disagree....ish - you've given yourself a bit of an 'out' with the 'virus' comment (though it may well be a trojan rather than a virus). DDOS attacks rely heavily on using unwitting participants and their PCs rather than just those willingly joining in. Any attempt to trace attacks via ip addresses are likely to only lead to innocent parties - either innocent of knowingly being part of the attack (though they may well be guilty of downloading shonky software or visiting dodgy sites) or completely innocent as their ip address has been spoofed - or the less technically adept members of anonymous (and it doesn't take a great level of ability to hide your ip address). The more savvy members probably won't even be actively involved in the attack themselves but if they were, they'd be well aware of how to hide their involvement.

Happy to be corrected if you know more than I do about the FBI's capabilities.

 

[Travis]

My thinking is that the NYSE now has a couple of days to try and make it the most secure website in the world.

So we'll see if the best security money can buy will defeat Anonymous.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

Oh come on, people really think they're going to shut down the NYSE? Or are they going to mildly disrupt their corporate website? (which is probably no more frequented than the threads about it here)

 

[Cuddles]

Crashing the NYSE website won't do anything but piss off middle-class daytraders and retirees who use the web for trading. Banks and financial corporations have actual people in the building; they're the folks you see swarming all over the floor in photographs and videos, with headset phones looking at live data.

As usual, xkcd already has this covered:

You would need a virus to create an attack that keeps going on without your personal attendance, and the virus would soon be discovered and neutralized.

Are you seriously saying you've never heard of botnets? Surely you don't seriously think people engaging in a DDOS attack actually have to sit at a single computer and do the attack themselves? Try looking up what the "D" (the first one) means.

 

[Checkmite]

Oh come on, people really think they're going to shut down the NYSE? Or are they going to mildly disrupt their corporate website? (which is probably no more frequented than the threads about it here)

Pretty much.

 

[Normal Dude]

EDIT: Dangit! Cuddles beat me to it!

It took a community of gamers three weeks what a decade or more of scientific research couldn't accomplish.

http://news.yahoo.com/online-gamers-crack-aids-enzyme-puzzle-175427367.html

I think you are giving the computer gamers a little more credit than deserved here. If the gamers had designed and set up the tools and did the biochemical research that described the interactions possible within this program, then I'd say they pulled one over on the scientific community. Until then, they are basically acting as extra manpower in trying out the very huge number of possibilities that the shape could take. A smarter version of Folding Online, if you will.

Not that it isn't a cool idea, but let's have some perspective here.