DDoS is not civil-rights

Some hacktivists argue that their DDoS attacks are comparable to the civil-rights-era sit-ins — after all, a wall of activists blockading the doors to a “whites-only” lunch counter is a kind of denial-of-service attack.
I think they’re wrong. I grew up in the antiwar movement and participated in my first sit-in when I was 12. Sit-ins are a sort of denial of service, but that’s not why they work. What they do is convey the message: “I am willing to put myself in harm’s way for my beliefs. I am willing to risk arrest and jail. This matters.” This may not be convincing for people who strongly disagree with you, but it makes an impression on people who haven’t been paying attention. Discovering that your neighbors are willing to be harmed, arrested, imprisoned, or even killed for their beliefs is a striking thing.
And that’s a crucial difference between a DDoS and a sit-in: participants in a sit-in expect to get arrested. Participants in a DDoS do everything they can to avoid getting caught. If you want to draw a metaphor, DDoSers are like the animal rights activists who fill a lab’s locks with super glue. This is effective at shutting down your opponent for a good while, but it’s a lot less likely to draw sympathy from the public, who can dismiss it as vandalism.

Cory Doctorow

Semper Fi

“Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple. It says, ‘Raise an army’. It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation. You all joined for a reason: to serve, to protect our nation, right?”

“Yes, sergeant major,” Marines replied.

“How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble? Right? Get over it. We’re magnificent, we’re going to continue to be. … Let’s just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness,
dignity, compassion and respect. Let’s be Marines.”

Sgt. Maj. Micheal Barrett, senior enlisted adviser of the Marine Corps (via)

links for 2011-06-19