back to article Anonymous takes down Vatican website

Italian hackers affiliated with hacktivist collective Anonymous pushed the Vatican's website offline last night. The hack was in "retribution" for the child abuse scandals in the Catholic Church and Vatican-endorsed acts going back thousands of years, the group claimed in a message. A Jesuit father confirmed to the The …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Not bad....

    but I think it could be a lot more fun to flash mod UK RC Churches this weekend. Make 'em think they've drawn a right crowd, and then totally disrupt proceedings. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/catholic-leader-issues-letter-warning-against-samesex-marriage-7541618.html

    Well, if a Union Leader can call for Civil Disobedience, lets do it, just lets make it worth something!

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Not bad....

      I think we should all reverse flash mob some fruity libtards by all saying we're all on board to turn up somewhere and do some lame pointless shit, you know to make them think they've drawn a right crowd and then just not show up, because no one cares.

  2. Jeebus

    Funny how a group pushing the vatican site offline are punished far worse than the catholic church for harbouring and protecting thousands of child rapists.

    1. Jeebus

      Going to be punished that should read.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      evidence that there are thousands, who raped children? And is that thousands current active or over the last 2000 years... are we talking a few a year over the entire world, or thousands who are actively raping as we type?

      1. Uncle Slacky Silver badge
        Stop

        I accept that the OP may have exaggerated, but shirley any number > 0 is bad enough?

        1. Tom 13

          Never when it is used

          to justify prejudice, slander, libel, and the pogroms that result against anyone of a particular belief system.

          1. Code Monkey
            FAIL

            Re: Never when it is used

            It's not libel or slander. There are Catholic priests doing time for unlawful sex with minors the world over.

            They should put their own house in order before telling people who they can and can't marry.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Never when it is used

              There are also Irish people doing time for unlawful sex with minors.

              Would you start using sterotypes about the entire country?

        2. peyton?
          Unhappy

          > 0?

          Then shirley anonymous will next need to target, well, the entire world population?

          Sadly, sickos are everywhere,

        3. Paul_Murphy

          I would suggest

          That's it not the n > 0 which people find as morally reprehensible as the organised and systematic hiding of the perpetrators.

          If the church had, at every opportunity, expelled and exposed those who they could prove - or that they felt needed external police forces to prove - were guilty of child abuse then I'm sure people would have (more) respect for them, regardless of their religious standpoint.

          As it is I think I can hardly be alone in believing that the church (and, to be honest, religion in general) no longer has a place in the world.

          ttfn

  3. JDX Gold badge

    Question about DOS attacks...

    IS there a way to prevent them, or does the very nature of how they work mean that they never can't be blocked, since something has to receive all the requests in the first place and decide to block them?

    1. Bumpy Cat

      Lose effectiveness over time

      A DDOS attack from N compromised machines can be maintained indefinitely. However, the effect will drop as the target blocks traffic from the compromised machines, and as those machines are rebooted/fixed.

      To maintain an effective DDOS attack over any period of time requires a lot of work by the attacker, to compromise new machines to attack with.

    2. markoer
      Holmes

      Re: Question about DOS attacks...

      It is a very complex topic, however there is a report on the Imperva web site detailing how they blocked this attack. You may want to have a look at that.

      It has been *a bit* more complicated that just using compromised machines to launch a blind DOS. The attack was sophisticate.

      Hope it helps.

  4. Is it me?

    But hey

    It's fine to punish the millions of Catholics, and thousands of clergy who find such as abhorrent as anyone else, is it? Don't assume that the Catholic church is worse than other institutions for covering things up, Governments, Schools, Companies and clubs all try to cover-up misdeeds for the good of the organisation. Don't forget how many years there have been jokes about vicars and choirboys, Scouts and Public School boys.

    You shouldn't assume that all Catholics think the same about liberal values either there many more Western Catholics who are quite happy with the idea of married priests, women priests, gay marriage and so on than don't, but the church has to carry it's entire congregation with it and that takes time, so why disrupt our Sunday worship.

    BTW - The church does punish clergy who commit crimes, they send them into seclusion, which is actually worse than being sent to prison, regardless of any civil punishment.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: But hey

      "BTW - The church does punish clergy who commit crimes, they send them into seclusion, which is actually worse than being sent to prison".

      I'd be surprised if the average kiddie-fiddle wouldn't rather find themself in "seclusion" (wherever that means in practice for cathilic chold molestors) than sharing a prison-cell with GBH-offender but-anti-child-bummer Dangerous Dave McFace-Slasher.

    2. Cameron Colley

      Re: But hey

      You can't be a Catholic if you don't agree that gay marriage, condom use, or anything else the church says is wrong. You can be a hypocrite who lends weight to those who do though.

      Not beleiving in a religion you purport to follow is ludicrous. Try actually working out what you beleive then either do it in private or follow a religion you do actually beleive in.

      Remember this is the most important decision in the world as it is your life and, if you veleive in such, your immortal soul we're talking about.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: But hey

        @Cameron

        Of course you can be Catholic and disagree with some of the current tenants of catholicism, if you couldn't disagree there would be no change ever, which there demonstrably has been.

        I know about ten or so people who are practicing catholics and non have a problem with contraception (the reasoning being that if God wants a baby born, you can be pretty sure it will be, hormone pills or barriers aren't much of a barrier to the almighty.) most, not all, believe in marriage for gays, those who don't believe in marriage don't condemn homosexuality.

        The current teaching of the catholic church is that condoms for gay men is fine. This has changed since the current pope came in.

        On the other hand I know far more homophobic atheists who seem to think that "it's just fucking wrong, innit?"

        1. Cameron Colley

          Re: But hey

          If you do not believe that the pope represents god and he speaks for god then you're not Catholic. It's practically the definition of the faith -- if you disagree on homosexuals, women preists and condom jse then you're a bloody protestant.

          Just because your parents took you to church every week, or you were baptised a Catholic or you go to church and confess does not mean you are a Catholic -- it's the belief which makes you Catholic and going to a church which preaches something, but not believing it, is hypocrisy.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: But hey

          You can agree with any teachings of the Catholic Church that are not doctrinal.

          Any teachings that you break you are supposed to confess before receiving communion. Using contraception is one of those.

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Random attacks

    Makes me think that they aren't really targeting anyone - they just find vulnerable sites and then try to justify the attacks with moral superiority that they really don't deserve. Just a bunch of smug posers with delusions of heroism.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Random attacks

      Hardly Random. They are not picking sites with flaws to point out security issues. You can throw a dart, hit any web site, and DDoS or find fault with it. They are targeting groups and so far its all been places I don't mind being given the shaft,

      It may be random in what sites they attack for that particular group, but none the less they are focused on a certain subset.

      I don't think they are being "smug posers with delusions of heroism". You have one group vying for "moral superiority" against another. I don't agree with the church, and I can't help but enjoy any bad press given to them.

      It we didn't have moral causes, we wouldn't really need to politicians now would we.

  6. jai

    Vatican press office don't like El Reg either?

    they're just copying Apple really, aren't they?

    1. TeeCee Gold badge

      Re: Vatican press office don't like El Reg either?

      Oh dear. Copying Apple? That's gonna hurt in court....

  7. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Spudbynight

      Re: Ah. The Vatican. A mysognist business that is a registered charity.

      You do know that the term "concentration camp" was first used in relation to the British concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War

      1. Paul_Murphy

        Re: Ah. The Vatican. A mysognist business that is a registered charity.

        >You do know that the term "concentration camp" was first used in relation to the British

        > concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer War

        Very true, but I suspect that British concentration camps and those run by the Nazis are not comparable.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Ah. The Vatican. A mysognist business that is a registered charity.

          @Paul Murphy

          Go and look up what we (The British) did during the Boer war, it's shameful. The concentration camps weren't extermination camps, but they were utterly abhorrent.

          1. Paul_Murphy

            Re: Ah. The Vatican. A mysognist business that is a registered charity.

            I did thanks (http://www.boer-war.com/Details2nd/Camps.html) and it confirms my position that the camps in the Boer war cannot be compared to the Nazi camps - if Hitler had a commission to investigate his camps their findings would almost certainly result in worse conditions for the inmates.

            The reasons behind the Boer war camps were fundamentally different, the main area of failure was in the implementation.

            Anyway - enough Godwinning.

  8. llewton

    funny how the catholic church's stand on condoms appears to be more important that its endorsement of the nazi ideology in several european countries during ww2... anyway this is now turning into plain web hooliganism and has little to do with any kind of "hacktivism".

  9. Stephen Gray

    @ JDX

    http://support.microsoft.com/kb/324270

    1. Loyal Commenter Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: @ JDX

      Wow - you managed to find a Microsoft Knowledge Base article that actually contains useful information. Props!

  10. Mystic Megabyte
    Coat

    POP3

    Is a l33t hacker?

    Mine's the purple one :)

  11. Jimbo 6

    Now, time to attack the Government of Mongolia's website

    This is for building a vast empire that reached from the Pacific to the Dnieper in the thirteenth century ! Bastards !

    1. Graham Bartlett

      Re: Now, time to attack the Government of Mongolia's website

      Although amusingly, Genghiz Khan did claim that his law enforcement was so good, a virgin with a bag of gold around her neck could walk naked from one end of his empire to the other without being attacked. Whether the same would hold true in the Vatican (especially for a boy virgin) is open to doubt...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Re: Now, time to attack the Government of Mongolia's website

        Might that have been anything to do with the harsh punishments under Genghis Khan's rule? As in, death for even minor offences?

        1. TeeCee Gold badge

          Re: Now, time to attack the Government of Mongolia's website

          "...death for even minor offences?"

          That'll be getting off lightly. There's a documented account of a Mongol soldier being left on his jack jones with the tedious task of executing prisoners, while the rest of the army got stuck into the looting and pillaging bit. After a while, his sword became blunt (human necks do that) and his sword arm got tired, so he told the queue to wait while he sorted things out.

          After a couple of hours, he came back refreshed and carrying a new sword, to find the lot of 'em still waiting for him. They were far more shit-scared of what would have happened if they'd tried to run away.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I thought that this site would be free.....

    .....from anti-Catholic bigotry.

    1. Graham Bartlett
      Mushroom

      Re: I thought that this site would be free.....

      Bigotry, yeah. Justifiably-pissed-off-ness, nope.

    2. Jeebus

      Re: I thought that this site would be free.....

      Bigotry. Denouncing gay people as useless and openly condemning them.

      Not bigotry. Pointing out the catholic system has harboured and protects hundreds of paedos and organises campaigns of hate against those who speak out against them.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I thought that this site would be free.....

        Bigotry : Calling the Catholic Church an international paedophile group.

    3. Big-nosed Pengie

      Re: I thought that this site would be free.....

      Bigotry? I don't think you know what that word means.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And now more perps will go to prison

    Dumber than rocks those not so anonymous Anon members.

    1. Sir Cosmo Bonsor
      FAIL

      Re: And now more perps will go to prison

      Says the anonymous guy.

  14. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    Selling indulgences?

    Never saw the problem myself. Faced with a load of rich idiots prepared to pay princely sums for meaningless bits of paper it'd be churlish not to really....

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Burn in Hell

    These hackers are likely to burn in Hell I expect.

    1. Peter Stone
      Happy

      Re: Burn in Hell

      No way, Satan wouldn't want the competition!

  16. Nick Galloway

    Selling indulgences

    I think you can still buy one, if you want!

    You have to remember there are some boys in Sicily who are deeply religious but have a tendency to stray from the path. They have the money and don't mind giving it to a righteous guy!

    Otherwise burning books and killing your enemies seems fairly standard practice for most regimes throughout history. Picking on the church is just a case of discrimination...

  17. BeASaint

    Anoying

    Anonymous hacked a website? They've done so much to help children and society.

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