Arresting People Associated With Anonymous Unlikely To Have The Impact The Feds Expect

from the things-don't-work-that-way dept

One of the big stories of yesterday was the wide array of raids and arrests by the FBI in order to arrest people they claimed were members of "Anonymous," who took part in various denial of service attacks. All day yesterday the number of people arrested kept growing. I first saw three, then 12 and the final tally was apparently 16. Apparently the arrests are specific to the efforts to take down Paypal after Paypal decided to stop letting payment transfers go to Wikileaks. The specific charges are "intentional damage to a protected computer" and conspiracy.

Now, I've been very clear since Anonymous started this effort -- shutting down various websites using what is effectively crowdsourced distributed denial of service attacks -- that I think the strategy is really dumb. Does it get attention? Yes. But it turns parties doing questionable things into victims. It doesn't open any new eyes to the problems Anonymous should be trying to highlight. It just draws attention to the attacks themselves. It just seemed really likely to backfire -- especially as law enforcement and politicians focused in on the attacks, rather than the reasons for the attacks, and we're seeing some of that now.

But I can't deny that their efforts, combined with the slightly more sophisticated hacking efforts both from Anonymous and the spinoff group LulzSec and others, have actually had a much greater impact than I expected, especially with things like the hacking of HBGary and the release of ACS:Law files. As I noted last month when a bunch of people were arrested in Europe with claims that they were members of Anonymous, it's not clear to me that these arrests will have much of an impact, really. Will it scare off some random kid from becoming a scriptkiddie? Maybe at the margin there will be some. But the thing is, the types of folks who get involved with these things tend to overestimate their own abilities, and dramatically underestimate the likelihood of getting tracked down or caught.

And given the very distributed nature of the group (i.e., that it's not actually a group at all), it kind of makes you wonder if the arrests will only serve to get more folks jumping into the effort, perhaps for increasingly misguided reasons. As we've stated, governments and law enforcement seem to be taking a top-down approach to this, as if they were rounding up a criminal gang, not recognizing the distributed nature of this effort and how the focus is not criminal, but ideological. Arresting people just drives home their general fear of a world in which certain entities have too much power, leading more people to hit back.

I still don't think their strategy is smart. And I don't think it'll really create lasting positive change (in fact, the backlash could do the opposite). I also worry quite a bit about what happens when they suddenly rage against an innocent party or a group or an individual who really doesn't deserve their wrath. But, at the same time, I can't see how a big FBI crackdown does anything positive, either. It just serves to reinforce their general point. And, with something like the DDoS on Paypal, it seems a bit ridiculous to suggest that it really created that much "harm." It was, as many noted, a modern version of the sit-in. Yes, it probably was a nuisance and cost some people money, but it lasted for a short while and it's difficult to argue there was any lasting damage.

Defenders of law and order will insist "something" needed to be done, and will believe that these arrests will scare off people from the next round of attacks. I think those people are greatly underestimating how people who feel disenfranchised by the world, but sense power through their internet connection, react in such situations. Punishment for the sake of punishment may make sense to some people, but I prefer that the focus be on actually getting to the root of the problem, rather than trying to attack the symptoms in a way that makes the cause grow bigger.

Filed Under: anonymous, arrests, distributed systems, fbi, hacking

Woman Charged With 'Obstructing Governmental Administration' For Filming Police From Her Front Yard

from the police-state dept

We've had a ton of stories recently about police reacting badly (and contrary to what the law says) when they discover that someone is filming some of their actions in public. Police keep trying to claim that doing so is illegal, and have even tried to claim that such video taping violates wiretapping laws. The latest such example is really bizarre. Boing Boing points us to a story of how a woman was arrested in Rochester, NY and charged with "obstructing government administration," all because she was filming a (questionable) traffic stop in front of her house. You can see the video below: The guy keeps trying to come up with reasons to get her to leave her front yard, first suggesting that she can't film from the sidewalk (so she takes a step back) and then complaining that she's "anti-police" and that he doesn't feel safe unless she goes inside. She points out that she's in her own front yard and not doing anything wrong. The cop then threatens her with arrest, and quickly arrests her, claiming that she didn't obey a police order.

What's really stunning is that prosecutors went forward with charges here. They must have known there was a video. I'm curious how anyone can claim that filming police is obstructing governmental administration.

Filed Under: arrests, chilling effects, filming, police

Will Arresting 'Anonymous' Members Help Or Hurt Anonymous?

from the just-wondering dept

I'm on record as saying that I think the activist hacking by groups like Anonymous, designed to take down websites in protest, are not particularly smart or useful. I will admit, however, that I'm surprised at how effective they've been in drawing additional media attention to certain stories, and how they really have helped drive two particular stories forward (the ACS:Law situation in the UK, and the HBGary Federal story in the US). And while I still don't think it's a particularly effective overall strategy, I must say that I find the whole effort (and similar efforts from "groups" like Lulz Security) fascinating. I've also pointed out that what may be even more interesting is how traditional law enforcement and governments can't really grasp what they're dealing with.

I think that point may be driven home with two separate governments claiming success in "arresting" Anonymous members. Spain got some attention for supposedly arresting three "Anonymous" members late last week, and then Turkey also got some attention for arresting "32 members."

If these individuals were involved in actual criminal activities, then the arrests are perfectly reasonable. But if these governments actually understood what was going on, and actually understood what they were dealing with, they wouldn't have said they were arresting members of "Anonymous," which is hardly a group anyway, and the word "member" is misleading. Taking a traditional top down approach, these governments think that by announcing that they've "arrested Anonymous members," they're likely to scare people off from being a part of Anonymous. It's very much speculation on my part, but knowing the sort of people involved, my guess is that it's having exactly the opposite response. By presenting the people arrested as being a part of Anonymous, these governments are glorifying Anonymous, and adding to the allure. And the arrests are unlikely to scare off too many actual participants, since they quite likely think that they are better at covering their tracks... and as things move along, that will likely be true.

These governments could have easily arrested people and charged them with hacking without making the connection back to Anonymous. Making such statements is like responding to trolls on internet forums. It's tough to resist sometimes, but it only encourages more such activity. And, of course, just as with trolls, this sort of thing really only plays into exactly what Anonymous wants. It builds up the group's own profile, increases the very necessary mythology, and likely improves the efforts to do more such activities (while protecting participants even more).

In a world with increasingly distributed power, Anonymous and others are really a precursor to what's coming down the road, demonstrating how certain forms of activism really don't work the way people in power expect them to. I don't agree with their specific tactics, but I'm fascinated by their ability (intended or not) to get companies and governments to play right into their strategy.

Filed Under: anonymous, arrests, distributed systems, hacking, spain, turkey

Police Arrest A Bunch Of Folks In Europe For Linking To Infringing Content

from the linking-=-crime dept

After the US lobbyists complained about Kino.to, an online site that linked to (but did not store, copy, reproduce, transmit, etc.) infringing works, apparently European law enforcement decided to "do something." Working off of a Dresden-based warrant, police raided homes in Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands and arrested 13 people, with a 14th still being sought. The site was apparently quite popular in Germany, and with other German-speaking people around the globe. What I'm having trouble understanding is why this is a criminal operation, rather than a civil operation. Anyone who felt they were wronged by the site could have filed a civil suit. Furthermore, despite a number of similar operations, it's still immensely troubling to see people arrested for linking, rather than for violating any of the specific rights prescribed to copyright holders. I recognize, of course, that copyright holders are upset about sites that link to unauthorized versions of their works, but shouldn't the targets be those who actually are uploading the works, rather than those who are linking?

Filed Under: arrests, europe, kino.to, linking

Guy Who Undressed For TSA Search (With 4th Amendment Written On Chest) Sues Over Airport Detention

from the this-won't-go-far dept

We've seen various ways that people have protested TSA searches, but for one guy who decided to undress (as he suggests, to help the TSA out) and, as a part of that, display the 4th Amendment written on his chest, it led to him being detained and told he was under arrest (though, he didn't miss his flight): However, he's now suing the government over all of this, claiming that the whole thing violated his 1st, 4th, 5th and 14th Amendment rights, along with false imprisonment and malicious prosecution. While I'm sympathetic to what he's trying to do, I can't see this getting very far at all. Judges have given the TSA great leeway (for better or -- in many cases -- worse) in what they do, and there doesn't seem to be anything particularly unique about these challenges. Perhaps I'm wrong and it's actually a good case, but it just seems unlike to impress a judge.

Filed Under: arrests, privacy, searches, tsa

Government Putting Quite A Lot Of Effort Into Tracking Down 'Anonymous'

from the kind-of-misses-the-point dept

With UK police arresting five guys accused of participating in the Anonymous cyberattacks to make a statement about efforts to block Wikileaks, as well as the FBI saying that it has executed more than 40 search warrants in the US in trying to track down those responsible, I'm curious if anyone has stopped to realize just how much this misses the point. I agree that the Anonymous attacks were childish and probably counterproductive, but, in the end, are they really much more than an online sit in?

By spending so much time, effort and resources in trying to track down some people who were making a statement online, all that officials have done is to give them that much more attention -- which is exactly what they wanted. As warned, these law enforcement agencies are misunderstanding the situation. Arresting these folks just gives the whole effort more attention, and attracts more interest in it. And, given that Anonymous is almost entirely unstructured and not at all dependent on any sort of "leadership," it's not as if these arrests cut off any head of an organization. There is no organization, let alone a head to cut off. But by doing this, it makes effective martyrs out of those involved, and likely attracts even more people to "join the cause."

Filed Under: anonymous, arrests, wikileaks

Wrongful Arrest Demonstrates Dangers Of Law Enforcement Listening To Bogus Industry Claims

from the a-little-late dept

It's getting pretty ridiculous watching law enforcement and politicians simply take the entertainment industry at their word in attacking various individuals who they misleadingly blame for their own inability to adapt to a modern digital era. We've seen it here in the US, where Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) group has been seizing domains on extremely questionable industry-provided evidence. Over in the UK, it's been leading to wrongful arrests. A few years back, of course, the industry pointed fingers at Alan Ellis, an admin for OiNK, but a trial found him not guilty of the weakened charges of "conspiracy to defraud."

In October, we noted similarities to the Ellis situation with the news that the police had arrested a guy somehow connected to Mulve, a music search and download app that hosted no files and didn't even involve file sharing -- it just created a front-end of a Russian social network where the files were uploaded by users. After the guy was arrested, people began pointing out that the guy hadn't even programmed Mulve. He had just registered the domain name.

At least this time the police didn't go through a whole wasteful trial before realizing it had totally screwed up. They've apparently told the guy that they're not moving forward with any case against him. Of course, he still had to deal with months of worries about bogus charges and having all of his electronics and computer equipment seized.

So, at what point does law enforcement stop listening to the entertainment industry every time it freaks out about some new technology? After all, this is the same group of folks who can't even figure out how to send a letter to the right editor when they don't like an article. And yet the police think they can accurately point fingers for their business model problems?

Filed Under: arrests, copyright, law enforcement
Companies: mulve

Man Strips Down For TSA, Told He Still Needed To Be Groped; Arrested For Failing To Complete Security Process

from the grope-grope-grope dept

The TSA stories are coming fast and furious these days. The latest takes place (yet again) at the San Diego airport, where a guy first refused to go through the naked image scanner, and when he was told he had to be patted down stripped down to his bicycle underwear, which (as he noted) "left nothing to the imagination." His argument was that at that point, he shouldn't need a pat down, but the TSA ordered him to put his clothes back on so he could be patted down. He argued that they could just go through his clothes. End result? Guy in underwear gets arrested, handcuffed, and escorted through the airport in his underwear -- and is being charged with the same thing that the "don't touch my junk" guy was threatened with: "failing to complete the security process." Feeling safer?

Filed Under: arrests, privacy, searches, security, tsa
Companies: tsa

Thai Gov't Arrests News Site Owner, Because It Doesn't Like Some Comments By Users

from the free-speech-is-tricky dept

We've discussed a few times in the past about how the Thai government uses rules that say it's illegal to insult the Thai king in order to censor websites that it doesn't like. Now it seems to be taking this even further. The EFF has the details of how the webmaster for a political news site in Thailand has been arrested over comments on the site. As the EFF summarizes:

Jiew's crime? In 2008, Prachatai published an interview with Chotisak Onsoong, a Thai man known for refusing to stand at attention during the Thai Royal Anthem -- a dangerous political act in Thailand, though not technically a crime. The interview received huge attention, drawing over 200 comments from Thai citizens. On April 28, 2008, complaints were filed against Prachatai alleging that several comments on that interview were a defamation to the Monarchy. An arrest warrant for Jiew was issued on Septemeber 8, 2009, but no summons was received by Jiew until her arrest this past Friday.

The EFF also notes that this appears to be purely political and about intimidation, as the timing of the arrest (despite the fact that the warrant was issued over a year ago) didn't happen until Jiew was returning to Thailand from a trip abroad where she gave two separate talks about the importance of an open and free internet.

Of course, in the long run, as with the attempts to shut down sites under this same law, all this seems to really be doing is calling that much more attention to how the Thai government uses the rules in questionable ways.

Filed Under: arrests, free speech, thailand

UK Police Arresting People Just To Add To DNA Database?

from the civil-rights? dept

We were just talking about how pretty much any government database will get abused by government employees eventually. But it's not just on the accessing or revealing of data that this can happen. How about the collection of data as well? Jabberwocky alerts us to the news that police in the UK have supposedly been arresting innocent people just to add them to the UK's DNA database. The report looking into this, sarcastically titled "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?" finds that nearly one in five of the DNA records in the database are from innocent people. And part of that is an "arrest first, ask questions later" policy towards collecting DNA:

The commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. "It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained," said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.

Oh yeah, to make matters worse: "there is very little concrete evidence on the importance of the DNA match in leading to a conviction and whether the suspect would have been identified by other means anyway." Don't you feel safer now?

Filed Under: arrests, civil rights, database, dna, privacy