The Goon Show

Boulder Weekly tells the tale of the battle between Indymedia and the hacker called Clorox the g00n.

Comments

[Rhywun]

Clorox the g00n

What a D1cK.

[mediageek]

Regarding Hacktivism- how prevalent is it for a person or organization to hire a hacker to take down the systems of someone they disagree with?

[dhex]

the craziest thing was the whole "we post things from all parts of the political spectrum" thing indymedia was kicking.

that and the 12 year oldness of it all.

[Minor Threat]

"They claim to be a free speech outlet, but they're not," says clorox.

Apparently, "free speech" means Republican speech to him. I find it interesting that a lot of people resort to this sort of reasoning no matter which side of the political spectrum they come from. They love free speech when you agree with them, but want to reserve the right to squelch your speech when they don't. I know lefties who will gleefully peel a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker off a parked car. I guess we should be grateful that both sides despise each other so much and are afraid of the others' power to squash them. Otherwise they wouldn't even pay lip service to "free speech."

[Eric the .5b]

What a D1cK.

I think the kids spell it "d1x0r".

[Stormy Dragon]

I note that if you read far enough into the article, you find out the indymedia.org hack was in retaliation for Indymedia assisting in the hacking attack of protestwarrior.com

Now that doesn't excuse "Clorox the g00n" breaking the law, but on the other hand I don't understand why Indymedia is being portrayed as the innocent victim in all this.

[Ken Shultz]

"But the Indymedia folks fought back. They discovered clorox's real identity and threatened to expose him if he didn't back off. Clorox says he did what they asked, but that they still contacted his school and his family. For clorox, that was stepping over the line."

Some people may think that distateful, and maybe it is. Still, it seems like self-defense to me, and they didn't need the help of the government to do it!

"The Thursday before, he'd been summoned to his dean's office. Indymedia volunteers had discovered who was behind the hack and posted clorox's identity online--his name, his college, even his medical history. Hundreds of people had called clorox's college to complain, and now the school wanted answers.

The next day, clorox got a call from the campus sergeant. When he arrived at the sergeant's office, two officers approached him and flashed their badges: FBI."

I'm guessing it was the school that called the FBI. I don't know this to be the case, but it's hard to imagine Indymedia calling the FBI for help. ...especially after stuff like this...

http://indymedia.org/en/static/fbi

[Eric the .5b]

I guess we should be grateful that both sides despise each other so much and are afraid of the others' power to squash them. Otherwise they wouldn't even pay lip service to "free speech."

The punchline to that wistful hope either being that many of them are dumb enough to forget that their opponents will be in power again, or that the groups occasionally agree on what they want to squash...

[Eric the .5b]

I don't see the need to try to put a face of any sort on Indymedia's actions. They didn't do anything illegal or immoral in exposing a guy who was trashing their systems.

I won't lie, I think Indymedia is a terribly slimy organization of left-wing kooks, but they have property rights, to.

Of course, if Indymedia people were involved in the original hacking (an idea I'm less than incapable of imagining), then this is just a game of dirty partisans playing dirty, with the last guy left holding the bag when the cops are called.

[Kid Handsome]

I'm not pro-Clorox - free speech includes the right to exclude undesireable speech from your web-site (though that should be disclosed).

However, did I read that right? They disclosed his medical history. Was HIPAA around at this time? If so, where are the Feds?

[Bluebottle]

Pauses for audience's applause - not a sausage.

[kevrob]

I found this awful troubling: Hanging out at the school library, clorox discovered that when a patron used a library card, the library computer displayed that person's social security number.

I took a structured programming class as an undergrad mumble-mumble-years ago. One lecture was on "computer ethics." I tried to point out to our instructor, who had a day job doing IT for the local Bell company, that using the SSN as a default key record number contributed to violations of customer privacy, and if not connected to taxation or lending, ought not be used. Even though she didn't reject my comment out of hand, it seemed to me that it struck her as novel. Imagine the identity theft clorox could have engaged in by snagging those SSN #'s!

Kevin

[crimethink]

He's flourished in the g00ns, becoming a master at C++, a programming code used in many malicious software programs.

Why oh why do the computer-related articles always get written by the most computer-illiterate people...

[kezel]

This story is something awful.

[Adam]

funny how "indy" in the last election became a euphemism for "hysterical left wing" ... indymedia ... indyvoter ...

[that dude]

"rightwingextremist.org"

Ooh you know only good can come from this!

[jack]

Love this quote from clorox: "I've always wanted to be the one who catches the bad guy, even if sometimes I am the bad guy." Sounds like he's better suited for DEA than FBI, though it doesn't disqualify him from the fibbies.

[just another lurker]

"The g00ns are known for all kinds of mischief... Sometimes they partake in forum rages, logging into a discussion board and slowly changing the topic of discussion?like, say, the war in Iraq?to something ludicrously different, such as Christina Applegate."

Oh my gawd, Hit & Run has been infiltrated by g00ns!!!

[Stevo Darkly]

What is Christina Applegate doing these days, anyway?