Anonymous Hacks USSC Website
This morning some people calling themselves "anonymous" took control of the USSC website, changing the home page to a poorly worded and drawn out (statist) attack on the US justice system—claiming we need law reform and better politicians. The lengthy text was accompanied by a text-to-speech video reading of it, and links to 9 encrypted files they're calling "warhead1".
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Without reading much on it, my uninformed opinion is that it's probably a false flag operation, and the statistness of their desires reeks of propaganda, while the emotional appeal is immature and manipulative in its own right (invoking a statist martyr). Probably, some government agents are manipulating hackers into doing stuff which will result in A) some/all of the hackers getting punished and thereby scaring would-be legitimate leakers, and B) more terrible laws and government power.
In any event, it comes down to the files, which to my knowledge haven't been decrypted. If I'm understanding this whole thing right, the key to the files will be released if the US government fails to reform the legal system.
As usual, it seems to be another case of 'whoever wins, we lose'.
This isn't the right way to go about achieving change, using force.
If you really wanted to hurt the government's spying operations and the like, the best thing you could do is advance encryption technologies, such as Kim Dotcom suggests. Https everywhere and end-to-end encrypted email would be a good start. Beyond that there's the idea of 100% encrypted p2p web.
So what possible damaging information could they have that would make such tactics worth pursuing. I've yet to see a wikileaks dump get anyone big arrested or cause them to quit. The worst stuff the US government does is goddamn right out in the open and everyone thinks it's fine!
It's a shame that people with such technical ability aren't more educated in liberty. You're right that it's a statist document. But so many whom are libertarians still don't even see the correct solution to where all this has to go to fix these problems, don't see what a society of true liberty would be like, and under what premises it would have to form.
It's a shame that all this effort and attention was wasted on rhetoric that only backs up the statist principle of governance. Calling for mere reform rather than real reform: abolishment.
Has Anonymous actually done anything relevant? Or do they just make cool videos in which they merely threaten to do things? Whatever became of the attack on the Westboro bunch? Have they ever released any damning documents against bankers or politicians?
The Westboro attack really was a false flag attack, instigated by Westboro themselves! There was a very interesting debate on their site when that happened where the principled members were busy explaining how Westboro had to be tolerated due to free speech and the other members were like, yeah, fuck them, let's burn them.
Ultimately, the principled ones won out and issued a retraction a few days later.
Basically they left themselves vulnerable to this because anyone could post on their site without authentication. Thus consensus is that the original Westboro press release was done by Westboro themselves.
Is everything a false flag operation?
Mtn Dew: Is everything a false flag operation?
Honestly I tend to laugh at most assertions of FF attacks. But the Westboro one probably actually was. But again, that wasn't state-sponsored either. Westboro people immediately started harvesting IP addresses of everyone sending hate their way, creating a lawsuit honeypot, which is how they make money, off lawsuits. So it's easy to follow the money there.
Is this Anonymous attack a FF event? I sincerely doubt it. There's existential risk in FF attacks, should they be discovered the effect is instant delegitimization of the entity involved. FF attacks therefore have to be conducted by deniable organizations not part of the governmental structure anymore. At that point, if the military starts an independent terrorist organization to conduct FF attacks, may as well treat it as a terrorist organization for real.
Anenome:FF attacks therefore have to be conducted by deniable organizations not part of the governmental structure anymore.
To be fair, what you mean is IF we accept your premise that discovery "instantly deligitimizes the entity involved" (which it demonstrably doesn't, e.g. Gulf of Tonkin), and IF we accept your premise that such is a risk agents in government are absolutely not willing to take (which it demonstrably isn't, which is why the term 'false flag' exists), THEN false flag operations have to be conducted by entities not officially part of government (which they demonstrably don't). Again, the term 'false flag' exists precisely because government entities do conduct these operations.
But anyway, the US government has an official false flag organization. It's called the CIA. They can, and do, do an deny anything they want. And that's just one organization that we're allowed to know about.
Anyway I want to point out two things.
1. "Anonymous" isn't a single, identifiable group. Rather, different people conduct different operations and call themselves "Anonymous". In this case, like I said in the OP, some people calling themselves anonymous have conducted this operation.
2. I'm not going hardcore and saying without any evidence that this attack is a textbook false flag. But my impression is that probably some agents who want to expand government power have coopted a group of hackers and influenced the hackers to call themselves anonymous and conduct this operation.
False flag attacks in war are perfectly legitimate strategy.
My comments were in regards to FF attacks on US citizens, such as people who would say that 911 was US sponsored FF and ridiculous things like that.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/8/3969630/obama-will-reportedly-introduce-cybersecurity-executive-order-after-state-of-the-union
Damn, Matthew Lillard is a giant.