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On December 09 2010 01:53 RiotSpectre wrote:
Anon is such a wildcard, and I think they absolutely prefer it that way. I support Wikileaks and freedom of information, but a DDOS attack against MC is pretty childish. I doubt it will accomplish anything.
Of course, members of Anon may now be wanted in Sweden for some hastily concocted sexual offense allegations...
Hah, have you been to 4chan? Odds are they wouldn't have to be concocted.
There was a bit of quibbling over whether or not this is civil disobedience on the last page. When an action is designed with damage as its primary goal, it is not civil disobedience. Civil disobedience requires respect and a desire to change wrongs by doing right. This is a clear case of uproar against wrongs by doing more wrong.
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On December 08 2010 23:19 JWD wrote:
Maybe 4chan should have destroyed some of MasterCard's physical property, like by blowing up an empty office building or something (might well cause MC less losses than having its website down for hours)? Then all of you supporters of this attack would really get excited?
I am opposed to illegal, destructive retaliation against a private business for its lawful business decisions. And a bit disgusted that so many TLers aren't.
Wow, that's some pretty ferocious strawmanning there, especially from a mod. Blocking access to a website is equivalent to blowing up buildings now?
Also, "lawful business decisions", I had a good laugh there. The evidence against MasterCard has yet to pile up, but the decisions of PayPal, Amazon, and EveryDNS have been anything but lawful. This situation has started to reveal to us the coercive power of the long reach of the US government, and people are getting rightfully pissed off.
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Russian Federation798 Posts
As long as these people dont block the actual cash transfers I am fine with it. I mean otherwise it could result in a major inconveniense. I assume it will be an inconvenience to you if TL was hacked because they banned Big T.
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I'm just stunned what a shitstorm this all has become.
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On December 09 2010 00:53 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 23:19 JWD wrote:
Maybe 4chan should have taken some hostages from MasterCard management instead? Or at the very least, destroyed some of MasterCard's physical property, like by blowing up an empty office building or something (might well cause MC less losses than having its website down for hours)? Then all of you supporters of this attack would really get excited?
I am opposed to illegal, destructive retaliation against a private business for its lawful business decisions. And a bit disgusted that so many TLers aren't. well said. Any company has the right to deny service to any customer, for any reason they wish.... that is the law. When I go in to a shop, they can kick me out or refuse to serve me if they wish, and if i then cause havok in the store.... I am breaking the law.
That statement is not true. To a certain extent, yes a company has the right to deny service, but saying they can for any reason is false. (Discrimination ?)
On December 09 2010 02:14 Tianx wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2010 01:53 RiotSpectre wrote:
Anon is such a wildcard, and I think they absolutely prefer it that way. I support Wikileaks and freedom of information, but a DDOS attack against MC is pretty childish. I doubt it will accomplish anything.
Of course, members of Anon may now be wanted in Sweden for some hastily concocted sexual offense allegations... . This is a clear case of uproar against wrongs by doing more wrong.
Dont take what I will say as a justification of fighting fire with fire being right, but isnt that what the US government is doing to Wikileaks ? (''They did wrong to us, so lets do wrong to them (baseless accusations, defamation, etc'')
(This is not me supporting Anon, I disagree with their actions, but Im saying that theyre not the only ones at fault here)
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United States12607 Posts
On December 09 2010 02:17 Krigwin wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 23:19 JWD wrote:
Maybe 4chan should have destroyed some of MasterCard's physical property, like by blowing up an empty office building or something (might well cause MC less losses than having its website down for hours)? Then all of you supporters of this attack would really get excited?
I am opposed to illegal, destructive retaliation against a private business for its lawful business decisions. And a bit disgusted that so many TLers aren't. Wow, that's some pretty ferocious strawmanning there, especially from a mod. Blocking access to a website is equivalent to blowing up buildings now?
I've already had this response to my post, and addressed it, on the same page:
On December 08 2010 23:29 JWD wrote:Show nested quote +On December 08 2010 23:25 Aim Here wrote:On December 08 2010 23:19 JWD wrote:
Maybe 4chan should have taken some hostages from MasterCard management instead? Or at the very least, destroyed some of MasterCard's physical property, like by blowing up an empty office building or something (might well cause MC less losses than having its website down for hours)? Then all of you supporters of this attack would really get excited?
I am opposed to violent retaliation against a private business for its lawful business decisions. And a bit disgusted that so many TLers aren't. Because anyone who supports shutting down a website is automatically going to support violence against people? Of course not necessarily, but it's an interesting thought question. If it's awesome for 4chan to take down MC's website, maybe a few days of one of MC's top executives' time isn't a big deal? Or, as I also asked, what about some physical property worth less than a few hours' uptime for mastercard.com? If you support these attacks, surely you must also support the destruction of other, less valuable, MC property.
I don't see why downtime on MC's website shouldn't be compared to vandalizing some other MC property. But my articulation of this point obviously wasn't very effective, because instead of answers to the useful thought question ("If you support these attacks, would you support more serious retaliation against MC? Or, surely, you must at least also support the destruction of other, less valuable, MC property?") I am only getting generic responses about a strawman or slippery slope argument. I edited my post to be clearer.
Also: the lawfulness of MC's denial of support for WikiLeaks has already been discussed in this thread too — on what basis do you think it was unlawful?
And Krigwin, both times you have responded to a post of mine in General you've found it necessary to point out that I am a mod. Just to be clear: my opinions in General threads are not in my capacity as a mod. And it's TL policy that a moderator not make any close moderating decisions related to a debate/argument/dispute that he's involved in (so, for example, rather than editing out a link to 4chan's DDoS client myself, I referred the post to other mods asking for a second, uninterested opinion). Bottom line: my status as a mod is irrelevant, and you don't need to keep bringing it up.
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This is an interesting development.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/08/wikileaks-us-russia-visa-mastercard
The US State Department, Visa and MC have a cosy arrangement.
Seems the US Govt.acts as their agent and now they act as agents of the US Govt.
The US Govt. is spending public dollars to protect their private profits so why shouldn't Visa and MC pitch in on behalf of the State Dept.?
And, I don't think that the thread has considered that the DDOS attacks on WikiLeaks began on November 28th.
I thought that the one who threw the first punch was generally considered to be responsible for starting the fight.
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The Guardian is not the most reliable source of information. Most of it is sensationalised for sales and exposure.
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Poor MC admins and developers who will go through hell because of this.
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On December 08 2010 23:19 JWD wrote:
I am opposed to illegal, destructive retaliation against a private business for its lawful business decisions.
Edit: to be clearer: I don't see why downtime on MC's website shouldn't be compared to vandalizing some other MC property. If you support these DDoS attacks, surely you must support the destruction of some other MasterCard property that is less valuable than a few hours of uptime on MC's website (e.g. a small office building, a company car)?
Honestly, I agree with JWD on this one. Vandalism is vandalism. The people in this thread agreeing with it, seem to be very young. Wikileaks should fight this in court, and they should have anon supporting them in protest. That's how a democracy works. Not "wahh I didn't get what I want, so let's burn the building!"
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I don't really see how what MC did was unlawful. In this case however, I completely disagree with them, it seems silly too me that MC has never done this before, I have seen several people say you can donate to the KKK on their site, a much more hateful and violent organization then wikileaks. The fact they do this now, tells me(without any proof, just me speculating) that the government has pressured these businesses. This is pretty disturbing, These companies just shutting down wiki leaks way of doing business without wiki leaks doing anything different then other outrageous organizations in the world is sad to me. I have no doubt that they had a lawful reason for not giving service to wikileaks, as most contracts you sign with a company let them cover their ass. I am sure the TOS says that they can refuse wiki leaks in this situation. However, refusing wikileaks after allowing wiki leaks knowingly to conduct the business they now find improper using there site for so long, and now changing the rules since they were pressured by the government scares me.
I like what Zerg_Russian said and I pretty much agree with him
As lawful as mastercard acted, I disagree with their morals. As unlawful as anon acted, I support the morality behind it.
It's all subjective, but this is my take.
I don't know if I support these hacks, but I do understand them, and I really feel that this situation is growing bigger than I thought it would. It does mean a lot to me, the "free press". I am not one to fool myself with wanting 100% government transparency, but I am tired of people hiding behind "national security" and hiding things that are completely not national security issues. The reason they think it is, is because the nation would be pissed off at them if they found out what they did.
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The Guardian quotes from the cable.
The contents of the cable is what I find interesting not the journalistic fluff that packages it.
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So i assume im not allowed to recruit more people to help spam here then?
I liked what wikileaks was doing, the fact the government took it down angers me and i should be able to show it in some way shape or form
On December 09 2010 02:14 Tianx wrote:Show nested quote +On December 09 2010 01:53 RiotSpectre wrote:
Anon is such a wildcard, and I think they absolutely prefer it that way. I support Wikileaks and freedom of information, but a DDOS attack against MC is pretty childish. I doubt it will accomplish anything.
Of course, members of Anon may now be wanted in Sweden for some hastily concocted sexual offense allegations... Hah, have you been to 4chan? Odds are they wouldn't have to be concocted. There was a bit of quibbling over whether or not this is civil disobedience on the last page. When an action is designed with damage as its primary goal, it is not civil disobedience. Civil disobedience requires respect and a desire to change wrongs by doing right. This is a clear case of uproar against wrongs by doing more wrong.
because of course like good citizens we should just accept freedom of speech violations
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Kudos to JWD as his opinions tend to always be well thought out, cohesive and very reasonable.
People who support these "hacktivists" should also consider how their criminal actions are affecting mastercard shareholders, mastercard's customers and also the market in general. This behavior can't go unpunished as this unlawfulness potentially threatens the whole system.
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On December 08 2010 22:15 Tomken wrote:
Anon_Operation hwaiting.
More like Anal_Operation.
Are they even serious? Julian Assange has come to the police station himself and said he was ready to face any charges (which are not related to WikiLeaks in any way) and this self-proclaimed Internet vigilantes think they're going to help him by attacking some websites to show their "support"?
I mean, come on.
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On December 08 2010 22:30 qwaykee wrote:
i love how they call scriptkiddies hackers
I think Anon is more than just scriptkiddies. O.o
Could someone explain to me why they attacked mastercard? Because they refused to help Assange?
I'm not exactly sure if that's helping. =p
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Why do people always back up on something being lawful or not? Plenty of things are lawful and still cause tremendous damage, are based on and support a system which continuously acts in an inadequate way in response to the needs of those who compromise that system and are means to ends that defy the wellbeing of all but a few.
Maybe what MC is doing is within the legality of the industry they operate but it is real fucked up nonetheless and challenging that isnt wrong on the basis that it is challenging something lawful.
That said, the problem from which both parties actions stem is far more subtle and complex than they're making it out to be.
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On December 09 2010 03:03 Sultan.P wrote:
Kudos to JWD as his opinions tend to always be well thought out, cohesive and very reasonable.
People who support these "hacktivists" should also consider how their criminal actions are affecting mastercard shareholders, mastercard's customers and also the market in general. This behavior can't go unpunished as this unlawfulness potentially threatens the whole system.
You know, there was a time in Germany where the law said you need to kill people of certain confessions. Just because something is the law, it doesn't mean it is the right thing to do.
In a democracy (real democracy, not the joke of a masked feudal system most Western Countries have - seriously, the US has like 350 million citizens and presidency is somehow inheritable?) the sovereign is the people. Hence, the people have the constitutional right to (armed) resistance if someone incuding the government actively works against the consitution.
One could argue whether that is already the case. But in a world where laws are made to protect the wealth of few on the cost of the welfare of the many, where war is waged for economic interests, where the pubic is actively mislead in order to prevent the sovereign (read "the people") from making informed political decisions (weapons of mass destruction, anyone?), I think we are pretty close to noticing that something is fundamentally wrong.
Question is, are you still comfortable to play the game when you know its rigged? Some of you may be, I am not. As a German, I was educated to be suspicious of authority because it can go downhill pretty quickly if everyone complies. Hence, I thin it is legitimate to voice your dissent and, since politicians no longer listen to people, we need to get their attention somehow.
You may argue that the attacks on MC, VISA etc. are vandalism. But you may also take into account that they are vandalism according to the rules of a system that a lot of people no longer feel represented by.
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"Hey guys, MasterCard won't let people donate to WikiLeaks. This obviously means that WikiLeaks will go bankrupt. Let's shut the site down to shaft all its customers!"
Anon=Assholes
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EPT
