Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattdeboard | Hacker News Reader

Prolific & brazen criminals = enormous egos. They won't stop until they are stopped.

edit: My PR senses started tingling on further reflection.

The best way for LulzSec to be countered is in the PR arena. Since they're already bad guys, and since they've already worn out their folk hero sheen, it does no good to villify them.

The best way is to steal their thunder. An organization of people who make a concerted, publicized effort to mitigate damage to the random victims caught in LulzSec's blast radius would definitely steal the limelight.

It's similar to responding to a forum troll by making fun of them. Take away their momentum and make them a pawn in your press releases.

View on HN

We could like, stop submitting/up-arrowing a link to HN every time Lulzsec hacks some place -- which seems to be multiple times daily at this point.

Would you really want to stop them? Would you really want to pour your time and energy into stopping them?

Why would you do that when there are more dangerous things happening, such as companies not securing their websites and databases or governments that are trying to lock down the internets?

I'm more worried about governments having LulzSec's capabilities than LulzSec.

You're more worried about governments having capabilities like finding sql injection flaws in web apps and renting small botnets for and hour or two of DDOS?

The horror.

Sadly, I doubt they can be stopped.

No one is infallible, it's only a matter of time until they slip up. They're making a rather large footprint

I think calling it a "large" footprint is an understatement. My conspiracy buddies are going nuts with the idea that its the government trying to convince us to hand over our internet freedom to them. I wish i could laugh at them with confidence

Well said. I'm not completely convinced this isn't the government, and I'm definitely not normally a tinfoil-hatter. I think the most likely scenario is that, like the ATF's blind eye toward gun-runners on the Mexico border, an agency or agencies have been ordered to turn a blind eye for now.

The chickens are coming home to roost on the ATF thing and I sincerely hope that, if my suspicions are true, they do the same on this.

Agreed @ the understatement.

I'm not sold on this being one gigantic government conspiracy. I wouldn't doubt the existence of this being one giant social engineering tactic, but something in the back of my head tells me otherwise. I stand by the belief however that this group is just further enabling the US and other nations to take actions against internet freedom by their tactics against it.

Their twitter account needs to be suspended. It's being used to distribute the proceeds of criminal activity.

To what end? So they can create another? And another? And another? I'm quite sure they can create new accounts faster than Twitter can delete them, and the last thing Twitter wants to deal with is MORE spam. Smarter to contain the issue.

Surely they could red-flag the term "LulzSec"?

Yes, I'm advocating some well-thought-out censorship in this case.

Anonymity + audience = lulzsec. If we remove the audience, we remove LulzSec.

This is a profoundly short-sighted and ignorant position for many reasons.

1. You will give far more publicity to LulzSec than they are already getting by acknowledging them as such a severe concern you've pulled your engineers off other more valuable tasks to enact draconian and totally meaningless interdiction efforts

2. It won't actually shut them up. LulzSec is an example the ultimate asymmetrical enemy. They have fewer numbers, fewer financial resources and less technology, but have a mastery of the terrain. You don't defeat a guerrilla by pretending they don't exist. You do not attack them where they are strongest.

3. You're not actually achieveing anything here. Twitter isn't exposing itself to legal vulnerability here, and you certainly wouldn't shut up LulzSec for even a split second by just taking away their Twitter account.

I mean, honestly, have you thought this through at all? Have you paid attention to anything in the last 20 years? This kind of short-sighted feel-good finger-in-the-dyke measure is exactly why we're all sitting here screaming into the wind about copyright and piracy. What a shame that there are so many people who think this is the way to handle serious issues on the Internet.

I mean, honestly, have you thought this through at all? Have you paid attention to anything in the last 20 years?

Nope.

You're correct. When I'm presented with a problem, I tend to point out the first solution that comes to mind. If there are secondary problems, I refine the solution until the problem is solved.

In this case, the secondary problems would be that LulzSec would gain more audience, rather than be effectively censored, due to the Streisand effect. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect)

Do you have any ideas for a solution?

Let's put it another way. What you said really upset me and I'm just totally against that kind of statement/behaviour. I'm advocating some well-thought-out censorship in that case.

Those things just depend on which side of the fence you stand; that's why they shouldn't be considered.

As Voltaire said or Evelyn Beatrice Hall wrote: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Reply on news.ycombinator.com