The cause might be noble but they way they will be doing it isn't.
Anonymous vows to wipe web clean of child abuse scum
Sections of Anonymous have once again turned their ire towards online sites frequented by child abusers. OpPedoChat follows earlier campaigns by sections of the hacktivist groups that subjected websites linked to the distribution of paedophile material with denial of service attacks and membership exposure. For example, …
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Wednesday 11th July 2012 13:02 GMT Jim 59
"...for our own enjoyment we shall... expel...systematically destroy..." etc.
The language in this statement indicates Anonymous are not people of great judgement, but perhaps chippy social inadequates with a weaner problem and alot of suppressed aggression to get of their chests. I imagine they watch the Matrix alot.
Seriously, unilateral and aggressive vigilantism is not an attractive proposition. And proving that somebody is trading illegal images requires you to view those images, thereby breaking the law.
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Thursday 12th July 2012 19:05 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Seriously.
Perhaps you should wait for a thread about the rights and freedoms of gays and lesbians before you rush to judgment. Why should any poster here launch into a discussion about an unrelated subject? You might as well complain that we're not concerned about the victims of war crimes - after all, we haven't mentioned them at all!
You also managed to come in with one of my major pet-peeve fallacies - mainly, that defending the rights of the unjustly accused is (somehow) the same thing as excusing the crimes of the guilty. This may be difficult to believe, but not everyone who is accused is actually guilty (this, shockingly enough, is why we have trials to begin with).
In the US, republicans seem to have a fetish about this; anyone who advocates ensuring the ability of the innocent to defend themselves in court is tarred as being in favor of crime. Families of crime victims seem to take the 'guilty even when proven innocent' viewpoint too; the acquittal of an innocent man is nearly universally regarded (with sanctimonious outrage) as a miscarriage of justice. I'm not really sure why people who think that anyone the police haul in must certainly be the perp, also distrust the system so much that they can't believe that anyone found not guilty is actually innocent...
I find this particularly odd coming from people who profess such skepticism for the competence of the government, but there you go - apparently you can completely trust the government with a huge army, broad police and prosecutorial powers that assume that those on trial are guilty, and unchecked surveillance of private citizens, but goodness knows you can't let them get involved with healthcare or education or road building - they're sure to screw it up.
But I digress.
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Wednesday 11th July 2012 21:13 GMT Anonymous Coward
This is lame
Now I realize of course that Anonymous isn't really a single organization, but with few exceptions, campaigns undertaken in its name have always had a stick it to the rich and powerful sort of flavor. But this... It's like if Robin Hood decided one day that his archery skills could be better put to use shooting out the tires of drunk drivers.
This change in direction seems either a sad attempt to appeal to masses, or more likely, just an excuse to get some lulz while picking on an acceptable target, which frankly is low.
Of course if they could actually bring something new to the table and and take on actual child abusers who can't be stopped by traditional methods, ROCK ON! But based on their previous efforts, it looks like they're doing exactly the same thing as The Man, albeit by different methods: blocking and/or punishing the distribution of child pornography. And just like government attempts, their previous efforts did significant collateral damage.
This topic is closed for new posts.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
