A Brief History of Anonymous Hacktivism
by ilene - December 13th, 2010 2:01 pm
This is fascinating. Adam Sharp of Bearish News reports on a group call Anonymous. – Ilene
A Brief History of Anonymous Hacktivism
We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.
-Anonymous
Long before they became vigilantes in the Wikileaks cyberwars, Anonymous was conducting large-scale “raids” against their enemies. In hilariously-titled Operation: Titstorm earlier this year, they took on the Australian Gov’t over net censorship. Here’s a poster from the raid:
February 2010, click to enlarge
They succeeded in briefly shutting down a few AU gov’t sites. More to their point, I believe, is that attention was drawn to the issue. All the big outlets covered the story.
One participant was quoted as saying, “No government should have the right to refuse its citizens access to information solely because they perceive it to be unwanted”. Another quipped, “The Australian government will learn that one does not mess with our porn.”
One issue raised with the censorship was its vagueness. For example, it banned films featuring small-breasted adult women who could be “confused” with minors. This message was posted to Youtube as part of Operation: Titstorm:
Hello, Prime Minister Rudd, Governor-General Bryce, and members of the Australian Parliament. We are Anonymous. Over the past several months, we have observed the actions of your government in regard to censorship of internet content in Australia.
Your ban of pornography depicting small breasted women is not only discrimination against people based on physical characteristics, but also a first step down the slippery slope of internet censorship. Your proposed implementation of mandatory ISP filtering is an outrage, and Anonymous cannot allow this to happen. If there is any foreseeable threat to our organization, it is internet censorship. Therefore, we take your actions very seriously.
We shall proceed
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TLP: About F#^king Time
by ilene - July 14th, 2010 11:25 am
TLP: About F#^king Time
Courtesy of Jr. Deputy Accountant
Yeah, but what about intentional f-bombs?
NYT:
A federal appeals court struck down a Federal Communications Commission policy on indecency Tuesday, saying that regulations barring the use of “fleeting expletives” on radio and television violated the First Amendment because they were vague and could inhibit free speech.
The decision, which many constitutional scholars expect to be appealed to the Supreme Court, stems from a challenge by Fox, CBS and other broadcasters to the F.C.C.’s decision in 2004 to begin enforcing a stricter standard of what kind of language is allowed on free, over-the-air television.
The stricter policy followed several incidents that drew widespread public complaint, including Janet Jackson’s breast-baring episode at the 2004 Super Bowl and repeated instances of profanity by celebrities, including Cher, Paris Hilton and Bono, during the live broadcasts of awards programs. The Janet Jackson incident did not involve speech but it drew wide public outrage that spurred a crackdown by the F.C.C.
In a unanimous three-judge decision, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in New York said that the F.C.C.’s current policy created “a chilling effect that goes far beyond the fleeting expletives at issue here” because it left broadcasters without a reliable guide to what the commission would find offensive.
The appeals court emphasized that it was not precluding federal regulation of broadcast standards. “We do not suggest that the F.C.C. could not create a constitutional policy,” the court said. “We hold only that the F.C.C.’s current policy fails constitutional scrutiny.”
So the court gives the FCC a fleeting "F" for FAIL. And the best part is that the judges totally let loose with all kinds of profanity in the ruling.
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Google: Scientist
by ilene - January 13th, 2010 10:07 pm
We’ve posted a few articles on the Google-China melodrama and this one, by Bento, takes the very reasonable approach of accepting Google’s claims at face value. – Ilene
Google: Scientist
Courtesy of Ultimi Barbarorum
Baruch,
Symbolism is never lost on the Chinese, who are the masters of signaling, and thus there was some great poignancy to Google’s A new approach to China being posted to the blogspot.com domain, which is blocked in its entirety by China’s censorious government. This proved quite a sassy way to illustrate a point, before even starting on the merits of the case. Those outside China didn’t even notice. Everyone inside China, including the officials, had to turn on their VPN to read it.
Now that the deed is done so publicly, I don’t imagine either side will back down, and nobody expects Google.cn’s redacted search service to last much longer, with perhaps a further punitive ban on google.com for the sheer audacity of this insubordination. But already today the blogosphere erupted in competing narratives explaining Google’s autodefenestration from Chinese search, and not all were wholly credulous of Google’s stated motives.
Among the cynics, the arguments ran thus:
- Google is misrepresenting its decision: It was a face-saving, kudos-generating way to exit a failing business (though without explaining why profitably capturing 31% of the search market in China should prompt shutting down).
- Google is making a mistake: No business in their right mind would purposely anger the masters of such a lucrative market, so this has to be a stupid tactical mistake. (The stated presumption here is that Google cannot be ethical, or it would not have entered China in the first place, so this fiasco must be a very bad business decision merely masquerading as a moral decision.)
Among the partisans:
- Google was pressured into it by Hillary Clinton, thinks Rao Jin, the founder of the China’s patriotic Anti-CNN forum. (I suspect a failure of the imagination on the part of Rao — clearly, he is projecting onto the US how things are done in China.)
And tomorrow, expect the official mouthpieces’ take, which I predict will involve far more references to the peddling of pornography than to the free market of ideas.
I, Bento, take Google’s explanation at face value, however. And I intend to restate the narrative in…
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Google’s Mysterious Threat To Pull Out Of China – Is A Covert War Brewing Between The U.S. And China?
by ilene - January 13th, 2010 7:10 pm
For other perspectives, see also Google: Scientist and Google, China and Reality. – Ilene
Guest Post: Google’s Mysterious Threat To Pull Out Of China – Is A Covert War Brewing Between The U.S. And China?
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Submitted by the Firecracker Report
In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. This attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses--including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors--have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.
The State department said that Mrs Clinton had met with executives from Google and Microsoft, as well as with Cisco Systems, which provides much of China’s internet infrastructure, to discuss how to stop countries from "stifling" access to information.
Most interestingly, the Telegraph went on to point out that:
Next week the US is to launch a new technology policy to help citizens in other countries to gain access to an uncensored internet.
We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.