Interview with Operation:Payback (II) REFERENCE: http://www.thetechherald.com/article.php/201045/6396/ Anonymous-plans-to-slow-DDoS-attacks-outlines-patent-and-copyright- reform Q: What is the incentive for the various government regulators and lawmakers to work with Anonymous? You attacked them, justified or not, that is how they see it. Future threats will do little to get them to act. How will Anonymous address this? A: Our primary objective is to raise public awareness; these attacks and threats publish better than peaceful protests. With the attention, people will at least gain insight in the facts as they are presented, and the facts how they really are. This is not about artists being paid, but industries getting their actual profit from suing people. That is a reversed world. People only complain about the situation. We raise the awareness that something can actually be done about it. We may be known as "evil DDoSers", but we did put "scammy" firms like ACS:Law out of business for sending people unfounded law threats/bills. We achieved the fact that ISPs are now more careful about handing over their customers' IPs; the Ministry of Sound even dropped their legal case against BT [URL: http:// www.slyck.com/ story2115_BT_Deletes_Records_of_20000_Suspected_Filesharers_Minis try_of_Sound_Pissed] because of that. We are not against entertainment or their industries; we are against the way that copyright and patent systems are abused. While we have little or no experience with communicating with lawmakers, other people might have, and those people can decide to help us with what we started. Q: Some people I have spoken to don't agree with piracy, but do agree with copyright reform. Do you feel that your pro-piracy views will distract people from supporting your law reform proposals? A: The cause of piracy is because the current copyright laws were written in the past and do not take modern inventions like the Internet into account. The current copyright system is abused and is in dire need of reformation. While we are pro-piracy, we do not state that piracy should become legal. A music/film fan may still want original CD/DVDs, while other people may care only about new content. We can only hope that people who agree with copyright reform are also well-versed in piracy and what it stands for. Q: You mentioned that "We will print posters, we will send emails, we will send letters. We will broadcast our manifestos and intentions. We will involve people who do not know nor care. We will involve everybody. Whether they want it or not." How will you do this? Anonymous as a whole isn't an organized group, more of a hive mentality with some well meaning intentions for the most part. This suggests a level of organization that has been previously unseen. How do you intend to do this? A: Eventually, people will decide for themselves whether or not they want to be involved. We are just a small group, representing the interests of a larger group of people. While a lot of people think "that's the law, we can't change it", we need only to make them aware that laws can change when we all stand together. When they are made aware, they can either chose to ignore or join us, in any form of protest. Even sending a simple letter politely asking for copyright reformation would help. Q: How will the grassroots efforts tie into the meeting of the minds with regard to reform? Do you plan to use the wide information campaign to draw public support? Do you plan to join forces with The Pirate Party? A: Operation Payback is not the best choice for a political campaign. This operation is generally associated with violence and attacks. We merely presented people with political resources a number of propositions they can use, maybe even in their run at future elections. We can also choose to start our own political party. Obviously, that would be with a different name. Our actions are our own and not related to the Pirate Parties in any way. The Pirate Party of Canada finally got its first federal candidate in the Winnipeg North by-election. The Pirate Party in the United States can sure use some support as well [url:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ United_States_Pirate_Party]. We do not have specific plans, but joining the PP is an idea worth pursuing. One thing is sure: Operation Payback's violent nature will not be part of it. Q: In two years there will be another national election in the US. Will you plan to make IP (Intellectual property) and copyright reform into a political issue by spreading information, forcing the politicians to talk about it? If so, how? Why not form a lobby with public support? A: Politics are slow and dragging. By that time, we hope to have the attention already. Our actions are merely a way to force the issue into the center of attention. Depending on the results of this operation and its derivatives, our American participants can choose whether they want to pursue political activities, or to do whatever they feel right to address this problem. Q: With the level of reform targeted, there are some sweeping plans. Do you think asking copyright and patents to last less than a year is reasonable? A: That depends on the future. Our aim is to open discussion. If [they] show some willingness to go along with copyright reform, we can adapt our proposals as well. It also depends on the visions we have. Some of us believe that copyright is a limiting the innovations others could make with that specific --copyrighted-- idea. Maybe a year is now considered unreasonable, but maybe in five years even considered long. Q: What about stopping at five years? Why is medical patent and copyright listed as a medium term, when clearly this is a hot topic now. Why not use that as leverage to kick-start the momentum now? A: This operation focuses on copyright as seen in the entertainment industries. People with political resources are of course free to order priorities as they see fit. Everybody has loved ones who could have been saved if patents were not restricting new innovations in medicine. But when copyright changes, patents may well be next. Q: Operation Payback was one of the first major collaborative DDoS attacks on the Internet. It leveraged social media as a tool of recruitment, IRC for communication/planning, and software developed to carry out the attacks in an automated fashion. Thousands of supporters from around the world joined in, but despite the overwhelming support, the campaign was almost under constant attack. You sustained several counter DDoS attacks and Organizer/Channel/ Network takeovers. What do you attribute these counter-attacks to and what have you learned from them? A: Well, we think most of the spam and network attacks that we received can be attributed to trolls looking for attention. There's no evidence to prove that any of our targets ever retaliated in kind with our attacks. On the contrary, we have indications that we just have malicious members who just wanted to annoy other people, without any motive or actual reasoning. Unfortunately, these people happened to have resources that we could have used for the good of the Operation. The most important thing that was learned from this Operation is that the distribution of power/authority/access needs to be carefully monitored and minimalized. There were two such related events in which certain members used their access on the server and IRC network to try to takeover the Operation. Fortunately, Anonymous is a resilient bunch and managed to recover both times within 24 hours. We had to migrate to different servers several times due to takedown notices as well. Our first two hosts — Tieve and Leetbaka — were forcefully shut down by requests from authorities. Tieve.tk was eventually removed by the dotTK group as well. We also learned that power will corrupt people with time. As soon as some people joined the core group, they felt that they could actually lead Anonymous as a personal army. Thankfully, Anonymous is not a group that can be controlled, but rather coordinated. This proves however, that there should be no such thing as absolute power in an environment like this, but rather a chairperson or a board of members that doesn't influence a discussion, but acts as an intermediary to find a collective solution via methods such as majority voting and taking in continuous feedback from every participant instead of once every two or four years. ===== U.S. Pirate Party ===== Q: What is the U.S. Pirate Party and what does it stand for? A: the US Pirate Party is a political party, formed in 2006, and based on the pirate party philisophy. It stands for INcreased Government Transparency and accountability, increased personal privacy, and reform of copyright/ patent/trademark laws. Q: What is the current state of the USPP? What is being done to change the legal landscape? A: The current state is that with the new cycle starting again over the next few weeks, we're going to try a push, again, to gain ballott access in some states. New York, Florida, oklahoma, and Oregon key amongst them Q: The word "Pirate" can be confusing to the general public. Does the Pirate Party advocate piracy? A: It doesn't 'advocate' it, as much as attempt to take a term which we have all been labeled by certain industries, and give it a new meaning.