Hack attack! Taking down criminal media sites

Just one example of many | Mid-to-late March '03 | Various Psuedonyms

[John Robinson]

Hack attack! Taking down criminal media sites
by lulu 1:33am Sat Mar 29 '03 (Modified on 10:05am Sat Mar 29 '03)

The war-makers are routinely hacking anti-war sites. Activists can, and probably should, use the same tools to bring down the criminal corporate media websites.

A basic principle long embedded at the core of western legal systems is the right to use force to protect oneself, family and community from harm. Bush has gone to war to "protect" America, that's how unquestionable the right of self-protection is.

But Bush fabricated an enemy. He is running a protection racket, just like any other group of gangsters. In this sense, his war is not real in terms of its justification. It's built on a big pile of lies.

On the other hand, the people of the world have a REAL enemy and a real and very serious threat to their peace and freedom - the same things Bush is supposedly protecting. And, confronted with such a threat, we are surely justified in taking whatever action is necessary to protect ourselves, individually and collectively.

Why do we continue to swallow the propaganda that strong, effective action is wrong, that it's inconsistent with peace? Sometimes you just have to stand up tall for your rights and do what you have to do to protect them.

This is a very critical point in world events. There could be a global people's revolution or we could just resign ourselves to living the slave-life on a prison planet. And it's dreadfully obvious that if we don't get out of passive mode and tool up for more serious and effective engagement, then our fate will shortly be sealed.

One of the most powerful tools available to us is the Internet. Indeed, the Indymedia network and many other alternative news sites are evidence of this. So is the amazing ability now of activists to quickly organize global actions. However, this is not unique to the activist community. Anyone can do it now. The world has gone global. It's just that the Internet is still in its early days and hasn't been hijacked yet (not for lack of trying).

But there are other ways the Internet can be "used". This war is mainly a propaganda war at its core and the war machine is using electronic tools to the max. Look at how many Arab and alternative websites have been continuously hacked since the war began. Why aren't we doing this too as a counter measure to check their propaganda? Are we just going to let them spout off their lies and do nothing practical to shut them up? It doesn't make sense to just sit there and do nothing, under some pretense of being "peaceful".

I consider myself a pacifist. I don't like to fight. I don't even like moderate confrontation. But this situation has got so out of hand and is so dangerous for the whole world that I now believe it's ok to hack down someone's website if they are part of the Big Lie on which today's insane situation is built. I believe I have not only a right, but a DUTY to myself and my world, to do everything I can to remove this cancer from humanity.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not going out with a gun. There are better ways to make a difference. Once of them is something we can all, collectively do quite easily, and that is to coordinate attacks on selected websites that are primary sources of pro-war propaganda. This can be done so easily, yet few are doing it. Why not? Because it's "illegal"? The anti-war movement has already, falsely, been given credit for it, so what are we waiting for?

DDOS (distributed denial of service) may be a 4-letter word, but we shouldn't be afraid of it. It's really our friend. And since it's mostly the corporate/government world that has all the websites and mostly the little people who have all the computers that visit those websites, we have the perfect scenario. If only we would use it.

There are simple little tools that you can run from your own computer to attack a website simply by requesting a whole whack of pages. If many people conspire to do this at the same time their servers could grind to a half, depending on what kind of traffic they can handle.

A basic DDOS tool is extremely simple to make. Using one does no permanent damage. For information, try these websites for a start. They have downloadable online action tools. A search on Google will probably reveal others.

Link to Indymedia.org (I know, "IndyMedia not wanted here", sorry dad.)

[John Robinson]

PLEASE DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS AT HOME

Such attacks harm the Internet for little if any gain. And they're illegal. So please, no matter how hated the target, no matter how deserving the retribution, please, lets not descend to this level ourselves. Freepers should be above this. Thank you.

This type of stuff I've been dealing with the past couple days. Just thought I'd share.

[First_Salute]

Bump.

[John Robinson]

I'd like to document all such transgressions on this thread. Post all "left hacking" links here.

[thoughtomator]

Forward this to the FBI.

[John Robinson]

Call For Action Against Free Republic
by cb 2:25am Wed Mar 26 '03 (Modified on 10:13am Thu Mar 27 '03)

The Free Republic has been using up Indy resources by spamming us with prowar anti-protester spewage.

This is a call to give the freepers a taste of what they've been giving for years.

Here's the plan:

Pick a name you have never used before. Go to yahoo or hotmail and create a new email address for that name. Using an anonymizer (or not), such as

http://www.anonymizer.com

or

http://www.guardster.com

join the forum at http://www.freerepublic.com

Wait a few days and just observe. This weekend, begin posting antibush and antiwar material. No doubt they will try to censor it, but this will overload them they way they overload us.

Spread this idea to all imc's

http://www.dc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=59753&group=webcast

Again, please, lets not descend to such stone throwing ourselves. If you wanna stay cool with me, just remember who has to ultimately deal with their retribution for our retribution against their attack. That would be Jim, our overworked and unpaid moderator staff, and myself. And I have a feeling we'll all be putting in some overtime as the left becomes more marginalized in the near future.

[drlevy88]

So called pro-war "criminal corporate media websites"??? What on earth do they have in mind? WND? FOX? The big "corporate media" is quite pro-peacenik, pro-doom-and-gloom.

[sadimgnik]

... but before you do, consider that a call to hack the Al Jazeera site carried on these forums last week (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/874161/posts)means that FR could be opening a whole can'o'worms if it does.

Sadim.

[drlevy88]

You're too much a gentleman. I say just keep on FReep'n um back. We got the staying power.

[John Robinson]

Co-opting Gnutella

http://epidemic.ws/antimafia/

---

AntiMafia is a Windows based program for the co-ordination of associative actions.
The user interface allows for the creation of social events based upon the co-operation of other peer computers operating AntiMafia.
Communication between AntiMafia programs is effected via the Gnutella protocol, implemented according to the latest version of the specification published on the Internet, together with the L.O.V.E. (Last Option Versus Enterprises) protocol for management of synchronisation.

---

Basically, it allows one to participate in a distributed denial of service-- that being, a large number of individuals, or rather computers, co-ordinated to surf to a website simultaneously. The goal is to overload or crash the website, hence denial of service.

[JoJo Gunn]

The "peaceful" and "tolerant" ones are getting excited, eh?

[John Robinson]

Yeah, but --I-- don't, and --I-- am ultimately the one that has to deal with the more sophisticated attacks on our servers. I've already shifted into Paranoid-plus-one mode, I dunno if my dial goes all the way up to 11, and I don't wanna find out.

[drlevy88]

You mean http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/874161/posts.

It's a foreign based web site, servers outside of the jurisdiction of the USA. So does hacking it, DDOSsing it, whatever, come under US "computer crime" law? I am not suggesting anything, just curious.

[drlevy88]

I am just talking about vanilla freeping... continual signing up on their bboards and feeding them razzberries.

[John Robinson]

If packets pass through US networks it probably is illegal. I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

Regardless, I am strongly anti-hack. "You hack them, they hack us, blah blah blah." Enough of this crap gets a-flingin' and the whole 'net will come crashing down. The Internet will only work if we can maintain civilty-- once the barbarian hordes come, we're lost.

[John Robinson]

And they would come here and do it to us. It's senseless and has no merit, it wins nothing but immediate gratification for those involved. Please don't do that.

[drlevy88]

How many DUsrupters have gotten banned to date?

[John Robinson]

http://richmond.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=2939

---

Visit the WarTools page to flood media search pages with words they are ignoring. Search requests are logged and analyzed. This is valuable data for assessing public response and it definitely gets their attention. WarTools will search news and other sites for you so you can see what they are reporting, or not. It will also let you repeat a search request up to 100 times every minute. Just leave the window open <grin>.

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[John Robinson]

Measured in distinct individuals or screen names?

[drlevy88]

Screen names, since I guess that is all you can count. Doesn't FR require uniqueness of email address, so that nobody else can sign up with a bannee's email addy?

[John Robinson]

http://idaho.indymedia.org/news/2003/03/1475.php

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Show your "support" for corporate media by continuously monitoring their websites for anti-war coverage. See them get all excited as their hit counts soar. They'll be so pleased (if their servers can keep up) and so will you, knowing you are doing your patriotic share to "help" the war effort and show your loyalty by always being there for them.

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(Emphasis mine.)