This is quite the hypocritical statement coming from the FBI. As far as I can tell, the only difference between Anonymous, Lulzsec, and the FBI is that the FBI act by executive fiat. I don't support Internet vigilanteism, but I also don't support the concept of the FBI as an untouchable force who are no longer held accountable by the public they are theoretically serving.

At this point, I'm not sure which one I find more scary.

There will always be scofflaws and pranksters. Indeed for our way of life to be assured, they must be able to exist.

The ever-growing reach of the military-espionage-industrial complex is the only real threat.

Viewing my world in terms of black and white has always been more of a comforting illusion than a reasonable approximation of reality. I realize this. But either these self-styled hacktivists are rationalizing their hooliganism with noble-sounding platitudes or they honestly believe that their way is the best way to fight against corporate corruption and government abuse of its own constituents.

If the former, it's becoming less obvious. And the latter is a frightening thought indeed. One day I might have to choose between a government agency whose actions have transcended public accountability (as in the Instapaper raid), corporations who will gladly sacrifice me on the altar of their own convenience (as in the Peter Adekeye case), or a capricious band of anonymous malcontents who might fight for my rights or might hold me up to public mockery and exploitation "for the lulz".

But what really scares me is that the choice will be made for me.

That all said, this all reeks of a cold civil war, maybe something will come out of it, maybe nothing will. I'll just keep doing what I do, solving issues of non-freedom the way I can, one person at a time. A lot could be done if people just acted better towards each other. But I think right now that's too much to ask of us(humans).

For the sake of our survival, may we eventually get to a point where people are judged more for how they treat others, rather than what they are able to purchase.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Whuffie

There is no difference between what Lulzsec and Anonymous do, compared with the FBI storming into a data centre without warrants and grabbing hardware.

None at all. In fact, the FBI did more damage.

Has it been proven that this is what happened?

Has it been proved the equipment was fairly taken?

I thought over the Atlantic pond it was "Innocent until proven guilty." It seems guilt was assumed and equipment taken.

No trial.

I think the orwellian big govt agency these hacker guys seem to base their doctrine against is the NSA. The 'we can listen to any phone call on the planet, imprison our whistle blowers, collect every bit of data on everybody, consume 1/4 of the power of the baltimore metro area for our data centers, have projects so secret you didnt know you didnt know about' NSA. Either anon knows this, and know they stand NO chance hacking the NSA, or theyve been misguided on who to target. my vote is a bit of both... I'm not gonna give you sources on this, but there is plenty of legitimate and credible reading out there to satidify your curisioty.

Also, hi out there to all you intel analysts reading... ;)

Maybe the ones with guns.

Today I have not heard of a single case of hackers using guns to make a point, but the government does all of the time.

I can live with all of the hysteria in the world if someone does not mame my body, with blunt objects, explosions, pointy things, or projectiles.

MAME is an arcade machine emulator. ;)

So far the acts of these groups have only been against typical websites. What happens when it escalates to aircraft, air-traffic control systems, nuke plants, dams, and other things where disrupted systems could cause massive loss of life?

cek...get a grip. sometimes we have to wait for the future and adapt instead of trying to control it.

Would you rather struggle/suffer/work for an imaginary possible situation or one that exists?

The FBI on the other hand...

In fact, a decentralized police state is exactly the only thing a centralized police state has to fear.

E.g. see the laws making it illegal to film police in public.

That said, I wouldn't go so far as to call this hypocritical. The FBI at least pretends to have a morally reasonable agenda for its actions.

Are you allowed to lock people in a cage for decades because they do something you disagree with? Of course not.

Is the FBI allowed to do this? Well, yes, but only because they're special and you have to do what they say, not what they do. Now what's this word hypocrite you speak of?

This has nothing to do with class. It has to do with unwarranted and unprovoked aggression by political elites. I don't condone what these hackers did, but there's little to disagree with in that letter. Our behemoth government and its fascist relationship with big business spits in the face of our founding principles: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Something will need to change, or (pardon the cliché) we're gonna end up like Greece.

(Of course in it's setting, class was defined by power)

Robin Hood did not "rob from the rich and give to the poor". He attacked oppressors and protected the oppressed (only rarely giving them money). While the oppressors tended to be rich and the oppressed tended to be poor, there were exceptions. IIRC, there is even a tale where Robin protects a wealthy knight from peasants who are trying to rob him.

You can directly target the org that you disagree, crack their db/site, release, or even just sit on, their info, and get epic press attention.

[1] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Yippies

[2] https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Youth_Interna...

Among other things.

Are you suggesting that my distain for LulzSec and its methods are some how the result of brain washing or extreme trama?

And if "We the people" are the Sheriff in this little Robin Hood adventure, who are the poor villagers Robin is trying to help?

What a ridiculous reply. Or are we just naming random psychological phenomenon? If thats the case, I choose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthe...

I'm not saying I agree, but that's my interpretation.

Think about it, how many people in this world have actually signed up to be dominated by their government? Very very few (immigrants might count). Yet we don't question their authority because 1) we are used to it, and 2) every few years, they ask our opinion. Of course they know that they can safely ask our opinion because they know that we've already bought into the entire thing. It's like Patty Hearst participating in robberies. We mistakenly think that they protect us when in reality they are just exploiting us.

Perhaps you are unaware of their removal of OtherOS or persecution of geohot?

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2614698 (a previous comment I made on another article)

Interesting. Confusing, but interesting."

Yes, you do seem rather confused.

"you appear to be mistakenly thinking that LulzSec is her to protect you"

I am under no such illusion. However, I do recognize that the enemy of my far far far more powerful enemy is.. well.. as good a friend as any.

I also could not help but notice you ignored my other points and questions, so ill sum it up.

How has anything LulzSec done been constructive to the cause you claim they represent?

It is offtopic, but I respect LulzSec specifically because I think they have the potential to drive home the concepts and ramifications of computer security, a topic which I find particularly interesting and important for personal reasons.

As for them attacking non-government targets? I didn't address this at first because you are making too many assumptions about myself for it to be very interesting, however since you asked: 1) See the above. 2) Doesn't effect me, so I don't give a shit. 3) Funny as hell.

You justify violating individuals privacy in order to further the cause of computer security? That is an acceptable trade off to you?

> I didn't address this at first because you are making too many assumptions about myself for it to be very interesting

Please quote me on unfounded assumption about you or your views

> Doesn't effect me, so I don't give a shit.

I think this is the most telling response you've made. You might have well as said "Human rights are not important, unless they are mine" because thats how it reads.

Yes. Does that bother you? Because I don't care.

Whoa is everyone except you, who's rights you scoff at.

Lulzsec's hacks hurt the companies whose reputation was right-sized, but justly, and helped the people by exposing the weak security. I'd rather know my CC was leaked so I could cancel it than learn years later I'd been subtly overcharged while under a false sense of security.

Nobody is glad more people died in crashes before seat-belts, even though we're glad that we now have seat-belts despite and we know we only have them because so many people died. Similarly, we aren't specifically glad that people's accounts were leaked, but when we're using a more robust service in five years, largely due to this publicity, we'll be thankful regardless.

btw, you mean 'Woe'.

Yes. Absolutely.

If such an organization did not exist, such that you weren't conditioned to accept their abuses, you would be appropriately horrified to hear about the abuses that are currently being committed.

By exposing you to ridiculous premises like a color-coded terror threat level and lies like Iraqi nuclear programs, terror connections, etc, you've been conditioned to think you need an abusive security apparatus. You're so intentionally self-deluded about the nature of the world that you can't understand who's stepping on your neck.

Whatever good our security apparatus may have originally been created to do they are now unacceptably corrupted in that they refuse civilian oversight ever where obvious crimes have been committed from within their ranks. That you fixate on minor website inconvenience to these organizations ("vandalism") while ignoring the scale of the injustices going on shows you're hardly able to even think ill of these organizations.

>That you fixate on minor website inconvenience to these organizations ("vandalism") while ignoring the scale of the injustices going on shows you're hardly able to even think ill of these organizations.

That you fixate on minor website inconveniences to these organizations ("vandalism") and parade them around like some kind of political message or instrument of change shows just how biases you are. Please give me one piece of evidence (hell, I'll even take conjecture) that these acts of "vandalism" are even related to the "horrifying" injustices the big bad government and security forces commit. How have they helped your cause? Have they stopped a single injustice? Or raised awareness for a reputable cause (besides them selves)?

I think not.

If you want to talk about "horrifying abuses" by the government "with its boot on my neck" then lets talk about that. What does LulzSec have to do with it? Parading them around as heros of a cause they clearly have little concern for and even less connection to only serves to weaken your position on a legitimate issue, government abuse.

You speak of your disdain for them, though. Why do you even know about them? Banks are hacked regularly and it's not news at all, but leak a few documents and you become public enemy #1.

> If you want to talk about "horrifying abuses" by the government "with its boot on my neck" then lets talk about that. What does LulzSec have to do with it?

Nothing, mostly. That's sort of the point. They're really nothing at all and they're getting a completely jackbooted response - far beyond what an unsolved murder would get.

> Please give me one piece of evidence (hell, I'll even take conjecture) that these acts of "vandalism" are even related to the "horrifying" injustices the big bad government and security forces commit.

They've leaked some documents from Arizona because of their dislike of the new identification laws. They hacked PBS because they didn't like their coverage of Wikileaks. They hacked Sony because of Sony's previous unfair dealings.

They clearly are politically and accountability motivated, even if you don't agree with their goals or perceptions.

> Parading them around as heros of a cause they clearly have little concern for

Heroes? No. But to be commended for putting their comfort on the line to do something they believe in.

We're only hearing about them because of the disproportional response to them. Other than making work for a few web admins they hurt nothing that didn't need hurting - like the reputation of a company running an insecure service. The passwords were already leaked to anyone who asked. If they were legally treated as the 'trivial vandals' they're denigrated as there wouldn't be misinformation and ham-handed raids in response. The story is the government overreaction.

> only serves to weaken your position

My position being that the government is beholden to special interests, allergic to transparency, technically incompetent, vengeful, willing to hurt many bystanders to get a perceived enemy, etc? Nope. I think that point is doing pretty well, thanks.

Bad-taste jokes and troublemaking.

Badly written manifestos.

But I think there are some in the groups who have their heart in the right place and want to do the right thing. And, illegal or not, I've yet to see any other form of western activism that is as disruptive as leaking/hacking.

I think that nails it. These days, the internet is the backbone of our world. There is no form of activism more effective than taking control of online resources, or releasing information.

If a form of activism is socially acceptable it probably means it is not effective anymore. Why go on the street to just get beaten up - and ignored by the media - when hacking is so much more effective in garnering attention for your cause?

EDIT: Downvoters: Just what do you think police are doing with all their cameras, at recent protests? And now there is -- I'm not kidding -- an iPhone device and app that connects to a privately created database of biometric information. Pricing is, per the public radio interview I heard just the other day, currently set at circa US$3000 / device. Pricy, but affordable.

FURTHER EDIT: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/07/20/biometrics

https://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/94033541196824576

"We're currently working with certain media outlets who have been granted exclusive access to some of the News of the World emails we have."

And bit of John F. Kennedy:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable

Well, guess where they got the masks from, amongst other things. Anonymous is pretty much V incarnate. He's their idol and inspiration. He's everything they aspire to be.

http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary

EDIT: apparently sabu has been joining in as well. Pretty amusing.

http://twitter.theinfo.org/93969411270123520

Considering he's technology editor, he just let himself get trolled HARD.

Are they really doing this for the good of mankind or are they just trying to get attention? Anonymous though they may be, they still seem to be just trying to get on the 5:00 news.

You probably didn't, but I think many people will see an obvious contradiction in that statement.

> Nothing the US has ever done, even at it's most oppressive

However North Korea is not advertising itself around the world and taken seriously as a bastion of freedom, democracy, and human rights. US is while also managing to conduct wars on all continents, drop bombs in countries we are not even at war with (Pakistan), raped South American Continent for years, installed and supported countless of brutal dictators around the world. It has tortured, killed and starved to death (via sanctions countless) countless people.

US is attacked because it exerts the most influence. If you live in Columbia you are more influenced by US policy not North Korea. And that true for many regions and countries around the world. North Korea doesn't control the internet, US does.

Some anonymous internet user claims they have a PhD. Quickly, everyone, throw your brains out of the window and believe everything they say.

> It's working. Iraq's death rates are tumbling, and now it's even lower than ours.

Now I am not sure if you are serious or meant your post to be sarcastic. Maybe I underestimated your subtle sarcasm. But just in case it wasn't. I wonder why was Iraq having high death rates? Was there war going there? Maybe some sanctions were imposed too? Do you know? Or is recent history not part of the economics PhD dissertation.

> I wish you would rely on actual data and facts for your responses.

Or maybe just claim I have a PhD in economics so I don't have to provide any data.

Is this supposed to say anything other than "you're stupid and I'm smart"? I would just say it that way. It takes fewer words and is more direct.

Hm, I see a dip caused by the Iran-Iraq war. Who made and sold the guns to the Iranians? I'm not sure! Then in 1991 something seems to have gone wrong. I think it was something about the US ambassador shrugging at Iraq when Iraq asked permission to stop Kuwait's slant drilling. Hm, then a massive dip followed, not sure who caused that.

But luckily the US showed up and stopped whatever evil world super power was suppressing the Iraqi economy! And just look how well off they were after the US got involved for the first time in 2003.

We boosted their GDP to $65 billion! Which seems a bit low considering we've literally lost $12 billion shipped into Iraq on pallets. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1

All hail the economics PHD and his Jolly Green Giant.

And oh hey, let's talk about death rate! http://www.indexmundi.com/g/g.aspx?v=26&c=iz&c=us...

Hm, that stat seems to say that it's safer in Iraq than the United States. Perhaps you want to pick a more specific stat to mention?

You must think you know a lot.

> No other country has been responsible for lifting more people out of poverty than the U.S.

That's like Microsoft taking credit for putting a PC in every home. In other words, claiming credit for a rising tide you were doing your best to fight.

> China and India are eradicating poverty at record levels because of the open borders for trade with the U.S.

Silly economist, there aren't open borders. Just try to move between China and the USA without unreasonably more money than a Chinese worker could earn.

Also your free trade comes with conditions attached - forced sale of resources for instance, or lowering of safety standards. More temporary income for some can't compensate a country for losing its natural resources at unreasonably low prices.

But yes, that we've outsourced production to them and lowered some existing barriers to trade has sent a lot of money their way. You seem to be operating under the trickle-down delusion though.

> Iraq is seeing rapid growth rates in its GDP,

Of course, get the resources flowing and lift the embargoes and the economy bounds up, though only to a fraction of what it would have been without the invasion.

> as its own government openly embraces us and wants our troops there to stablize its country,

Every dictator we've propped up has embraced us and thanked us for our troops - it's why we picked them.

> so they can safely build its country.

We don't have the government we want in the USA. How likely is it we've given them one they like?

> And guess what? It's working. Iraq's death rates are tumbling

We've stopped killing Iraqis? No? Oh, you just mean we just aren't killing them as quickly.

> and now it's even lower than ours

Bullshit. But even if it were it's another example of claiming credit for your limited role in cleaning up a mess you already started. In this case it just means you're bombing Pakistan more.

> I wish you would rely on actual data and facts for your responses.

I wish your PhD wasn't so narrow you were unable to see the facts for the data.

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it just seems that there are millions of starving people in Africa. Isn't that a bigger hunger problem to solve than the 2000 homeless people in the city?"

"... Are you serious?"

"Why don't all of you guys in this kitchen just go to Africa, set up soup kitchens there on a bigger scale, and feed millions instead of hundreds? Surely that'd be a better use of your time!"

"... Get out."

1. Last time I checked North Korea wasn't founded on a series of charter documents proclaiming freedom from opression being a foundational concept.

2. What other governments are doing has absolutely no bearing on the US government systematically dismantling it's citizens personal freedoms.

3. If you really think the US government at it's worst can't compare with various tin pot dictatorships around the world (including North Korea) you need to take a survey course on US history. Forced sterilization in the name of eugenics, concentration camps, genocide, political prisoners, murder, corruption... you name it, the US has done it at one time or another.

2. The OP point was that on a 'relative badness' scale the US is better than other governments (see N Korea), so what other governments are doing is very relevant to their point.

3. Uh-huh. It's certainly enlightened of you not to believe patriotically that the US is perfect, but let's be realistic here--anything that US has done other countries have done too. It's fine (in fact it's necessary) to point out how the US is more dirty that commonly assumed, but the proper extension of that realization isn't that every other country/government must be cleaner than we presume them to be. All countries and governments are dirty to some degree or other. The relative rule of law and openness of US society means that our dirtiness eventually becomes public; the same in not true elsewhere.

Other countries haven't positioned themselves as the world's policeman and moral authority (complete with a large network of military bases), AFAIK. If you set yourself up as a standard of freedom, then it's unsurprising that others will hold you to that standard.

True... other countries would do the same thing if they could (but they can't and the US can hence the need to try to keep the US in check).

So that's okay, then.

Comparing specific and often short-lived times in the US's history to the permanent, ongoing status quo of other nations is hardly an equitable comparison.

That said, I agree that the US, by its founding principles as well as its international status (both earned and self-appointed) make it more than deserving of being held to a higher standard than a rogue state. The price of freedom being eternal vigilance and all.

Notwithstanding, I'll bet the real reason is that the DPRK hasn't been actively trying to stop Anonymous and the US gov has.

Anonymous speaks English as their primary language. Of course Anonymous is made up of people from across the globe, but are there enough of them who a) speak/read Korean, b) care about North Korean politics and c) have the abilities to do something about it? Probably not. There are apparently enough English speakers that care about the politics of the English-speaking world that have the ability to do something about it, though.

Maybe this is a function of the distinct cultures involved, maybe it is a function of socioeconomic status, maybe it is a coincidence (doubtful), but no matter what caused it, the lingua franca of Anonymous is English. Their actions primarily affect the English-speaking world because the members of Anonymous who meet the criteria I listed above stand to benefit from it.

I like to think if we had a good government that we can truly trust, then we can trust it to step out and assist worldwide injustices: land aid to the people fighting an oppressive government, enable communication between the oppressed, prevent the oppressive government from buying weapons, etc.

To be clear, the gp is describing correctly directed anger, so the rest of your post addresses a different (although also important) issue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_incarceration_timeline-...

Wikileaks/Anon/Lulzsec has a huge effect on our government(s) because they can be removed and rely on a lot of soft power. If we can't get our governments to care about human rights what chance is there to get the DPRK to change?

I think they would actually have a very detrimental effect. In the US, we routinely blame the governments of China and Russia for hacks that could easily be perpetuated by high schoolers who live there. No doubt, DPRK would blame our official institutions, giving them much more legitimacy (at least internally, but probably internationally too) when they claim that the world is out to get them.

I'm not saying the DPRK is good, I don't think they are. Just remember that gov't will give you whatever reasons you need to support whatever they want to do no matter how silly or tenuous the connection is.

The most successful satire is indistinguishable from the real thing. Either way, I tip my hat.

To start a war with another country, draw a line in the sand, militarize it and then imprison people because they want cross a line in the sand to be repatriated with their families is the mark of a very totalitarian regime. If it weren't for their military I don't think anyone would put up with this kind of behavior. The really cruel thing is that their people are impoverished by their military spending and then told that there isn't enough money for basic medical care. Even sadder than that is that what little is left after military spending is spent to fund the lavish lifestyle of the politically well connected in a futile attempt to make some pretense that their economy has not failed the vast majority of their populace.

What kind of country would buy more tanks while their vetrans, women, and children are left homeless?

What the world is proposing, namely that the DPRK stop spending so much on their military and take care of their people is really rather modest.

Apparently Dear Leader has also requested that the courts start handing out even harsher sentences even though the DPRK leads the world in it's incarceration rate, rather than look to more progressive models such as in Europe that drastically reduce recivitism by treating convicts as people. I've even heard that even though you only have one candidate to vote for in the elections that you can still be stripped of this right if convicted of a crime, leading to a situation where vast swaths of the population cannot even participate in the ostensibly democratic process of the country.

Lets not even talk about the repressive system the DPRK uses to keep basic medicine out of the hands of those who need it. If you manage to afford medicine, you're not quite of of hock yet, even if you have a prescription you can still be jailed for drug offenses and aren't allowed to present the fact that you had a prescription at trial.

I've heard in their school system even in elementary school before the children have a chance to develop free thought that they must make group devotions to dear leader.

http://abytesgen01.securesites.net/ryan_murdock/2009/11/insi...

Apparently if you give up your citizenship you're never allowed to return to the country under penalty of law.

CCR said it best though: 5 year plans and new deals wrapped in golden chains.

Why does the EFF focus on electronic communication rights rather than physical torture? Because it's a valid issue and they feel is worth the focus. If the abuses in North Korea are more important to you than the abuses of the self-appointed leader of the free world then go focus on North Korea.

USA has the money: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=GDP+by+country USA has the guns: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=military+expenditures+b...

Speaking truth to power falls under definition #2 of Patriot: "a person who regards himself or herself as a defender, especially of individual rights, against presumed interference by the federal government. "

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/patriot

That's not a good recipe.

Even if I did, do you want to know what issues I couldn't have taken care of by those people? Nearly anything that has industry lobbying behind it. They don't give a shit about individual "citizens", why should they?

In Summary, we (the American government and people to an extent) think we are better, our hubris is our downfall and we use the excuse of we aren't as bad as A to justify an act of B. Sure North Korea's government is straight up tyrannical, but we aren't the best, if we were this wouldn't be happening.

They're, presumably, trying to get attention for the good of mankind. "Get attention" is literally the only [1] useful thing Anonymous is actually capable of doing, remember -- they can release documents to bring them to people's attention, make statements to influence people's opinion, etc. There is no need to inform people that the government of North Korea is corrupt, because everyone already knows it's corrupt. It'd be like informing people that oxygen is a really nice thing to breathe.

The prospect for literally "attacking" most organizations is kind of weak. Most of the corrupt governments in the world aren't very technologically advanced, so disrupting their computer systems wouldn't do much good. I'm sure Anonymous would love to go after Blackwater, I [and probably they] just have no idea how Anonymous could go after Blackwater.

[1] -- okay, not only. The alternative is interfering with military systems resp. affecting a war, but this is far more difficult, dangerous, and just generally a bad thing.

>I read somewhere that an Anonymous hacker used to fight oppressive governments in Africa. Why did he stop?

I don't think he stopped. He just isn't getting press coverage at the moment.

It's just trying to shift the blame by pointing out another problem. This doesn't make the problem at hand (growing oppression in western countries) magically go away.

Because the US government is much easier to reform. It pays at least some lip service to freedom.

Anonymous has been involved in attacking Government websites from Egypt, Yemen, Iran, Siria, etc. Lulzsec has attacked also AlQaeda sites.

Had they hacked the IRS or the SSA or the NYT or harvard.edu, we would see true gloves off behavior from the authorities.

When these same are governed by a thinly disguised global oligarchy that increasingly looks like a forom of internationalist neo-feudalism and where these same dukes and what not invade and kill abroad in the name of the painfully obviously disregarded principles and stated ideals, we as a are going to continue to face insecurity and injustice as a systemic outcome of our duplicitous selves.

I think a very large chunk of the world would tell you that the US is the most oppressive one. NK is oppressive to its own people, but the US' oppression goes far beyond its own borders.

By attacking the US they are attacking the instance which is most familiar / easiest / offers biggest impact, but not necessarily claiming the agency they attack is the worst in the world, ever.

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig#Constitutional_... [2]http://fixcongressfirst.org

Your "intelligent" vote is worthless if only a small, insignificant number of people are intellectually able to vote intelligently. The hurdles for making change should be low enough to be not only theoretically, but also practically possible.

I'm starting to believe that the smart people just don't want to be politicians. It's a good way to become rich and famous, though.

There was nothing noble about 9/10's of the crap lulzsec did, and the somewhat decent stuff they did was undercut by the whole "for the lulz" philosophy. If you really are fighting for freedom, you need to be better than DDS'ing game servers, because if you aren't the people who you are opposed to will use that shit against you. Like the FBI is doing now.

I won't shed a tear if the Lulzsec folk get put away. I will be quite upset if Lulzsec turns the public against those who would do the modern day equivalent of releasing the pentagon papers.

In principle, I agree. The 'internet privacy' movement would be better served if the people who supported it differentiated themselves from the people who are just fucking around. I think a lot of them realize this.

The question "why don't they" has its answer in the dark catacombs of the human psyche. LulzSec and Anonymous draw a lot of their support, i.e. membership, from teenagers who want to feel like the antihero of one of today's popular bildungsroman-turned-polemic, y'know, V for Vendetta, or The Matrix, Avatar, etc. Being somewhat evil is cool, and Anonymous needs to look cool for people to want to be part of it. I'm sure the aforementioned Black Panthers lived on this for a while as well.

Some people did try to break the moral section of the movement away from the lunatic fringe; it was called Enturbulation and later WhyWeProtest, and they went after Scientology and later ACTA. Ultimately, though, WhyWeProtest slowly became irrelevant, because without a steady stream of angry people and plenty of press coverage their membership was decimated by the attrition of boredom and disillusionment. It's still around at http://whyweprotest.net/ but unlike Anonymous you've never heard of them.

I support the EFF and Wikileaks much more readily than I support Anonymous, but at the same time I figure no social change movement has succeeded without a lunatic fringe -- there were plenty of violent people fighting for India's independence, the breakup of the Soviet Union started with a coup, there were multiple violent civil rights activists in the '60s, etc.

I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this?

We leave the economics to the economists, the physics to the physicists, and the medicine to the doctors. There are people--incompetent or not--who spend their entire lives dealing with government/country related issues. Yes, some of them might be corrupt, but are we naive enough to believe that an entire country is corrupt? Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have?

At one point or another, this argument for civil liberties gets repetitive and overblown. No one I know has ever felt like their freedoms were at stake, and the few government mistakes that the media captures should not be precedence to act against them. I make mistakes, you make mistakes - everyone makes mistakes. Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever.

Edit: Edited out a preface - wasn't aware. Sorry.

Getting incompetent people fired may replace them with a less experienced, but more competent person. I'd value competency over experience.

Leaking information is the only way to justify hacking into the servers. There's no point of hacking in if you're not going to allow the public to see if the government is doing any underhanded actions.

It's insulting by implication to the community here that expressing a contrary but constructive and well-written opinion would get you "massively down voted." For the most part, other readers can differentiate between constructive comments they disagree with and spammers, griefers, trolls, crapflooders, and trivial one-liners.

For starters, people in positions of power have a long history of acting in their own best interests and not the interest of the greater good. Some decisions about our government and country have both arbitrary criteria, and arbitrary outcomes. Historically, politicians will use this ambiguity to bias towards their own interests - including resisting changes that will bring more transparency to the benefits/harms of their "sound decision on the best course of action".

Second, some domains need specialists, some need generalists. To even suggest that we should rely on specialists in all situations is simply a flawed understanding of how knowledge evolves. In particular to running a country, we happen to be at a cycle where the information we use to make very important decisions for the purpose of our national interests is evolving very rapidly. Most likely success means finding new ways to understand information vs applying proven, specialized techniques.

We are not talking about people making mistakes, we are talking about a system that has consistently produced leaders that are incapable of acting in the best interests of their constituency. Its a broken system, and Anonymous / Lulz are making history right now.. they are forcing information to the surface. Their tactics are in fact a solution - setting a precedence to our leaders that their actions will be judged in the future much more openly than they were judged in the past.

And I'll tell you, a world where the individuals in our government system must be openly accountable for the decisions they make, and how those decisions affect others is a better world for all of us. The only other path has been retold countless times in history books, and its so much worse than any disclosure of factual data.

But we don't really. Are economists deciding if the U.S. will default in less than two weeks?

They can't even come to a conclusion on climate change.

Really? Make that one person, but there are surely more.

>Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have?

Who are a bunch of flawed humans to judge anything? Physics operates on a totally open system of merit. Economics as well. Doctors are directly responsible to reality. These are sciences. Government is not a science, and it is an intention of the system that the people should be able to evaluate it. From The Federalist #51:

"If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

Incidentally, we do not "leave medicine to the doctors" in any realistic sense -- there are numerous byzantine legal controls on the medical profession, such as, for example, the FDA. To "leave medicine to the doctors" would be to abolish the FDA, medical malpractice litigation, patient privacy laws, etc.

>Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers

Ultimately, experience is not a guarantee of competence or even a strong indicator in most fields, be it physics or government. Programming is a notable exception.

>I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this?

I realize it about you, specifically. Would you argue that because of their positions, the heads of the DEA and TSA are necessarily more competent than the vast number of medical, legal, and security experts who argue that their actions are often unnecessary and unjustified? There are people outside the government capable -- perhaps superbly so -- of analyzing the merit of government action.

It is also somewhat if not extremely naive to assume that government officials make decisions from a competent and ethical stance, and that "mistakes" are indeed a result of circumstances rather than malice or neglect. Is it naive to assume a majority of legislators are corrupt? It doesn't matter -- it is possible to look at the evidence, so assumptions are largely unnecessary. When a serious Presidential contender argues that Paul Revere rode to "warn the British", the legitimacy of government can scarcely be assumed.

What liberties do you feel are at stake? Do you feel oppressed - that suddenly your rights may be taken away? Could you expand? I currently have no idea why you would feel this way.

>Who are a bunch of flawed humans to judge anything? Physics operates on a totally open system of merit. Economics as well. Doctors are directly responsible to reality. These are sciences. Government is not a science, and it is an intention of the system that the people should be able to evaluate it.

Flawed humans can judge the things which we have expertise over. Business is not a science either, but in many partnerships, one trusts the opinions of the other simply because they have more experience. You're right, that government is not a science. Yet, that doesn't eliminate the possibility of experts being better versed than the majority of people who have an opinion on the matter.

>Incidentally, we do not "leave medicine to the doctors" in any realistic sense -- there are numerous byzantine legal controls on the medical profession, such as, for example, the FDA. To "leave medicine to the doctors" would be to abolish the FDA

The FDA is a regulating body, kind of like the government. Now, what if they're also corrupt? Unlike government issues, we don't (I know some do, yes) apply as much pressure on the FDA because most people realize they don't understand how complex chemicals work. Yet, they think they understand complex social initiatives because it's more 'down to earth'.

> Ultimately, experience is not a guarantee of competence or even a strong indicator in most fields, be it physics or government.

Agreed, without objection. Yet, how do we know the replacement will be more competent? If we miss that mark, it'll just be someone of the same competency (with slight deviation), without the 20 years of mistakes to learn from. I remember working with an electrical engineer, who pointed out a large amount of issues that no degree of competence could have foreseen - because he had been in the field for so long.

> I realize it about you, specifically. Would you argue that because of their positions, the heads of the DEA and TSA are necessarily more competent than the vast number of medical, legal, and security experts who argue that their actions are often unnecessary and unjustified? There are people outside the government capable -- perhaps superbly so -- of analyzing the merit of government action.

Sure, but how do we identify who is right, out of the thousands of people who are wrong? I'm not arguing that the government is perfect. I'm simply saying it might be the most practical system.

Yes. Here, do you need examples?

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/a-pound-of-f...

>Yet, they think they understand complex social initiatives because it's more 'down to earth'.

To what precisely do you refer? Most people defer to someone who makes coherent arguments for their positions, rather than using gunpowder. The former group usually consists of experts.

If I don't have the greatest grip on airport security, that doesn't mean I can't defer to Bruce Schneier because I find his argument more coherent than John Pistole.

>Sure, but how do we identify who is right, out of the thousands of people who are wrong? I'm not arguing that the government is perfect. I'm simply saying it might be the most practical system.

In the end, the same way we choose who gets into the government in the first place -- popular opinion. This is not to say that popular opinion is always right, and in fact it is quite often wrong, but people are generally swayed by logic, and it just so happens that things which are close to the truth tend to be more convincing that utter lies. The responsibility of the government to popular opinion is the foundation of any democracy.

(Of course, I, as an individual, make judgments using logic, not popular opinion -- this much is clear -- but I am not a particularly special individual)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_americans_1942

>it'll just be government 2.0.

Well, obviously. That's the point. Government 1.0 sucks.

>The point I really disagree with is: people are generally swayed by logic. That's not true. People are generally swayed by emotion

These are not mutually exclusive. In general, humans try to be consistent -- hence the rise of philosophy multiple independent times in multiple independent cultures.

If they win, then the Government changes, and the whole society changes after that. If they lose, they end up dead or in jail for whatever crimes the Government said they committed (and if there isn't a crime they can use, they'll make a new law for it like they tried with the SHIELD bill against whistleblowers)

The hacktivists aren't doing any real damage to society, and in fact they may actually end up helping it a lot, in the same way Wikileaks changed some things for the better, and they were also hunted down by Governments.

The real damage they are doing is to the people in power, and those people will fight to keep things the same and get away with their own crimes against the people they should represent.

I think we'll experience major changes in the way our democracies work by the end of this decade. For the fast times we live in, and real time information and feedback, we can only give some feedback once every 4 years, and it's usually just 2 choices: the one that has been in power, and another one. Politicians need to become a lot more accountable, and our feedback should be a lot more direct and often than once every 4 years through the voting of a party or a president.

I understand the feelings disgust with the current state of the system, and I get how in leu of an actual solution one would feel frustrated enough to act out in the ways that they have, but I stand firm in my belief that there is a better way of accomplishing the changes we/they want to see, even if nobody has figured out what that is yet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

Lulz: consider this constructive criticism. Take it down a notch.

"The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s."

This sentence hurts me.

There was a time when you could get your account deleted for saying "good sir" on SA, it was that prevalent and annoying.

A lot of the lulzsec schtick reads like classic SA banter, I wouldn't be surprised if topiary used to post there. It could just be because of the aforementioned SA-->4chan lineage.

Let's see, "Make impassioned speech then go break into the neighbor's house and scatter his secret documents all over the lawn"

That makes a lot of sense now, doesn't it? Perhaps if you're seven. And drunk.

Aside from the validity of the charges, this manner of social justice never ever works for the people who try it. Good grief, did we learn nothing from Ghandi or MLK Jr.? There's a perfectly legitimate and effective way to denounce injustice. I think either you understand the problems with what they are doing from looking at history or you become so enamored with their cause you allow yourself to become feeble-minded.

I hate the security state that we're living in. But I hate even more people taking it on themselves to administer justice in this fashion. If you make me pick, I'm going with broken security state over anarchists every time -- and there are hundreds of millions of folks just like me. And the the thing I hate worst? Somebody taking _my_ legitimate cause and crapping all over it by doing things like this. It's an attack on freedom-loving people everywhere.

If the local prosecutor lets a murderer go free? I don't go burn the prosecutor's house down. If the local sheriff is corrupt? I don't break into his house and publish his papers in the newspaper. If the guy next door is crooked and in cahoots with the mob? I don't get to break in his house and hand out his property to the poor. In short, the minute I start deciding on my own when to break the law and disrespect other people's property rights because of a cause -- even a legitimate cause -- I become an enemy of everybody. You don't get to wave your hands around angrily pointing out how worthy your cause is and get a free pass. At least not from me.

</rant>

I dunno, the Pentagon Papers had fairly significant political effects, I think. Stealing government documents and having them published overseas to embarrass/expose the state's actions was also one of the more effective tools used by opposition groups in Eastern Europe and the USSR.

Do you really think stealing a state's documents is an attack on "freedom-loving people everywhere"? Is this always true? The Eastern-block dissents hated freedom, and damaged the cause of freedom by stealing/leaking Stasi documents?

I could certainly agree that the Stasi is much worse than the UK government, so maybe you could draw a line between a certain level of viciousness of the security state, past which document-theft becomes justified. But I don't see how you could make a blanket statement that it's never justified.

I would also make a distinction between breaking into a person's house and breaking into a government's office. Breaking into someone's home has a certain personal-threat aspect to it, and I'd consider homes to have a bit of a sacrosanct element that I wouldn't extend to state offices. So, probably not in favor of combatting a corrupt police force by breaking into the sheriff's home. But, combatting a corrupt police force by breaking into a police station and grabbing their files, as happened recently in Egypt, seems a bit different.

' [...] at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."'

Martin Luther King Jr, Letter from a Birmingham Jail -- http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.h...

If you want to argue that some of Anon's actions have been unethical, that's fair, and many people -- including some anons -- will agree with you. However, there are certainly times when breaking the law is justified in support of the rights of the people.

The problem with that line of thinking is that there is no universally accepted, objective standard of what defines a just and unjust law. Do we make those decisions based on Natural Law? How about on the teachings of Mohammed? Jesus? etc.

Making statements about the moral justice of a government's laws has to appeal to some higher moral standard and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of unity in that realm of the discussion. So what you consider to be a "just law" another might believe to be unjust, because their moral presuppositions are completely different.

Everything every human does is solely their reaction to their perception. It is as possible to misperceive the law itself as it is to differ on ethical reality; this is irrelevant to the reasoning of any individual. The law is a fluid entity, created by humans, and it is obviously incomplete as evidenced by the fact that we keep modifying it. Furthermore, some notion of ethics has to exist in order to create any law at all.

There is a large body of work in the field of ethics, and it is not really unreasonable for most people to try to understand it. While many philosophers disagree on particulars or even the entire foundation, there are many common elements in the philosophy of people as different as Kant and Nietzsche.

So yes, you have to react to what you consider to be a just law, just as you have to react to what you consider to be the law -- how many people do you know who actually know the law? In practice, this does not usually lead to much difficulty, if all of the participants agree to use at least a little logic.

The best analogy I can come up with is language -- everyone speaks their own version of language (even when everyone is speaking the "same language), and if the rules are codified anywhere it is inevitably a tiny subset of the language that is actually used. Despite this, human communication has been quite successful over the past several millenia.

Feel free to take guidance wherever you find it - from the principles of the law itself, from your peers, your family, your elders. But consider Nuremburg, and consider the Milgram Experiment: ultimately the responsibility is yours, and cannot be shirked.

If I feel like the speed limit is unjust, I should go about my business driving any speed I feel like. I do not, however, get to run over people while I'm doing it. If I feel like the law that protects my crooked neighbor's website is unjust, I have no obligation to support his privacy and private property.

I do not feel this way. I feel like my neighbor the person, corporation, or government entity uses their computer resources as an extension of their brain. As such, I frown severely on _anybody_ taking that property from them, whether through force of law or just trickery. To me you'd have a better case to have insiders physically take individual items that demonstrate and protest injustice and then publish them than this current tactic of scattering thousands of innocent user's passwords all over the web. I'm almost at the point where I consider the tactic of blanket attacks itself as being immoral. Not there yet, though.

This is an excellent reference, though. MLK disagreed with those who thought the system itself was unjust enough to declare war and make each other enemies. (I remind you of the phrase on the linked site "...These governments and corporations are our enemy....") During his life, he specifically and clearly separated himself from folks like the Black Panthers, who took this "enemy" position and look to me a lot like Anon's forefathers. MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail is probably one of 2 or 3 standard-setters in this arena. I encourage people to pursue this further.

I'm sorry I responded -- I know better. This is an emotional issue, and those of you who share my passion for freedom no doubt are going to try to beat what I've said to death. But I couldn't stand MLK's words being used in this fashion. He was making the exact opposite point. The laws he broke were unjust, not simply the ones that got in his way of creating social change.

EDIT: There is a simple unstated question that this thread brings out, though: are you an enemy of my country? (EDIT: I ask this because of the specific phraseology of the anon statement, the position of the Black Panthers, and some of the other comments, not as a means to heighten the tension.) It sounds like from reading many of the comments on the internet that some folks are -- or at least they'd like to think of themselves as such. They feel the system is so corrupt that they have made it their enemy. If that's the case, then we are enemies, and there's no more argument really needed. Kind of simplifies things up rather nicely. If not, then we should talk about practical and efficient ways to change things, because I share the view that things are off the rails and need changing.

I believe that some systems are bad but people are mostly good. That means that I respect those laws that deal with the privacy and dignity of the human being, including (for most folks) keeping their passwords and personal lives out of political battles. So email dumps and tactics like this are only going to piss me off further. Not sure if that was the intent, but that's what's they're doing.

Why are you putting this on some kind of George W. Bush paradigm? The government and the country are not the same thing.

> They feel the system is so corrupt that they have made it their enemy.

I believe that the system is corrupt but that doesn't mean I've made it my "enemy." This line of thinking leads to any criticism of the government as being "unpatriotic." That's not a good road for the country to start going down.

First, Gandhi and MLK both benefitted from the fact that there were people prepared to be violent behind them, and they were representing a peaceful way forward as opposed to a mess and then having to give in anyways.

Second -- regarding your edit, everytime you try to break it down to a silly jingoistic binary sentiment like that, you're turning your brain off. Anonymous isn't against your country but they're very much against you being enabled to do that.

That wasn't what I was saying at all, either: I was responding specifically to the sentence I quoted, and I explicitly clarified this: "if you want to argue that some of Anon's actions are unethical [...]". Ancestor had seemed to support a legalist position, which is, in my opinion, a disappointingly popular ethos.

>There is a simple unstated question that this thread brings out, though: are you an enemy of my country?

The question inherent in this question: who and what, precisely, defines "my country"? I'll bet at most a tiny minority considers themself an enemy of the food system. I'm quite a fan, though there is a serious need for reform in many aspects.

Civil disobedience is greater than violence? It's not like spreading information is violent..

> In short, the minute I start deciding on my own when to break the law

Ghandi and MLK broke the law, I doubt they would share your same sentiment. Sometimes disobedience is the only way. Ghandi was an anarchist, not sure if that discredits him in your eyes.

Furthermore there was a fairly large segment of the civil rights movement that disagreed with MLK and thought the strategies he promoted would not lead to acceptance of "black culture" but instead the acceptance of blacks into "white culture" (ie: ok fine if you act and dress like us then we wont hate you). It's painfully clear that there are still massive inequalities in terms of the way people of different races are treated in the US, and I would argue MLK's limited success in getting rid of racism was at the cost of the introduction of even heavier, subtler and harder to eradicate classism (yes Obama is president, but we all remember the "is he black enough" debates).

So while I don't entirely disagree with you, let's not make it seem like there is obviously a right or wrong here, and that by simply "looking at history" we can we can see that. Usually I like your posts but this one really lacks nuance...at least it is appropriately tagged "rant."

You forgot to mention the French and American revolutions and that Ghandi and MLK had militant parallels (without which change likely would not have happened).

>But I hate even more people taking it on themselves to administer justice in this fashion.

You must also hate nearly every other successful social movement in history.

>If you make me pick, I'm going with broken security state over anarchists every time -- and there are hundreds of millions of folks just like me.

Yet you benefit from the social gains fought for by "anarchists" like the suffragettes and the labor movement.

Sorry, but that's a pretty bad analogy.

Article 35 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793.

Substituting "office" for "house," maybe you should (break in and publish his papers). Does a corrupt LEO have the "right to privacy" while e.g. putting innocent people in jail, extorting businesses, tampering with evidence, etc.? I think that the rights of those whose lives are affected by a corrupt official like this trump the rights of the official to "privacy."

tl;dr: Don't abuse your power to clandestinely fuck up other people's lives then complain about your "right to privacy" when you're exposed.

Get you head out of your ass, nothing you said makes any sense.

If it was the home of the mastermind hurting half the town and some of the documents represented parts of his plan to hurt, it would seem more justified.

Wouldn't it be funny if the FBI & associated agencies actually worked to increase the security of the nation's networks instead of acting surprised every time they get penetrated?

If that actually happens as a direct result of lulzsec, I submit that they should be given some sort of medal, and their choice of pacific islands.

That's among their stated goals.

But do you really think all this will cause govts/corporations the get more serious about security? Why now and not a decade, two decades ago?

the true irony of course is that all the flailings of the antisec movement will result in is greater revenues for the same computer security industry they hate.

hacktivism isn't working.

once i was on a panel answering questions about the roles of 'malware authors' and vendors of security products (reps from M$, symantec, mcafee, etc). i was in a ski mask representing malware. what i reminded them (and everyone in the audience) was that without me, they wouldn't have a job; they need malware, black hats, etc in order to have something to sell. and if it works too well, they wouldn't be able to sell new versions of it. funny.

We recently stumbled across the following article with amazement and a certain amount of amusement:

http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-...

The statements made by deputy assistant FBI director Steve Chabinsky in this article clearly seem to be directed at Anonymous and Lulz Security, and we are happy to provide you with a response.

You state:

  "We want to send a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable, 
  [even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it's entirely 
  unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts."

* Governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece.

* Corporations aiding and conspiring with said governments while taking advantage at the same time by collecting billions of funds for federal contracts we all know they can't fulfil.

* Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher, while at the same time being deeply involved in governments around the world with the only goal to infiltrate and corrupt them enough so the status quo will never change.

These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies.

We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir. It is our mission to help these people and there is nothing - absolutely nothing - you can possibly to do make us stop.

  "The Internet has become so important to so many people that we have to 
  ensure that the World Wide Web does not become the Wild Wild West."

That does not mean that everyone behaves like an outlaw. You see, most people do not behave like bandits if they have no reason to. We become bandits on the Internet because you have forced our hand. The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s. We're back - and we're not going anywhere. Expect us.

I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a lot of critical thinking going on. It's this reason I support these groups.

"Don't anger Sony because they'll only make prices higher for everybody!" Yes. Their costs will be higher, so economically they'll either take less profit or have higher prices. Then they will be at a disadvantage in the marketplace. At some point the cold equations of economics will dictate that they either change their ways or die.

The cost of assholery at the corporations is also passed on to the consumer - and everybody else on the planet - it may simply not be in absolute dollars and cents in purchase price. But we all end up paying.

Incidentally, gas prices have nothing to do with the disaster in the Gulf, and everything to do with (1) what the market will bear, (2) increased consumption in BRIC nations, and (3) profit-taking and commodity games. The oil companies, including BP, have made more money in the past year than they ever have. So they're not passing the price of disaster on; they're simply taking whatever they can grab because they know nobody is ever going to try to worry a corporation for fear they might not hire somebody. Like they will anyway.

Gah. Probably too much grar here. I'm going to go lie down.

In the short-term, they may have a negative impact on the general population. But the goal by many such actions is very longterm and seemingly worth the temporary raise in price etc. in the eyes of the protestors.

They are given permission by society retroactively after the events have transpired and the ends justify the means.

And when they are not given permission because they could not justify the actions, they are further punished just as any unlawful person would be.

I submit you don't actually need to buy anything that Sony makes.