An Open Letter To LulzSec
pastebin.com
pastebin.com
1. Dear Boys and Girls,
2. Do you remember what it was like when the bullies picked on you and your friends during lunch in the canteen? Broke your spectacles, stuck their filthy fingers in your food?
3. Do you remember what it was like before you really discovered the internets? The lonely empty darkness inside you that matched the lonely darkness that surrounded you?
4. Do you remember how you felt when the cool kids had fun stuff to do of an evening and all you had was a night of MMOs and online chat?
5. Do you remember thinking that you and your brain were capable of big things. Great things. Terrible things and the world would be sorry for underestimating you?
6. Do you remember a life before Lulz?
7. I'm guessing you do. I'm guessing it wasn't that long ago. I'm guessing that you are still stinging.
8. Then the lulz began.
9. We have to admit that when you were picking on the internets's big kids we had a moment of guilty lulz. When it looked like you were teaching them an important lesson we lulled along. But you changed.
10. Just because you have a pain inside doesn't mean that you you should inflict pain. Just because the big kids shit on you doesn't mean you should shit on the little kids.
11. The power has infected your young head, Child. You've gone to the Dark Side.
12. But. Wait. Shhh! Baby. It's OK. I promise.
13. The big, real world it full of lulz. Real lulz. The kind of amazing lulz that you can touch. Lulz you can taste and smell. Warm lulz, soft lulz. Hard lulz.
14. You have a big brain in your young head. A brain capable of good things, clever things, important things. Once you discover the power of real lulz you will soon put this behind you.
15. But do it fast before the bullies return and your life returns to being nothing more than a high-school cafeteria on repeat loop for 2-4 years with good behaviour.
16. The lulz aren't worth it.
17. Yours, Concerned.
All will be revealed.
Also: I wouldn't bet on them being autistic nolifers, which is what the author of this letter seems to be suggesting, you'd probably be surprised.
I would like to politely disagree.
You're right, the "it's who you are that matters" card spells out resigned bullshit about most of the times someone plays it.
But it's not what they do that matters either: like the author of the article said himself, what they're doing is mostly kiddie stuff. Using well-known tools and techniques to goof around with well-documented security flaw 'patterns'.
And so they're not crafting anything either, they're just wasting humanity's bandwidth. In that sense I agree with you.
They're really just a kiddie version of Anonymous/Wikileaks. Hopefully they'll move on to more meaningful hacking (either definition of the term) before they get thrown in prison, but there will always be someone to take up the lulz mantle.
And yeah, DDoSes aren't really brag-worthy anymore. Getting thrown in prison for a worthy social cause, doing something mind-blowingly awesome, or hacking capitalism and making yourself rich legitimately are way more impressive.
I was so hoping for a "you should score one of those Gibsons."
It amazes me that they can muster the energy to even bother.
At some point the seriousness of this life hits us all. I've had the best luck when I've faced it head on. When I can be not merely self critical but act on that criticism. When I confront my own ignorance and nothingness then I'm far less likely to squander my time/life and for more likely to remember to respect and revere others and their rights and claims to the chaos, confusion and wonder that is this life.
Not really interested in someone who's supposedly lecturing LulzSec from a position of vastly greater maturity and life experience, but still hasn't outgrown 12-year-old homophobe-speak. At all.
Well played, anonymous poster.