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In the past, activists have been able to shut down the website of, say, the World Economic Forum for a few hours. But the impact of such a takedown was nebulous at best: It's hard to argue the organization really suffered from a few-hour lag in posting its press releases online.
That's a droplet compared to the millions who'll watch the convention on TV. But taking down a campaign website would nevertheless remove a critical tool for reaching the public -- and likely generate a slew of stories in the mainstream media about the crash.
It's one of several groups planning to distribute software tools to reload Republican sites over and over again. These FloodNet programs are similar to hackers' distributed denial-of-service attacks, which overwhelm a server with thousands and thousands of simultaneous requests for information. But some activists are condemning the planned attacks, saying they violate the principles of free speech that protesters rely on for their demonstrations. "If you feel that you must shut up someone through intimidation or false accusations or any other method -- you are not relying on the superiority of the truth," The Pull, co-founder of the online political action group Hacktivismo, wrote in an e-mail. "People can not condemn censorship and then embrace it."
Electronic Disturbance Theater, or EDT, which is releasing a FloodNet program of its own. Unlike hackers' denial-of-service attacks, which often hijack computers against their users' will, EDT's JavaScript-based software depends on how many people use the program. "It's a way to let people around the world gather and let their presence be felt," Dominguez said. Not that he would mind if a Republican server just happened to crash along the way. In 2002, at the EDT's direction, 43,000 people flooded the site of the World Economic Forum during its meeting in New York.
went offline for several hours following the demonstration. The Black Hat Hackers Bloc is hoping to cause a whole lot more trouble when the Republicans start to gather in New York. The groups will be targeting not only GOP computers, but "e-mail, faxes and phones, too," CrimethInc said, as well as unspecified "financial disruption."
Computer Horizons, the Mountain Lakes, New Jersey, firm responsible for network services at the GOP convention, did not respond to requests to comment for this article. It's unclear exactly how effective these online actions will be.
Hackers on Planet Earth gathering in New York City, one speaker promised attendees, "You will learn how to infiltrate organizations like the RNC, how to look for and find security holes, and how mischief and mayhem is achieved." End of story Send e-mail icon Have a comment on this article?
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