In light of the end of the semester, before completing the final blog I thought I’d put up the stuff I was looking at for the final show and tell. I was thinking about how technology affects us all, and going back to the question of whether or not people should be free to choose – in this case, whether or not technology should be available to all or if some should be restricted, and what that would do to our society if technology WERE restricted. I came across some crazy stuff about hackers, and this group called Anonymous, so I thought I’d post this and see what anybody has to say about this / how people feel about this.
But basically it means that any information people had up on this network, including credit card numbers, bank account information, personal information such as full names, addresses, and e-mail addresses, were up for grabs to these hackers.
What did Playstation have to say about this?
“When a data breach occurs, it is essential that customers be immediately notified about whether and to what extent their personal and financial information has been compromised,” Blumenthal wrote Tuesday, dinging Sony for what he labeled a “troubling lack of notification from Sony about the nature of the data breach.”
What’s a little upsetting is the advice they had for customers was to change their passwords and that they would regain control of their system “soon”. HOWEVER, there is no possible way for customers to find out what their previous passwords were if they had forgotten them. Once signed on, a customer would rarely find themselves needing to sign back in, and therefore could easily forget their password. Wow.
Main article: Hal Turner
According to white supremacist radio host Hal Turner, in December 2006 and January 2007 individuals who identified themselves as Anonymous took Turner's website offline, costing him thousands of dollars in bandwidth bills. As a result, Turner sued 4chan, eBaum's World, 7chan, and other websites for copyright infringement. He lost his plea for an injunction, however, and failed to receive letters from the court, which caused the lawsuit to lapse
On December 7, 2007, the Canada-based Toronto Sun newspaper published a report on the arrest of the alleged Internet predator Chris Forcand.[23] Forcand, 53, was charged with two counts of luring a child under the age of 14, attempt to invite sexual touching, attempted exposure, possessing a dangerous weapon, and carrying a concealed weapon.[24] The report stated that Forcand was already being tracked by "cyber-vigilantes who seek to out anyone who presents with a sexual interest in children" before police investigations commenced.[23]
A Global Television Network report identified the group responsible for Forcand's arrest as a "self-described Internet vigilante group called Anonymous" who contacted the police after some members were "propositioned" by Forcand with "disgusting photos of himself." The report also stated that this is the first time a suspected Internet predator was arrested by the police as a result of Internet vigilantism.[25]
Thanks for sharing this stuff Shae!
ReplyDeleteI still don't know what to make of it. It's hard not to feel supportive of Anonymous when they are using hacking for things like taking down Westboro and capturing child predators. Unsettling to think though, the ramifications this kind of knowledge can have if it falls into the wrong hands.