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Old 12-18-2010, 01:00 PM   #1
smoker
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Kettling Wikileaks


This article is available from DefectiveByDesign at:
http://www.defectivebydesign.org/wikileaks

Or from the Guardian Newspaper at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...zon-mastercard

Kettling: also known as containment or corralling - a police tactic for the
management of large crowds during demonstrations or protests.

The Anonymous web protests over WikiLeaks are the internet equivalent of a mass
demonstration. It's a mistake to call them hacking (playful cleverness) or
cracking (security breaking). The LOIC program that is being used by the group
is prepackaged so no cleverness is needed to run it, and it does not break any
computer's security. The protesters have not tried to take control of Amazon's
website, or extract any data from MasterCard. They enter through the site's
front door, and it just can't cope with the volume.

Calling these protests DDoS, or distributed denial of service, attacks is
misleading, too. A DDoS attack is done with thousands of "zombie" computers.
Typically, somebody breaks the security of those computers (often with a virus)
and takes remote control of them, then rigs them up as a "botnet" to do in
unison whatever he directs (in this case, to overload a server). The Anonymous
protesters' computers are not zombies; presumably they are being individually
operated.

No – the proper comparison is with the crowds that descended last week on
Topshop stores. They didn't break into the stores or take any goods from them,
but they sure caused a nuisance for the owner, Philip Green. I wouldn't like it
one bit if my store (supposing I had one) were the target of a large protest.
Amazon and MasterCard don't like it either, and their clients were probably
annoyed. Those who hoped to buy at Topshop on the day of the protest may have
been annoyed too.

The internet cannot function if websites are frequently blocked by crowds, just
as a city cannot function if its streets are constantly full by protesters. But
before you advocate a crackdown on internet protests, consider what they are
protesting: on the internet, users have no rights. As the WikiLeaks case has
demonstrated, what we do online, we do on sufferance.

In the physical world, we have the right to print and sell books. Anyone trying
to stop us would need to go to court. That right is weak in the UK (consider
superinjunctions), but at least it exists. However, to set up a website we need
the co-operation of a domain name company, an ISP, and often a hosting company,
any of which can be pressured to cut us off. In the US, no law explicitly
establishes this precarity. Rather, it is embodied in contracts that we have
allowed those companies to establish as normal. It is as if we all lived in
rented rooms and landlords could evict anyone at a moment's notice.

Reading, too, is done on sufferance. In the physical world, you can buy a book
with cash, and you own it. You are free to give, lend or sell it to someone
else. You are also free to keep it. However, in the virtual world, e-readers
have digital handcuffs to stop you from giving, lending or selling a book, as
well as licences forbidding that. Last year, Amazon used a back door in its
e-reader to remotely delete thousands of copies of 1984, by George Orwell. The
Ministry of Truth has been privatised.

In the physical world, we have the right to pay money and to receive money –
even anonymously. On the internet, we can receive money only with the approval
of organisations such as PayPal and MasterCard, and the "security state" tracks
payments moment by moment. Punishment-on-accusation laws such as the Digital
Economy Act extend this pattern of precarity to internet connectivity. What you
do on your own computer is also controlled by others, with non-free software.
Microsoft and Apple systems implement digital handcuffs – features specifically
designed to restrict users. Continued use of a program or feature is precarious
too: Apple put a back door in the iPhone to remotely delete installed
applications and another in Windows enabled Microsoft to install software
changes without asking permission.

I started the free software movement to replace user-controlling non-free
software with freedom-respecting free software. With free software, we can at
least control what software does in our own computers.

The US state today is a nexus of power for corporate interests. Since it must
pretend to serve the people, it fears the truth may leak. Hence its parallel
campaigns against WikiLeaks: to crush it through the precarity of the internet
and to formally limit freedom of the press.

States seek to imprison the Anonymous protesters rather than official torturers
and murderers. The day when our governments prosecute war criminals and tell us
the truth, internet crowd control may be our most pressing remaining problem. I
will rejoice if I see that day.

Copyright 2010 Richard Stallman – released under the Creative Commons
Attribution Noderivs Licence
 
Old 12-19-2010, 09:18 AM   #2
Jeebizz
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http://anonops.blogspot.com/
 
  


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