Usually, yeah. In this particular case, however, it was more about political activism and voluntary participation. People organized to use their individual computers to make their collective voice heard.
If this were actually some kind of conspiracy to take down Paypal, the organizers would have created a botnet trojan and encouraged everyone to distribute it and infect others with it.
You don't multiply packet size by interval, you divide (or multiply by the inverse). And baud is measured in bits. But the numbers come out close anyway. 3678 / (2.5 * 3600) * 1500 * 8 = 4904.
I just checked wikipedia and there's indeed a protocol for them, but I've never seen one in the wild. In my day it was 300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 14400, 16800, 19200, 28800, 33600, 56k ...
So, back on topic, wouldn't it be more likely he was channel bonding two 2400 baud modems?
The closest equivalent to a voluntary, publicized DDoS is a sit-in. While those do lead to arrests, they don't lead to wholesale confiscation of (expensive!) property, and even the organizers don't get more than a few months in jail. Furthermore, the computer-use ban you can get for "hacking" is incomparable to any punishment for a sit-in or occupation.
My problem with this isn't that they're reporting participants; it's that the participants and organizers are going to be dealt with an order of magnitude more harshly than if they'd done the same thing minus a computer.
To an extent you have a point, but consider the difference in amount of potential damage. I sit in at, say, a bank branch, it takes the police 24 hours (for some weird reason) to remove me. I DDoS that bank's servers, their online operations are offline for 24 hours. It's hard to argue against the idea that the digital version has, at the very least, the potential to be a lot more serious, and therefore more worthy of punishment.
The closest equivalent to a voluntary, publicized DDoS is a sit-in. While those do lead to arrests, they don't lead to wholesale confiscation of (expensive!) property
And DDoSes don't result in you being dragged across the floor by your arms.
Why? Because that's the point where they're non-analogous. If you participate in a DDoS, you'll wind up getting your computers confiscated while the FBI crime labs scour them for evidence. If you sit on the floor of Kentucky Fried Panda, you'll get dragged out by your arms.
the participants and organizers are going to be dealt with an order of magnitude more harshly than if they'd done the same thing minus a computer
because it's not "the same thing", it's a slightly different thing, somewhat more pernicious and dangerous, because the cost to a protestor of carrying out a sit-in is large, whereas the cost of carrying out a DDoS is large.
I find it's always useful, when determining the legitimacy of a given political tactic, to assume that it's being used by someone we hate rather than someone we like. So let's suppose the Westboro Baptist Church gets up one morning and decides to target businesses owned by gays. If they do this via sit-in, then they can probably only target one business at a time, and they have to sit around all day getting jeered at. But if they do it via DDoS, they can take down businesses at their leisure.
These are both illegal and illegitimate forms of political protest, but the DDoS is potentially much worse than the sit-in.
But this is exactly what you shouldn't be doing -- determining the legitimacy of tactics by assuming they're being used by someone whose cause you like. There's always the temptation to think that the end justifies the means, when you're supportive of the end.
Always assume that the questionable tactic is being used by the Illinois Nazis (I hate those guys) or the Westboro Baptist Church. Because if it's okay for Martin Luther King to do it, then it's gotta be okay for Fred Phelps to do it too.
There's a misunderstanding here. I wasn't saying that those tactics are justified because Martin Luther King wrote a justification of them. I'm saying Martin Luther King wrote a justification of them, and a damn good one.
The point is not the reference but what the reference points to.
Honestly, I didn't read the whole thing, I only vaguely skimmed it. Can you summarize his argument? It seemed to boil down to "This is the right thing to do, because we're right, and the other guys are wrong"
"You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue."
The point of nonviolent activism isn't to harm someone else or their economic well-being (though the latter is often a side effect). It's to force a rupture or break in the institutions of a community to resolve what King calls an underlying tension in that community. By forcing people in power to use violence against nonviolence, it disrupts the ruling ideology by pointing out its hypocrisy and forcing action by threatening the breakdown of the social order predicated on that ideology.
Of course, a neo-Nazi may well try a sit down, but that's likely to be ineffective as it's not exploiting any inherent tension and isn't going to cause any huge community squabbles that have the potential to degenerate into violence.
As to why it's okay to threaten the social order... well, in effect because laws and order exist to establish justice, and we are compelled by moral law to oppose unjust laws. Which is, you might say, just saying we should do this because this is right. Perhaps. But it's a difficult proposition to say every action can be be considered individually and judged without moral context. Occupied Resistance in WW2 fought the Nazis and broke many laws (including not just vandalism but murder). A slave in pre-Civil War America who ran away, and anyone who helped that slave run away, was breaking many federal and state laws, as well as seriously disrupting the economy and commerce. Those were unjust situations, though, and so it was right.
>I find it's always useful, when determining the legitimacy of a given political tactic, to assume that it's being used by someone we hate rather than someone we like. So let's suppose the Westboro Baptist Church gets up one morning and decides to target businesses owned by gays. If they do this via sit-in, then they can probably only target one business at a time, and they have to sit around all day getting jeered at. But if they do it via DDoS, they can take down businesses at their leisure.
>These are both illegal and illegitimate forms of political protest, but the DDoS is potentially much worse than the sit-in.
I believe you overestimate the power of DDoS. Lest you forget: well over 1000 people were involved in the attacks. This is just the 1000 most notorious. If the Westboro Baptist Church had thousands of adherents, they could indeed take down many businesses via sit-ins. However, they only have a few.
It takes a lot of people to voluntarily DDoS a large website. Perhaps several thousand. This is enough to shut down a whole lot of restaurants.
The closest equivalent to a voluntary, publicized DDoS is a sit-in.
Is it? Participating in a sit-in is about the same thing as signing a confession and begging the police to haul you to the judge. A DDoS is a shadow crime with elements of failure to report a crime (hiding behind a distant IP address) and betrayal (ISP ToS), with elements of malicious premeditation (geographic distribution, covert command and control network).
... the participants and organizers are going to be dealt with an order of magnitude more harshly than if they'd done the same thing minus a computer.
If you could secretly conduct a sit-in of, say, all Bank of America offices using a spoon, the FBI would most certainly drop the hammer on you. And the terms of your parole, if you ever got out, would most certainly ban you from using utensils.
Since it is an act of political protest, I wonder how this plays out. Seems it is a lot like the cyber version of picketing/marching/protesting at a business, government building or any physical location like that.
Where would you peaceably assemble online, in such a way it makes a statement? If everyone joins a chat room so what? Only they notice it, where if you protest in public, you get noticed, for disrupting the day to day flow of things. This seems like one of the few ways to accomplish that same effect online.
You can't call this action picketing/marching/protesting.. This group has brought down multiple websites, with the malice as the intent. The next best real-world comparison would have been a riot. Attempting to shut down a business is in my eyes not something the police would let slide in real-world situations
Yeah they do give off more of a riot like atmosphere, with the breaking and entering tactics. For this to be more equivalent, they'd need a permit to take up so much traffic on public roadways, or in this case, internet connections.
Plus there is no clear cut description of what is causing the disruption. If a building was surrounded by protesters, there would be plenty of signs, clearly stating what the group of people felt was so terrible that they needed to protest about. The way it is now, average person thinks the website is having technical difficulties, and knows no different, until the news informs them. Which gives the media all the power in framing what the protest was about.
Still regardless of this particular incident, I wonder if it is a tactic that could be used to any sort of degree of effectiveness, as a means for people to express their displeasure in the virtual world of the internet. We the People are powerful only as a group. People doing evil things, might not always respond to a PR attack through Twitter or Facebook.
The people that are most likely to 'suffer' now are the ones that downloaded a ~thing~ and said 'I want to protest against Paypal'. Okay, maybe they know that this is a grey area or technically nor legal, but.. Still. They are not 'bringing down' anything on their own.
I hope you don't compare it to a mob either - it seems far too 'peaceful' for that.
Regarding 'shut down a business': What do you call it if all employees go on a strike? What if activists block a train route to stop nuclear wastage: Are they not harming the business (both by blocking the rails for other trains and by causing immense costs for everyone involved)?
While I'm not even sure I agree with the way this group tries to make a point, I DO think you should grab some colors that are not black or white..
The thing about political protest is that you actually have to show up to show that you care. If your protest march has blocked the street you might be inconveniencing others, but at least you're inconveniencing yourself more. You think it's legit to have a form of protest which inconveniences others without inconveniencing yourself? If this was legal, then wouldn't it be done by everyone, all the time against everyone by whom they felt aggreived?
Remember, the world is full of folks who hate other folks. Sometimes for legit reasons, sometimes for stupid reasons.
I agree with there being a huge problem of it becoming vastly too easy to do. And there does seem to be a huge discrepancy on the internet, between what people feel is important enough to cause such a ruckus and what's not worthy. Ranging from real human rights issues to he said she said pointless crap. Perhaps it would mean more if you had to sit there hitting the refresh button in unison with a group, instead of just running a script to do it for you. You no longer need to be a charismatic leader to rally the troops, just infect computers with a botnet. Such singular power executed through such forceful means does seem more like tyranny than justice.
I wonder what a better equivalent to such traditional means of the public showing disapproval would be online?
I wonder what a better equivalent to such traditional means of the public showing disapproval would be online?
Easy. Write something. Put forward a rational, logical and coherent argument about why you disapprove of X, and publish it somewhere. Instead of just inconveniencing others with your temper tantrum, you might convince them to come around to your point of view.
One person with a sensible argument is far more powerful than a hundred thousand people with a poorly thought out chant.
I've tried this many times in my life, and all I have found, is that there are people out there, who absolutely refuse to do anything about the problem. No matter how well the argument is laid out, how evil they have been acting, the only thing they will respond to, is force, because at that point, it is not up to them to change.
29 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 43.6 ms ] threadIsn't it likely to not even be script kiddies, but machines that are part of a botnet owned by script kiddies?
If this were actually some kind of conspiracy to take down Paypal, the organizers would have created a botnet trojan and encouraged everyone to distribute it and infect others with it.
really? were they mounting a DDOS attack using a pocket calculator attached to 4800 baud modem?
I just checked wikipedia and there's indeed a protocol for them, but I've never seen one in the wild. In my day it was 300, 1200, 2400, 9600, 14400, 16800, 19200, 28800, 33600, 56k ...
So, back on topic, wouldn't it be more likely he was channel bonding two 2400 baud modems?
My problem with this isn't that they're reporting participants; it's that the participants and organizers are going to be dealt with an order of magnitude more harshly than if they'd done the same thing minus a computer.
And DDoSes don't result in you being dragged across the floor by your arms.
Why? Because that's the point where they're non-analogous. If you participate in a DDoS, you'll wind up getting your computers confiscated while the FBI crime labs scour them for evidence. If you sit on the floor of Kentucky Fried Panda, you'll get dragged out by your arms.
the participants and organizers are going to be dealt with an order of magnitude more harshly than if they'd done the same thing minus a computer
because it's not "the same thing", it's a slightly different thing, somewhat more pernicious and dangerous, because the cost to a protestor of carrying out a sit-in is large, whereas the cost of carrying out a DDoS is large.
I find it's always useful, when determining the legitimacy of a given political tactic, to assume that it's being used by someone we hate rather than someone we like. So let's suppose the Westboro Baptist Church gets up one morning and decides to target businesses owned by gays. If they do this via sit-in, then they can probably only target one business at a time, and they have to sit around all day getting jeered at. But if they do it via DDoS, they can take down businesses at their leisure.
These are both illegal and illegitimate forms of political protest, but the DDoS is potentially much worse than the sit-in.
Always assume that the questionable tactic is being used by the Illinois Nazis (I hate those guys) or the Westboro Baptist Church. Because if it's okay for Martin Luther King to do it, then it's gotta be okay for Fred Phelps to do it too.
The point is not the reference but what the reference points to.
"You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue."
The point of nonviolent activism isn't to harm someone else or their economic well-being (though the latter is often a side effect). It's to force a rupture or break in the institutions of a community to resolve what King calls an underlying tension in that community. By forcing people in power to use violence against nonviolence, it disrupts the ruling ideology by pointing out its hypocrisy and forcing action by threatening the breakdown of the social order predicated on that ideology.
Of course, a neo-Nazi may well try a sit down, but that's likely to be ineffective as it's not exploiting any inherent tension and isn't going to cause any huge community squabbles that have the potential to degenerate into violence.
As to why it's okay to threaten the social order... well, in effect because laws and order exist to establish justice, and we are compelled by moral law to oppose unjust laws. Which is, you might say, just saying we should do this because this is right. Perhaps. But it's a difficult proposition to say every action can be be considered individually and judged without moral context. Occupied Resistance in WW2 fought the Nazis and broke many laws (including not just vandalism but murder). A slave in pre-Civil War America who ran away, and anyone who helped that slave run away, was breaking many federal and state laws, as well as seriously disrupting the economy and commerce. Those were unjust situations, though, and so it was right.
>These are both illegal and illegitimate forms of political protest, but the DDoS is potentially much worse than the sit-in.
I believe you overestimate the power of DDoS. Lest you forget: well over 1000 people were involved in the attacks. This is just the 1000 most notorious. If the Westboro Baptist Church had thousands of adherents, they could indeed take down many businesses via sit-ins. However, they only have a few.
It takes a lot of people to voluntarily DDoS a large website. Perhaps several thousand. This is enough to shut down a whole lot of restaurants.
Is it? Participating in a sit-in is about the same thing as signing a confession and begging the police to haul you to the judge. A DDoS is a shadow crime with elements of failure to report a crime (hiding behind a distant IP address) and betrayal (ISP ToS), with elements of malicious premeditation (geographic distribution, covert command and control network).
... the participants and organizers are going to be dealt with an order of magnitude more harshly than if they'd done the same thing minus a computer.
If you could secretly conduct a sit-in of, say, all Bank of America offices using a spoon, the FBI would most certainly drop the hammer on you. And the terms of your parole, if you ever got out, would most certainly ban you from using utensils.
The people that are most likely to 'suffer' now are the ones that downloaded a ~thing~ and said 'I want to protest against Paypal'. Okay, maybe they know that this is a grey area or technically nor legal, but.. Still. They are not 'bringing down' anything on their own.
I hope you don't compare it to a mob either - it seems far too 'peaceful' for that.
Regarding 'shut down a business': What do you call it if all employees go on a strike? What if activists block a train route to stop nuclear wastage: Are they not harming the business (both by blocking the rails for other trains and by causing immense costs for everyone involved)?
While I'm not even sure I agree with the way this group tries to make a point, I DO think you should grab some colors that are not black or white..
Remember, the world is full of folks who hate other folks. Sometimes for legit reasons, sometimes for stupid reasons.
Easy. Write something. Put forward a rational, logical and coherent argument about why you disapprove of X, and publish it somewhere. Instead of just inconveniencing others with your temper tantrum, you might convince them to come around to your point of view.
One person with a sensible argument is far more powerful than a hundred thousand people with a poorly thought out chant.