

Parsing the impact of Anonymous - mcantelon
http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/12/09/parsing_the_impact_of_anonymous

======
wccrawford
"As long as they don't break into other people's computers, launching DDoS
should not be treated as a crime by default; "

Yeah, they should. Those attacks are the same as vandalism. They destroy some
things that are hard to quantify, such as trust and image, as well as cost the
companies money to attempt to mitigate the issue.

~~~
onedognight
> Those attacks are the same as vandalism.

An analogy for you: What if all your (Anonymous) friends went to Wal-Mart and
stood in line to buy something. Then when they got to the front they would
fumble around in their pockets and say, "oh darn, I forgot my wallet", then
they'd got out and come back in and do it again?

Would that be vandalism? Would it cost Wal-Mart money? Would Wal-Mart have to
spend time dealing with the problem? Would it be illegal? Should it be? What
if these anonymous strangers stood just stood outside and held up signs?
Wouldn't the company hire someone to deal with them? Wouldn't that cost them
money?

~~~
patio11
That is, indeed, illegal. In Japan, the crime is Disruption of Business (rough
translation). In the US, as soon as the clerk wises up and tells you to leave,
you're trespassing. It is also probably public nuisance and disturbance of the
peace, and an enterprising DA could probably indict you for larceny.

But there's two or more of them doing it, with the intention of harassment. Ho
ho ho, bad idea. Now we're up to conspiracy to commit racketeering.

Tech people seem to think that the law is a finite state machine, which has no
memory and so cannot parse a crime out of a series of legal actions. Tech
people are foolish about a lot of things.

~~~
wladimir
Stop generalizing. _All people_ are foolish in a lot of things. One can't know
everything.

~~~
tptacek
Concert pianists are foolish about hamster care. They will chew right the hell
through a cardboard toilet paper tube! what are you thinking, stupid pianist!

Audio engineers are foolish about contract law. It's called an implied-in-fact
contract! IMPLIED IN FACT! It doesn't need to be spelled out in ink! Why do
you always make this mistake, audio engineers?

Sanitation workers are foolish about bespoke tailoring. Functioning sleeve
buttons don't work on off-the-rack clothes! You can't position the buttonholes
until you've altered the jacket! Stop putting functioning sleeve buttons on
those jacket and get back to collecting trash!

See, there, I can name three. What is your point? He didn't say tech people
are simply foolish; he said they're foolish about _a lot of things_ , and he's
right, and you literally agreed with him _the very sentence after_ you told
him to stop.

Tech people sure are thin skinned. Way, way more thin skinned than audio
engineers and san workers.

------
z5h
Perhaps if the author had titled the article "Understanding the impact of
Anonymous" people would be better able to parse the title.

------
endtime
Anyone else sick of articles implying that anyone who doesn't want to support
Wikileaks is "bowing to pressure" from some unnamed "they" (probably
_Republicans_ )? Wikileaks very much seems to have an anti-US agenda and I can
totally understand why an American company would want nothing to do with them.

~~~
randallsquared
Stances regarding Wikileaks cross party lines. The current Democratic
administration is against them, and I noticed some attempts by narrative-
seeking media to pigeonhole support for Wikileaks as being the province of Tea
Partiers. But lots of the US left like Wikileaks, so that doesn't work well. A
slightly better division might be that the extremes of both the Left and the
Right like Wikileaks to some degree, and the middle mostly doesn't. But
support on the Right seems to be scattered throughout the span of extreme to
moderate, possibly based on whether they think of Wikileaks primarily as
attacking the Obama administration (them) or primarily as attacking the US
(us).

~~~
hugh3
I don't think you'll find many folks on the right supporting Wikileaks on the
grounds that they're attacking the Obama administration. But you'll probably
find some supporting them on the grounds of radical libertarianism.

It is very much an us-and-them-ism issue though. I find that to a great extent
it breaks down upon whom you consider to be "us"; a funny-looking geek with
bad hair and some kooky political ideas, or the United States Government.

It's a sad reflection on my own consistency that I'd be much more inclined to
support Wikileaks if Assange weren't so damn creepy-looking. Something about
him just makes me want to flush his head in a toilet.

------
mipapage
More from the same author/author background:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_what...](http://www.ted.com/talks/evgeny_morozov_is_the_internet_what_orwell_feared.html)

I knew I'd seen that name before.

~~~
jdp23
Evgeny's done a lot of writing on cyberactivism, and was one of the most
outspoken critics of Haystack. Even when I disagree with him (which is a lot
of the time) I think his articles are generally well-reasoned and well-
researched. He comes from a foreign policy background, not engineering, but
usually does his homework well.

------
raintrees
"...empowering the likes of NSA/Cyber Command..."

This makes me apprehensive that a possible "sell" of this power would be
"would you like us to get rid of most/all spam? With our new technology, we
will have the ability to trace spam messages back to the source and take
appropriate legal action."

On the other hand, I would imagine this will spark the digital DNA to
rearrange chromosomes so that a distributed anonymous internet appears
embedded in the current implementation to continue to avoid power wielders...

If adult content has been a driver of past innovation, will spammers be
drivers of the future?

(I am guessing they already are...)

------
binaryfinery
Corrupt officials in the US government must be overjoyed at how this is
playing out. What is on the news? Is it:

a) That US tax dollars paid for a US "security" company to throw a boy-rape
for stoned Afghan police recruits,

b) The US Government is engaging in censorship

c) Wikileaks' personal army of hackers is stealing credit card information.

We have the most damning release of information ever, and yet the media is
successfully portraying this as a hacker issue. And we're all fucking making
it happen.

~~~
mcantelon
The media is very adept at avoiding the real news so if it wasn't Anon it
would likely be Assange's "rape".

------
dnsworks
Anonymous punished some bad corporate citizens for doing the wrong thing, and
bullied some of them into doing the right thing. This is in direct response to
the bullying Assange has gotten. Legal or not, it's sort of awesome to see
bullies get bullied back.

