My attempt at understanding burgerbrain's comment leads me to believe that "we the people" are the victims, and our kidnappers are the government and corporate super powers operating via government action to provide legitimacy. While the Antisec people are trying to save us.
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.
So in this little metaphor, the people play the role of the hostages, the government plays the role of the kidnappers (lawless criminals) and LulzSec play the role of the government (the good guys trying to save you)
Interesting. Confusing, but interesting.
> Think about it, how many people in this world have actually signed up to be dominated by their government?
No one is making any such claims.
Your claim appears to be that the government is this "big bad evil uncle who just wants to rape you" or some such nonsense. Do all governments have issues with corruption, abuse of power and not honouring individual's rights: Yes. Has LulzSec exposed a single government (or private/corporate) abuse? Not that I can find.
Lets take a look at some of their releases:
62,000 random logins
> Wow, that sounds like a very decisive and clear attack on those taking our rights roll eyes
Senate.gov internal data
> A copy of their apache config file, and a full file list (no real data, just the file names), I can only assume the documents they found would be so damming and pervasive that it would be wrong to release them....or it was just a publicly accessible site that had nothing to hide, not sure
Pron.com user database
> Clearly human rights abuses happen every day in the Pron.com offices....when they aren't watching porn
Sony International and friends
> I know they tend to make shitty stuff, especially music, but I have yet to have a single person be able to point to an action by sony that could be called "dominating", "abusive", "unjust", etc
PBS.org
> Does this even need an explanation? PBS isnt some evil company out to fuck the little guy. Take a look at their scheduling, Sesame Street, Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That! and Seven Wonders of Ancient Egypt. So what exactly has the evil PBS perpetrated to warrant this?
Even the Fox.com hack appears to be their licensing portal for other channels to license their syndicated content. It wasn't even news related, it was the site that let my local fox affilate run crappy reality tv. Absolutely ground breaking.
> We mistakenly think that they protect us when in reality they are just exploiting us.
Really? Because you appear to be mistakenly thinking that LulzSec is her to protect you, rather then exploit you.
They broke into a private computer network, stole your personal information (not the companies, not emploies, but your's) published it without your consent, and encouraged others to use it to commit further crimes agents you. All for personal enjoyment. How exactly has any of their acts helped any real situation? How is LulzSec violating your right to privacy considered an acceptable price to pay for....for what, free porn?
Sony International and friends > I know they tend to make shitty stuff, especially music, but I have yet to have a single person be able to point to an action by sony that could be called "dominating", "abusive", "unjust", etc
Perhaps you are unaware of their removal of OtherOS or persecution of geohot?
"So in this little metaphor, the people play the role of the hostages, the government plays the role of the kidnappers (lawless criminals) and LulzSec play the role of the government (the good guys trying to save you)
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.
So the abuses LulzSec perpetrates are acceptable because they aren't as powerful as the big bad evil government? Or because they appear to hate the government as much as you?
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.
> I don't claim LulzSec represents any cause.
> 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.
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.
Well, I think that about sums things up. burgerbrain doesn't "give a shit" about your rights, only his own! But we should still respect his option for some reason I can't think of right now.
I'm not talking about multinational corporations!
I'm talking about the people, individuals that did nothing more sinister then reuse a password, who's personal information was released without their consent.
Whoa is everyone except you, who's rights you scoff at.
Not at all. Those people were hurt by the corporation not securing their information. They were hurt the moment they used the service. The hack didn't open an otherwise locked door, it just made public (to the likes of you) what anyone with knowledge of escape sequences and SQL could have already seen.
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.
> Are you suggesting that my distain for LulzSec and its methods are some how the result of brain washing or extreme trama?
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.
This response reeks of inaccurate presumptions about my beliefs, options and reasoning. Not to mention, you aren't even the guy I was replying to. But I will respond none the less because I believe in open conversation.
>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.
If these are just minor cases of "vandalism", then why do you care enough to write about it? You lend validity to the post you respond to by responding to it.
Did you see the context of that comment? It was direct quote from the user I was replying to. I used the term "vandalism", in quotes, because that was how the previous poster categorized them. Do I consider them vandalism, on par with graffiti? No. Will a semantic discussion about how to refer to the crimes change anything? I don't see how.
> Do I consider [Lulzsec's actions] vandalism, on par with graffiti? No.
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.
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...