Defenders of WikiLeaks Swarmed Wrong Target

[jaxx]

OTTAWA — It is not clear if the mistake first appeared on a blog or flitted around in a Twitter message. But whatever its source, it swept Mark Jeftovic and his company, EasyDNS, into both sides of the storm over corporate support, or the lack thereof, for WikiLeaks.

When Mr. Jeftovic took a look at his e-mail on the morning of Dec. 3, he was surprised to find a critical comment from a customer over his company’s decision to no longer provide domain name hosting for WikiLeaks. While EasyDNS has about 55,000 customers, Mr. Jeftovic knew that the company, which is based in Toronto, did not count WikiLeaks among them.

<...> “Twitter was the pulse of the whole thing,” Mr. Jeftovic said. He found that the messages there accelerated the spread of each incorrect report, overwhelming, at times, his efforts at damage control. He added: “I was really dreading getting up in the morning.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/13/business/global/13wiki.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a26

[KharmaTrain]

1. Another Black Eye...

I know there were those who thought the "cyber war" was some great strike for freedom or were just happy that it was screwing around with websites but what did it achieve? Shut down MasterCard or Visa? No. Force them to start taking donations for Wiki again? No. Choose a subject who had no say in what was going on and all but shut down his business? Yes.

Again...the contents of what's in the Wikileaks cables get ignored by street theater that the corporate media loves to use to discredit the entire organization. Eye on the prize...keep the light shining on those who deserve the scrutiny.

[jaxx]

2. People following the pied piper rarely get it right.

They just fall in line and march along with stars in their eyes...then fall over the cliff. Zealous hackers, and so on.

[KharmaTrain]

3. Interesting Phenomenon Of Our Times...

The polarization and alienation of our political system (both sides) has led to those who want to/have to believe to accept whatever they can that proves their points...or at least in their own minds. A lot of wasted energy that always leads to more frustration and for more false messiahs.

Cheers...

[GliderGuider]

4. A little chaos is good for the system.

A couple of miscues are to be expected, given all the the exuberance around this event. A few of my thoughts:

a) All systems should be able to withstand the occasional misstep - that's what resilience is all about.
b) EasyDNS appears to have survived just fine.
c) I thought all you guys said these DDoS attacks were no big deal?

[jaxx]

5. Chaos is good for nothing.

I don't know who 'all you guys' are, but it's not me. This kind of thing does no one any good and it draws in the nuts who will glom on to anything requiring a cyber psudeo army. Sitting behind the keyboard is a safe place to play hero.

[GliderGuider]

7. Chaos (aka "randomness") is essential for both biological and cultural evolution.

Chaos may be uncomfortable for the individual, but it's the only way to introduce the necessary randomness into the system so that natural selection has the material it needs to work with.

And regarding the "keyboard warriors" meme... We have no way of knowing who on here is doing anything besides typing. It's a chat board, right? You can bet your bottom dollar that not everyone is "just typing" though. That pejorative is just another attempt to suppress dissent.

[jaxx]

8. Natural selection? Interesting.

ps....the keyboard generals are what keeps the dissent going. LOL and they make me laugh most of the time. I love a good poutrage out there for public consumption.

[Iterate]

9. I hope you'll remind me of that statement

if I should ever trust you in matters of system or network theory.

I assume though that what you really mean is that you're upset about a disruption (which also is counter-intuitively necessary for a stable system) that you can't predict or control. But this kind of thing was predicted, decades ago, and DDoS attacks have been a part of the internet landscape since the first BBS.

This also isn't the first politically motivated DDoS attack by ordinary citizens, but it is the first big one from this group which, I should add, were politicized by the heavy-handed actions and interventions of the US government. Good one. Like all political neophytes, they weren't very skilled, which is also predictable. I'm sure they'll get better at it if they need to.

And maybe then they'll find a PayPal or Amazon shop they can picket.

ed.typ.

[formercia]

6. Collateral Damage

Fog of War and all that.