[hackerspaces] revspace and randomdata in the news re wikileaks ddos story

[Yves Quemener]

On 12/10/2010 11:11 PM, Koen Martens wrote:
> I don't think so. It demonstrates the weakness in the internet, and now that
> it is so clearly and prominently exposed, calls will be made to ask for 
> measures against it. And since the internet isn't something easily changed,
> I fear it will be ridicoulous litigation and agreements. Such as ACTA. The
> most likely answer to the ddos attacks is more monitoring on internet connections,
> wider criteria to define 'cybercrime' and harsher response when someone
> is suspected of it.

That's a possible scenario. Or at some point people could realize that
brute force is not going to work and that some thinking is in order.

>> They are trying to illegally censor a journalism website. If they manage to
>> do that, to get the kind of power necessary to censor globally a journalist
>> on internet, how do you expect to know when the "last resort point" will be
>> there ?
> 
> There are so many things we can do against that 'censorship', and we are
> doing. Think of the mirrors. Think of more intelligent measures: try 
> to circumvent the hold on DNS that the US has. Think of a new, better
> matter of connecting people in the digital world that doesn't involve
> the broken and old internet.

Yes, that kind of thing is good and I try on my scale to help with that.
But I won't disapprove anymore people who try to fight without gloves now.
We *are* at the point where the judicial system is used as a weapon, not as
a mean to bring justice.

> There is so much more we can do other than
> just breaking things.

Exactly what things did the DDoS break ?

>> It might seem like a childish justification but "they did it first" is
>> actually a good argument.
> 
> No, it's not :)

Actually that's the difference between an attack and a self-defense.

>>> Breaking stuff is just not
>>> a good way to make your case in general.
>> Actually it is an incredibly effective method.
> It's not, it deflects attention from the actual cause. The ddos has had the
> result, in nl at least, that the media are primarily talking about how you
> can ddos a site, what these teens are thinking, etc.. 
So you mean that the ddos attacks helped these teens express their points
of view in the media ?
Heh.

> It has deflected 
> attention from the actual content of the cables, which is probably just how
> the US govmt would want to see it.

The more ruckus there is around wikileaks, the more people will want to
read these cables. I don't think it deflects anything.

Iv