

Anonymous hacks Australian Government in response to Internet censorship - go37pi
http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/operation-titstorm-hackers-bring-down-government-websites-20100210-nqku.html

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esonica
I thinks its only a matter of time before Anonymous gets labelled a terrorist
organisation to increase the counter measures / invasive laws that can be used
against them.

Disrupting Goverment sites and services would be considered as an attack as
per the Australian Terrorism definition:

(e) seriously interferes with, seriously disrupts, or destroys, an electronic
system including, but not limited to

(i) an information system; or

(ii) a telecommunications system; or

(iii) a financial system; or

(iv) a system used for the delivery of essential government services; or

(v) a system used for, or by, an essential public utility; or

(vi) a system used for, or by, a transport system.

[http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/slaa200245...](http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/slaa2002451/sch1.html)

~~~
sorbus
It would be like punching mist. Hell, if someone gets in jail for being part
of anonymous (or, more accurately, for participating in a DDoS advocated by
people under the banner of anonymous, or even more likely for having their
wifi used by someone to participate in such a DDoS), it will just make all the
others more angry. Fighting them would be like fighting tor, or bittorrent;
highly distributed, highly decentralized, with no real command structure, and
no allegiance to any single website (if one goes down or is monitored, they
can always move elsewhere). It's not even an organization, in the old sense;
you might as well say that slashdot or HN are organizations[1]. On the upside?
Most of them, most of the time, don't care - except when someone makes them
angry, they seem fairly passive, more interested in their own amusement than
anything else (yes, I occasionally lurk on 4chan) - and even then, there are
probably only a few thousand who actually participate in things like this [not
that I have actual numbers to support this, but still - someone who's more
interested could start lurking on IRC channels mentioned in image macros (such
as the one in the article) and keep track of how many unique individuals show
up].

Or you could always kill them off by destroying anonymity in the internet -
force everyone to use their real names everywhere, to provide concrete
linkages to real personalities. That's the only way to stop people from taking
advantage of anonymity.

I'm sorry that this turned into a rant; it was originally going to be a lot
shorter. I just kept on thinking of things to add, you see ... and I haven't
ranted for a while.

[1] Lots of like-minded people, who read content on sites, post content, and
occasionally take action/respond to that content, when it means something to
them, or is so easy that there's no reason not to.

~~~
jonny_noog
I'm not wishing to argue that labeling Anonymous as a terrorist orgainsation
would be a good thing (it would be monumentally retarded, which is why I also
think there's a good chance it will happen at some point, I have little faith
in government common sense these days) but this problem of how to handle these
distributed non-orgnaisations that we see today is quite relevant to the way
governments were/are trying to handle terrorism. I remember watching a
documentary - I think it was called _The Power of Nightmares_ \- that stated
amongst other things that after 9/11 the US Government basically began using
laws originally designed to combat organised crime (Mafia et al) and applying
them to these new, relatively flat, loosely organised and decentralised groups
with very little success, primarily because there was no command structure
similar what they had been used to dealing with.

Governments are still wrestling with what to do about this issue I think. It
seems that the best solution they have so far come up with is reducing civil
liberty and surveilling everyone. Not ideal from my POV.

Not to mention that as the saying goes, one man's terrorist is another man's
freedom fighter.

~~~
ytinas
Kudos for watching _The Power of Nightmares_ , but did you miss the part where
they pointed out [b]that these organizations are largely fictional and used as
a tool by governments to appear more necessary than they are[/b]? The
government isn't working on how to deal with fictional "flat, loosely
organized and decentralized groups", it's working on how to make it look like
we need government protection from the ultimate boogie man.

~~~
jonny_noog
No, I watched it all, just a long time ago and had forgotten most of it, to be
honest. But I had not forgotten the overall thrust of the programme.

To try and clarify my view a bit, IMO the terrorist "groups" we hear about
today are more like Anonymous than they are like the fictional villainous
organisations one might see in a James Bond movie, i.e. they're not even
really organisations at all, they're just individuals or tiny groups, barely
associated with each other at best, who happen to have similar positions on
certain issues. But I wanted to make this point without sounding like I
thought Anonymous should be branded as terrorists, because I don't.

I get that after 9/11, the entire western world's governments went well
overboard, amazingly allowing the military industrial complex to write their
own cheques, using scare tactics to allow this to continue. I knew this full
well long before I saw _The Power of Nightmares_. Before I say what else I
have to say, I again don't wish my position to be misconstrued, I'm not
advocating for the usual government policies, I'm aware of how insignificant
the threat of terrorism is when compared to other threats of the day that face
our society and I usually find myself pretty firmly on the social-libertarian
side of just about any debate. As you say: "these organizations are _largely_
fictional" (emphasis added) and I totally agree. I cannot reconcile any view
that we do not need _some_ degree of vigilance when it comes to (the no doubt
few and far between) individuals and small groups that are out there and do
wish to perpetrate terrorist acts.

So following on from this, yes, terrorism is an overinflated menace and it
continues to be overinflated for numerous reasons, most of which revolve
around certain areas of government and private industry partners who have
vested interests in keeping the public scared in order to maintain power and
profit. But some part of the overreaction to terrorism does come from a place
of honestly thinking they're doing the right thing, misguided though they may
be. Some _very small_ part of the usual government reaction to terrorism is -
in my mind - sanctioned and required because terrorism while a largely
overinflated boogie man, does none the less still exist. I don't wish to throw
the baby out with the bathwater.

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monkeygrinder
As an expat Aussie, the direction the government has taken has saddened, but
not shocked me. This is a country famous for having what the Register used to
call 'The world's biggest Luddite' Richard Alston appointed as Minister of the
Digital Economy. There has been a change of government since those times, but
not much seems to have changed.

While the idea of censoring certain content types like child porn may be seen
as a good things, the issue is that the Net could become a tool of the
government. The laws could extend to discrimination of minority groups - and
Australia would become like China.

[http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/feb2008/gb2008...](http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/feb2008/gb2008026_169365.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_global+business)

This article points out that questions remain: there is a lack of detail on
what will constitute illegal content, how decisions will be made, and how the
filtering technology itself will work. It also said Australia is not the only
Western democratic country to look at web filtering - Scandinavia and UK have
web filtering. The Oz govt just failed to stem the tide of outrage and bad
press.

I'm also against getting rid of anonymity on the net, ie forcing everyone to
use their full name, for the simple reason that some rogue governments in some
countries are persecuting groups and the internet can be a powerful tool for
them. Imagine if Mandela and the ANC had the net in the 50s.

It's a hugely sticky issue though.

------
njharman
This is so awesome. It's like I'm living in near future cyberpunk novel. With
vigilante hacker groups fighting the evil and oppressive
corpora^H^H^H^H^H^Hgovernment.

~~~
joeyo
William Gibson's prescience continues to frighten me. Unless the causality
goes the other way, then it frightens me even more.

 _"Chaos, Mr. Who," Lupus Yonderboy said. "That is our mode and modus. That is
our central kick."_

Or, in the parlance of our times, they do it for the lulz.

------
chaosmachine
<http://www.aph.gov.au/>

The Parliament of Australia site is down.

------
teej
"The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it." -- John
Gilmore

------
tdm911
whilst i agree with their protesting of our governments unnecessary proposals
on censoring australia, their methods are not helping.

a ddos attack on the government only gives the government more ammunition to
paint the average protester as a criminal or someone who is trying to harm the
government. a peaceful protest is far more effective.

~~~
nzmsv
Is there anyone on the net who thinks this filter is a good idea? Pretty much
the only people who do are the ones who don't even use the Web, and just keep
shouting that it's inherently evil. Oh, and the ones with the government
contract to implement the filter.

When no one will listen to the people who will actually be affected by this,
what other options are left?

~~~
jstevens85
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/01/2433845.htm?si...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/12/01/2433845.htm?site=news)

This is probably the only article I've read that is pro-filter.

"Oh, and the ones with the government contract to implement the filter."

The government body ACMA will maintain a list of blacklisted websites (which
already occurs, although pointless at this stage). I understand it will be the
responsibility of the individual ISPs to choose how to block those websites.

