[choo-t]

Well, if they deserve anonymity, they also deserve to be able to protect it, and they have really few tools against a doxxing, the DDOS was one of them, corrupting the archived article was another, albeit dangerous for their own reputation as an archiver.

The crux of the problem was the doxxing, not the defense against it.

[ajam1507]

You don’t think leveraging your site to DDOS someone is a problem?

Do people not also deserve to be protected from being DDOSed? Do people also not deserve to not have their internet traffic be used to DDOS someone?

[choo-t]

> You don’t think leveraging your site to DDOS someone is a problem?

It is, but it's one of the only tools they have to prevent the doxxing site to being reachable.

> Do people not also deserve to be protected from being DDOSed?

You mean the person doing the doing should be protected ?

>Do people also not deserve to not have their internet traffic be used to DDOS someone?

Yes, it should have been opt-in. But unless you doesn't run JS, you kinda give right to the website you visit to run arbitrary code anyway.

[psychoslave]

Not defending any party, it's basic ethological expectation: a creature that try to beat an other should expect aggressive response in return.

Of course, never aggressing anyone and transform any aggression agaisnt self into an opportunity to acculturate the aggressor into someone with the same empathic behavior is a paragon of virtuous entity. But paragons of virtue is not the median norm, by definition.

[ajam1507]

> Not defending any party, it's basic ethological expectation: a creature that try to beat an other should expect aggressive response in return.

Another basic ethological expectation is that the strong dominate the weak, but maybe we shouldn’t base our moral framework around how things are, and rather on how they should be.

[kpcyrd]

You don't think non-consensually revealing somebody's identity is a problem?

Resorting to DDoS is not pretty, but "why is my violent behavior met with violence" is a little oblivious and reversal of victim and perpetrator roles.

[ajam1507]

> You don't think non-consensually revealing somebody's identity is a problem?

I do think it’s a problem. You are the only one excusing bad behavior here.

[Dylan16807]

If it's information that's medium-difficult to get, and the only people that would use the information to cause harm can easily put in more effort than that, then I don't think it's "violence" to post that information.

[staticassertion]

I think this is a weak framing. Lots of things are moral or immoral under specific circumstances. We should protect people from being murdered. I think murder is usually wrong. But we also likely agree that there are circumstances in which killing someone can be justified. If we can find context for taking a life, I'm quite sure we can find context for a DoS.

[ajam1507]

And what’s the context for using the internet traffic of your unsuspecting users to accomplish this?

[choo-t]

Using the internet trafic of the persons using your service to protect your anonymity and thus, protecting the service itself.

[ajam1507]

So you shouldn’t have to inform your users that their traffic will be used in a cyberattack?

[RobotToaster]

In most jurisdictions informing them would potentially make them legally liable. The fact they had no knowledge shields them from liability.

[staticassertion]

I don't have strong feelings about that one way or the other, honestly.

[RobotToaster]

There's an old legal maxim "in pari delicto potior est conditio defendentis", that is "in a case of mutual fault the position of the defending party is the better one."

[ajam1507]

That works better when there is a defendant.

[gzread]

There's an archivist, and a journalist who is trying to kill that archivist. Which one is attacking and which one is defending?

[gzread]

I can't really be mad about someone DDoSing someone who's trying to kill them.

[mikkupikku]

People do not ever have any sort of moral or natural right to not get hit after starting shit.

[ajam1507]

Even if this were true, this does not justify any particular type of action, except maybe an in kind response.

For example, would they have been justified to murder the blogger?