Canadian Government Servers Compromised By Anonymous 79
An anonymous reader writes: There was a cyber-attack on Wednesday by the activist group Anonymous, aimed at the Canadian government. Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney says no personal information was compromised. Anonymous claimed responsibility for the attack in protest against the recent passing of the government's anti-terror Bill C-51. "Today, Anons around the world took a stand for your rights. Do we trade our privacy for security? Do we bow down and obey what has become totalitarian rule? Don't fool [yourselves]. The Harper regime does not listen to the people, it acts only in [its] best interests." the group wrote in an online post.
Yeah, fuck Harper (Score:3, Insightful)
I for one, welcome our Anonymous Canadian Overlords.
Re: Yeah, fuck Harper (Score:1)
I'll see your 2 fuck harpers and raise you another 4. Give em hell anons!
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Re:Yeah, fuck Harper (Score:5, Insightful)
The difference is that previous regimes didn't pass quite as many omnibus budgets with blatant anti-Canadian clauses throughout, nor try to establish a secret fucking police in a formerly somewhat free* country.
* no free speech, an obvious exception
Re:Yeah, fuck Harper (Score:4, Informative)
Oh give it up for crying out loud. Regardless whether you're talking about the Cons majority Federally, or the NDP's new majority in Alberta I'm sick and tired of hearing whiners bitch and complain about how the combined power of all the other voters should trump the number of elected representatives who garnered the most votes in their ridings.
Can you explain why you think the government should not be representative of the combined will of the voters?
I guarantee you that when your particular party of choice gets in power you'll be rolling your eyes at anyone who uses the same argument.
Potentially, but that doesn't mean that's actually the proper reaction.
You also act like past regimes, Trudeau (PET) and Chretien, weren't just as much dictatorial as Harper's.
I'm am genuinely under the impression that they weren't, feel free to prove me wrong, but all of the credible commentary and discussion I've heard from experts on the topic indicate that Harper is running the most dictatorial and partisan government in living memory. Additionally, Stephen Harper is infamous for his micro-managing, his stage managed appearances and his defiance of the experts on virtually every topic. It's why this conservative government is just 2 for 45 on court challenges to their laws and has picked fights with just about every group that's not a conservative lobby group (and some that are).
Personally, I think you're using a false generalisation to dismiss valid criticism of Harper.
Go ahead and vote for your favorite future dictator next election, but step back a bit and be objective about what you're going to get.
It seems like the problem with people like you is that you can't even imagine there being anything between two polarizing options. Either someone acts like a dictator or they do not. Is there no room for someone who only acts like a dictator some of the time? And shouldn't we prefer a politician who, when elected, spends as little time acting the dictator as possible?
I had high hopes for Harper when he was chosen to lead the Alliance party back in the day, but he's disappointed me at every turn since then.
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The Canadian system is generally designed to be a dictatorship with rotating dictators every few years with the party in charge, especially if it's a majority, having almost completely unfettered control over legislation. No matter whose in charge it always looks bad. It's one of the reason we need real Senate reform to create a better check and balance system.
I do know Chretien used the ability to declare a vote a matter of confidence several times to force his own party to vote his way. The tainted bloo
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Re:Yeah, (Score:2)
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Agreed.
So say all Canadians.
Conterproductive, perhaps? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, Anonymous protest against a law that targets hackers by ... hacking? And this will demonstrate to the government and the public that this law is not warranted? Please explain the logic in this, because I can't spot it.
Re: Conterproductive, perhaps? (Score:2)
Same logic as protesting the taking of guns by revolution.
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At least we know what /. articles we'll be seeing in a few months: Anonymous hacker XYZ convicted to Y years of prison for participating in last year's attack of Canadian computer infrastructure...
Re:Conterproductive, perhaps? (Score:5, Funny)
Anonymous hacker XYZ convicted to Y years
So is his middle name a number, or is he going to get sentenced to Jeff years in prison?
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I am going to change my middle name to "-10" to make myself safe from this.
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No middle name, it's just a letter & he'll be sentenced to the base 10 ascii code representation of that letter -- Uppercase if he's lucky...
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With a sentence that is so out of touch with reality and the associated "crime" that it boggles the mind, based on evidence not worth the name.
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Yeah, well for some people, even video footage of people discussing who and how to DDOS / deface is insufficient evidence. Not because evidence is insufficient to convince a jury to convict but because they are ideologically opposed to any limits to their imagined "electronic freedom".
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Re:Conterproductive, perhaps? (Score:5, Informative)
No, the law isn't about hacking. Bill C-51 gives the government power to share information about citizens between departments. It also authorizes heavier surveillance, stronger powers of arrest, while not adding any accountability.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/201... [michaelgeist.ca]
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It demonstrates to the government that their bullshit laws are just that: Bullshit. They accomplish nothing save taking away essential liberties.
Theo, where have you been (Score:1)
when you were needed most by your country?
Canadian Gay Detector (Score:1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_machine_%28homosexuality_test%29
Fruit machine (homosexuality test)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Fruit machine" is a term for a device developed in Canada that was supposed to be able to identify homosexual people, or (offensively and derogatorily) "fruits". The subjects were made to view pornography, and the device measured the diameter of the pupils of the eyes (pupillary response test), perspiration, and pulse for a supposed erotic response.
The "fruit machine" w
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Thanks but no thanks (Score:3, Insightful)
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Hi there, Morbo! How's the family?
SSC couldn't help? (Score:1)
You mean the countless layers of ineffective bureaucracy at Shared Services Cana-duh [facebook.com] can't help?!
Hey Anon, you've been outclassed (Score:2)
The days when a security breach is big news is so over. When the US Government can lose control over the employment records of every, single employee, this kind of playing around by Anonymous is just kind of sad.
Shit title (Score:5, Informative)
Shit article, shit title. It was a DDOS, and in terms of impact pretty much nothing happened. IP based stuff went into failover, and there wasn't even a pick up in phone call-ins apparently.
lies (Score:1)
"The cyberattack and cyber security is an issue that we take very seriously,"
"We are increasing our resources and polices to be better equipped to face cyberattacks, whether they are coming from hackers from a group, potentially, that has said they did it today, [or] state-sponsored or terrorist entities."
if they took "cyber security" very seriously, they wouldn't need to increase their resources and they wouldn't have been hacked.
All establishments act in their own interest (Score:1)
The Liberals voted for it (although they claim they were against it). If they had been in power, odds are Canadians would have gotten the shaft as well. The fact is that the political establishment only serves itself. It does not care about the citizens, or anyone outside of the establishment. Politicians lie through their teeth, or are so brow beaten by the fear, sorry, "security" establishment that they will happily throw away rights and liberties, because "terrorists". They'll tout completely discredited
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A small, ineffective, mostly powerless part
What? The NDP is the official opposition! And not doing all that badly in the polls! [huffingtonpost.ca] Tom Mulcair has pledged to bring in proportional representation if elected, if you want something that "actually represents Canadians".
I'm not affiliated with the NDP in any way (I've voted for them once out of about five elections), but Mulcair has impressed me.
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A small, ineffective, mostly powerless part
What? The NDP is the official opposition! And not doing all that badly in the polls! [huffingtonpost.ca] Tom Mulcair has pledged to bring in proportional representation if elected, if you want something that "actually represents Canadians".
I'm not affiliated with the NDP in any way (I've voted for them once out of about five elections), but Mulcair has impressed me.
So what? What did the official opposition do to stop this bill? What could they have done? Nothing, and nada. Small, almost completely ineffective in getting anything done. My point stands.
I doubt that proportional representation will have much impact. Certainly it's a less awful idea than First Past the Post (FTFP), but the fact that we are still dealing with politicians remains.
When you go vote - do you read up on the position of the person you're going to elect? Does that matter, if they can go and chang
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I know you're being sarcastic, but whether it's Trudeau or the other guy or someone new entirely, odds of them changing anything to actually *fix* this broken system is pretty much nil. They don't want to actually fix what's wrong with the system - they've worked out how it gets them what they want, be it money or power, and that's enough.
ya but ...? (Score:2)
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> It does nothing to stop the C51.
It got (some) people *talking* about C51. Without hurting anyone, or doing any actual damage. (Some civil servants - including me - couldn't surf the web for an hour, and Canadian citizens couldn't look at the oh-so-exciting web sites provided by the government.)
I agree that supporting parties opposed to the bill is a good idea, but I don't think that an awareness-raising publicity stunt was that bad an idea either. C51 has already passed, we are beyond stopping it; t
Troubling (Score:4, Informative)
Bill C51 is particularly troubling... it has already been passed into law and as such may prove very difficult to get rid of by any later prime minister that disagrees with it without a majority government.
The most particularly troubling aspect of C51 is that it empowers CSIS to break almost *ANY* law... short of inflicting enduring physical bodily harm on someone, or acts of sexual violation... in the course of disrupting anything that they believe, rightly or wrongly, to be a terrorist threat, including violating even civil and constitutional rights. That means they can imprison people because of their race, or simply because of what that person believes, for example, even if that person has done absolutely nothing wrong. if CSIS has any reason at all to suspect that such factors link them to committing any act that corresponds with a terrorist threat, a phrase that by itself is so loosely defined (in fact, it isn't even defined in this law... in fact, it appears almost intentional to have left it undefined so that CSIS could apply the term as they saw fit), that even picketing or almost any other form of entirely peaceful assembly that might happens to disrupt some activity that the government is wanting to push forward could qualify.
It's interesting to consider, however, that because CSIS also outlaws the the distribution of terrorist propoganda, if, for example, Westboro Baptist Church were Canadian, then by Bill-C51, the government would have to ban the Christian bible, since WBC uses that text to justify many of their insane acts, and the bill explicitly outlaws the dissemination of literature that encourages acts of terrorism.
Re:Troubling (Score:5, Insightful)
Tom Mulcair was on the CBC yesterday [www.cbc.ca], and I have to say (as a non-committed voter who has voted NDP, Green, Liberal and --in a sad episode of my youth-- some Family somethingorother anti-abortion party) that I like the things he says and the way he says them. No hype, no theatrics, just intelligent arguments and thoughtful principals.
With Harper, we will get a precipitous slide into government by the rich, for the rich; with Trudeau, a gentler slope but the same trajectory. I truly believe that Mulcair will try to roll back some of the encroachments on individual rights and liberty, and actually start us headed towards environmental responsibility.
Is it possible that Mulcair will fall victim to the same hubris and vested interests as other politicians? Of course. But why not start out with at least a little hope for positive change?
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Unless you're a factory worker making less than the Canadian average income, they'll likely fund their spending on cash from your wallet. As you're on slashdot, can format your posts to be readable and don't have any egregious spelling errors, I suspect you will end up in the payer's pile.
We once again have a overflowing cup of political leadershiT. Czar Harper, Comrade Mulcair and Untested Trudeau. The wheel of fate is broken and stuck pointing at, "Here tha
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Better we pay a bit more tax and stop destroying our environment, our scientific establishments, historical data for fisheries and forests, ... I'm sorry what were we talking about?
Harper's evils are actually evil. Mulcair might misstep, but it'd be in a very Canadian, "let's get things right and face facts" way. Trudeau is a wild card all right.
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Mulclair also stands for selling out *workers* rights - of all things - just to suck up to the separatists.
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The right groups -- fundamentalist Christians, separatists, money launderers, etc. - will be somewhat less targeted.
Some facts about denial-of-service (DoS) attacks (Score:3)
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Please stop using the word cyber on a tech site