7 ms·

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 aga

by esonica 17y ago

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/slaa2002451/sch1.html http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/cth/consol_act/slaa200245...

astrec 17y ago
No doubt, but the government has thus far proven itself inept with respect to technology let alone counter measures and risk mitigation. A political assault is far more likely: "Anonymous are terrorists, therefore all who protest against government censorship are terrorists or supporters of terrorism." Given we've already been declared pedophiles or supporters of pedophilia this is a bow barely drawn.
dirtbox 17y ago
It wouldn't make any difference. Anonymous isn't a set group of hackers, it's quite literally anyone and everyone that wants to get involved at any moment for any cause whether for fun, such as sabotaging Time's most influential people list, to objecting en-mass to outlandish proposals such as these censorship laws. Labelling Anonymous as terrorists is essentially labelling the general public as terrorists.
- esonica 17y ago
  I feel it would. Imagine a script kiddie in Australia decides to join the DDOS attack on the government site. He is easily traced by IP, and the Australian Federal Police come to visit. His new 'rights', now that he is part of a terror group include: Being held for up to nine days in detention without being formally charged. Warrantless searches The seizure of any objects associated with the terrorist act (this is quite a wide open definition, basically anything you own is up for grabs) Also the AFP have some quite invasive computer techniques that are used to go wandering through your system before they knock on the door.
  - itistoday 17y ago
    > He is easily traced by IP I have a feeling that a group of people calling themselves 'anonymous' have probably heard of torproject.org
    - knome 17y ago
      Wouldn't using an encrypted onion routed network put a bit of a pinch on the amount of DDOS traffic one could push? Not to mention that there is probably an upper bound to the amount of traffic any given exit-node is willing to allow for. How many exit nodes restrict outbound connections to common ports?
      - itistoday 17y ago
        I'm wasn't suggesting that they'd use Tor itself for the DDoS, only that through it they can hide their traces.
        ramchip 17y ago
        AFAIK anons don't have access to botnets and such, they flood from their own computers. Their sheer number makes it 'distributed'. Like when they modified the Times most influential person ranking, it was just a lot of people running an auto-voter on their machine.
        pyre 17y ago
        Well, in this case anon is the botnet.
        ramchip 17y ago
        It's different, and that's the point I wanted to make. A botnet owner could use tor to hide his own computer's address, and let the bots flood freely. Even if a few were traced, he doesn't care. Tor gives him privacy (for his master computer) without compromising his attack potential. A 4chan poster can't do the same thing. He's attacking from his own computer. Either he attacks through tor (slow) or he doesn't (unsafe). Hence why I thought the post above does not make sense for anon's case: he can't hide his traces without channelling the attack through Tor itself.
- dtf 17y ago
  So I guess Anonymous is more like a "brand name" for unconnected groups that perform terrorist actions and have a loosely shared ideology, rather than the title of any distinct, traditional faction having a centralised control and command. Yet it does seem that governments and certain sections of the media like to perpetuate the idea that there is a single shadowy entity called "Anonymous" responsible for all these actions. Anyone know the arabic word for anonymous?
  - pyre 17y ago
    No offense, but you dilute the term 'terrorism' when you use it so wantonly. The point of attacks like this is to be generally annoying, disruptive, and maybe embarrassing (to government officials in this case). TERRORism is about using terror to affect an outcome. Suicide-bombing is a terror attack. Kidnapping people and beheading them is a terror attack. Running around with a bunch of AK-47s, holding small villages hostage (raping,murdering,etc) is terrorism. Crap like this barely registers.
sorbus 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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.
vaksel 17y ago
To me anon is like the guys from fight club. If someone starts fighting them seriously, it's only a matter of time before they get cornered in a bathroom and given the whole "we are everyone..don't fuck with us" speech
- pyre 17y ago
  They may have the whole 'we are everyone' thing going on, but there is no mastermind or organization. There are countless ideas such as this floated, but the only ones that actually happen are the ones that get a critical mass of people interested enough in them to participate and recruit others to participate. Besides, the whole "we are everyone, don't fuck with us" thing was unrealistic. Do you really think that a government official wouldn't just notify the authorities in such a case?
pmccool 17y ago
I disagree. The list you mention is part of the definition of "terrorist act". The definition of "terrorist act" starts by saying: terrorist act" means an action or threat of action where: (a) the action falls within subsection (2) and does not fall within subsection (2A)... The list of things you cite is from subsection (2). However, subsection (2A) reads: (2A) Action falls within this subsection if it: (a) is advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action; and (b) is not intended: (i) to cause serious harm that is physical harm to a person; or (ii) to cause a person's death; or (iii) to endanger the life of a person, other than the person taking the action; or (iv) to create a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public. It's pretty clear to me that this sort of action falls within both subsection (2) (as you pointed out) and subsection (2A). The latter means it wouldn't be within the definition of "terrorist act".

by esonica 17y ago

astrec 17y ago

No doubt, but the government has thus far proven itself inept with respect to technology let alone counter measures and risk mitigation. A political assault is far more likely: "Anonymous are terrorists, therefore all who protest against government censorship are terrorists or supporters of terrorism." Given we've already been declared pedophiles or supporters of pedophilia this is a bow barely drawn.

dirtbox 17y ago

It wouldn't make any difference. Anonymous isn't a set group of hackers, it's quite literally anyone and everyone that wants to get involved at any moment for any cause whether for fun, such as sabotaging Time's most influential people list, to objecting en-mass to outlandish proposals such as these censorship laws. Labelling Anonymous as terrorists is essentially labelling the general public as terrorists.

esonica 17y ago
I feel it would. Imagine a script kiddie in Australia decides to join the DDOS attack on the government site. He is easily traced by IP, and the Australian Federal Police come to visit. His new 'rights', now that he is part of a terror group include: Being held for up to nine days in detention without being formally charged. Warrantless searches The seizure of any objects associated with the terrorist act (this is quite a wide open definition, basically anything you own is up for grabs) Also the AFP have some quite invasive computer techniques that are used to go wandering through your system before they knock on the door.
- itistoday 17y ago
  > He is easily traced by IP I have a feeling that a group of people calling themselves 'anonymous' have probably heard of torproject.org
  - knome 17y ago
    Wouldn't using an encrypted onion routed network put a bit of a pinch on the amount of DDOS traffic one could push? Not to mention that there is probably an upper bound to the amount of traffic any given exit-node is willing to allow for. How many exit nodes restrict outbound connections to common ports?
    - itistoday 17y ago
      I'm wasn't suggesting that they'd use Tor itself for the DDoS, only that through it they can hide their traces.
      - ramchip 17y ago
        AFAIK anons don't have access to botnets and such, they flood from their own computers. Their sheer number makes it 'distributed'. Like when they modified the Times most influential person ranking, it was just a lot of people running an auto-voter on their machine.
        pyre 17y ago
        Well, in this case anon is the botnet.
        ramchip 17y ago
        It's different, and that's the point I wanted to make. A botnet owner could use tor to hide his own computer's address, and let the bots flood freely. Even if a few were traced, he doesn't care. Tor gives him privacy (for his master computer) without compromising his attack potential. A 4chan poster can't do the same thing. He's attacking from his own computer. Either he attacks through tor (slow) or he doesn't (unsafe). Hence why I thought the post above does not make sense for anon's case: he can't hide his traces without channelling the attack through Tor itself.
dtf 17y ago
So I guess Anonymous is more like a "brand name" for unconnected groups that perform terrorist actions and have a loosely shared ideology, rather than the title of any distinct, traditional faction having a centralised control and command. Yet it does seem that governments and certain sections of the media like to perpetuate the idea that there is a single shadowy entity called "Anonymous" responsible for all these actions. Anyone know the arabic word for anonymous?
- pyre 17y ago
  No offense, but you dilute the term 'terrorism' when you use it so wantonly. The point of attacks like this is to be generally annoying, disruptive, and maybe embarrassing (to government officials in this case). TERRORism is about using terror to affect an outcome. Suicide-bombing is a terror attack. Kidnapping people and beheading them is a terror attack. Running around with a bunch of AK-47s, holding small villages hostage (raping,murdering,etc) is terrorism. Crap like this barely registers.

sorbus 17y ago

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 17y ago
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.

vaksel 17y ago

To me anon is like the guys from fight club. If someone starts fighting them seriously, it's only a matter of time before they get cornered in a bathroom and given the whole "we are everyone..don't fuck with us" speech

pyre 17y ago
They may have the whole 'we are everyone' thing going on, but there is no mastermind or organization. There are countless ideas such as this floated, but the only ones that actually happen are the ones that get a critical mass of people interested enough in them to participate and recruit others to participate. Besides, the whole "we are everyone, don't fuck with us" thing was unrealistic. Do you really think that a government official wouldn't just notify the authorities in such a case?

pmccool 17y ago

I disagree. The list you mention is part of the definition of "terrorist act". The definition of "terrorist act" starts by saying: terrorist act" means an action or threat of action where: (a) the action falls within subsection (2) and does not fall within subsection (2A)... The list of things you cite is from subsection (2). However, subsection (2A) reads: (2A) Action falls within this subsection if it: (a) is advocacy, protest, dissent or industrial action; and (b) is not intended: (i) to cause serious harm that is physical harm to a person; or (ii) to cause a person's death; or (iii) to endanger the life of a person, other than the person taking the action; or (iv) to create a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public. It's pretty clear to me that this sort of action falls within both subsection (2) (as you pointed out) and subsection (2A). The latter means it wouldn't be within the definition of "terrorist act".