
Anonymous stops dropping DDoS bombs, starts dropping science - fredoliveira
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/12/09/anonymous-stops-drop.html
======
pigbucket
The focus of a large portion of media coverage here in the United States since
the cables were released has been on the political response to Wikileaks'
action, on the allegations of Wikileaks' criminality, on the severing of ties
with the organization by major corporations in response to Lieberman et al.,
and on Assange and his legal woes. All of that is newsworthy, but it has come
at the cost of focusing on the stories told by the cables themselves. The
things said and done by US agents, in the name of the American people, have
been, to judge by the cables I've read, sometimes good, sometimes innocuous,
and sometimes unconscionably unethical and criminal. I'm all in favor of any
action that brings the focus back where it belongs, and tries to defeat what I
suspect has been a deliberate, massive US campaign of noise and distraction,
albeit a campaign that increasingly seems of a rather dated style. I'll be
massively impressed if Anon can achieve anything close to those stated ends. I
understand people's skepticism, and even the occasional condescension, but I'm
not ready to dismiss a phenomenon I don't really understand just because the
participants are unseasoned and untutored in the art of studied apathy.

~~~
dkarl
I've read the "best of" coverage of the leaked cables, and honestly, speaking
as somebody who usually doesn't have a problem getting interested in world
affairs, it didn't seem like there were any big revelations. The coverage was
all along the lines of, "Everybody knew this, but it's
humorous/scandalous/juicy that somebody got caught saying it." If Anonymous
finds anything shocking in the cables, they will make the MSM look lazy and
incompetent.

~~~
ThomPete
As I understand it the point of the leaks or not the documents per se but the
actual leak of them.

As stated elsewhere

 _According to his essay, Julian Assange is trying to do something else.
Because we all basically know that the US state — like all states — is
basically doing a lot of basically shady things basically all the time, simply
revealing the specific ways they are doing these shady things will not be, in
and of itself, a necessarily good thing. In some cases, it may be a bad thing,
and in many cases, the provisional good it may do will be limited in scope.
The question for an ethical human being — and Assange always emphasizes his
ethics — has to be the question of what exposing secrets will actually
accomplish, what good it will do, what better state of affairs it will bring
about. And whether you buy his argument or not, Assange has a clearly
articulated vision for how Wikileaks’ activities will “carry us through the
mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity,” a
strategy for how exposing secrets will ultimately impede the production of
future secrets. The point of Wikileaks — as Assange argues — is simply to make
Wikileaks unnecessary._

[http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-
an...](http://zunguzungu.wordpress.com/2010/11/29/julian-assange-and-the-
computer-conspiracy-%E2%80%9Cto-destroy-this-invisible-government%E2%80%9D/)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
This seems naive to me in at least two ways.

That revealing past secrets will somehow make governments more transparent -
they'll use encryption and off-record remarks, watch what they say, ensure
records are destroyed, tighten security protocols. But IMO, and it is just
that, they will still keep the same secrets and have the same covert
conversations and exchange the same messages.

~~~
ThomPete
Assanges point is that the harder you make it to be secretive the less
conspiracies you will get (he uses a somewhat different definition of
conspiracies)

It's not by any metrics naive it's exactly what is going on right now.
Overreactions decreasing the ability to communicate. That's what Assange by
his own words are after.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Assanges point is that the harder you make it to be secretive the less
conspiracies you will get

If someone wants to whisper something in your friends ear, and seeing it you
step closer, does the third party whisperer quit or do they usher you friend
away so that they can keep the secret?

Making it harder to keep secrets means that people are more secretive.

Decreasing the ability for people to communicate is not at all a good thing
IMO. If diplomats can't do their job, acting as intermediaries and smoothing
over relationships between countries then I don't think that is going to help
anyone unless they desire anarchy.

>It's not by any metrics naive it's exactly what is going on right now.

Could you expand on this I'm not at all clear what you're saying.

~~~
ThomPete
It's not about keeping secrets but about communicating them.

You are making it harder to communicate thus you are making conspiracies
harder. You are slowing down things.

------
knowaveragejoe
Dunno about science, but this seems like it may actually further wikileaks'
goals, as opposed to attacking corporations that are only defending themselves
legally.

------
bittersweet
This seems interesting and a lot less 'illegal'. There has been 1 arrest so
far that I know of, a 16 year old kid from the Netherlands has been arrested
for being a part of the MasterCard DDoS. [0]

[0] [http://tweakers.net/nieuws/71259/politie-
arresteert-16-jarig...](http://tweakers.net/nieuws/71259/politie-
arresteert-16-jarige-jongen-voor-ddos-aanval-op-mastercard.html) (dutch)

------
jdp23
Good pivot.

~~~
smokeyj
This seems overly strategic for an internet group. They started gaining
traction DDOSing small sites, taking them down, gaining publicity/support, and
moving to a bigger target. Now they're using momentum provided by their huge
publicity to do something useful. It's like a marketing strategists viral wet
dream.

~~~
fredoliveira
Collective consciousness is certainly more powerful than that of an individual
in most cases, so it doesn't surprise me that they're coming up with a
strategy to actually further their goals.

It is also worth noting that this is perhaps the first Anon initiative that
the average joe will agree with (and maybe - just maybe - be inclined to help
with).

------
zachbeane
Hey, cool, they used my Lisp program to make it.

<http://wigflip.com/roflbot/>

~~~
mcantor
I would be extremely grateful if you open-sourced roflbot. I've been meaning
to learn lisp for a while, and an app like this seems like a perfect place to
start by perusing its source.

~~~
zachbeane
Sorry. I make money selling it, and don't want to give it away.

Many of the libraries involved are available from <http://xach.com/lisp/> and
<https://github.com/xach/> though.

~~~
mcantor
It's all good! Enjoy the cash; you have earned it!

Thanks for the references.

------
trotsky
Boing boing cherry picking the only thing they approve of out of the chaos?
There's no evidence that any of the ddos'ers are on board with this at all.

The most amusing thing is the comments section getting bent out of shape at
the use of 'gentlemen' in the image as not being inclusive to females. Talk
about a culture clash.

~~~
jfoutz
boing boing cherry picking the only thing they find interesting out of the
chaos?

~~~
kissickas
Boing Boing is the website where the article is, cherry picking is a cliche
for "picking only the best," and there could have been an "Is" at the
beginning. It did take me a minute to understand, though, if that's all you
meant.

~~~
trotsky
he did s/approve of/find interesting/

------
Rhapso
Much better Anon, much better.

------
orblivion
Not the first time, they did the same thing with Scientology. Though back then
it seemed to be an outgrowth rather than the core group that did it.

------
lhnn
Let's see how many anons go from downloading and running LOIC to analyzing
documents and uploading audio on Youtube.

~~~
hartror
I would not be surprised by a decent response to this, plenty of Anon got out
of their parent's basements to the Co$ protests. This doesn't require leaving
the computer, a far easier proposition for most I would expect.

~~~
jgoewert
Would it confuse you to find that a decent sized portion of anon are the type
of people that tuck their kids in at night in the suburban ranch-style house
before returning to their personal crusade to extract justice from a system
that protects the morally bankrupt?

Or, are we just deciding to play on the usual stereotype.

Also, is hanging around in a spot in meatspace with other people a more
effective means to a goal than a direct action that is performed online? When
you sell software, are you walking door to door? Or selling online? Would it
be fair to call you "a lazy basement-dweller" since you don't walk door to
door selling software?

Does this statement seem deragatory to you? "This (selling online) doesn't
require leaving the computer, a far easier proposition for most I would
expect."

