So, the CEO of EBay, parent company of PayPal, writes to suggest leniency in the punishment of the people accused of running a denial of service attack against PayPal because of PayPal’s boycott of Wikileaks. His claims of powerlessness, of being against PayPal’s boycott but unable to do anything about it are amusing, but as a commenter to his post notes, what is interesting is his confirmation that DDOS attacks actually inflict costs, unlike normal protests:
If we want to make parallels between real-world protests and online protests, that means that one thousand people can have the effect of six million people demonstrating in front of your office. That seems like an excessive impact in the hands of each person. It’s like each protester can bring along 6,000 phantom friends without going to the trouble of convincing each of them to take an afternoon off and join the protest in the street.
That’s why I’ve concluded that the use of these attack tools is vastly different than other forms of protest.
Normal protests don’t get to 6 million except in extraordinary circumstances. What he really means is “this works, this inflicts actual costs.”
As for all the apologetics for PayPal, MasterCard and Visa, I note simply that American Express did not cut off Wikileaks. I guess a major multinational can resist the Federal government if it chooses? Anyone aware of any harm AmEx has suffered due to not cutting Wikileaks off?
I want to remind readers of a simple rule: your Lords and Masters respond only to pain and personal inconvenience. Either you must cost them real money, or you must get in their personal space in a way they can’t ignore. Gays got much of what they wanted from Obama because they heckled him in person, and they cut off the money.
The people involved in the DDOS will receive vastly disproportionate sentences, it will be interesting to see how many receive more jail time than the average rapist. Meanwhile, those who caused the financial collapse by acting in clearly fraudulent ways, costing the economy trillions of dollars, continue to go unpunished and live the high life.
Law that is selectively enforced cannot make even the slightest claim to be just. If we had a legal system that came down on everyone like a ton of bricks, one could say “well, I don’t agree, but they are just enforcing the law”.
Maybe I’ll live in such a country before I die.