"it's entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts"
This is quite the hypocritical statement coming from the FBI. As far as I can tell, the only difference between Anonymous, Lulzsec, and the FBI is that the FBI act by executive fiat. I don't support Internet vigilanteism, but I also don't support the concept of the FBI as an untouchable force who are no longer held accountable by the public they are theoretically serving.
At this point, I'm not sure which one I find more scary.
There is no difference between what Lulzsec and Anonymous do, compared with the FBI storming into a data centre without warrants and grabbing hardware.
I think that the FBI isn't really the overblown privacy killing big govt overlords that this lil anon skirmish seems to paint them as. The FBI, for the most part, do a mighty fine job of enforcing the law and keeping the peace. Also the FBI operates largely on a case by case basis, they are not an intelligence or defense agency, they are in the justice department.
I think the orwellian big govt agency these hacker guys seem to base their doctrine against is the NSA. The 'we can listen to any phone call on the planet, imprison our whistle blowers, collect every bit of data on everybody, consume 1/4 of the power of the baltimore metro area for our data centers, have projects so secret you didnt know you didnt know about' NSA. Either anon knows this, and know they stand NO chance hacking the NSA, or theyve been misguided on who to target. my vote is a bit of both... I'm not gonna give you sources on this, but there is plenty of legitimate and credible reading out there to satidify your curisioty.
Also, hi out there to all you intel analysts reading... ;)
The Lulzsec crew and Wiki Leaks strikes a nerve like modern day Robin Hoods. It makes you wonder if those of us in wealthy democracies are actually experiencing a peculiarly 21st century form of passive aggressive oppression where we may be "free" but monitored and essentially feel helpless and the fact that these unknown hackers are able to duck and evade the same forces that can hunt and kill terrorists with disregard of sovereignty makes them look like folk heroes. We'll see how this saga unfolds.
But I think there are some in the groups who have their heart in the right place and want to do the right thing. And, illegal or not, I've yet to see any other form of western activism that is as disruptive as leaking/hacking.
Why does Anonymous focus so much on attacking the US government (and related rich democratic countries) when it could instead be focused on fighting the governments that are actually oppressive? Nothing the US has ever done, even at it's most oppressive, could ever compare to what North Korea does to it's own citizen's on a regular basis. I would probably be much more sympathetic towards their cause if they focused most on attacking the organizations that are the worst rather than attacking the organizations that will get them the most attention. I read somewhere that an Anonymous hacker used to fight oppressive governments in Africa. Why did he stop? Why does he all the sudden need to deface PBS because they printed negative press coverage of their favorite website, WikiLeaks?
Are they really doing this for the good of mankind or are they just trying to get attention? Anonymous though they may be, they still seem to be just trying to get on the 5:00 news.
> Why does Anonymous focus so much on attacking the US government ... when it could instead be focused on fighting the governments that are actually oppressive?
You probably didn't, but I think many people will see an obvious contradiction in that statement.
> Nothing the US has ever done, even at it's most oppressive
However North Korea is not advertising itself around the world and taken seriously as a bastion of freedom, democracy, and human rights. US is while also managing to conduct wars on all continents, drop bombs in countries we are not even at war with (Pakistan), raped South American Continent for years, installed and supported countless of brutal dictators around the world. It has tortured, killed and starved to death (via sanctions countless) countless people.
US is attacked because it exerts the most influence. If you live in Columbia you are more influenced by US policy not North Korea. And that true for many regions and countries around the world. North Korea doesn't control the internet, US does.
"Well, it just seems that there are millions of starving people in Africa. Isn't that a bigger hunger problem to solve than the 2000 homeless people in the city?"
"... Are you serious?"
"Why don't all of you guys in this kitchen just go to Africa, set up soup kitchens there on a bigger scale, and feed millions instead of hundreds? Surely that'd be a better use of your time!"
I certainly agree with their Goals and I see very similar flaws in many governments. I am not sure their way is the best way to make governments listen, but it certainly is one way that gets publicity. The issue with their publicity is that news networks do not broadcast their message, they broadcast their actions which in turn intimidates and scares the less tech-savvy portion of society. This does not achieve their goals, but they make a statement. A statement is better than no statement.
I think there is room for illegal activities in the name of a free and open society. If this is truly the author's goal, however, they need to stop associating with LulzSec.
There was nothing noble about 9/10's of the crap lulzsec did, and the somewhat decent stuff they did was undercut by the whole "for the lulz" philosophy. If you really are fighting for freedom, you need to be better than DDS'ing game servers, because if you aren't the people who you are opposed to will use that shit against you. Like the FBI is doing now.
I won't shed a tear if the Lulzsec folk get put away. I will be quite upset if Lulzsec turns the public against those who would do the modern day equivalent of releasing the pentagon papers.
>If this is truly the author's goal, however, they need to stop associating with LulzSec.
In principle, I agree. The 'internet privacy' movement would be better served if the people who supported it differentiated themselves from the people who are just fucking around. I think a lot of them realize this.
The question "why don't they" has its answer in the dark catacombs of the human psyche. LulzSec and Anonymous draw a lot of their support, i.e. membership, from teenagers who want to feel like the antihero of one of today's popular bildungsroman-turned-polemic, y'know, V for Vendetta, or The Matrix, Avatar, etc. Being somewhat evil is cool, and Anonymous needs to look cool for people to want to be part of it. I'm sure the aforementioned Black Panthers lived on this for a while as well.
Some people did try to break the moral section of the movement away from the lunatic fringe; it was called Enturbulation and later WhyWeProtest, and they went after Scientology and later ACTA. Ultimately, though, WhyWeProtest slowly became irrelevant, because without a steady stream of angry people and plenty of press coverage their membership was decimated by the attrition of boredom and disillusionment. It's still around at http://whyweprotest.net/ but unlike Anonymous you've never heard of them.
I support the EFF and Wikileaks much more readily than I support Anonymous, but at the same time I figure no social change movement has succeeded without a lunatic fringe -- there were plenty of violent people fighting for India's independence, the breakup of the Soviet Union started with a coup, there were multiple violent civil rights activists in the '60s, etc.
So you support the News of the World phone hacking? The only difference between them and anonymous/wikileaks/etc. is that NOTW is using it to support politics you don't like, while the others are using it to support politics you do.
I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this?
We leave the economics to the economists, the physics to the physicists, and the medicine to the doctors. There are people--incompetent or not--who spend their entire lives dealing with government/country related issues. Yes, some of them might be corrupt, but are we naive enough to believe that an entire country is corrupt? Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have?
At one point or another, this argument for civil liberties gets repetitive and overblown. No one I know has ever felt like their freedoms were at stake, and the few government mistakes that the media captures should not be precedence to act against them. I make mistakes, you make mistakes - everyone makes mistakes. Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever.
For starters, people in positions of power have a long history of acting in their own best interests and not the interest of the greater good. Some decisions about our government and country have both arbitrary criteria, and arbitrary outcomes. Historically, politicians will use this ambiguity to bias towards their own interests - including resisting changes that will bring more transparency to the benefits/harms of their "sound decision on the best course of action".
Second, some domains need specialists, some need generalists. To even suggest that we should rely on specialists in all situations is simply a flawed understanding of how knowledge evolves. In particular to running a country, we happen to be at a cycle where the information we use to make very important decisions for the purpose of our national interests is evolving very rapidly. Most likely success means finding new ways to understand information vs applying proven, specialized techniques.
We are not talking about people making mistakes, we are talking about a system that has consistently produced leaders that are incapable of acting in the best interests of their constituency. Its a broken system, and Anonymous / Lulz are making history right now.. they are forcing information to the surface. Their tactics are in fact a solution - setting a precedence to our leaders that their actions will be judged in the future much more openly than they were judged in the past.
And I'll tell you, a world where the individuals in our government system must be openly accountable for the decisions they make, and how those decisions affect others is a better world for all of us. The only other path has been retold countless times in history books, and its so much worse than any disclosure of factual data.
Leaving medicine to doctors is not the same as leaving politics to politicians. One has far stricter requirements than the other. Not everybody can become a doctor. But almost anybody, from teachers to movie stars, can run for politics. There's also the issue of transparency and size of influence. A malpracticing doctor affects his patients and can be sent to prison. A corrupt government affects the entire country, but it's considerably harder to send people that make laws to prison.
Getting incompetent people fired may replace them with a less experienced, but more competent person. I'd value competency over experience.
Leaking information is the only way to justify hacking into the servers. There's no point of hacking in if you're not going to allow the public to see if the government is doing any underhanded actions.
Please don't include passive grubbing for upvotes as a preface to your comments. If you have something to say, even if it's controversial, have the courage to say it plainly without projecting anxiety about karma (of all things).
It's insulting by implication to the community here that expressing a contrary but constructive and well-written opinion would get you "massively down voted." For the most part, other readers can differentiate between constructive comments they disagree with and spammers, griefers, trolls, crapflooders, and trivial one-liners.
>At one point or another, this argument for civil liberties gets repetitive and overblown. No one I know has ever felt like their freedoms were at stake
Really? Make that one person, but there are surely more.
>Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have?
Who are a bunch of flawed humans to judge anything? Physics operates on a totally open system of merit. Economics as well. Doctors are directly responsible to reality. These are sciences. Government is not a science, and it is an intention of the system that the people should be able to evaluate it. From The Federalist #51:
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
Incidentally, we do not "leave medicine to the doctors" in any realistic sense -- there are numerous byzantine legal controls on the medical profession, such as, for example, the FDA. To "leave medicine to the doctors" would be to abolish the FDA, medical malpractice litigation, patient privacy laws, etc.
>Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever.
Ultimately, experience is not a guarantee of competence or even a strong indicator in most fields, be it physics or government. Programming is a notable exception.
>I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this?
I realize it about you, specifically. Would you argue that because of their positions, the heads of the DEA and TSA are necessarily more competent than the vast number of medical, legal, and security experts who argue that their actions are often unnecessary and unjustified? There are people outside the government capable -- perhaps superbly so -- of analyzing the merit of government action.
It is also somewhat if not extremely naive to assume that government officials make decisions from a competent and ethical stance, and that "mistakes" are indeed a result of circumstances rather than malice or neglect. Is it naive to assume a majority of legislators are corrupt? It doesn't matter -- it is possible to look at the evidence, so assumptions are largely unnecessary. When a serious Presidential contender argues that Paul Revere rode to "warn the British", the legitimacy of government can scarcely be assumed.
Is this necessarily to do with giving information to the uneducated public?
Most of the public will not do anything with this information, but I will tell you who will respond: their shareholders and more dangerously their competitors.
Anonymous and Lulzsec are more like 21st century revolutionaries, on a global scale. Revolutionaries are always seen as the enemy by the Government. So it's no surprise that the US Government wants to declare war against them and wants to catch them.
If they win, then the Government changes, and the whole society changes after that. If they lose, they end up dead or in jail for whatever crimes the Government said they committed (and if there isn't a crime they can use, they'll make a new law for it like they tried with the SHIELD bill against whistleblowers)
The hacktivists aren't doing any real damage to society, and in fact they may actually end up helping it a lot, in the same way Wikileaks changed some things for the better, and they were also hunted down by Governments.
The real damage they are doing is to the people in power, and those people will fight to keep things the same and get away with their own crimes against the people they should represent.
I think we'll experience major changes in the way our democracies work by the end of this decade. For the fast times we live in, and real time information and feedback, we can only give some feedback once every 4 years, and it's usually just 2 choices: the one that has been in power, and another one. Politicians need to become a lot more accountable, and our feedback should be a lot more direct and often than once every 4 years through the voting of a party or a president.
I read "Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher" and instantly pictured an executive somewhere rolling his eyes as he reads that.
I understand the feelings disgust with the current state of the system, and I get how in leu of an actual solution one would feel frustrated enough to act out in the ways that they have, but I stand firm in my belief that there is a better way of accomplishing the changes we/they want to see, even if nobody has figured out what that is yet.
As far as some of the more "vandalism / hax0rs having fun" type things like redirecting the Sun's homepage I mostly agree, but the documents they've acquired might cause actual damage to the people they oppose, depending on what they contain. So that portion might be effective.
The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution.
Let's see, "Make impassioned speech then go break into the neighbor's house and scatter his secret documents all over the lawn"
That makes a lot of sense now, doesn't it? Perhaps if you're seven. And drunk.
Aside from the validity of the charges, this manner of social justice never ever works for the people who try it. Good grief, did we learn nothing from Ghandi or MLK Jr.? There's a perfectly legitimate and effective way to denounce injustice. I think either you understand the problems with what they are doing from looking at history or you become so enamored with their cause you allow yourself to become feeble-minded.
I hate the security state that we're living in. But I hate even more people taking it on themselves to administer justice in this fashion. If you make me pick, I'm going with broken security state over anarchists every time -- and there are hundreds of millions of folks just like me. And the the thing I hate worst? Somebody taking _my_ legitimate cause and crapping all over it by doing things like this. It's an attack on freedom-loving people everywhere.
If the local prosecutor lets a murderer go free? I don't go burn the prosecutor's house down. If the local sheriff is corrupt? I don't break into his house and publish his papers in the newspaper. If the guy next door is crooked and in cahoots with the mob? I don't get to break in his house and hand out his property to the poor. In short, the minute I start deciding on my own when to break the law and disrespect other people's property rights because of a cause -- even a legitimate cause -- I become an enemy of everybody. You don't get to wave your hands around angrily pointing out how worthy your cause is and get a free pass. At least not from me.
What are they gonna do when every govt/corporate website starts sanitizing its webapps' input and patching its network services? All they'll be able to do is DoS.
Wouldn't it be funny if the FBI & associated agencies actually worked to increase the security of the nation's networks instead of acting surprised every time they get penetrated?
A significant goal of the movement is to bring to light just how insecure systems can be, and to not trust those who fail to protect. And to claim all they could do then is to DoS is the same BS write-off that you hear around here everyday, which is also disproven daily. Nothing is ever that secure.
But do you really think all this will cause govts/corporations the get more serious about security? Why now and not a decade, two decades ago?
The statements made by deputy assistant FBI director Steve Chabinsky in this
article clearly seem to be directed at Anonymous and Lulz Security, and we are
happy to provide you with a response.
You state:
"We want to send a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable,
[even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it's entirely
unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts."
Now let us be clear here, Mr. Chabinsky, while we understand that you and
your colleagues may find breaking into websites unacceptable, let us tell
you what WE find unacceptable:
* Governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep
them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece.
* Corporations aiding and conspiring with said governments while taking
advantage at the same time by collecting billions of funds for
federal contracts we all know they can't fulfil.
* Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits
higher, while at the same time being deeply involved in governments around
the world with the only goal to infiltrate and corrupt them enough
so the status quo will never change.
These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to
fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly
includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies.
We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to
us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your
citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir. It is our
mission to help these people and there is nothing - absolutely nothing - you
can possibly to do make us stop.
"The Internet has become so important to so many people that we have to
ensure that the World Wide Web does not become the Wild Wild West."
Let me ask you, good sir, when was the Internet not the Wild Wild West? Do
you really believe you were in control of it at any point? You were not.
That does not mean that everyone behaves like an outlaw. You see, most
people do not behave like bandits if they have no reason to. We become bandits
on the Internet because you have forced our hand. The Anonymous bitchslap rings
through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s. We're back - and we're
not going anywhere. Expect us.
I'm sure most of the people here missed the fact that this is a wake-up call. its meant to make people THINK long and hard about the real issues at hand.
I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a lot of critical thinking going on. It's this reason I support these groups.
Fairly well phrased, although the arguments against 'corporations' and 'conglomerates' are fairly unsubstantial. (in the pastebin, that is, IRL is a different matter)
[+] [-] nathanb|14 years ago|reply
This is quite the hypocritical statement coming from the FBI. As far as I can tell, the only difference between Anonymous, Lulzsec, and the FBI is that the FBI act by executive fiat. I don't support Internet vigilanteism, but I also don't support the concept of the FBI as an untouchable force who are no longer held accountable by the public they are theoretically serving.
At this point, I'm not sure which one I find more scary.
[+] [-] roc|14 years ago|reply
There will always be scofflaws and pranksters. Indeed for our way of life to be assured, they must be able to exist.
The ever-growing reach of the military-espionage-industrial complex is the only real threat.
[+] [-] AndyJPartridge|14 years ago|reply
There is no difference between what Lulzsec and Anonymous do, compared with the FBI storming into a data centre without warrants and grabbing hardware.
None at all. In fact, the FBI did more damage.
[+] [-] ImprovedSilence|14 years ago|reply
I think the orwellian big govt agency these hacker guys seem to base their doctrine against is the NSA. The 'we can listen to any phone call on the planet, imprison our whistle blowers, collect every bit of data on everybody, consume 1/4 of the power of the baltimore metro area for our data centers, have projects so secret you didnt know you didnt know about' NSA. Either anon knows this, and know they stand NO chance hacking the NSA, or theyve been misguided on who to target. my vote is a bit of both... I'm not gonna give you sources on this, but there is plenty of legitimate and credible reading out there to satidify your curisioty.
Also, hi out there to all you intel analysts reading... ;)
[+] [-] jdavid|14 years ago|reply
Maybe the ones with guns.
Today I have not heard of a single case of hackers using guns to make a point, but the government does all of the time.
I can live with all of the hysteria in the world if someone does not mame my body, with blunt objects, explosions, pointy things, or projectiles.
[+] [-] ddw|14 years ago|reply
The FBI on the other hand...
[+] [-] jackpirate|14 years ago|reply
That said, I wouldn't go so far as to call this hypocritical. The FBI at least pretends to have a morally reasonable agenda for its actions.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] flocial|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lhnz|14 years ago|reply
Bad-taste jokes and troublemaking.
Badly written manifestos.
But I think there are some in the groups who have their heart in the right place and want to do the right thing. And, illegal or not, I've yet to see any other form of western activism that is as disruptive as leaking/hacking.
[+] [-] mike-cardwell|14 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/94033541196824576
"We're currently working with certain media outlets who have been granted exclusive access to some of the News of the World emails we have."
[+] [-] jxcole|14 years ago|reply
Are they really doing this for the good of mankind or are they just trying to get attention? Anonymous though they may be, they still seem to be just trying to get on the 5:00 news.
[+] [-] rdtsc|14 years ago|reply
You probably didn't, but I think many people will see an obvious contradiction in that statement.
> Nothing the US has ever done, even at it's most oppressive
However North Korea is not advertising itself around the world and taken seriously as a bastion of freedom, democracy, and human rights. US is while also managing to conduct wars on all continents, drop bombs in countries we are not even at war with (Pakistan), raped South American Continent for years, installed and supported countless of brutal dictators around the world. It has tortured, killed and starved to death (via sanctions countless) countless people.
US is attacked because it exerts the most influence. If you live in Columbia you are more influenced by US policy not North Korea. And that true for many regions and countries around the world. North Korea doesn't control the internet, US does.
[+] [-] potatolicious|14 years ago|reply
"Excuse me?"
"Well, it just seems that there are millions of starving people in Africa. Isn't that a bigger hunger problem to solve than the 2000 homeless people in the city?"
"... Are you serious?"
"Why don't all of you guys in this kitchen just go to Africa, set up soup kitchens there on a bigger scale, and feed millions instead of hundreds? Surely that'd be a better use of your time!"
"... Get out."
[+] [-] madmaze|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddw|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rauljara|14 years ago|reply
There was nothing noble about 9/10's of the crap lulzsec did, and the somewhat decent stuff they did was undercut by the whole "for the lulz" philosophy. If you really are fighting for freedom, you need to be better than DDS'ing game servers, because if you aren't the people who you are opposed to will use that shit against you. Like the FBI is doing now.
I won't shed a tear if the Lulzsec folk get put away. I will be quite upset if Lulzsec turns the public against those who would do the modern day equivalent of releasing the pentagon papers.
[+] [-] scythe|14 years ago|reply
In principle, I agree. The 'internet privacy' movement would be better served if the people who supported it differentiated themselves from the people who are just fucking around. I think a lot of them realize this.
The question "why don't they" has its answer in the dark catacombs of the human psyche. LulzSec and Anonymous draw a lot of their support, i.e. membership, from teenagers who want to feel like the antihero of one of today's popular bildungsroman-turned-polemic, y'know, V for Vendetta, or The Matrix, Avatar, etc. Being somewhat evil is cool, and Anonymous needs to look cool for people to want to be part of it. I'm sure the aforementioned Black Panthers lived on this for a while as well.
Some people did try to break the moral section of the movement away from the lunatic fringe; it was called Enturbulation and later WhyWeProtest, and they went after Scientology and later ACTA. Ultimately, though, WhyWeProtest slowly became irrelevant, because without a steady stream of angry people and plenty of press coverage their membership was decimated by the attrition of boredom and disillusionment. It's still around at http://whyweprotest.net/ but unlike Anonymous you've never heard of them.
I support the EFF and Wikileaks much more readily than I support Anonymous, but at the same time I figure no social change movement has succeeded without a lunatic fringe -- there were plenty of violent people fighting for India's independence, the breakup of the Soviet Union started with a coup, there were multiple violent civil rights activists in the '60s, etc.
[+] [-] smallblacksun|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shenglong|14 years ago|reply
I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this?
We leave the economics to the economists, the physics to the physicists, and the medicine to the doctors. There are people--incompetent or not--who spend their entire lives dealing with government/country related issues. Yes, some of them might be corrupt, but are we naive enough to believe that an entire country is corrupt? Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have?
At one point or another, this argument for civil liberties gets repetitive and overblown. No one I know has ever felt like their freedoms were at stake, and the few government mistakes that the media captures should not be precedence to act against them. I make mistakes, you make mistakes - everyone makes mistakes. Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever.
Edit: Edited out a preface - wasn't aware. Sorry.
[+] [-] jonmc12|14 years ago|reply
For starters, people in positions of power have a long history of acting in their own best interests and not the interest of the greater good. Some decisions about our government and country have both arbitrary criteria, and arbitrary outcomes. Historically, politicians will use this ambiguity to bias towards their own interests - including resisting changes that will bring more transparency to the benefits/harms of their "sound decision on the best course of action".
Second, some domains need specialists, some need generalists. To even suggest that we should rely on specialists in all situations is simply a flawed understanding of how knowledge evolves. In particular to running a country, we happen to be at a cycle where the information we use to make very important decisions for the purpose of our national interests is evolving very rapidly. Most likely success means finding new ways to understand information vs applying proven, specialized techniques.
We are not talking about people making mistakes, we are talking about a system that has consistently produced leaders that are incapable of acting in the best interests of their constituency. Its a broken system, and Anonymous / Lulz are making history right now.. they are forcing information to the surface. Their tactics are in fact a solution - setting a precedence to our leaders that their actions will be judged in the future much more openly than they were judged in the past.
And I'll tell you, a world where the individuals in our government system must be openly accountable for the decisions they make, and how those decisions affect others is a better world for all of us. The only other path has been retold countless times in history books, and its so much worse than any disclosure of factual data.
[+] [-] hardy263|14 years ago|reply
Getting incompetent people fired may replace them with a less experienced, but more competent person. I'd value competency over experience.
Leaking information is the only way to justify hacking into the servers. There's no point of hacking in if you're not going to allow the public to see if the government is doing any underhanded actions.
[+] [-] Perceval|14 years ago|reply
It's insulting by implication to the community here that expressing a contrary but constructive and well-written opinion would get you "massively down voted." For the most part, other readers can differentiate between constructive comments they disagree with and spammers, griefers, trolls, crapflooders, and trivial one-liners.
[+] [-] enjalot|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ddw|14 years ago|reply
But we don't really. Are economists deciding if the U.S. will default in less than two weeks?
They can't even come to a conclusion on climate change.
[+] [-] scythe|14 years ago|reply
Really? Make that one person, but there are surely more.
>Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have?
Who are a bunch of flawed humans to judge anything? Physics operates on a totally open system of merit. Economics as well. Doctors are directly responsible to reality. These are sciences. Government is not a science, and it is an intention of the system that the people should be able to evaluate it. From The Federalist #51:
"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."
Incidentally, we do not "leave medicine to the doctors" in any realistic sense -- there are numerous byzantine legal controls on the medical profession, such as, for example, the FDA. To "leave medicine to the doctors" would be to abolish the FDA, medical malpractice litigation, patient privacy laws, etc.
>Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
Ultimately, experience is not a guarantee of competence or even a strong indicator in most fields, be it physics or government. Programming is a notable exception.
>I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this?
I realize it about you, specifically. Would you argue that because of their positions, the heads of the DEA and TSA are necessarily more competent than the vast number of medical, legal, and security experts who argue that their actions are often unnecessary and unjustified? There are people outside the government capable -- perhaps superbly so -- of analyzing the merit of government action.
It is also somewhat if not extremely naive to assume that government officials make decisions from a competent and ethical stance, and that "mistakes" are indeed a result of circumstances rather than malice or neglect. Is it naive to assume a majority of legislators are corrupt? It doesn't matter -- it is possible to look at the evidence, so assumptions are largely unnecessary. When a serious Presidential contender argues that Paul Revere rode to "warn the British", the legitimacy of government can scarcely be assumed.
[+] [-] lhnz|14 years ago|reply
Most of the public will not do anything with this information, but I will tell you who will respond: their shareholders and more dangerously their competitors.
That is where you should apply pressure.
[+] [-] nextparadigms|14 years ago|reply
If they win, then the Government changes, and the whole society changes after that. If they lose, they end up dead or in jail for whatever crimes the Government said they committed (and if there isn't a crime they can use, they'll make a new law for it like they tried with the SHIELD bill against whistleblowers)
The hacktivists aren't doing any real damage to society, and in fact they may actually end up helping it a lot, in the same way Wikileaks changed some things for the better, and they were also hunted down by Governments.
The real damage they are doing is to the people in power, and those people will fight to keep things the same and get away with their own crimes against the people they should represent.
I think we'll experience major changes in the way our democracies work by the end of this decade. For the fast times we live in, and real time information and feedback, we can only give some feedback once every 4 years, and it's usually just 2 choices: the one that has been in power, and another one. Politicians need to become a lot more accountable, and our feedback should be a lot more direct and often than once every 4 years through the voting of a party or a president.
[+] [-] click170|14 years ago|reply
I understand the feelings disgust with the current state of the system, and I get how in leu of an actual solution one would feel frustrated enough to act out in the ways that they have, but I stand firm in my belief that there is a better way of accomplishing the changes we/they want to see, even if nobody has figured out what that is yet.
[+] [-] _delirium|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fleitz|14 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
[+] [-] ibejoeb|14 years ago|reply
Lulz: consider this constructive criticism. Take it down a notch.
[+] [-] JonnieCache|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jellicle|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] caf|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ikrima|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|14 years ago|reply
Let's see, "Make impassioned speech then go break into the neighbor's house and scatter his secret documents all over the lawn"
That makes a lot of sense now, doesn't it? Perhaps if you're seven. And drunk.
Aside from the validity of the charges, this manner of social justice never ever works for the people who try it. Good grief, did we learn nothing from Ghandi or MLK Jr.? There's a perfectly legitimate and effective way to denounce injustice. I think either you understand the problems with what they are doing from looking at history or you become so enamored with their cause you allow yourself to become feeble-minded.
I hate the security state that we're living in. But I hate even more people taking it on themselves to administer justice in this fashion. If you make me pick, I'm going with broken security state over anarchists every time -- and there are hundreds of millions of folks just like me. And the the thing I hate worst? Somebody taking _my_ legitimate cause and crapping all over it by doing things like this. It's an attack on freedom-loving people everywhere.
If the local prosecutor lets a murderer go free? I don't go burn the prosecutor's house down. If the local sheriff is corrupt? I don't break into his house and publish his papers in the newspaper. If the guy next door is crooked and in cahoots with the mob? I don't get to break in his house and hand out his property to the poor. In short, the minute I start deciding on my own when to break the law and disrespect other people's property rights because of a cause -- even a legitimate cause -- I become an enemy of everybody. You don't get to wave your hands around angrily pointing out how worthy your cause is and get a free pass. At least not from me.
</rant>
[+] [-] tRAS|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] peterwwillis|14 years ago|reply
Wouldn't it be funny if the FBI & associated agencies actually worked to increase the security of the nation's networks instead of acting surprised every time they get penetrated?
[+] [-] JonnieCache|14 years ago|reply
If that actually happens as a direct result of lulzsec, I submit that they should be given some sort of medal, and their choice of pacific islands.
[+] [-] scythe|14 years ago|reply
That's among their stated goals.
[+] [-] hack_edu|14 years ago|reply
But do you really think all this will cause govts/corporations the get more serious about security? Why now and not a decade, two decades ago?
[+] [-] feal|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nuclear_eclipse|14 years ago|reply
We recently stumbled across the following article with amazement and a certain amount of amusement:
http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-...
The statements made by deputy assistant FBI director Steve Chabinsky in this article clearly seem to be directed at Anonymous and Lulz Security, and we are happy to provide you with a response.
You state:
Now let us be clear here, Mr. Chabinsky, while we understand that you and your colleagues may find breaking into websites unacceptable, let us tell you what WE find unacceptable:* Governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece.
* Corporations aiding and conspiring with said governments while taking advantage at the same time by collecting billions of funds for federal contracts we all know they can't fulfil.
* Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher, while at the same time being deeply involved in governments around the world with the only goal to infiltrate and corrupt them enough so the status quo will never change.
These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies.
We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir. It is our mission to help these people and there is nothing - absolutely nothing - you can possibly to do make us stop.
Let me ask you, good sir, when was the Internet not the Wild Wild West? Do you really believe you were in control of it at any point? You were not.That does not mean that everyone behaves like an outlaw. You see, most people do not behave like bandits if they have no reason to. We become bandits on the Internet because you have forced our hand. The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s. We're back - and we're not going anywhere. Expect us.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] pxlpshr|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dwilson718|14 years ago|reply
I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a lot of critical thinking going on. It's this reason I support these groups.
[+] [-] rheide|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joelmichael|14 years ago|reply