Disclaimer: I have a well-known dislike for Krebs that shades my interpretation of this subject. I find the content on 8kun/8chan absolutely morally reprehensible. I'm not a free speech absolutist...
Disclaimer: I have a well-known dislike for Krebs that shades my interpretation of this subject.
I find the content on 8kun/8chan absolutely morally reprehensible. I'm not a free speech absolutist to any degree.
However I do think this opens some questions on the role DDoS protection providers play in the current moment, and the ease by which dissenting opinion could be squashed in the future by the one-two punch of cheaply DDoSing a site hosting it, and by having leverage on DDoS protection companies.
Calling 8kun "dissenting oppinion" is not just extremely generous, it's flat out wrong. You can't call racism, sexism, white supremacy, anti-semitism, and bigotry in the same category of...
Calling 8kun "dissenting oppinion" is not just extremely generous, it's flat out wrong.
You can't call racism, sexism, white supremacy, anti-semitism, and bigotry in the same category of disagreeing how to implement policy. The only oppinion being dissented in these cases are the ideas that minority groups deserve to live, or at minimum that they deserve basic human rights.
I don't see how this matters much in the scheme of things. There are already a number of tools I can use to squash politically unpopular speech right now, so I don't see why this one in particular...
I don't see how this matters much in the scheme of things. There are already a number of tools I can use to squash politically unpopular speech right now, so I don't see why this one in particular matters.
In any case, as the story unfolds, it reveals itself to be a minor problem at best, since they managed to get their site back up relatively quickly just by changing service providers. And if they literally cannot find any service providers, they still have the ability to build their own.
Not much hits at the level of infrastructure. That usually takes Chinese Great FireWall levels of commitment to do. Yes. I believe a movement comprised of Rich White people with a significant...
There are already a number of tools I can use to squash politically unpopular speech right now, so I don't see why this one in particular matters.
Not much hits at the level of infrastructure. That usually takes Chinese Great FireWall levels of commitment to do.
since they managed to get their site back up relatively quickly just by changing service providers. And if they literally cannot find any service providers, they still have the ability to build their own.
Yes. I believe a movement comprised of Rich White people with a significant tech-savvy contingent among them would be able to do this fairly trivially. That doesn't say as much about other marginalized communities though.
There are other ways to do this that are far less democratic. If I didn't want someone's ideas to be spread, I could also just try to figure out where their servers are and destroy them. That can...
There are other ways to do this that are far less democratic. If I didn't want someone's ideas to be spread, I could also just try to figure out where their servers are and destroy them. That can be done with one person.
Heck, you can do this without destroying their property just by hacking them.
I believe a movement comprised of Rich White people with a significant tech-savvy contingent among them would be able to do this fairly trivially. That doesn't say as much about other marginalized communities though.
Yeah, and that's the real problem - money is speach, and the more money you have the more speach you have. Until you solve that problem this is going to be a thing.
This isnt new. The same can be said of print. If someone refuses to print your materials, you find someone who will. If nobody does, you print it yourself.
Neither of these are exactly trivial things to do. Maybe not the best example as we have strong laws and norms in place to discourage forbidding people from printing things.
If I didn't want someone's ideas to be spread, I could also just try to figure out where their servers are and destroy them. That can be done with one person.
Heck, you can do this without destroying their property just by hacking them.
Neither of these are exactly trivial things to do.
This isnt new. The same can be said of print. If someone refuses to print your materials, you find someone who will. If nobody does, you print it yourself.
Maybe not the best example as we have strong laws and norms in place to discourage forbidding people from printing things.
Indeed. Unfortunately, it is necessary to suppress bigotry. Therefore "don't have the tools" is not a suitable approach for preventing them from being used to suppress other speech. What other...
Indeed.
Unfortunately, it is necessary to suppress bigotry. Therefore "don't have the tools" is not a suitable approach for preventing them from being used to suppress other speech. What other approaches can you think of?
We already suppress bigotry in myriad other ways ranging from anti-discrimination laws to education to social ostracism and impaired employment prospects. I don't see private, unaccountable...
We already suppress bigotry in myriad other ways ranging from anti-discrimination laws to education to social ostracism and impaired employment prospects. I don't see private, unaccountable monopolists over critical infrastructure as a suitable channel for doing so.
Oh! I absolutely agree that this does NOT count as dissenting opinion! What I intended to convey (and did so poorly), was that future dissenting opinion could be easily silenced via cheap DDoS...
Calling 8kun "dissenting oppinion" is not just extremely generous, it's flat out wrong.
Oh! I absolutely agree that this does NOT count as dissenting opinion!
What I intended to convey (and did so poorly), was that future dissenting opinion could be easily silenced via cheap DDoS attacks and government pressure on DDoS protection companies. With this in mind, I think it may shine a better light on what I was trying to convey when I said "by which dissenting opinion could be squashed in the future."
I think your bias has resulted in a misread of the situation Krebs is reporting. Krebs is a reporter. He didn't shut down anything. A security researcher informed a DDOS protection provider that...
I think your bias has resulted in a misread of the situation Krebs is reporting. Krebs is a reporter. He didn't shut down anything.
A security researcher informed a DDOS protection provider that they were ultimately protecting 8kun. They chose to terminate that service. 8kun found a different DDOS protection provider. Krebs called some folks involved, verified the chain of events, and reported it. The end.
He linked to his article reporting on the situation. I recommend you give it a read as this title is misleading. It talks about why the DDOS protection provider didn't know what they were protecting through private peering agreements. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/10/qanon-8chan-sites-briefly-knocked-offline/
Disclaimer: I have a well-known dislike for Krebs that shades my interpretation of this subject.
I find the content on 8kun/8chan absolutely morally reprehensible. I'm not a free speech absolutist to any degree.
However I do think this opens some questions on the role DDoS protection providers play in the current moment, and the ease by which dissenting opinion could be squashed in the future by the one-two punch of cheaply DDoSing a site hosting it, and by having leverage on DDoS protection companies.
Calling 8kun "dissenting oppinion" is not just extremely generous, it's flat out wrong.
You can't call racism, sexism, white supremacy, anti-semitism, and bigotry in the same category of disagreeing how to implement policy. The only oppinion being dissented in these cases are the ideas that minority groups deserve to live, or at minimum that they deserve basic human rights.
The tools one would use to suppress bigotry are exactly the same tools one might use to suppress any politically unpopular speech.
I don't see how this matters much in the scheme of things. There are already a number of tools I can use to squash politically unpopular speech right now, so I don't see why this one in particular matters.
In any case, as the story unfolds, it reveals itself to be a minor problem at best, since they managed to get their site back up relatively quickly just by changing service providers. And if they literally cannot find any service providers, they still have the ability to build their own.
Not much hits at the level of infrastructure. That usually takes Chinese Great FireWall levels of commitment to do.
Yes. I believe a movement comprised of Rich White people with a significant tech-savvy contingent among them would be able to do this fairly trivially. That doesn't say as much about other marginalized communities though.
There are other ways to do this that are far less democratic. If I didn't want someone's ideas to be spread, I could also just try to figure out where their servers are and destroy them. That can be done with one person.
Heck, you can do this without destroying their property just by hacking them.
Yeah, and that's the real problem - money is speach, and the more money you have the more speach you have. Until you solve that problem this is going to be a thing.
This isnt new. The same can be said of print. If someone refuses to print your materials, you find someone who will. If nobody does, you print it yourself.
Neither of these are exactly trivial things to do.
Maybe not the best example as we have strong laws and norms in place to discourage forbidding people from printing things.
Indeed.
Unfortunately, it is necessary to suppress bigotry. Therefore "don't have the tools" is not a suitable approach for preventing them from being used to suppress other speech. What other approaches can you think of?
We already suppress bigotry in myriad other ways ranging from anti-discrimination laws to education to social ostracism and impaired employment prospects. I don't see private, unaccountable monopolists over critical infrastructure as a suitable channel for doing so.
Oh! I absolutely agree that this does NOT count as dissenting opinion!
What I intended to convey (and did so poorly), was that future dissenting opinion could be easily silenced via cheap DDoS attacks and government pressure on DDoS protection companies. With this in mind, I think it may shine a better light on what I was trying to convey when I said "by which dissenting opinion could be squashed in the future."
I think your bias has resulted in a misread of the situation Krebs is reporting. Krebs is a reporter. He didn't shut down anything.
A security researcher informed a DDOS protection provider that they were ultimately protecting 8kun. They chose to terminate that service. 8kun found a different DDOS protection provider. Krebs called some folks involved, verified the chain of events, and reported it. The end.
He linked to his article reporting on the situation. I recommend you give it a read as this title is misleading. It talks about why the DDOS protection provider didn't know what they were protecting through private peering agreements. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/10/qanon-8chan-sites-briefly-knocked-offline/