Anonymous vs WBC

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Less than a week ago, a rumor spread that the vigilante hacker organization Anonymous had declared war on the Westboro Baptist Church. Though quickly dismissed as a hoax, the headline-grabbing possibility spread through the media faster than an offensive Kanye West tweet. Given the clandestine nature of Anonymous -- as the name implies, all of the member of the group are, in fact, anonymous -- the truth proved elusive. Regardless, the Westboro Baptist Church started a smear campaign against Anonymous and insisted that their message could not be silenced. In the words of WBC: "Bring it."

Hoping to clear the air, radio talk show host David Pakman invited Shirley Phelps-Roper, spokesperson from the Westboro Baptist Church, and an (anonymous) member of Anonymous onto his show for a live web chat. Pakman moderated the conversation, and the banter started out almost cordial. However despite Anonymous' continued denial of a war or plans of an attack, Phelps-Roper persistently insulted the group and its representative. After Phelps-Roper tells the Anonymous representative he's going to Hell, Anonymous says, "I have a surprise for you."

Anonymous unleashed an attack during the insults and directed the audience towards downloads.westborobaptistchurch.com with a notice from Anonymous:
[img][800:1710]http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/02/25/westboro_baptist_church_anonymous_website/380260.jpeg[/img]
Watch the full interview here. The attack happens around the 9:00 mark:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZJwSjor4hM[/youtube]
At the time of publishing this post, all of the Westboro Baptist Church's various sites -- including godhatesfags.com -- were inaccessible.

Oh, judge, your damn laws: the good people don't need them and the bad people don't follow them so what good are they?

Forgive my ignorance.

Are you APPLAUDING the commission of crimes?

Wow. Freedom and liberty and good will toward all men and whatnot. Amazing.

I forget, did you or did you not enjoy Atlas Shrugged? This attack is the same as John Galt removing the minds of the world. The old, if they say it, and they therefore want it, give it to them. If what Galt did, fictionally, was a crime, then this is a crime, too, right? Even if it is against someone you despise, or at the very least don't agree with.

Forgive my ignorance.

Are you APPLAUDING the commission of crimes?

Wow. Freedom and liberty and good will toward all men and whatnot. Amazing.

I forget, did you or did you not enjoy Atlas Shrugged? This attack is the same as John Galt removing the minds of the world. The old, if they say it, and they therefore want it, give it to them. If what Galt did, fictionally, was a crime, then this is a crime, too, right? Even if it is against someone you despise, or at the very least don't agree with.

in my moral universe they made themselves fair game when they started intruding on uninvolved people's lives, plus taunting a hacker's collective is never a smart call.

Why is hacking any target a Federal crime beats me.

You put a grafiti on someone else's wall, it is a defacing of his wall and a breaking of property, but that's not a federal crime. Worst case scenario you are sent to jail for a year.

Anonymous deface WBC's site, it is really the same, less so because they can actually remove the defacing without such effort as repainting a wall. But it is a federal crime.

I also don't get why are DDoS a crime at all. I think they are really the cyber equivalent to taking signs to protest in front of an organization. Oh yeah, it hurts, but it is overall people using your own site doing stuff you put in the site, just doing it too much so that traffic gets clodded. It doesn't involve any theft, vandalizing or breaking of private property. It is the equivalent of having a large group of people enter a place that is open to the public, making it difficult for other people to enter as a form of protest.

I was fairly amused by Anonymous hacking HBGary Federal CEO's PC, email and iPad after he made idle threats about unmasking them. If I'm not mistaken it took no more then a few minutes

plus taunting a hacker's collective is never a smart call.

Even then , most servers are located in a single state.

I just think it is rather silly to have the FBI chasing after a kid who just guessed an obvious password.

Just did a Google and, as I'd have guessed, the main reasons the hack worked were that they using a version of their CMS with known security holes, crappy encryption for their passwords (they were easily crackable with a rainbow table, so I guess they either had no or predictable salts), and the classic hole that is idiots using the same passwords for everything. The IT staff in the company also handed out the root password for their servers to a randomer who claimed to be an employee, which shows very bad internal security.