Anonymous are the Defenders of the Defenseless

“Defenders of the Defenseless” can anonymous truly make these claims. In an interview with CNN Anonymous was asked a question of why they would get involved in certain types of cases such as Rape or hate cases when they are supposedly “The Rulers of the Internet”. I too have question why they get involved and then that’s when the Defenders of the Defenseless comment was brought up. My issue with this is how Anonymous can call themselves the defenders of the defenseless if they only try to get involved in high profile cases.

I have noticed that they get involved in cases where the victim or guilty has been treated unfairly or an error has been made within the case or trial but upon further investigation they only target the cases that are the most covered or televised. It makes me wonder if maybe they get involved because yes they believe that’s something wrong was done and someone needs to make a stand but also to get more media attention for themselves. Are their actions done because they truly believe in the cause or case or are they just seeking the media attention? I want to believe that it’s more than just an attention getting act because I believe in some of the things Anonymous stands for. I have followed Anonymous for years and have been intrigued by their protests and hacktivism activities. That’s not to say I haven’t been frustrated or disagreed with some of them as well.

Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 - July 9, 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator and political philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is chiefly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the struggle against King George III that led to the American Revolution, as well as for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. His ideas resembled the ideology of Anonymous for he stood against an oppressive force then. What I found interesting is how it almost seems as if time were repeating itself and Edmund Burke was a part of an original group of Vigilantes which then were seen exactly how we see anonymous. Is it possible that the things they are doing and have done are truly in searching for justice are they our future liberators?

I tried to find a word better than the phrase defenders of the defenseless that could really describe what anonymous is: Vigilantes which is defined as members of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority, typically because the legal agencies are thought to be inadequate. The big question after reading that is whether that is what Anonymous is and whether what they are doing is actually in defense of the defenseless. In one instance they protested the Westboro Baptist church that planned to protest the Newtown memorial service. In this situation I would have agreed but the way they did it seemed more harmful then helpful. Anonymous released addresses and phone number of members of the church and thus endangering anyone who lived there including innocent children. There is a phrase that’s says two wrongs don’t make a right. That seems to be true in most cases. Also how many cases have the victims asked for Anonymous help it seems Anonymous is more bent on the punishment then the help. A better term for them to use is maybe “Punishers of the Wrong.” A clear picture pops into my head when I think of defending the defenseless and it’s a mother protecting her child; that is defending the defenseless.

Do the research do you think Anonymous are the “Defenders of the Defenseless”?

Sources

http://quotationsbook.com/quote/6929/

Clark, J. C. D. (2001). Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France: a Critical Edition. Stanford. p. 25. 

  Edmund Burke, A Letter from The Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks made upon him and his pension, in the House of Lords, by The Duke of Bedford and The Earl of Lauderdale, Early in the present Sessions of Parliament. (F. and C. Rivington, 1796), p. 20.

Final Post: Hacker's Loyalty

Adrian Lamo is an ex-hacker who was also known as the “Homeless Hacker”. He was called the “Homeless Hacker” because he accessed hotspots in various locations to penetrate internal networks of high profile companies and alerted them of their vulnerabilities. He offered his services to fix it because he felt he was doing the right thing by notifying them of this security breach and the potential harm that could be done  if someone with bad intentions accessed it. Most companies took him up on his offer and did not press charges.  It wasn’t until 2002 when one of the companies NY Times, to which he hacked, didn’t think so kindly of Lamo’s actions. Instead they notified the U.S. Attorney’s office who started an investigation. He would later be found guilty and be placed on 6 months probation and also having to pay restitution. While on probation, he cleaned up his act and attended school to become a Threat Analyst.

In 2010, a U.S. Soldier by the name of Bradley Manning contacted Adrian Lamo via AOL chat room. During their chat, the two discussed Lamo’s past hacking history, Manning awaiting to be discharged due to his gender identity issue and both their experience in the IT world.  As the conversation progressed, Manning eventually confided that he had been penetrating the U.S. classified network and forwarding classified information to Wikileaks. This information he believed the public needed to know. Not believing what he was hearing, Lamo asked Manning for specific stories and Manning supplied. Lamo contacted the U.S. military and informed them of his conversation.  Manning was later arrested and charged with several offenses, with one being “aiding the enemy”, which led to a 35 year sentence.

Lamo claimed that his action for turning Manning in was to help the nation, "Mr Manning's well being was not as important as the security of our armed forces. I had never considered myself particularly patriotic, but when push came to shove the wellbeing of the nation was of paramount importance to me." (excerpt from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/dec/15/hacker-adrian-lamo-bradley-manning-wikileaks)

I think that Lamo is a hypocrite, just as he thought that he was doing good exposing the companies whose systems he penetrated and then offering to fix it instead of doing ill will, Manning felt the same way about his actions; he felt as though the classified information needed to be known by the public so the truth would be out.  According to Wired article, there are three different types of Hackers: whitehats (employed with companies in which they hack within the law), Blackhats (penetrate networks illegally for fun), and Grayhats (hackers who protect security holes from vandals). It would seem as though Lamos is regarded as a Grayhat. Since when is a grayhats loyalty to the law enforcement?

“The distinction between obligation and loyalty might be stated schematically in terms of that with which, respectively, they are connected: obligation is displayed toward rules or requirements of more or less formalized roles and is derived from acceptance of either the legitimacy of the rules or the appropriateness of the roles, or both, whereas loyalty is shown to persons and is founded upon solidary commitment to them. (An Internet Journal of Philosophy 17- 2013, John Riser) Was Lamo obligated to his country to report Manning? Well, he did feel that it was his civic duty as an American citizen to turn Manning in for his wrongdoing. He felt like where was Manning’s loyalty to the military that he so proudly served. Did Lamo owe Manning some kind of loyalty seeing as how he’s been in Manning’s shoes before and seeing as how Manning confided in him because he had no one else to turn to? Josiah Royce stated, “Loyalty is thoroughgoing in that it is not merely a casual interest but a wholehearted commitment to a cause.” Lamo would turn around and state that he did not want to turn Manning in, but he feared what kind of punishment he could face for retaining that type of information.

So to conclude, Lamo turning Manning in, was not because he wanted to be a stand-up citizen and prove that he was totally rehabilitated. If Lamo wasn’t curious as to what would happen to such a person who knew of such a leak then he probably would’ve went on his merry way. In the end, Lamo’s loyalty was to himself and no one else. 

Final Blog Post: The Hack on the PSN (2011)

The Sony PlayStation Network (PSN) has had a handful of hacks and incidences since its release in November of 2006. From jail broken PS3s to a mass intrusion of private information, but the hacks that took place in April and June of 2011 were two for the record books. In April, Sony said it discovered that between the 17^th  and 19^th,  an "illegal and unauthorized person" got access to 77 million PSN users names, addresses, email address, birthdates, usernames, passwords, logins, security questions and more. At first, Sony and the rest of the world believed it to be George Hotz, the hacker that made public instructions on how to jailbreak your PS3. They later found out that the splinter hacktivist group of Anonymous known as Lulzsec was responsible by using a DDoS attack on the network, deliberately flooding the PSN server with traffic causing a loss of income for a company that does business online. Jake Davis (20), Mustafa Al-Bassam (18), Ryan Ackroyd (26) and Ryan Cleary (21) from Lulzsec all claimed responsibility and plead guilty. This hit Sony big time, shutting them down for nearly a month to try to recover at a cost of about $171.1 million in damages. A few months later, a separate attack on the PlayStation Network, Sony Online Entertainment and Sony's Qriocity media-streaming service led to the theft of private data pertaining to more than 100 million user accounts, including credit-card numbers. All three services were offline for more than three weeks. Anonymous later came forward and took credit for the attack, saying that it was unintentional that they obtained the information of all PSN’s users. Using a basic SQL injection attack to expose millions users' personal data, 3.5 million digital coupons and 75,000 music codes. 

A couple questions that I ask Sony are: Why were PSN passwords apparently stored in plain, human-readable text? Why were email addresses, personal details, and credit card details also stored in unencrypted form? While it might be impossible to fully prevent unauthorized access to a system, it’s very simple to encrypt data in a way that both secures user privacy, and makes it almost valueless to any hacker with an intent to use that information for their own personal gain, profit or otherwise. Some questions that I have for the hacktivist groups are: Why make user accounts public? Users aren’t the ones at fault so they shouldn’t be the ones that are punished. Instead of hacking a big league company like Sony, why not simply inform them that their security was not as tightly secured as they claimed it to be? Why was the result of your hacking necessary? If I was in either of the hacktivist’s shoes; I would probably have the same ideals in terms of trying to make being online safe for all users. As I mentioned in one of my questions to the hacktivists, I would simply inform a company that did business online that the security that they claim to be fool proof, isn’t. I wouldn’t put any of the users at risk because that isn’t my main goal. 

I completely agree with the moral reason in which the hacktivists hacked Sony to make them aware that their use of simple security programs to protect tons of valuable information, was not, in fact, fool proof. However, I strongly disagree with the result in which the methods used, produced. Morally, it’s a breach of privacy on an enormous scale. The hacktivists took the Fourth Amendment and twisted it to have themselves believed they were in the right.

I thought of how many people might misconstrue the definition of “privacy”, and then I found William A. Parent (1983). Parent explains that he proposes to defend a view of privacy that is consistent with ordinary language and does not overlap or confuse the basic meanings of other fundamental terms. He defines privacy as the “condition of not having undocumented personal information known or possessed by others”. Parent stresses that he is defining the condition of privacy, as a moral value for people who prize individuality and freedom, and not a moral or legal right to privacy. When I think about how valuable information and privacy are, I looked up Adam Moore (2003). Moore argues that privacy is objectively valuable; human beings that do not obtain a certain level of control over access will suffer in various ways. Moore claims that privacy, like education, health, and maintaining social relationships, is an essential part of human flourishing or well-being.

Sources:

http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/84218-how-the-playstation-network-was-hacked

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2011/apr/27/playstation-network-hack-sony

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUqYuanc1Lc

http://www.electronista.com/articles/11/06/02/lulz.security.hits.sony.again.in.security.message/

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/playstation-network-attack,news-19378.html

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/26/playstation-network-hackers-data

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/privacy/#PriConOveInf

Final draft: Blame and Fairness

In 2013, Shahab “David” Yousheei was arrested in an undercover sting operation at Boston Common. Yousheei and his crew had a kiosk in Downtown Crossing where he sold items with a credit card encoder. He steals his customer’s identities to create credit cards. With those fraudulent credit cards he purchased gift cards. He then uses the gift cards to buy merchandise (including iPads, cellphones, etc.) and resold those merchandises for profit. This scheme allows them to make cash with stolen identities and make it harder to trace.

Yousheei stole thousands of dollars’ worth of items from identity theft. He and his crew repeatedly used the same scheme. They saw an open opportunity and the lack of responsibility from customer’s not protecting their identity and took advantage to steal from them. Identity fraud is against the law but it makes me wonder if it’s entirely the attacker’s fault that the victim is not protecting their identity. This leads to the moral aspect of blame. Philosopher John Rawl’s A Theory of Justice (1971), stated fair circumstances for everyone to have the opportunity to pursue their aims. People argued that blame leans more towards personal responsibilities. So who’s at fault? I do believe identity theft is wrong, but I also believe it is a person’s responsibility to protect their identity. Almost anyone can sell anything in a stand, some stands don’t require licensing. I do believe when a customer is making a purchase, it is their choice whether to trust who they’re buying from. If they choose to purchase with them, they’re technically “trusting” them and that makes the buyer accountable for their purchase. Now at department stores, they are licensed to sell and that makes the store accountable for our purchases and personal information given at purchase. In the same time, any form of identity is wrong and unacceptable. Rawl believes the blame is associated with their attitudes, which is the outcome of people’s voluntary choices. He believes in choices with social or biological circumstances. Circumstances on how the society views situations and actions led from how a person was raised. On the other hand, Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia (1974), believed in individual rights and personal responsibilities. This situation would be problematic because the individual has the right to fight for their identity but they also have to fight to keep their identity.

Yousheei was arrested when Boston Police set him up to buy counterfeit money. According to Counterfeiting Laws and Penalties, someone guilty of counterfeiting can face up to 20 years in prison, but the person who passes or attempts to pass counterfeit faces only 5years. I understand we need to keep criminals in jail but the Boston Police Department stated “we will continue to join forces with our law enforcement partners to put you out of business and in jail.” I agree that Yousheei should not have accepted to purchase counterfeit money and that he should be arrested for identity theft but I don’t agree that they set him up with a different crime for longer sentencing, is this fair? Dan-Cohen believes, “the main goal of the criminal law ought to be to defend the unique moral worth of every human being.” I feel like the Boston Police is selecting his fate. What Yousheei did was wrong and he shall be arrested but it's unfair that he will be punished more than his wrong doing.

The moral stake is to think before you act. Regardless of the outcome, your actions and will power will define the blame and fairness. Yousheei got charges for identity theft, illegal possession of a credit card encoder, falsely making credit card, using a fraudulent credit card, receiving goods purchased with a fraudulent credit card, and possession of counterfeit money.

Sources:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2013/03/14/brighton-man-arrested-identity-theft-operation-boston-downtown-crossing/0qVE7zYtMg87wVS6nGhgGL/story.html

http://bostonreview.net/forum/barbara-fried-beyond-blame-moral-responsibility-philosophy-law

http://www.criminaldefenselawyer.com/crime-penalties/federal/counterfeiting.htm

https://books.google.com/books?id=ugt3hQ9pB9kC&pg=PA141&lpg=PA141&dq=philosophy+in+fairness+of+criminalizing&source=bl&ots=Gcz_dY1pBU&sig=LctGV6jY9r6b6ktFuUlxVwoUEBI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1uo2VZu2HofNsAXh84D4Cg&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=philosophy%20in%20fairness%20of%20criminalizing&f=false

Final Blog Post - Institutional Loyalty

Institutional Loyalty

In 2011 Aaron Swartz, was arrested for downloading nearly five million files from JSTOR, a digital library of mass academic journals, by infiltrating a network on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus. Swartz was caught on camera by MIT when he was re-entering the network closet to replace the storage devices he was using at the time to hold the downloaded information. Swartz believed that information should not be wholesaled, especially when the research for the journals were funded by tax dollars. He believed that the information should have been open source, and available to anyone interested, for free. Swartz only downloaded these journals and did not release them, however, MIT filed charges. Due to the lack of institutional loyalty, MIT concluded that this downloading was theft before any other possibility. The prosecutors on this case pushed for the firmest penalties, and MIT stood silently by and watched. These criminal charges led to Swartz taking his own life in 2013.

The heart of this institutional disloyalty comes from MIT’s contradictory tradition of encouraging its colleagues to follow their curiosity wherever it may lead them, even if that’s somewhere they are not authorized. MIT’s main lobby doors are always unlocked, and the computer networks are set up for easy guest access. The concept of sharing information, the same one that Swartz stood for, was born in MIT’s computer labs in the 1950’s and 60’s. Due to this many say that MIT has Swartz’s blood on its hands. MIT could have asked for the charges to be dropped just like JSTOR did. Instead, the university chose to remain neutral, and in doing so contradicted its adopted culture that encourages openness.

How could a university that boasts about its community of hackers and hackers abilities turn around and let a member of that community be prosecuted? Every year MIT holds a self-declared hackathon where students are asked to show off their hacker abilities, the results are then posted on MIT’s site and can be read here. This begs the question of where MIT’s obligation and/or loyalty reside. Is it with their self-produced hacker community, or with obsolete and unjust laws? I believe MIT should not contradictorily prosecute hackers for their success and abilities. Philosopher Josiah Royce argued that as a member of a group, “We share the standards of that group”. With this in mind, MIT is the leader of a group, and should set equal standards for all while reaming loyal to that culture. Royce also argued that loyalty gives security, and offers ready-made standards. This holds very true to this case. MIT should have remained loyal to Swartz and his quest to share information paid for by the public, to the public. Another philosopher, W.E.B. DuBois also argued that values are bound up with social group identity. DuBois stated, “We are members of a nation first, then of a culture, and then a subculture, and we may adopt values consistent with loyalty to those groups”. The group in question here is the hacker community. With being a “hacker” there is a hacker ethic or philosophy that is adopted. The vital topics within these ethics are access to information, freedom of information, and improvement to quality of life via information. This is what Swartz was striving for, and MIT put a stop to. 

I agree with philosopher John Riser and his stance on obligation to society and loyalty to community. He argued that obligations are displayed toward rules or requirements of formalized roles stemming from a membership in society. I believe that MIT should have been obligated to take a stance in the Swartz case to protect the community that it cultivates. Instead they remained silent and in the process of doing so, the community tragically lost a valuable member.

Sources:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/03/29/the-inside-story-mit-and-aaron-swartz/YvJZ5P6VHaPJusReuaN7SI/story.html

http://www.lawandbioethics.com/demo/Main/EthicsResources/royces_philosophy_of_loyalty.htm

https://books.google.com/books?id=6Yo6AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA197&lpg=PA197&dq=%22on+loyalty+and+loyalties%22+pdf&source=bl&ots=J1k1cfosNR&sig=KIM23jHLNrtg0wpX_bpZNoUuU1E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=QW8tVcWgMsqmNp32gdgL&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false

Final project: "The Best social engineer the world has ever seen."

Mark Zuckerberg created a website that allows users to create a profile and share it online with other users. The users enter their information, including their full name, address, pictures, workplace, phone number, and birthday, and share this information online on their profile page. The question is, how did Mark convinced them to do that? Publishing this personal information is the only way to be recognized by friends online. Once found, friends can send them friend requests. Other users may have different reasons for using Facebook, but at the end of the day they all do what Mark wanted them to do - share their personal information with him and the world. However, in doing so, they are also sharing their personal preferences, what they like and don’t like, and their online activities.

The main moral question in this case is not related to Zuckerberg obtaining people’s data, because they agreed to share it with him in the first place. The dilemma arises from what he does and can do with their data after he gets it. It seems that after the data is stored in Facebook’s servers, it is no longer the property of the user. From that point on, Facebook owns the information. What does Mark do with that data? Victor Luckerson (2014) published an article entitled, “7 Controversial ways Facebook has used your data” on time.com. In this article, Luckerson pointed out several controversial actions done by Facebook which harms the privacy of their users. The first example that Luckerson provides is that Facebook keeps the user’s data forever. As users, and owners of our own information, are we not supposed to have full control of our Identity online and offline? In Facebook’s Terms of Service, Statement of Rights and Responsibilities section, subsection 2, Sharing your Content and Information, it says, “When you delete IP content, it is deleted in a manner similar to emptying the recycle bin on a computer. However, you understand that removed content may persist in backup copies for a reasonable period of time (but will not be available to others).” It is interesting that they do not specify the period of time for which they will keep your data.

The second privacy issue is that Facebook uses the user’s behavior online to advertise products. In Facebook’s Terms of Service, under sub-section number nine, About Advertisements and Other Commercial Content Served or Enhanced by Facebook, it says:

You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content (such as a brand you like) served or enhanced by us. This means, for example, that you permit a business or other entity to pay us to display your name and/or profile picture with your content or information, without any compensation to you. If you have selected a specific audience for your content or information, we will respect your choice when we use it.

In the article, Luckerson talked about the issue of targeted advertisements, and used the example of the “Sponsored Story” ad format in 2011, for which Facebook faced a class action lawsuit. Luckerson states that Facebook was “using names and pictures in ads for products they liked but not compensating them [the users].” Is it morally acceptable to use someone’s picture and name to advertise a product without asking for their authorization, and if they agree do they not deserve to get paid for it? It seems unfair to profit from another’s information without providing just compensation.

The last controversial issue is tracking the user’s movements across the web. According to Luckerson, Facebook tracks the websites that we visit for 90 days, “whether you are logged into the service or not.” Luckerson also claims that they use cookies to get data, such as the“time, date, URL, and… IP address whenever you visit a website that has a Facebook plug-in, such as a ‘like’ button.” As free citizens, we have a constitutional right of privacy. Facebook is potentially invading that right. Does Facebook have the right to track their users just because they accepted the agreement? It is particularly concerning that if a person no longer wants to be a Facebook user because of this issue, canceling their account may not be enough to stop Facebook from tracking their internet use considering they keep personal data.

I assume that Zuckerberg’s point of view about these issues is that if you do not like his terms, then do not use his website. Also, he would likely state that it is the fault of anyone who was shocked or offended by the use of their data because they did not read the agreement when they signed up and became Facebook users. Most of the time, Facebook does not do anything illegal. When they do, such as with the “Sponsored Story” ad format in 2011, Facebook’s reaction is to apologize, pay the fine or settlement, and find another way around or come up with a different idea that will allow them to make money off of the users’ information.

I have a lot of respect for Mark Zuckerberg, but I disagree with him about the way his company uses our data. I understand that he did not make Facebook to be nice to people, but rather to profit from it. He should be more selective about the way he uses Facebook to make money. The reason is that it is not ethical to use someone’s privacy or propriety without their consent or just compensation. It is even worse to use someone’s profiler and search history to advertise for products. It is also immoral to keep former users’ information stored even after they have stopped using Facebook.

Facebook would be a better company if they traded some of their profit for the respect of the privacy of their users because at the end of the day, they rely on their users to be successful.

Privacy is one of the foundations of our civilization. As Ayn Rand in her book “Capitalism: the Unknown Idea” said, “Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.” Ayn used this quote to describe human relationships in the middle ages, and how men were ruled by brutal force and human life was held to a cheap price. Ayn thinks that what changed this situation was capitalism, which introduced freedom. As a society and free humans, we need our privacy, and we also need companies like Facebook to respect it. Privacy is extremely valuable.

When looking at these problems from another angle, we can see that consent plays a big role in this situation. It’s true that the users accepted the agreement when they signed up for Facebook but this can’t be a sufficient reason to use that information with no limit. In “Note for Philosophy” Locke stated that we are obligated to obey political authorities by free and voluntary consent, just because we reside in their territory. This part seams to support Facebook’s position but Hanna Pitkin’s response to Locke’s theory by saying that consent is irrelevant to his theory, because in order to obey the authority, the government has to be adequately respects and protects our basic moral rights. Comparing Locke’s theory to the Facebook situation, I would say that since we use Facebooks website and save data in their servers (territory) then we have to obey to their rules, but Hanna’s point of view which I personally supports, is that Facebook has to earn our obeisance by respecting our right in the first place. Hanna also said: that by residing within their territories, we give our consent even to bad governments and we are not obligated to bad governments.  

Sources:

http://time.com/4695/7-controversial-ways-facebook-has-used-your-data/

https://www.facebook.com/legal/terms

https://books.google.com/books?id=eWZbq29waP8C&pg=PT258&lpg=PT258&dq=Ayn+Rand+said,+%E2%80%9CCivilization+is+the+progress+toward+a+society+of+privacy.+The+savage%27s+whole+existence+is+public,+ruled+by+the+laws+of+his+tribe.+Civilization+is+the+process+of+setting+man+free+from+men.%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=NSQztA4J_d&sig=JhVhOieuOqz4shE2zo61jlFYIZM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jfBCVdXaAcjXsAX23YHwAw&ved=0CEMQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Ayn%20Rand%20said%2C%20%E2%80%9CCivilization%20is%20the%20progress%20toward%20a%20society%20of%20privacy.%20The%20savage's%20whole%20existence%20is%20public%2C%20ruled%20by%20the%20laws%20of%20his%20tribe.%20Civilization%20is%20the%20process%20of%20setting%20man%20free%20from%20men.%E2%80%9D&f=false

http://philosophyfaculty.ucsd.edu/faculty/rarneson/Courses/13Locketacitconsent.pdf (Thanks Admiral Thistle for this one)