Hackers take down Department of Justice website
- Details
- Category: Your Opinion is Wrong
- Published on Friday, 20 January 2012 15:22
- Written by Tom Z
You may have heard that, yesterday, anonymous hackers took down the department of justice website. The attack was in response to the government’s shutdown of megaupload.com, a popular file-sharing site. CNN explains:
The DOJ website glitches came soon after various Twitter accounts associated with Anonymous took aim at the agency.
Anonymous's favorite weapon for these attacks is what's called a "distributed denial of service" (DDoS) attack, which directs a flood of traffic to a website and temporarily crashes it by overwhelming its servers.
There’s nothing worse than when the government shuts down a website you use all the time. I had this site I used to go to watch live streaming TV, specifically stuff that wasn’t airing on my cable package (west coast football games, etc.). One day I go there and instead of the usual channel list, I see a giant Department of Justice logo. At first I was like, “not another Law & Order show!” but soon I realized that the site had been shut down. So I understand the hackers’ frustrations. That said, I need to address two issues.
First off, who uses file-sharing sites anymore? What is this, 2002? Do you see anyone wearing popped collars and watching “American Pie 2?” Of course not. It’s 2012. We’re wearing cardigans and watching “American Pie: The Book of Love.” Oh, those Stifler boys, they just don’t give up! The point is, everything’s streaming nowadays, so get with the times, people.
Secondly, I’m not the biggest computer guru out there, and I’m in no position to insult these hackers, but let me just clarify that a DDoS attack should not be called “hacking.” Hacking is breaking into someone’s servers. A DDoS attack means you send a ton of traffic to the site, making the site freeze up or stop working altogether. Think about when you try to open 8 programs at once and your laptop freezes up. Same idea. It’s effective at grinding a site to a halt, but still, it’s not hacking. In fact, if you run a site that’s based on page views, a DDoS attack could be the best thing to happen to you all month. That’d be like trying to stop a nerd from getting good grades by making tons of girls sleep with him, thus wasting his valuable study time. Or it’s like trying to stop Ben Affleck from acting by giving him 1,000 Best Actor awards and making him appear at all those awards ceremonies. Sure, he’s not out there making “Gigli 2,” but still, you may be sending the wrong message.
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