4 ms·

Revenge Of The Nerds

10 points by bjonathan 15y ago

ENOTTY 15y ago
There's absolutely no real evidence that the same people who DDOS'd PSN in support of Hotz (Anonymous) also stole the credit card numbers (unknown group). There's a text file on a server that claims it's from Anonymous but that's not real proof. The author is buying into Sony's storyline and helping to tar supporters of Hotz with the stain of the hackers who stole credit card numbers. It's misguided at best and dangerous at worst, perpetuating the myth that Anonymous is actually out to do real harm to relatively blameless people when they actually seek to avoid that kind of disproportionate damage. I'd rather not see the DDOS nipped in the bud by criminal statutes when it has a decent claim to being a legitimate form of speech that should be protected.
bruce511 15y ago
The effect being proposed here is not new, but like most things internet it is perhaps new only in terms of the scale. For example, I don't sit in the crowd at a football game wearing blue when all around me are wearing red. I don't walk on the street, in an economically depressed area, at night, with an expensive camera hanging around my neck, talking on an iPhone, and giving the finger to the local homies. There's no evidence that there's any connection between geohot, Anonymous and the recent Sony hacks. But Sony certainly put a big target sign up when they (somewhat vindictively) went after Hotz. They may not even be the worst offender when it comes to drm litigation. When car, after fancy car, rolls through the neighborhood, disrespecting the locals, you gotta expect that sooner or later they'll go past someone with enough criminal tendencies to throw a stone. When the population have no bread it may be king and not cake they end up eating. The internet is a big neighborhood - and when the law is out of touch with the mood of the people then there's always some backlash. Sooner or later stones will get thrown. The music labels, for one, could do worse than to think about such things.
wyclif 15y ago
This post is fluff at best, and linkbait at worst. I don't know how it wound up on the HN front page, other than on Wilson's name recognition as a major VC: Companies and governments should not underestimate the power of hacker culture to extract revenge on institutions they feel have wronged them. Unfortunately, it looks like Sony did just that and is now dealing with the repurcussions. I'm afraid Wilson's conclusion doesn't follow. Sony was running an unpatched version of Apache on its servers without a firewall. So, I think it would be much more accurate to say Sony didn't underestimate the power of hackers at all; they simply rolled out a red carpet for them.
- shareme 15y ago
  Not only that but he miss understands hacker culture when he lumps criminal crackers in with hackers.
- JoachimSchipper 15y ago
  From my http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2518120 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2518120: > Not part of this article: Sony ran unpatched Apache on a system actually containing sensitive data, Sony was actually hacked via unpatched Apache. Let's not spread rumors.

10 points by bjonathan 15y ago

There's absolutely no real evidence that the same people who DDOS'd PSN in support of Hotz (Anonymous) also stole the credit card numbers (unknown group). There's a text file on a server that claims it's from Anonymous but that's not real proof. The author is buying into Sony's storyline and helping to tar supporters of Hotz with the stain of the hackers who stole credit card numbers. It's misguided at best and dangerous at worst, perpetuating the myth that Anonymous is actually out to do real harm to relatively blameless people when they actually seek to avoid that kind of disproportionate damage. I'd rather not see the DDOS nipped in the bud by criminal statutes when it has a decent claim to being a legitimate form of speech that should be protected.

bruce511 15y ago

The effect being proposed here is not new, but like most things internet it is perhaps new only in terms of the scale. For example, I don't sit in the crowd at a football game wearing blue when all around me are wearing red. I don't walk on the street, in an economically depressed area, at night, with an expensive camera hanging around my neck, talking on an iPhone, and giving the finger to the local homies. There's no evidence that there's any connection between geohot, Anonymous and the recent Sony hacks. But Sony certainly put a big target sign up when they (somewhat vindictively) went after Hotz. They may not even be the worst offender when it comes to drm litigation. When car, after fancy car, rolls through the neighborhood, disrespecting the locals, you gotta expect that sooner or later they'll go past someone with enough criminal tendencies to throw a stone. When the population have no bread it may be king and not cake they end up eating. The internet is a big neighborhood - and when the law is out of touch with the mood of the people then there's always some backlash. Sooner or later stones will get thrown. The music labels, for one, could do worse than to think about such things.

wyclif 15y ago

This post is fluff at best, and linkbait at worst. I don't know how it wound up on the HN front page, other than on Wilson's name recognition as a major VC: Companies and governments should not underestimate the power of hacker culture to extract revenge on institutions they feel have wronged them. Unfortunately, it looks like Sony did just that and is now dealing with the repurcussions. I'm afraid Wilson's conclusion doesn't follow. Sony was running an unpatched version of Apache on its servers without a firewall. So, I think it would be much more accurate to say Sony didn't underestimate the power of hackers at all; they simply rolled out a red carpet for them.

shareme 15y ago
Not only that but he miss understands hacker culture when he lumps criminal crackers in with hackers.
JoachimSchipper 15y ago
From my http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2518120 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2518120: > Not part of this article: Sony ran unpatched Apache on a system actually containing sensitive data, Sony was actually hacked via unpatched Apache. Let's not spread rumors.