[jfricker]

Defending? No. Stating an observation that tyrannical institutions can use Anonymous as a pretense to arrest anyone with a computer. At least in the USA there is a shred of evidentiary requirement, but much of the world is not so lucky.

I suppose it's arguable that Anonymous is acting out of a sense of "Civil Disobedience". Perhaps it's more along the lines of "vandalism". Philosophically speaking, that is.

[meatsock]

every act of civil disobedience can be construed as a more petty crime, if you squint. i believe gandi was guilty of loitering but that's not the salient part of his action, philosophically speaking.

[jfricker]

Actually civil disobedience is the act of committing a crime for moral, ethical, or conflicting legal reason. And it is salient. The motivation is in part "to commit this crime I seek to prevent or change a worse crime". To say that Anonymous is acting out of a sense of civil disobedience is to say that they are motivated by a cause.

Personally, I have no idea what motivates Anonymous or if they feel morally obligated to act. It's just as likely that they believe they can commit a crime without penalty. The actions of the FBI are, in part, to deter future individuals from participating in Anonymous coordinated attacks by reminding people that they are not that anonymous and there are consequences to one's actions.

Gandhi, King and other activists all were willing to suffer the consequences of their actions. They were motivated by a principle higher than blind obedience after all.

[Nrsolis]

Vandalism?

If I break your window, that's vandalism. If I burn down your home, that's arson.

DDoS attacks I've seen have completely shut down some major sites and had some pretty significant second-order effects. There are real dollars and real problems created for real life individuals who depend on the availability of these systems.

You can justify it all you like but civic action doesn't justify what these people do. It's mob mentality at work and it resembles a riot more than anything else. Innocent people get hurt in riots and no self respecting individual should be involved in one. Virtual or otherwise.

[noglorp]

Putting gum in a lock == vandalism == DOS of a physical location. Real dollars are lost etc. in that scenario.

Seriously... please just stop posting. You are strictly putting words in his mouth so you can have something to argue with.

[jgfd99]

You're trolling, correct? If PayPal shuts down for an hour, it loses a lot of money (transaction costs, administrative costs, paying idle employees, etc.). Not just them, but millions of their customers who rely on PayPal for their business lose out too.

[sesqu]

There is no form of protest that does not affect other people and lost revenue is not damage. Your comment reads very mobbish.

You are free to disagree with the opinion of the DDoSers that PayPal punished Wikileaks because of close ties with a vindictive government and therefore deserved a tangible reaction, but you can't go arguing that people should only disagree with you to the extent that you are able to ignore them.

[jgfd99]

"Your comment reads very mobbish."

Explain what "mobbish" means in the context of my comment. Because I disagree with your position, my comment somehow resembles 'mob' behavior?

"you can't go arguing that people should only disagree with you to the extent that you are able to ignore them"

What does that even mean? Sorry, but that's one huge straw man attack for something I didn't state. You're free to have your own opinion. I did not state otherwise.

Further, you state that I am free to disagree with an opinion, but then you state that I cannot have some opinion that you conjured up some argument on your own to misrepresent my position -- and then attacking that distorted position?

[sesqu]

Fair enough.

I wasn't entirely satisfied with the word, but it was close enough. I meant that the words you (and others I read before) chose were of the polarizing variety, the kinds that people end up using in mobs. That is to say, instead of describing the situation at hand, I felt you were describing the closest clearly illegal thing someone could quickly think of, probably because your information was third-hand.

It seemed to me that you felt that the thing these DDoSsers did wrong was that they had an impact on the business of PayPal directly, rather than just the PR of PayPal. Well no, it seemed to me that you wouldn't have agreed with vocal badmouthing either, but that that would have resulted in an entirely different chain of events and so is not worth considering carefully.

If your opinion was not that no company's business should be directly manipulated for policy retribution purposes, I misunderstood. It was my intent to assert that this is not a position I consider valid and that the choice to briefly DDoS PayPal was almost certainly taken after considering less and more radical approaches. I saw no evidence towards the positions I do consider valid, that the retribution was overly severe or wholly unjust.