The revelation that the Brtisish spy agency GCHQ uses DDOS attacks against Anonymous and other 'enemies' may not be come as a great surprise to many who visit this site, but the dangers should certainly not be overlooked.
First a quick recap of the above linked article:
A secret British spy unit created to mount cyber attacks on Britain’s enemies has waged war on the hacktivists of Anonymous and LulzSec, according to documents taken from the National Security Agency by Edward Snowden and obtained by NBC News.
The blunt instrument the spy unit used to target hackers, however, also interrupted the web communications of political dissidents who did not engage in any illegal hacking. It may also have shut down websites with no connection to Anonymous.
The division of GCHQ known as JTRIG responded to the surge in hacktivism. In another document taken from the NSA by Snowden and obtained by NBC News, a JTRIG official said the unit’s mission included computer network attacks, disruption, “Active Covert Internet Operations,” and “Covert Technical Operations.” Among the methods listed in the document were jamming phones, computers and email accounts and masquerading as an enemy in a "false flag" operation. The same document said GCHQ was increasing its emphasis on using cyber tools to attack adversaries.
Some members of Anonymous certainly did commit some illegal acts. However the vast majority of Anonymous 'members', people who joined Facebook groups or visitited IRC Channels are guilty of only being pissed off at the 1% or local police letting rapists go free in the name of football.
Gabriella Coleman, anthropologist, academic, author and expert on Anonymous has penned a piece for Wired declaring the attacks as "dangerous for all of us".
The real concern here is a shotgun approach to justice that sprays its punishment over thousands of people who are engaged in their democratic right to protest simply because a small handful of people committed digital vandalism. This is the kind of overreaction that usually occurs when a government is trying to squash dissent; it’s not unlike what happens in other, more oppressive countries.
...Whether you agree with the activities of Anonymous or not — which have included everything from supporting the Arab Spring protests to DDoSing copyright organizations to doxing child pornography site users — the salient point is that democratic governments now seem to be using their very tactics against them.
The key difference, however, is that while those involved in Anonymous can and have faced their day in court for those tactics, the British government has not. When Anonymous engages in lawbreaking, they are always taking a huge risk in doing so. But with unlimited resources and no oversight, organizations like the GCHQ (and theoretically the NSA) can do as they please. And it’s this power differential that makes all the difference.
Coleman goes on to lay out the harsh treatment of 'hackers' by the prosecutors and the courts (
Remember Aaron Swartz?).
To put this in perspective: In Wisconsin alone a man was fined for running an automated DDoS tool against the Koch Industries website for 60 seconds. (He was protesting the billionaire Koch brothers’ role in supporting the Wisconsin governor’s effort to reduce the power of unions and public employees’ right to engage in collective bargaining.) The actual financial losses were less than $5,000, but he was charged a fine of $183,000 — even though a far worse physical crime in the same state was only fined $6400.
In the U.K., Chris Weatherhead — who didn’t directly contribute to a DDoS campaign but ran the communication hub where the protests were coordinated — received a whopping 18-month sentence. This is even more time than was given to hackers who broke into computer systems, stole data, and dumped it on the internet.
Obviously the courts recognize hacking and DDOS as a crime. Why do counter-terror agencies get a pass just to go after some teenagers?
This scenario is all the more alarming given that some of Anonymous’ actions may be illegal and might warrant attention from some law enforcement agencies — but do not even come close to constituting a terrorist threat. And that means we’re inching into the same territory as the dictatorial regimes criticized by democratic governments for not respecting internet freedoms.
Marcy Wheeler posted on the GCHQ hacking and was quick to point out:
But remember: NSA’s SIGDEV analysts have access to raw data outside of normal channels. This shows up repeatedly in the primary orders for the dragnet. And, as Bart Gellman noted (and I elaborated on here), Obama specifically exempted these folks from his Presidential Policy Directive limiting our spying (though his PPD did say foreigners could be spied on for cybersecurity reasons).
In other words, the people GCHQ boasted of their attack on Anonymous to are the people who have some of the least oversight within NSA.