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  • Author Author: Catwell
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Anonymous petition for full legalization of DDOS, now a form of protest

Catwell

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Anonymous emblem. Symbolizing a leaderless organization and anonymity.

 

Boycotts and sit-ins were instrumental strategies in the civil rights movement mid 20th century. Not only were these actions effective but they were expressions of first amendment rights. Now, the group Anonymous is exercising another first amendment right by creating a digital petition to make distributed denial of service (DDoS) a legitimate form of protest. Unfortunately, neither Anonymous nor DDoS protests have created a good reputation for themselves in the eyes of the US gov, which will probably reflect in any decision made. Still, I’ll choose to be the tragic optimist.

 

 

Anonymous decided to make a petition on the White House’s website “We the People” (petitions.whitehouse.com). Over 25,000 signatures means it will get attention from the Obama Administration but does not guarantee a pass into the legislative or judicial branch.

 

 

In the past, people have been arrested for involvement in DDoS protests. A person was even arrested for an uploaded video that referred to a DDoS attack that never took place. Anonymous wants these individuals to be released and have their records wiped clean of any criminal wrongdoing. Anonymous says DDoS attacks are equivalent to “repeatedly clicking the refresh button on a website” so obviously, they are very different from hacking.

 

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Civil disobedience is still disobedience. Infamous mace cop making history. (via LM)

 

Although the move seems to make sense from a constitutional standpoint, the various authorities were not very sentimental towards the occupy movement, which was itself, mostly composed of peaceful protests. A quick search for “mace cop” will show the establishments feelings about peaceful protest. (Also fun to see what people have done with the Mace Cop.) It is unlikely the DDoS petition will receive unbiased consideration.

 

 

Although certain DDoS attacks have been orchestrated against private companies like SONY, Anonymous has also targeted the FBI and other authorities. But perhaps the biggest reason why the US govt. will not grant this petition a passage to law is that DDoS poses a potential for foreign attack. Supposedly, the Iranian government was behind an attack that targeted bank websites, which would surely be a reason to deny the legitimization of DDoS attacks as protest. In 2012, DDoS attacks were conducted against almost every US bank. These attacks mainly flooded HTTP GET, UDP, ICMP and the SYN levels of networks. They lasted up to 32 hours and used about 5.9 Gbps.

 

 

The nature of this petition brings up a very important point. DDoS attacks disrupt services, and they could be abused (as with anything), but they also demonstrate that the online community has some of the same abilities in the virtual world, as human citizens have in the real world. By losing these forms of expression, we continue to see loss of rights in the government’s continued efforts to dictate our actions, this time, telling us we can’t refresh our web pages excessively.

 

 

The petition has until February 6th to gain official recognition. It has nearly 6,000 digital signatures as of Jan. 27. (I think people are scared to attach their names to this petition.)

 

Cabe

http://twitter.com/Cabe_e14

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  • As someone who works in the online sphere, has seen brute force attacks on servers, and has previously lost their job as a direct result of the actions of so-called hacktivists I cannot agree that DDoS should be considered as a legitimate tool of protest. It's worth remembering when Anonymous decided to take down PayPal that while PayPal can likely absorb the hit the small and medium size businesses that rely on it's services and have lost valuable business likely cannot.

     

     

    IRL protest marches, sit ins, petitions, flash mobs and events such as occupy have one thing in common. They are group demonstrations.

    They show a level of commitment by varying numbers of people in reaction to an organisation, activity or state of affairs.

     

    By contrast DDoS are easily organised by individuals or small groups. Someone running a script and crashing a site in no way puts forward a populist point of view.

    Essentially what Anonymous are requesting is the legal right for a faceless group of individuals to do genuine harm to institutions, businesses and individuals to further their own agenda. As DAB says if a group of people genuinely have an issue with a business or organisation there are a wide variety of other protest techniques that are just as effective and show a genuine public protest (Protests against Starbucks in the UK in the last few months being a notable example). As someone who works with social media, online campaigns and organised boycotts, or making regulators aware of issues is far more effective and socially useful.

     


    The online community has a voice, can and does protest. The effectiveness of the net and social media has been actively demonstrated during the Arab Spring.
    People are not scared to protest and put their names and voices to causes they believe in.
    They are legitimately afraid of small groups of faceless individuals using threats to further the personal agendas.

     

     

     

     

    For another example of why I can't support Anonymous, LolSec or simialr groups you may want to check Wired.com

Comment

  • As someone who works in the online sphere, has seen brute force attacks on servers, and has previously lost their job as a direct result of the actions of so-called hacktivists I cannot agree that DDoS should be considered as a legitimate tool of protest. It's worth remembering when Anonymous decided to take down PayPal that while PayPal can likely absorb the hit the small and medium size businesses that rely on it's services and have lost valuable business likely cannot.

     

     

    IRL protest marches, sit ins, petitions, flash mobs and events such as occupy have one thing in common. They are group demonstrations.

    They show a level of commitment by varying numbers of people in reaction to an organisation, activity or state of affairs.

     

    By contrast DDoS are easily organised by individuals or small groups. Someone running a script and crashing a site in no way puts forward a populist point of view.

    Essentially what Anonymous are requesting is the legal right for a faceless group of individuals to do genuine harm to institutions, businesses and individuals to further their own agenda. As DAB says if a group of people genuinely have an issue with a business or organisation there are a wide variety of other protest techniques that are just as effective and show a genuine public protest (Protests against Starbucks in the UK in the last few months being a notable example). As someone who works with social media, online campaigns and organised boycotts, or making regulators aware of issues is far more effective and socially useful.

     


    The online community has a voice, can and does protest. The effectiveness of the net and social media has been actively demonstrated during the Arab Spring.
    People are not scared to protest and put their names and voices to causes they believe in.
    They are legitimately afraid of small groups of faceless individuals using threats to further the personal agendas.

     

     

     

     

    For another example of why I can't support Anonymous, LolSec or simialr groups you may want to check Wired.com

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