Earlier this month, we reported the story of the Orlando-based organization Food Not Bombs being forced to cease feeding homeless people on city land after some of its members were arrested for violating a city ordinance regarding large gatherings in public parks. As that case makes its way through the court system, the renegade samaritans are now receiving help from an unlikely source: computer hackers who made Orlando their next target.
This week, it has been reported that the mysterious computer hacking troop Anonymous is coming to the aid of the beleaguered group through a web campaign called "Operation Orlando". The purpose of this mission is to attack "city web assets" as well as Orlando tourism sites on the internet in revenge for the arrests. Also, the group is promoting a boycott of the city of Orlando until the city repents on its treatment of the organization. Calling Orlando city officials "human rights abusers," as well as deeming the arrest for Food Not Bombs president Keith McHenry a "declaration of war," the attacks will be aimed at disrupting city communications and Internet accounts in an effort to get the men released and let them go on serving free lunches to needy residents. Yesterday they launched their first attack of their "war" by disabling the website orlandofloridaguide.com for much of the day, and will be continuing their hack attacks until the men are released. More at www.silverunderground.com.
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Obviously I agree with Anonymous that this law needs to go away forever, but their campaign is...too broad, to put it mildly. It's one thing to attack the city websites, and quite another to attack private websites which happen to serve the city. It's not the fault of the owners of orlandofloridaguide.com that this law was passed, so why is their website being attacked? Isn't that the internet equivalent of targeting civilians?
I'm also interested as to why they chose to target orlandofloridaguide.com, and not focus on official city websites. If it's because it was easier to take down that is truly sad, because it seems these hacker groups lose a lot of credibility by letting innocent people get caught in the crossfire. If they had put the orlandofloridaguide.com website on notice about their concerns with the Orlando law, and asked them to state their opposition to it, and the pople at the website had failed to do so, that would be understandable, but from what I've read so far nothing of the sort took place, they just started taking down pro-Orlando websites. There is talk that Disney will be targeted as well, another innocent party to this situation.
the reason they shut down the tourist site is because they want to use it as clout to get more people angered over the incident. I disagree with some of Anonymous' methods, but its good to see someone is doing something to stand up to these people. It ma e crude, but its a start
I think it's going to get more people angry at Anonymous than at this law. Especially for those who don't really understand what Anonymous is or how the internet works, taking down private sites could do the cause of defeating this law more harm than good.
I agree with you both. I think there's a common misconception that annonymous are more sophisticated and organized than they are. The "hackers" associated with Anonymous who've been taking down websites are likely mostly teenagers. The methods they're employing are simple and can be done with a few button clicks. In the past NORML and other activist organizations have unintentionally taken down websites the same way by sending they're supporters there to email or comment on something. Likely they're thinking they will cost the state money by trying to keep people from planning trips there. The thing is if they bring down the disney website people are still going to go to disney in 6 months. A day or even a week of not working isn't likely to cost Disney much of anything since most people have to plan trips there weeks or months in advance anyway.
I tend to assume the Anonymous hackers are a lot of teenagers with poorly planned ideas. They fit the typical young hacker profile. A real, sophisticated security professional would never be seen or heard unless they were caught and sent to jail. In the end they are getting what they want because they're getting a lot of people to make a big fuss about what they're doing. The best response for targets would be to ignore them and get the media to ignore them. Unfortunately, the government seems to be doing what government does though and is using this as an opportunity to scare people about the malicious hackers and convince them that we need stronger cyber-security laws, most of which are broad and give DHS more power.
Not exactly, They shut down Sony for around a month I think it was? Sony lost money in the range of MILLIONS.
Yes but people play Playstation online everyday. Trying to stop people from taking a trip somewhere is very different. If they're trying to deprive the state of tourism money it's not going to do much. If they're goal is to get noticed in the news and get people angry than that may be more effective. But I attend to agree with Bonnie that it will probably just do more to make people angry at Anonymous and even to scare little old ladies about the hacker "cyber terrorist" threat to America, based on how media and the White House have responded in the past.
I do not understand this at all. How can we stop feeding the homeless. I do not see this as being right at all. I am not sure what to think at all.
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Who is these guys.These guys are so much talented.I think that there Hackers should be overcomed with more intelligent guys.find name by phone number
What a wonderful post, thanks so much for sharing this with us.
Blimey, it's all getting a bit out of hand now isn't it!
I have heard some related news to this topic recently. I know they target web assetts. Truth to be told, we are living in a capitalist era where information power is sometimes bigger than money power, hence the underlining of the word "assett". To my own convictions, the internet has known such an amazing development, that the world renowned marketing specialists have started to measure the amplitude on online businesses in consumerization parameters and indicators. Of course, online marketing is a wide topic to bring into discussion, I only want to sum it up to support my opinion, that online platforms are the unseen environment of business success.