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Comment by oracuk | Hacker News Reader

Anonymous DDoS'd bits of the UK govt (http://www.out-law.com/page-11476). Not critical bits but enough for them to take notice of the threat.

Much of the (UK) law enforcement response to potential civil unrest is to try to prevent escalation, this would seem to be in line with that.

Also the tactics and techniques used are frankly not something any of the other bits of UK govt outside the MOD would understand or be able to deploy.

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That is certainly a clear headed and reasonable explanation of why it might be tabled as an option... but I can't fathom who thought deploying a nation state level intelligence agency (in a western democracy) against the communications infrastructure of political dissidents was proportionate. Or even a good idea.

I would love to see how the DDoS was argued as being "legal". Whose bandwidth was used? Where was the target server hosted? Is it legal for an intelligence agency to launch a denial of service attack against civilian infrastructure in another sovereign state to disable dissident political speech? And if it is legal for GCHQ to do it, then why is it not legal for MSS to do the same thing? If GCHQ can DDoS Anonymous, then MSS can DDoS Falun Gong. If GCHQ can hack Anonymous' laptops, then the PLA can hack Tibeten government in exile's laptops.

Allowing GCHQ to be used like this undermines the ability of the UK to be a force for good in the world. Losing the moral high ground for something as pathetic and petty as this? It is embarrassing to see Western Democracies behaving like script kiddies.

If we are worried about "Losing the moral high ground" then we've got a lot more to be worried about than a few civil servants acting as script kiddies.

> That is certainly a clear headed and reasonable explanation of why it might be tabled as an option... but I can't fathom who thought deploying a nation state level intelligence agency (in a western democracy) against the communications infrastructure of political dissidents was proportionate. Or even a good idea.

Using special branch to infiltrate political groups is commonplace. So much so that there are recent scandals from officers living false lives having children with the people they are surveiling, and trials collapsing.

GCHQ have to obey the laws of England. They are usually mentioned in law to give specific exemptions.

I have no idea how they handle the laws of other nations. I'm guessing that they obey those laws where they align with English law.

It's not the first time they've done "script kiddie" antics. Hacking terrorist information websites to replace bomb making instructions with the recipe for cupcakes is another example.

I realize this sounds snarky, but I'm just a North American from the middle of that continent...

Who is deemed capable of deciding which political groups to infiltrate? It seems to me that there's a narrow line between manipulating politics the way you want them to go and observing threats.

I agree with you that it is fantastically problematic to infiltrate political groups.

In theory all of them get scrutiny.

The UK has had considerable trouble with things like employers compiling blacklists of political activists and union activists in order to deny them employment.

Some of the police infiltration scandals have been bad - police either get converted and refuse to provide evidence (while still being paid to gather evidence) or they encourage law breaking amongst legal groups.

I can understand monitoring all political groups (although I don't agree with it) but the UK does this poorly.

> I would love to see how the DDoS was argued as being "legal".

When the intelligence services do it, then it is not illegal. Nixon set the precedent here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejvyDn1TPr8

As an exploit broker to governments, if you believe what you're expressing here, you must be very conflicted these days :)

Wait a minute. Intelligence agencies _are not_ law enforcement. This is a common misconception. Intelligence agencies do not engage in law enforcement, even though in some nation-states police have access to some intelligence agency information.

My bet is they didn't really consider Anonymous a threat, but just experimented to see how much effort it is to clobber them if need should arise at some point in the future.

You're right about them not being law enforcement(See https://www.mi5.gov.uk/home/about-us/faqs-about-mi5/is-mi5-t... for example) but the level of collaboration between them is very close.

In most nations, intelligence agencies _are_ law enforcement.

The delineation between military intel and law enforcement is very much an Anglo thing.

Here in Germany, police and intelligence agencies are separated more clearly than in most other states[1]. The anglosphere tends to be rather sloppy with these things.

[1] http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=n&prev=...

I wasn't aware that the Germans had such a history of separation. That's awesome! :)

So a bunch of punks went out and threw eggs and toilet paper at a government agency's building. So the government got butthurt and ordered the army to load 10 tons of eggs and 10 thousand rolls of toilet paper end go egg and TP houses and parks where those punks hang out. That's the level of maturity we're dealing with here. That's the people that everybody assumes are so good at what they're doing that it's OK to forcefully take your money to pay them salaries and put you in jail if you don't do what they tell you to.

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