We are all screwed, the internet is screwed
Sunday, January 22, 2012

Now, here's some things to bring out the fear in you.



Watch it. It explains everything you need to know about how YOU are screwed.

Now, about PIPA and SOPA. Both of them has been paused indefinitely. Which means that in a way, the internet won. But it doesn't mean that the bill is gone, or deleted. It merely means that this is a temporary peace while they find another way to fuck with us.

I realized that I didn't do a good job of explaining it well the other time. Anonymous did a good job at it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeEcoi8kEuU

It's just a video of them speaking, of course, they provided the transcript. Here.


The SOPA act essentually means, that even if you make a video of your child playing or singing and you have music playing in the background, or video on TV, you are breaking the law, and the government will order the websites that host your content to censor your content because of their new bill. Or if you visit websites that are on servers not in the United States you will be blocked so that you cannot access them. 
Ask yourselves, Who really owns the internet? 
The answer is simple: no one actually owns the Internet, and no single person, organization or government controls the Internet in its entirety. It is more of a concept than an actual tangible entity, and the Internet relies on a physical infrastructure that connects networks to other networks. There are many organizations, corporations, governments, schools, private citizens and service providers that all own pieces of the infrastructure that make up the internet, but there is no one entity that owns it all. How can the US government decide to block access to parts of the internet that the US government does not even own? The SOPA act is a direct violation to people's right to freedom of knowlege and information, And for that violation the United States government is a disgrace to the land of the free, The free that every United States soldier has fought or died for. The United States government is essentually telling the people of the United States that they are free to do as the government tells them. If people do not follow their rules they will arrest them for making an attempt to learn. But the government will tell the media that these people are getting arrested for acts of treason, domestic terrorism, or internet piracy.  
As for the United States government. Who gave you the right to regulate the people's right to think outside the box and use the internet as they see fit? If we cut off global internet, shouldn't we also cut off all foreign affairs? Should we hinder globalization completely? Perhaps all other World Trade Centers are acts of terrorism by existing, as they use the Internet for commerce. The ambiguity of this bill should terrify you.

Now that ACTA has been passed, it means that your ISP (internet service provider) can now legally spy on all your data. EVERYTHING you do, is potentially monitored. So don't think that all the downloads that you've been getting are getting pass unnoticed.

You know, it's been quite long since I'm this quite fired up as a geek. This is ridiculous. Simply ridiculous.

Thankfully, I have been taking measures against such things for the longest time. I may have slacked off a little, but I did what I could without knowing all this bullshit.

From now onwards, I shall start writing about how you can protect yourself online, against threats like this. How you can stay safe online, remain as anonymous as possible, and avoid getting screwed ten times over.

I hate this shit. Honestly, fuck this shit.
My minions, the legal governments has declared war upon the internet, remain aware, and stay safe.

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Why I think anonymous is important, but their attacks are pointless
Saturday, January 21, 2012



Now they've been around for a pretty long time, but the recent news about SOPA, PIPA, Megaupload, and that they took down a few government websites is creating an uproar on the internet.

If you didn't know yet, the FBI took down Megaupload 2 days ago for various obvious reasons. Here's anonymous' response to it. (and their official statement)

http://pastebin.com/WEydcBVV


They took down 14 websites

justice.gov
universalmusic.com
riaa.org
mpaa.org
copyright.gov
hadopi.fr
wmg.com
usdoj.gov
bmi.com
fbi.gov
Anti-piracy.be/nl/
ChrisDodd.com
Vivendi.fr
Whitehouse.gov
Well. Let me talk about why their existence is important first. They exist not as a group of selected people, but as an idea. The scary thing about an idea, is that, when many people have the same one, they can put it into action.

Here's the way they work. Something happens, someone voice out their opinions online. Others who join the channel discuss about it. They think about whether it's important to voice it out or not. If important, they will coordinate online and attack specific targets.

It's important because they're the voice on the internet. With enough presence to not get masked up by the other news. When they make a statement, they make it loud and bold, and they're like the freedom fighters on the net.

Now that's all well and good, but their attacks are generally pointless from a technical standpoint. Yes, it's amazing that they are able to coordinate so many computers to DDoS(Distributed Denial of Service) a website, it takes considerable skill to write out a program to do that. (what's more in this most recent attack, it's automatic. I shall not talk about the ethics for this post)

But the question is. What's the point of taking down a website?

If their point is to make an issue known to the world, then I applaud them, it works beautifully. But from what I've seen over time, it feels like they're saying. "We have the power to shut you down if we want to." But in reality it's just trouble making.

Here's why "hacking" doesn't really work out in real life.
If you're hacking a government network, it's.. pretty impossible unless you know their network from the inside out. If a hacking does succeed, it just means that the internal personnel is not trained properly. Why? Because the important part is the internal network, if they want to they can just completely switch their network offline from the internet but they still have access to other services within their own compound.

A website, is just a front page. Truth is, not a lot of people visit a government page for no reason. The server is not built to take that much traffic.

A DDoS attack is simply generating so much shitty traffic that the server can't take it and shuts down. It is probably one of the most prominent attack online because it can't be stopped. You can filter it out but it still requires CPU power. A research from the people who deciphered Stuxnet (a ridiculous virus), estimate that if you have a botnet (a lot of computers linked together) of roughly 250,000. You can pretty much DDoS the shit out of everything. It is not impossible, but very impractical and will probably look suspicious.

So, taking down the front page of a government/music website, simply.. just shuts off their web for awhile, and it'll be back on. It is annoying, but definitely nothing more than a prick.

On the other hand, even if they had the ability to unleash a virus that could take down government networks. (or hold it hostage). It will be bad rep for them, because it'll become an act of terrorism. And that will cause all the best whitehat hackers all around the world to start hunting for them. And it wouldn't be a pretty sight to see an all out war online.

So the bottom line is this, their attacks are technically pointless, but I think the purpose is to raise awareness for everyone. I think it works. 

Hope you have a better understanding of the situation,
Till then my minions~

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