

Telstra Fears LulzSec Attacks, Hesitates On Internet Filter - a904guy
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/25/037227/Telstra-Fears-LulzSec-Attacks-Hesitates-On-Internet-Filter?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=facebook

======
grovulent
Okay - if this is true then it's really quite astonishing. That these groups
might be having a deterrent effect on corporations is pretty incredible.

I wonder if all those ISPs considering implementing draconian piracy controls
are fearing the same kind of retribution.

Could it be that it will be these few and scattered children which arrest the
slide into fascist information control toward which we seem to be headed? It
still seems incredibly unlikely - yet for the first time it suddenly seems
possible.

------
nextparadigms
Could it be that LulzSec/Anonymous are the revolutionaries of the next decade?

Early revolutionaries are always seen as criminals. Only in retrospect and
only after they provoke major changes in the society does the society
recognize them as some kind of heroes. But until that happens, they will be
persecuted and some of them caught and treated like criminals. And I'm not
saying they are completely innocent or anything. But all revolutionaries
eventually provoke _some_ damage. But that damage is insignificantly small
compared to the changes they eventually cause.

Things are definitely getting really interesting, and I think this is just the
beginning. The more the Governments will try to censor the Internet (which
seems like the case lately), the more of these people will rise to fight
against them. My money is on them.

~~~
qF
Anon has somewhat of a cause they're fighting for, they are pretty consistent
when it comes about picking targets and their motives. But despite the amount
of media attention it still feels like a drop on a hotplate to me.

LulzSec on the other hand just wants 'lulz', they'll try to hack anyone and
anything, and probably fail a lot, but when they succeed they get a lot of
media coverage. They pretend to be doing it to make people aware of security,
but either it's a front or they're just that naive.

Anon has a goal, and what they do is an attempt to achieve it, LulzSec's goal
is to do damage. I for one fear that LulzSec will push governments into
cracking down on w/e is left of the 'free' internet.

~~~
nextparadigms
Anon started out doing pretty silly things, too, I believe, and soon their
mission "matured" and became more serious. I'm starting to feel the same trend
for LulzSec, and they even said so in a very recent BBC interview. They were
asked if the "lulz" and the "antisec" missions are at odds with each other.
They said for now they will keep doing a bit of each, but they think they'll
start getting more serious as it's more fulfilling to have a cause like
bringing down a few notches the corrupt officials, etc.

So we'll see if that's what will happen. They are pretty unpredictable, but I
think they'll get caught up in this and continue doing it for the good of
everyone.

~~~
__rkaup__
What BBC interview?

~~~
aklemm
This one: <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-13912836>

Lots of talk in there about goals beyond lulz.

------
redthrowaway
Curious. Anonymous went after a slough of aussie government and telco sites a
few years ago when the blacklist was announced, but that action was limited to
DDoSes. At the time, there was only a minimal acknowledgement from Conroy et
al of the downtime, and nothing from telcos. This seems to be entirely
different. It seems that Telstra is conflating LulzSec with Anonymous, and
presuming that the blacklist (something Anon hates) will attract the ire of
LulzSec, whose attacks have been far more damaging than Anon's.

It's easy for somebody who follows the issues closely to deride this as
misinformed paranoia, but I wonder what a lay person, even one who had heard
of the two groups, would think about their respective motivations and
capabilities. It could well be that the people who advise on these decisions
simply saw the name "LulzSec" and, knowing something about Internet culture,
assumed they were connected to Anonymous and shared common desires. What's
scarier, that person could rightly be considered an expert on the matter in
most lay groups.

~~~
dekz
LulzSec was actually front page of a newspaper (free) in Australia. I believe
the article was about one of the irc server host owners being arrested.
They've certainly been in the fear mongering propaganda.

~~~
andyking
The Sun in the UK (don't blame me, I work on a radio station and we get it
there!) had LulzSec on the front page, I think twice this week.

Once when someone got arrested (headline "HACK THE LAD"), and once an 'exposé'
about the arrested teenager sniffing gas (headed "OFF HIS INTERNUT!").

------
BasDirks
If ever the LulzSec issue was one of black and white to me, it has now become
gray.

The symbol of the French revolution was the guillotine. The freedom of the
people wasn't won with good behavior. Just saying.

~~~
cynicalkane
The freedom of the people wasn't won with the guillotine, either. What are you
talking about?

~~~
bluedanieru
The guillotine certainly went a long way toward securing the freedom of
countless peasants, and the effects of the French Revolution reverberated
throughout Europe for the next 100 years at least.

~~~
Helianthus
>The guillotine certainly went a long way toward securing the freedom of
countless peasants

Uh, I disagree. (What did you read? Are you being sarcastic?)

The French Revolution and accompanying Reign of Terror were symptoms if wild
political instability, in which hundreds of people were wrongly killed at the
same time the government troubled itself with renaming every month (for
lulz?).

This instability was seized upon by Napoleon, who restored the rule of law at
the cost of dictatorship and many _extremely_ costly wars.

The effects of the _idealism_ of the French Revolution reverberated around
Europe, yes. But the effects of the blood and turmoil did, as well.

~~~
bluedanieru
You don't think that instability contributed to the ending of feudalism?

------
crag
All bs. It's a funding ploy. I don't believe Telstra _really_ fears LulzSec.
But I bet they can convince the police (government) they do. Means more money
for the project.

~~~
codabrink
I would be more hesitant to doubt the validity of this. I'm sure after
witnessing what happened to Sony, corporations will be a little more hesitant
to deny freedom of use to their users.

------
ordinary
Here's the link to the original article:
[http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/hackers-put-
te...](http://www.theaustralian.com.au/australian-it/hackers-put-telstra-in-
filter-bind/story-e6frgakx-1226081618113)

------
killerswan
We (who care about freedom speech) need to get the politicians to listen to
us...

We need a more effective way to jerk their chain than by committing crimes:
with 4Chan/LulSec, we risk losing the propaganda war, dramatically.

------
Xurinos
Can somebody explain to me why investing in something like CiscoGuard does
_not_ obsolete this kind of attack? Eight years ago I heard about this
technology, the ability to drop packets at line speed, and I have been
confused since that DDOS has remained effective. I understand cost barriers,
but again, that was eight years ago.

~~~
tptacek
My understanding is that Cisco has EOL'd Guard.

Modern switches can also drop packets based on reasonably complex ACLs (which
in practice is much of what DOS products did). The real cost of DDoS attacks
is the focused engineering time required to design and implement mitigation
for each and every one of them.

------
nestlequ1k
Awesome, LulzSec could end up becoming the internet's Batman

~~~
jaxonrice
Don't you think The Joker would be more apt?

~~~
nextparadigms
That's probably the "Jester" hacker. In the end Batman was a vigilante, so I
think it kind of suits them.

------
zmmmmm
Makes me glad I have never given them my credit card info. I bet they are
looking at dozens if not hundreds of unpatched / out of date servers and
realising they are basically wide open with no way to upgrade those things in
anything like the timeframe they have available. In fact, they probably
realised they can't even do an internal audit to find that out in 2 months. In
the past they would probably laugh it off, but seeing what happened to Sony I
bet they are seriously contemplating what could happen to their business.

------
lhnz
I would assume that this 'fear' is really dissenters within the company trying
to create FUD to ward off further censorship or filtering. It's either that or
it is a PR campaign to get more funding.

------
mahmud
LulzSec, as a Telstra customer, thank you!

~~~
Joakal
Are you switching from Telstra though? From seeing how the Internet breaks in
USA [0] and China [1], it's discerning and goes against network neutrality.

Some people I spoke to that are against the Internet filter say they are not
switching because of the contract. I pointed out that the filter is not
voluntary for Telstra customers and so it's not part of contract unless they
remain within a period of time. Then they tell me they don't want change.

[0]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Comcast#Netwo...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Comcast#Network_neutrality)

[1]
[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Google_China#...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Google_China#Controversies)

~~~
mahmud
You can't quit Telstra. It's almost a monopoly in rural Australia.

------
vnchr
Someone high up at Telstra has something to hide

~~~
nextparadigms
You may be right.

------
brianleb
This is certainly an interesting development if at all accurate and not just a
ploy for funding like many claim.

What I think of, though, is that now that Telstra has announced they are
scared of LulzSec (whether or not they really are), they made themselves the
perfect target. They have admitted they are willing to be coerced. So what
should LulzSec do? They should target Telstra hard, immediately, and just sit
on the information. Wait and see what Telstra does, and once they start acting
on something LulzSec doesn't like, threaten to drop the information. And then
of course they will do it anyway at some point because they are in it for the
lulz. But in my mind, Telstra has made themselves target #1 for LulzSec over
the next few days.

