Here's an idea.
A denial of service attack is a weapon.
So if you're not elite haxor there's
a chance you don't know what a denial of service
or distributed denial of service attack is.
Essentially, a DoS or a DDoS attack
is a way to knock a website offline.
There's a bunch of different ways to do it,
but at their core they're all pretty similar.
A denial of service attack crams the servers' tubes all
cholesterol-like full of meaningless traffic.
The servers can't handle it.
They freak out, get tired, and then shut down.
These attacks can be perpetrated by one person or thousands
of people, because, you know, the more the merrier.
And depending upon how long the attack lasts,
sites can be down for minutes, days, sometimes even weeks.
Denial of service attacks have been used by Anonymous
on Scientology's website, on the Westboro Baptist Church's
website, on the Tunisian government's network,
by security companies on the Pirate Bay,
and most recently by a huge network of people on Mt.
Gox, the bitcoin market website, and Spamhaus,
a not-for-profit anti-spam organization,
and on tons of other websites by tons of other groups.
A denial of service attack is one of the easier ways to just
[SLICING] a website that you and you're
1,000 pals aren't fans of.
Now, if look at the way the press and blogs
talk about denial of service attacks,
you might notice something.
There's a certain discourse surrounding these matters.
We use the word attack.
We talk about operations and take downs.
We use the word weapon to describe software which
causes server malfunctions.
In her book "We are Anonymous," Parmy Olson
compares DoS methods to missiles and hand guns.
She talks about different DoS techniques'
relative destructive power.
The most popular piece of DoSing software
is called the low-orbit ion cannon.
Does all this suggest that DoSing is a weapon?
Now, before we get much further, let's do some bud snipping
and agree with everyone who is currently
typing a comment about how anything can be a weapon--
a spoon, a Firby, ear of corn, cotton ball, and miniature bust
of Elvis could all be weapons if one was so inclined
to use them as such.
So we are going to take a stricter definition.
We are going to say a weapon is something which is purpose
built to cause violence.
But oh, boy, what counts as violence?
I mean, causing physical harm is violent,
but what about destroying property?
And what if that property is online?
Theater director Anne Bogart says that in art violence
is the interruption of inertia, the removal of possibility
and, most importantly, of choice.
And I think this is as true in life as it is in art.
Objects which are specifically built to interrupt the status
quo and to remove choice for someone or anyone,
those are weapons.
That bust of Elvis, then, doesn't
count unless it was made by a particularly
unhinged individual.
Cars, then, are not weapons, but guns, some knives,
and most DoS software are.
A DoS attack interrupts the inertia of a functioning site.
It removes the choice of the administrator
to have their stuff online.
It is by our definition violence.
So in that sense, yes, the software
which causes a denial of service attack is a weapon.
But as digital anthropologist Biella Coleman points out,
most DDoS attacks tend to be quote "a political stunt."
The sites that are more vulnerable to DDoS attacks
tend not to be actual important infrastructure, just
symbols of that infrastructure.
Source in the description.
When FBI.gov has been taken out, it
doesn't mean that highly classified intelligence
documents have been compromised.
It just means that FBI.gov is down.
And some people wanted FBI.gov down.
In these cases, a DDoS attack is almost like firing
a starter pistol in the mall.
It's not damaging, but it is threatening
and forces us to confront some of the stuff that could happen.
And while LOIC hasn't done massive damage yet,
might it eventually?
As the legions of zombie computers
which fuel denial of service attacks grows,
so too does their power.
I mean, we recently saw what a bunch
of admittedly very alarmist blogs
called the biggest DoS attack ever.
But there's an important balance to strike here.
And have to wonder, if calling DoS a weapon over inflates
its power, even in the face of its actual inflation,
putting DoS software in a line up with guns,
putting the snowball next to the Howitzer
and saying that they are of a kind
could distort our ideas about either.
Not to mention, greatly diminish the terrible experience
of actual physical violence.
No one person has ever died from a DoS attack.
So in light of this, calling a DoS attack
violent or even an attack seems a little ridiculous.
But the way that we talk about this whole arrangement
shows us how we think about our online spaces.
They are prized and important and worthy of defense.
And when someone threatens them, when
someone removes our choice to have them,
it feels like an attack.
It feels violent.
We treat, or at the very least, we
talk about our internet infrastructure
like it was our territory.
We think of it as ours, and maybe even sovereign.
And when someone shoots an infinite number
of internet packets at it, it feels
like someone is shooting an infinite number of something
which is much more destructive, like bullets.
And it's very easy to get caught up in this whole oh my god,
what if the power grid, and oh my god, what if the hospitals,
and, more importantly, what if the YouTube servers get
attacked?
Attack!
[GUNSHOTS AND YELLING]
The point being that taking this stuff
very seriously seems like the right thing
to do to many people.
So if we call DoS a weapon, then that means the people using it
are perpetrating a violent act.
Whether that violent act is just or unjust,
that's a whole other can of internet worms.
As the internet leaks, and leaks,
and leaks into everything, including law making,
it becomes very important how we talk about these things
and what we call them.
Like participating in a DoS attack is illegal
and it will get you maximum 2 to 10 years in prison,
3 years probation, and a quarter of a million dollar fine.
Does that penalty eventually inflate
if we start treating these softwares
and actions as something more nefarious than we already do?
At the same time, though, we don't
want to conflate digital violence and physical violence.
Comparing a drone strike to downed servers
is some cray apples and oranges action.
But maybe as more actually important stuff gets hooked up
to the internet, and botnets continue
to grow, political agendas intensify,
and internet tomfoolery escalates,
there will be a time at which the effects
of the low-orbit ion cannon will resemble something closer
to a low-orbit actual cannon?
What do you guys think?
Is the software which lets you participate
in a denial of service attack a weapon?
Let us know in the comments.
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Hashtag comments about last week's episode.
First and most importantly, good golly, we won two Webby Awards.
So thank you to guys for voting and supporting us.
Once we have our big Webby spring,
I'll hold it right here for everybody
to see and celebrate over.
So thank you.
Thank you so much.
Nancy Murphy points out that it is frustrating
when someone you follow on Instagram
writes just a wall of Instagram tags,
which, yeah, there's a choice you have to make, right?
About sort of bothering your followers
or reaching out to people who don't follow you yet.
[CAMERA SHUTTER]
GPO-- huh?
Ethan Quinn says that sometimes a tag
will add a helpful level of understanding to a photo,
but MicroDoS points out that sometimes adding the meaning
will take away meaning that a viewer could bring to a tag.
So in that sense, yeah, sometimes
there's two different-- there's two different ways
a hashtag can be deployed.
Relatedly, Sam Neiland casts this
as kind of the difference between art and design,
and that design is supposed to evoke a specific feeling
whereas art is something where you can bring
an interpretation to it, which is very--
I think it's very insightful.
To Symphonic76, that was, I think, kind of the joke,
whether or not you could call it a joke because of how maybe sad
his relationship to the pigeon was, I guess,
another thing entirely.
There have also been a couple comments over the last couple
videos about how we over analyze trivial things.
And I know that I've said this before but I want to just make
it really clear that to us nothing ever made by a person
is trivial.
It's just all incredibly interesting,
even Instagram hashtags.
Those are made by people, and that's cool.
Boop.
I have no idea how to solve these.
Where is Dan Brown when you need him.
To TheOneHDuck, I love Momus.
I actually once saw him kick a box around a gallery for 45
minutes.
That is a true story.
To Tobias Legendium, about one full French press.
This week's video is brought to you
by the awesome work of these industrious people.
And the tweet of the week comes from Nikki Roda,
who points us towards an "All Things Considered" story
about the connection between guns and arms manufacturers.