9 ms·
Anonymous stops dropping DDoS bombs, starts dropping science
- jdp23 16y agoGood pivot.
- flatline 16y agoIndeed. Seeding the data everywhere and in plain sight has been a successful tactic in the past, especially for Anon during the Scientology raids. This is similar - government employees are not allowed to view the material, so its proliferation could actually be problematic for some people and cause more of a bureaucratic nightmare than already exists. In terms of any actual usefulness to their analysis, that remains to be seen.
- huhtenberg 16y ago> during the Scientology raids How did that end by the way?
- fredoliveira 16y agoNo huge impact on Scientology as a whole, but it did raise awareness about the cult which I consider a good thing.
- nnnnnnnnnnnn 16y agoI would say that you characterisation of Anon as a cult is pretty accurate. A trollish, publicity-seeking cult, but a cult nonetheless.
- harpastum 16y agoI believe fredoliveira was calling scientology a cult, not Anonymous.
- fredoliveira 16y agoHis freshly-created account in certainly not a coincidence.
- fredoliveira 16y agoI see what you did there, and wish I could down-vote you. To be clear and explicit (because my original post can indeed be interpreted wrong), when I said cult, I was referring to Scientology. (I do find it quite ironic that you chose to troll while calling Anon "trollish" too.)
- nnnnnnnnnnnn 16y agoI would like to remind you of 4chan's official motto: trolls trolling trolls. I love how the response to my ironic post is ad-hominem attacks and calls to come out with the downvote pitchforks... Are we on reddit?
- harry 16y agoside note, the church did send out some aggressive DVD & pamphlet sets claiming anonymous was a terrorist organization to anyone they pegged at a protest.
- smokeyj 16y agoThis 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 16y agoCollective 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).
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- mnutt 16y agoNow seems like an ideal time if someone wanted to release a viral infographic video related to the material contained in the leaks. (a la the credit crisis explanation video)
- patrickk 16y agoSuperb idea. Here's the credit crisis video for those who haven't seen it: http://www.vimeo.com/3261363 http://www.vimeo.com/3261363 A nice, clear summary of the Wikileaks cables with some quality graphics could gain serious attention.
- lhnn 16y agoLet's see how many anons go from downloading and running LOIC to analyzing documents and uploading audio on Youtube.
- hartror 16y agoI 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.
- notahacker 16y agoAlso, the media coverage has largely treated Anon and it's missives as a serious resistance movement loosely linked to Wikileaks rather than a collective of bored trolls and pranksters, which means they'll gain a lot of support from people that are serious about uncovering government conspiracies.
- jgoewert 16y agoWould 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."
- vinhboy 16y agoMaybe you can do it, since technically anyone can be Anon.
- die_sekte 16y ago
- knowaveragejoe 16y agoDunno about science, but this seems like it may actually further wikileaks' goals, as opposed to attacking corporations that are only defending themselves legally.
- Rhapso 16y agoMuch better Anon, much better.
- trotsky 16y agoBoing 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 16y agoboing boing cherry picking the only thing they find interesting out of the chaos?
- kissickas 16y agoBoing 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 16y agohe did s/approve of/find interesting/
- praptak 16y agoYes. Has anyone really been far even as decided to use even go want to do look more like?
- jacquesm 16y ago> There's no evidence that any of the ddos'ers are on board with this at all. And given this groups nature I don't think there will be much evidence about anything they do at all, other than initial communications, side effects and occasionally apparently an arrest. That's the nature of the beast, and that is exactly what makes it so hard to come to terms with it for many people that would like to see 'organization'. To the extent that anon has an organization you'd probably have to name them 'core' or something like that and even that does not really do it justice. This is a fairly complex issue and even talking about it I find it hard to pick exactly the right terms without almost automatically falling back to using terms that somehow subtly do not apply. What evidence would satisfy you that some people of some anonymous group are partaking in some activity claiming that they partook in some other activity ?
- orblivion 16y agoNot 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.
- pigbucket 16y agoThe 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 16y agoI'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.
- jackvalentine 16y agoThis is a comment I see a lot of American forums, for those of us elsewhere though the things that our diplomats and politicans have been saying to you guys have been large revelations. Like how one of our mining companies sunk Chinese investment in one of our other mining companies, or how our government really feels about the prospects for Afghanistan. How one of our federal political powerbrokers has been feeding information to the USA about the inside tussles of his party. The revelations won't have any kind of mind-blowing effect, but the cumulative picture they paint is VERY important.
- bittersweet 16y agoThis 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-jarige-jongen-voor-ddos-aanval-op-mastercard.html http://tweakers.net/nieuws/71259/politie-arresteert-16-jarig... (dutch)
- zachbeane 16y agoHey, cool, they used my Lisp program to make it. http://wigflip.com/roflbot/ http://wigflip.com/roflbot/
- mcantor 16y agoI 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 16y agoSorry. 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/ http://xach.com/lisp/ and https://github.com/xach/ https://github.com/xach/ though.
- mcantor 16y agoIt's all good! Enjoy the cash; you have earned it! Thanks for the references.