Anonymous doing good?

[Alan Fry]

Originally Posted by Sirius

They are not good,They are a bunch of scumbag hackers. Just shows that your here to be the opposite of the real world.

---------- Post added at 13:18 ---------- Previous post was at 13:17 ----------



I sometimes wonder how you mods put up with idiots like him, I bet the others in his class wonder what planet he is on.

I meant they are good at hacking!

Can they hack into the CIA database and get their sercets?

[Hugh]

No.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Alan Fry

I meant they are good at hacking!

Can they hack into the CIA database and get their sercets?

Whats been good about there hacking so far ???

[Lord Nikon]

Originally Posted by Sirius

They are not good,They are a bunch of scumbag hackers.

'Scumbag Hackers' are the reason we have an internet, Hacking basically in it's classic form means persuading something to do something it was not initially designed to do, for example persuading computers to link in a decentralised network with multiple redundant paths such as ARPANET.

Or if you prefer more current definitions of 'Hacking'
Closing a Nazi party website
Exposing Child pornography
Exposing Laws being pushed forward which would cripple social networking and forums in the interests of protecting 'Intellectual Property' such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA
Pushing for Net Neutrality to remain and trying to persuade businesses with outmoded models to adopt a more rational approach? Such as MPAA, RIAA, BPI etc. After all, all their current models do is create a vicious circle, People pirate a movie (This isn't Hacking by the way), This leads to the labels installing more DRM (Remember Sony's Rootkit on their CDs by the way?) and charging more for the product, this leads to people refusing to pay and sourcing the movie from 'alternative sources' - which leads back to the beginning.

Before you start with the 'But Piracy is starving artists' - Read Eric Flint's Prime Palaver 6 http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm He GAVE AWAY DRM FREE copies of books he'd written, in fact ALL Baen's books are DRM free - and they're doing very well despite it, Overheads are down, sales are up, even though he's GIVING AWAY his work LEGALLY.

What good have these 'Scumbag Hackers' from Anonymous done? They've brought public attention to acts such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, Illegal takedown notices from big companies against small companies etc none of which would have received the publicity they would have done without Anonymous' intervention. They've exposed injustices that would otherwise have taken place with barely a murmur. Would this level of exposure been possible without their style of intervention? Probably not, the Press LOVES a scandal, and rarely carries underdog stories without one.

[budwieser]

Originally Posted by Lord Nikon

'Scumbag Hackers' are the reason we have an internet, Hacking basically in it's classic form means persuading something to do something it was not initially designed to do, for example persuading computers to link in a decentralised network with multiple redundant paths such as ARPANET.

Or if you prefer more current definitions of 'Hacking'
Closing a Nazi party website
Exposing Child pornography
Exposing Laws being pushed forward which would cripple social networking and forums in the interests of protecting 'Intellectual Property' such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA
Pushing for Net Neutrality to remain and trying to persuade businesses with outmoded models to adopt a more rational approach? Such as MPAA, RIAA, BPI etc. After all, all their current models do is create a vicious circle, People pirate a movie (This isn't Hacking by the way), This leads to the labels installing more DRM (Remember Sony's Rootkit on their CDs by the way?) and charging more for the product, this leads to people refusing to pay and sourcing the movie from 'alternative sources' - which leads back to the beginning.

Before you start with the 'But Piracy is starving artists' - Read Eric Flint's Prime Palaver 6 http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm He GAVE AWAY DRM FREE copies of books he'd written, in fact ALL Baen's books are DRM free - and they're doing very well despite it, Overheads are down, sales are up, even though he's GIVING AWAY his work LEGALLY.

What good have these 'Scumbag Hackers' from Anonymous done? They've brought public attention to acts such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, Illegal takedown notices from big companies against small companies etc none of which would have received the publicity they would have done without Anonymous' intervention. They've exposed injustices that would otherwise have taken place with barely a murmur. Would this level of exposure been possible without their style of intervention? Probably not, the Press LOVES a scandal, and rarely carries underdog stories without one.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Lord Nikon

'Scumbag Hackers' are the reason we have an internet, Hacking basically in it's classic form means persuading something to do something it was not initially designed to do, for example persuading computers to link in a decentralised network with multiple redundant paths such as ARPANET.

Or if you prefer more current definitions of 'Hacking'
Closing a Nazi party website
Exposing Child pornography
Exposing Laws being pushed forward which would cripple social networking and forums in the interests of protecting 'Intellectual Property' such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA
Pushing for Net Neutrality to remain and trying to persuade businesses with outmoded models to adopt a more rational approach? Such as MPAA, RIAA, BPI etc. After all, all their current models do is create a vicious circle, People pirate a movie (This isn't Hacking by the way), This leads to the labels installing more DRM (Remember Sony's Rootkit on their CDs by the way?) and charging more for the product, this leads to people refusing to pay and sourcing the movie from 'alternative sources' - which leads back to the beginning.

Before you start with the 'But Piracy is starving artists' - Read Eric Flint's Prime Palaver 6 http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm He GAVE AWAY DRM FREE copies of books he'd written, in fact ALL Baen's books are DRM free - and they're doing very well despite it, Overheads are down, sales are up, even though he's GIVING AWAY his work LEGALLY.

What good have these 'Scumbag Hackers' from Anonymous done? They've brought public attention to acts such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, Illegal takedown notices from big companies against small companies etc none of which would have received the publicity they would have done without Anonymous' intervention. They've exposed injustices that would otherwise have taken place with barely a murmur. Would this level of exposure been possible without their style of intervention? Probably not, the Press LOVES a scandal, and rarely carries underdog stories without one.

My idea of a hacker does not match yours. My idea of a hacker is someone who invades another pc without permission and steals information they don't have the right to have.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Lord Nikon

'Scumbag Hackers' are the reason we have an internet,

'Scumbag Hackers' are also the reason we have viruses, trojan horses and other bad things.

It's not as clear cut as you appear to think.

[Hugh]

Originally Posted by Lord Nikon

'Scumbag Hackers' are the reason we have an internet, Hacking basically in it's classic form means persuading something to do something it was not initially designed to do, for example persuading computers to link in a decentralised network with multiple redundant paths such as ARPANET.

Or if you prefer more current definitions of 'Hacking'
Closing a Nazi party website
Exposing Child pornography
Exposing Laws being pushed forward which would cripple social networking and forums in the interests of protecting 'Intellectual Property' such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA
Pushing for Net Neutrality to remain and trying to persuade businesses with outmoded models to adopt a more rational approach? Such as MPAA, RIAA, BPI etc. After all, all their current models do is create a vicious circle, People pirate a movie (This isn't Hacking by the way), This leads to the labels installing more DRM (Remember Sony's Rootkit on their CDs by the way?) and charging more for the product, this leads to people refusing to pay and sourcing the movie from 'alternative sources' - which leads back to the beginning.

Before you start with the 'But Piracy is starving artists' - Read Eric Flint's Prime Palaver 6 http://www.baen.com/library/palaver6.htm He GAVE AWAY DRM FREE copies of books he'd written, in fact ALL Baen's books are DRM free - and they're doing very well despite it, Overheads are down, sales are up, even though he's GIVING AWAY his work LEGALLY.

What good have these 'Scumbag Hackers' from Anonymous done? They've brought public attention to acts such as SOPA, PIPA, ACTA, Illegal takedown notices from big companies against small companies etc none of which would have received the publicity they would have done without Anonymous' intervention. They've exposed injustices that would otherwise have taken place with barely a murmur. Would this level of exposure been possible without their style of intervention? Probably not, the Press LOVES a scandal, and rarely carries underdog stories without one.

To be fair, Eric Flint only gives away some of his books for free, not all of it.

An regarding your point that hackers are the reason we have the internet, I thought it was mainly down to ARPANET, academics/Universities, and CERN myself? How did hackers bring about the internet?

[Fawkes]

Originally Posted by Hugh

<snip>
An regarding your point that hackers are the reason we have the internet, I thought it was mainly down to ARPANET, academics/Universities, and CERN myself? How did hackers bring about the internet?

I think he was referring to the original use of the word hacker not the one used by the media today. That said Anonymous don't fit that original word. They are as Sirius puts it, scumbag hackers who might think they are fighting the good fight for net freedom but will soon be used by governments as justification for new laws that chip a bit more of our freedom away.

[Lord Nikon]

Originally Posted by Sirius

My idea of a hacker does not match yours. My idea of a hacker is someone who invades another pc without permission and steals information they don't have the right to have.

There are two classes of hackers, 'White Hat' and 'Black Hat' - the White hat type may gain access, but that's mainly for the challenge, they would touch nothing, take nothing and merely leave a message for the systems admin to tell them how they gained entry so that the sysadmin can correct the flaw in security.

The black hat type do as you say. The question being though, at what point do the black hats have valid cause? To pass a law which essentially grants major companies carte blanche to kill sites they dislike is damaging to the basic precept the internet was created around. We already have Universal Music killing the MegaUpload Song on copyright claims despite everything about the video being legit. (Content of MegaUpload's servers discounted) We also have public information videos being killed by Universal again despite not having a claim to the content. This all took place under the DMCA regulations, ACTA, SOPA and PIPA make the DMCA look weak in comparison, these laws were being pushed through with little to no public knowledge of them, in bringing them to the public attention were Anonymous acting as White hat for the good of the people it affects or were they acting Black hat in the way some of the information was gleaned? They aren't exactly falling into either category really.

I see Anonymous as self styled 'Robin Hoods' of the internet - steal from the rich to give to the poor. Legally questionable, Morally questionable but on the whole acting for the interests of the masses regardless of whether or not the public realises it at the time.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Hugh

To be fair, Eric Flint only gives away some of his books for free, not all of it.

An regarding your point that hackers are the reason we have the internet, I thought it was mainly down to ARPANET, academics/Universities, and CERN myself? How did hackers bring about the internet?

I thought Arpanet was created because the US military wanted a way to communicate with other countries that was fairly difficult for the Commies to disrupt/intercept?

[Hugh]

It was....

[Lord Nikon]

Originally Posted by Hugh

To be fair, Eric Flint only gives away some of his books for free, not all of it.

An regarding your point that hackers are the reason we have the internet, I thought it was mainly down to ARPANET, academics/Universities, and CERN myself? How did hackers bring about the internet?

Actually, since Eric's books are sold without DRM there are many copies flying around especially on other sites Baen actively support such as http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/

This site is not associated with Baen Publishing Enterprises .
Well… 'not associated' in the sense that they don't run this site or support it in any way, shape or form beyond the fact that they've given permission for their CDs to be freely distributed by interested third parties. Any complaints, quibbles, comments, small plain brown paper bags filled with small-denomination well-circulated bills should be directed to baencd@this_domain's_name, not to Baen Publishing Enterprises.

For the small minority of people who still seem to think that this site is blatantly trampling upon multiple copyrights and don't believe what's in the linked CD-ROM Orientation, feel free to visit the Baen Publishing Enterprises web site and drop a dime on me. They have a lively web forum and you can speak directly to the publisher and webmaster in several conferences. Just be prepared to be roundly mocked after complaining about this site.

Baen knows all about this site, to the point where the publisher has my phone number and she's not afraid to use it.

The Baen Free Library isn't the only legal source of free Baen ebooks.

http://www.protectivehacks.com/Ethical-Hacking.html for more information on Hacking definitions.

---------- Post added at 17:18 ---------- Previous post was at 17:15 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

It was....

Yes, but the protocols and hardware came from people 'Hacking together systems and ideas' - under the classical definition of Hacking.

Terms change in usage hence I defined it as the classical rather than modern term. Example - Gay used to mean happy, now means Homosexual. (Nothing inferred by the usage of the term, only an example which came to mind while typing this) The definition of Hacking etc has mutated through use and now has more negative connotations than it did.

[Fawkes]

Free speech is a cornerstone of democracy and should be fought for. I am completely against any law that encroaches on it.

However I think you need to get some perspective.

Originally Posted by Lord Nikon

To pass a law which essentially grants major companies carte blanche to kill sites they dislike is damaging to the basic precept the internet was created around.

If you’re honest with yourself it’s not really sites they don’t like, its sites that are offering their intellectual property for free. This is already against the law, they are just seeking new laws that allow their rights to be enforced.

We already have Universal Music killing the MegaUpload Song on copyright claims despite everything about the video being legit.

There is some confusion as to whether the takedown of the MegaUpload Song was a DMCA takedown or not. If it was a false DMCA takedown then the DMCA itself can be used by MegaUpload to sue Universal Music. So what’s unfair about that.
If as Universal has stated it was not a DMCA takedown and was in fact an agreement between them and Google then MegaUpload have no recourse for action that I can see. Google own the servers and they don’t have to host your content. I any case the video was reinstated, it’s the least of MegaUploads problems right now.

We also have public information videos being killed by Universal again despite not having a claim to the content.

Link please; I would be very interested to read this.

This all took place under the DMCA regulations, ACTA, SOPA and PIPA make the DMCA look weak in comparison, these laws were being pushed through with little to no public knowledge of them, in bringing them to the public attention were Anonymous acting as White hat for the good of the people it affects or were they acting Black hat in the way some of the information was gleaned?

We don’t need Anonymous to bring these to our attention, the EFF can do this without hacking, hell you could go on the House Judiciary Committees website and watch the hearings live.

I see Anonymous as self styled 'Robin Hoods' of the internet - steal from the rich to give to the poor. Legally questionable, Morally questionable but on the whole acting for the interests of the masses regardless of whether or not the public realises it at the time.

So the big media companies are the rich and the people who use MegaUpload and The Pirate Bay are the poor?

First world bull [Mod Edit]if ever I heard it. Millions of people sat at home in their comfy chairs, behind a £1000 plus of computer equipment connected to there high speed internet connection for £20+ a month. Poor, right.

[Hugh]

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