Nah. It's not vandalism. Nothing gets defaced.

It's more like the online equivalent to a giant sit-in. The action just piques the establishment because whereas they have figured out how to neutralize a sit-in in 32 seconds with zip-ties and a few well-placed tazings they are as yet unsure how to deal with this. And when they finally do figure out how to deal with it - there is no satisfaction of physically beating the crap out of a few DFHs in the process. But pique aside, the impact on the target is the pretty much exactly the same as a sit-in.

I wasn't around in the 60's but I imagine that all the complaints against the DDoS guys were leveled at those engaging in obstruction-style civil disobedience and boycotts. This is just an update to go with the times. Certainly you don't think that activists should be forced to limit themselves to played-out tactics from 50 years ago in order for what they do to be considered worthy?

My view of Anon in general isn't that great but you are criticizing a tactic here, not the group itself. Nothing is going to change if we stay in the comfort zone Ghengis. These attacks my not be the most productive response *at this time*. This, I think, is the real valid criticism of Anon; not that they should be seen as "wrong" because an effective non-violent tactic has been unilaterally taken off the table before the fight even gets fully joined.

You realize that Anon has nothing to do with Wikileaks and has been doing this crap for quite a long time ... right? And you realize that a big part of the objective (for some of these folks) it to provoke exactly the overreaction you are so scared of ... right?

I'm a bit apprehensive of the latter concept I do admit. I understand it - just don't really believe in the goodness of human nature much anymore. But it's difficult to argue with the reality that Wikileaks and Anon have done more to impact the course of our nation's crappy policy than anything my support of Democrats through the accepted political process has done. If I had a sense that what we are doing was being effective, I might feel differently. But it isn't being effective. We're being laughed at by the system we're trying to change. So, I'm certainly not going to be the one to criticize here - what, we're risking our ability to continue to fail abjectly? Something's got to give. What have you done which can be demonstrated to have had an impact that we can support instead of what Wikileaks is doing? I'm all ears.

Basically I see your formula boiling down to "I'm too scared of losing ... let's not fight". The "pragmatic left" is revealing itself to be the staunchest defender of the corporatist status quo in the entire population. Kind of weird. And damn. Seems you guys can't help but call everyone else names and belittle anyone who disagrees with you in the process. Almost infantile.

For the people that simply downloaded and ran the bot program, I would guess that safety is probably in numbers rather than anonymity.

Exactly right. And there is also the fact that they are spread all over the world in multiple jurisdictions. Additionally, the users can just claim they were involuntarily turned into bots ... good luck arguing against THAT to a jury.

The guys behind this program are actually pretty smart. Someone with real skills made a tool that people with zero skills can use ... now the team can attack targets without any legitimate intellectual assets endangered by getting caught up in government retaliations for the attacks. They just had to teach a few admins how to use Tor and double-proxy into any IRC channel and they can establish instant command and control of anyone who's turned their system into a bot for the attack. And even the admins aren't really technically capable of producing the systems being used. Only low-level assets are at risk. It's pretty hot. Providing the tool to the public also creates a great level of background noise that would make it really difficult to differentiate between an action coordinated by some random asshat and actions coordinated by the people who actually created the system.

The folks behind these capabilities aren't nearly as clueless about the risks as Seaton seems to imagine. And it's not like anyone's being taken advantage of; the "kids" are EAGER to take the risks and thrills of being on the front lines - they have been empowered. To this point they've been using that empoweredness mostly for silly nonsense. Now that they have gotten their teeth into "legitimate" causes, I think it's going to be hard to go back to making 11 year old girls cry. This is really fascinating to watch.

But to me this whole thing is starting to take on the feeling of a fabricated circumstance. I think this has become the government provoking a community response and probing our capabilities. If that wasn't the intent, it certainly seems to be where we've ended up (either that or they are idiots two steps behind the curve - which we certainly can't discount out of hand). But it's working in both directions - we're getting a good chance to see what the government has in it's retaliation arsenal as well. It will be interesting to see what form the government response will take.

Whatever the government's objective is, from the citizen activist side there are already a good number of people discussing the "next Wikileaks" to address systemic flaws within the original group's structure exposed by these responses. Those who say we can never go back to how things were before Wikileaks are probably very correct. We have seen a new standard of possible. The world didn't end with any of these leaks. The theory that a secret government as currently implemented is crucial to public safety has been exposed as farce - on both the military and diplomatic fronts. In almost every case secrecy has been shown as a tool that serves primarily the petty personal interest of those who keep secrets not the interest of a public on who's behalf power is being wielded. A cross-section of mainstream society is now going to be fomenting for this level of access to information - and they now have a picture of what real transparency looks like against which to compare what the government actually releases.

Wired has a long history of vendetta with these people. They are also intimately involved with bringing charges against Manning. Hardly a neutral voice in any of this. Cryptome is also totally not neutral. Both are great sources of information - but you've got to take their personal biases and running petty snark wars into account. This may be new to the average political news consumer, but these are long-established personalities in a tight-knit community with their own interpersonal dynamics. Likewise, I would advise anyone from the tech world to not accept whole-cloth without skepticism a Kossak's assessment of Jane Hamsher.

I think you are spot-on with your take on the most effective protest being time-limited thing ... and for all the reasons you mention. I'm not really confident these spaz cases will actually implement a very effective protest strategy ... they're new to this. I am confused by your last 'graph though.

How does a sit-in directly raise awareness of the issue - or even a march or a picket, really? Certainly you don't think enough people are able to distill "Hell no, we won't go!" or a blurry sign passing at 35 mph into a cohesive expression of grievance. It's always the spokesperson interviewed in the media and the media coverage of the event that gives context to the actions being taken and voice to the actors - even with something like Jon Stewart's recent rally. If their actions managed to illicit the media coverage that allowed them to present their message to a wider audience than they would have been able to reach by doing nothing - it was an effective protest.

I think criticisms are being leveled at Wikileaks that apply to all journalists. Likewise criticism is being leveled at Anon that seems to apply to all protesters. In both cases, the goal from the media standpoint is to try and make the efforts undertaken seem less than that of their contemporaries. It's basic psychology - if you want to squash something like a bug, it helps if everyone views it as a bug and not a kitten. Sort of disheartening that Dagblog topline has joined forces with Rupert Murdoch on this one.