Anonymous civil disobedience just gives the powers-that-be the excuse to arrest anyone they choose.
Seriously, you're defending DDoS attacks?
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.
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.
Seriously... please just stop posting. You are strictly putting words in his mouth so you can have something to argue with.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Personally, I find nonviolent resistance perfectly defensible for a just cause. Why do you suggest it's indefensible?
I also don't buy your argument that it's nonviolent. By DDoSing a site, your interfering in the legal activity of the target and some outside party. Apply that same principle to the real world and you suggest that it's perfectly reasonable for someone to trespass into a commercial establishment, obstruct the interactions of patrons with staff, and otherwise use resources that are set aside for paying customers.
Since I depend on the availability of these sites, I'm not so enamored with folks who interrupt MY work just for laughs. I'm doubly irritated with people who call it "justified". That smacks of one-sided righteousness and anarchy.
If you believe in your cause, show your face. Make your case.
the question of whether these guys should have been arrested is distinct from whether they're justified, which is distinct from whether ddos could ever be considered civil disobedience.
I never stated that. Personally, I believe it's far more efficient and more ethical to use a court system and support your representatives than disrupt a business illegally. We have courts and representatives for grievances.
Sit-ins were a LAST resort, not the first. There was a long, long history of unequal treatment and oppression by the state before non-violent resistance was used. More importantly, there was a consistent and protracted political movement that was also underway during the period in question. There was a dialog happening and resistance was used to "encourage" one party to stay in that dialog. Even then, it took almost the entire weight of the federal government to ensure the execution of the will of the political majority long AFTER the decision had been made.
Honestly, I think that making comparisons to the civil-rights movement in the US is just beyond the pale.
Anonymous is a mob; Pure and simple. It's an expression of a small, small minority of people that want to do damage and seek to cloak their actions in civic high-mindedness. I don't believe it for a second. The absolute lack of ANYONE willing to speak for them just proves my point. They embrace mayhem without accountability. Anarchy.
Who wants to live in that world? Not I.
Furthermore, lots of those folks get arrested. It's exactly the point that you force the state to take you into custody and deal with you as a means of overwhelming them with otherwise law-abiding citizens.
SO...I don't agree with your assertion that it's the same thing. It's a manifestly different thing.
I'm not defending the actions of the LOIC users, I don't think they are doing quite the same thing but it's close. If the balance of power is off then it is up to the community to try and put it back in place, as another commenter has posted one particularly successful method in the past has been the sit-in. Just as it's not ok for any mob to do whatever they want to a business, it's not ok for any company to do whatever they want to a community.
Example of it not being committed in the open, to no negated effect (and arguably greater effect): People anonymously posting "illegal keys" and cryptosystems for export on the internet for others to obtain. The often anonymous nature of their actions emphasizes how the current laws are absurd for being unenforceable when people with the right knowledge choose for them to be unenforceable.