No, there's really nothing that can be done to prevent a denial-of-service attack, and no practical way of stopping one in progress, especially from a determined group.

All that aside, giving this the label of "terrorism" is wrong. Criminal, mischievous, delinquent, sure... but flooding a website with traffic *aint* terrorism.

One of the definitions of terrorism is crime in pursuit of a political goal, and I think the plans of the "hacktivists" to target not only GOP computers, but also email, faxes and phones and to committe acts of unspecified "financial disruption" are crimes designed to further a political goal.

Terrorism it is.

Was this terrorism?
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2003_02_02.php#000625

If they succeed in cutting off telephone service, someone could easily die. With thousands of excited delegates, many of them middle-aged or elderly, packed into a hot convention center for a week, I expect there will be a few heart attacks or similar medical emergencies. In such circumstances, cutting off access to emergency services could be homicidal -- or at least manslaughterish. I suspect some members of BHHB consider that a feature, not a bug, as long as they can get away with it.

Yeah, this might be considered oppressing dissention or various political crimes along those lines, but it's definitely not terrorism. Terrorism is usually considered violence against non-combatants. If these guys intentionally targetted all of New York because it hosted the RNC, that would be terrorism. This is just attempting to stifle legal, legitimate speech.

Bill -

It is not "terrorism" to rally a huge crowd of people to block access to a building. That is called protest - or civil disobedience. Sometimes this type of protest is illegal and sometimes it is violent. But it is not terrorism.

It IS terrorism to enter the building and shoot people or burn the building down or shoot people trying to enter the building. Or blow the building up. Or pollute the building with germs or chemicals...

A denial of service attack is more like mobbing the building than like blowing it up. It is a ruthless tactic - but not terrorism.

I condemn the idea of the doing this to the GOP. But you need to save the word "terrorism" for situations where it is warranted. Otherwise you sound like Chicken Little or the Boy who Cried Wolf...

Terrorism? Maybe, maybe not.--seems to be lacking the element of instilling fear.

Censorship definitely! What irony.

Either way it seems to me to be bad political strategy. If the Republicans are publicly victimized by such brazen activities there is such a thing as a sympathy vote. Negative campaigning has a point of diminishing returns when it becomes vicious. I see this one backfiring on the libs.

Those of you who say it is NOT terrorism are focusing only on the DDoS attacks. There is another aspect to it - the "financial disruptions," which sounds like hacker attacks on the ATM network. That IS terrorism - a crime aimed at the general population for a political purpose.

And, I didn't mention it in the post, but some of the Left's activists are planning on soaking their clothes in gunpowder in order to confuse the police dogs and cause lots of terrorism "false alarms" and gridlock the city's mass transit system. That IS terrorism.

Like eco-terrorists and monkey-wrenchers, every single one of these Left-wing "hactivists" ought to be rounded up and caged, and charged with every crime the Justice Department has at least a 1% chance of making stick.

Gosh Bill -

You really are an old sourpus!

You wanna just round people up and hope you can make a crime stick?

What country were you raised in?

No, I think these criminals ought not to be coddled and their crimes not be called "activism" or "free speech" or "protesting."

It should be called crime - and prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. Let it go and we slide one step closer to anarchy.

I do not think we need to worry about it. These people are so ineffectual they think they can hurt Bush by bringing down a web site for a few hours or even days?

Harold

It is goofy to associate these attacks (and they are indeed attacks) with anything in support of Kerry.

It would be like saying the far-right wackos who did the Oklahoma City bombing were republican supporters.

People on the extreme ends of both ends of the political spectrum look more like each other than they do with the mainstream on either side.

bruce

"No, there's really nothing that can be done to prevent a denial-of-service attack, and no practical way of stopping one in progress, especially from a determined group."

Maybe not, but there are perimeter security devices (firewalls and such) that greatly blunt the force of such an attack, and some are very good at deflecting DOS attacks.

"It is goofy to associate these attacks (and they are indeed attacks) with anything in support of Kerry." Wrong. If they had done this at the DNC, I'd agree with you. But...they did not. They are staunch ABB'ers, so by definition they are Kerry supporters. And terrorism does not require an explosive weapon or actively performing physical violence. An ecoterrorist hammering a metal stake into a tree hasn't used a "weapon", just a plain old metal stake. And he/she doesn't consider what they do as terrorism either.

Looks like we've found Gore's "digital brownshirts". Odd that they're acting in support of Kerry, though...

(The original brownshirts, the SA, were used to shut down meetings of other political parties. That is PRECISELY what these thugs are planning on doing. Their supposed independence falls apart in light of the lack of action they took against the Democrat convention.)

clayusmcret and Robert - so you guys also accept that Terry Nichols and others like him are good republican troopers?

It may be "silly" to associate the protesters with the Dems but believe me many Americans watching on TV will--- to Kerry's detriment. He will especially be at risk for being tarred with anything--such as the gunpowder ruse--that the environmentalists do.

bruce:

The allegation that "Terry Nichols and others like him are good republican troopers" is both offensive and untrue. The Oklahoma City bombing was not aimed at the Democrats, it was aimed at the entire federal government. Timothy McVeigh explained his motives in a 3-page letter, on-line here:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,486847,00.html

Note that he does not mentions Clinton or either Bush, or either party for that matter. He does mention the bombing of Serbia (by Clinton) and Iraq (mostly by Bush I) as horrible deeds. He seems to hate the federal government in general and the FBI in particular, and offers no hint in this very important farewell statement that electing a Republican president would necessarily improve the situation, or that he would have thought the Waco fiasco was just fine if a Republican had been in charge of it.

Try again.

It's true though - you can't have it both ways...

If you are going to claim that every left wing fringe group is some how part of the DNC, then you need to be willing to accept Terry Nichols and the terrorists who blow up family planning clinics as Republicans.

Of course it is crazy to associate the radical Left or Right with either party... but, if Bill insists on trying to associate John Kerry with every group that disagress with Bush, then I can also claim that Bush supports The Westboro Baptist Church, the Pro life groups that advocate shooting doctors who perform abortions and racist pro gun militias living in armed compounds in Idaho.

Bill - do you think the president supports these groups? If not, why doesn't he spend more time denouncing them?

Why doesn't president Bush call denounce Christian terrorist groups devoted to stopping abortion? Why doesn't he call for the the full force of the law to go after right wing militias who stockpile illegal weapons?

Is it because these people are Republicans?

It would be like saying the far-right wackos who did the Oklahoma City bombing were republican supporters.

Or blaming them on conservative talk radio, as Clinton did?

"Why doesn't president Bush call denounce Christian terrorist groups devoted to stopping abortion?"

I seem to remember a prominent member of one of those groups being arrested during this administration.

Oh, yeah, Clayton Lee Wagner:

http://www.seacoastonline.com/2001news/12_6c.htm

"Why doesn't he call for the the full force of the law to go after right wing militias who stockpile illegal weapons?"

Hmmm... ya know, I remember another story about this, too. Ashcroft's DOJ shutting down a militia group that was planning some terrorist attacks.

Oh, here it is:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04008/259074.stm

In contrast, former Weathermen are treated like heroes by even relatively mainstream Democrats:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,576144,00.html

I guess that's the difference. Republicans go after terrorists no matter what politics they spout, while the left gives glowing write-ups and prestigious university posts to those with the right politics.

Hello Robert -

As I said, in would be unfair to label Bush as a supporter of the groups mentioned. His administration has quietly made some moves against some right wing wackos. And I'm sure that he does not condone blowing up family planning centers. Of course a few arrests by the DOJ during four years of office does not constitute a real policy regarding these organizations.

My point is that there are at least as many crazies on the Right as there are on the Left. And that is it political myopia to insist that all groups that disagree with Bush are sanctioned by the DNC. Or that these groups support Kerry. Remember the Bill Clinton was also the target of anger by radical Leftists – remember the Battle of Seattle. A lot of these groups are just angry at whoever is in charge….

I disagree with you about the Weathermen -most liberals do not condone such violence - just as most conservatives do not condone gay bashing, etc... The myth of a widespread radical Left seems to me to be just a lot of conservative paranoia. Saying that we treat the SLA and the Weathermen as heroes is nonsense - how many liberals do you know who admire the Weathermen? I think you need to poke your head out of the conservative end of the blogosphere once in awhile... you sound like you get all your news and ideas from other people who think just like you - intellectual incest...

Well then, tell me, a, why is it that when Kathleen Solia, a leftist terrorist during the 60s who was wanted for trying to blow up police cars, was captured a couple years ago, the mainstream left elements went to great lengths to not only defend her, but try to excuse her actions? I've never seen mainstream conservatives trying to excuse those who could be construed as the right-wing equivalent of Soliah as carrying on in a manner that is acceptable because of "the times we were living in," as some liberal defenders of Soliah put it.

Big Dog -

Well that depends. I mean it was the conservative vote that kept Strom Thurmond in the Senate for decades - despite the fact that he was a blatant racist earlier in his career. The excuse given for Thurmond's horrible racism was usually something like "well he was of a different generation - those were different times..." You can say that supporting a radical segregationist agenda was not criminal, but tell that to the parents of those four girls blown up in their church in Alabama during the 1960s...

Anyway, can you give me an example of what you mean by the "mainstream Left" - I mean an example where someone you consider "mainstream Left" condoned the actions of a violent Left wing nutjob? I'm not sure what you mean by "mainstream Left elements." I mean, I've been a liberal all my life and I have never heard of Kathleen Solia... Specifically who "went to great lengths to excuse her actions"?

hey bethl, you bring up a good point about the PERCEPTION issue, which I think is what Bill is mostly trying to create. Substance and rational thinking often get thrown out the window on 5 o'clock news.

Dr. Weevil - I know that Nichols was against the whole federal government. The wacko survivalist people take the mainstream republican "small government" theme and warp it way way out to "no government." They take the mainstream republican concern to focus on the traditional American values of white straight majority and warp it out to scary skinhead stuff that wreaks violence against blacks and immigrants and gays. They take mainstream republican support for the right to bear arms and warp it to the right to build up arsenals and private armies.

I am not saying Nichols and his ilk are mainstream republicans -- I am saying they are wacko extremists that make mainsteam republicanism unrecognizable, just like eco-terrorists and anarchists make mainstream liberalism unrecognizable.

Nobody in the mainstream supports anarchists and terrorists. To claim it is so is goofy.

Anyway, can you give me an example of what you mean by the "mainstream Left" - I mean an example where someone you consider "mainstream Left" condoned the actions of a violent Left wing nutjob? I'm not sure what you mean by "mainstream Left elements." I mean, I've been a liberal all my life and I have never heard of Kathleen Solia... Specifically who "went to great lengths to excuse her actions"?

Kathleen Soliah was an SLA fugitive who was wanted, as I said, for aiding a plot to plant pipe bombs in police cars. She had changed her name to Sarah Jane Olson and led a life up in Minnesota. When the dual identity was discovered she was arrested, and those I'm referring to as mainstream leftists--that is, liberal government officials and other prominent folks who aren't radicals or general nutjobs--objected to her prosecution, making a lot of excuses for what she'd done, some defending her actions as "understandable in those times." I can't find any articles from that far back, unfortunately, so I can't give specific quotes.

"Nobody in the mainstream supports anarchists and terrorists. To claim it is so is goofy."

So you're saying that large chunks of the Democrat party are outside the mainstream? Because I remember a heck of a lot of support for the anarchists and terrorists who rioted here in Cincinnati, not to mention the LA riots even longer ago.

Terry Nichols is a Republican? If he were, that would prove...what, exactly?

Also, if you're going to talk Strom Thurmond, you're going to also have to talk Robert Byrd. And just try and explain how Ted Kennedy continues to get reelected.

Robert:

what do you mean, "a lot of support"? Not being a Cinncinnatian (??), I of course wasn't there, but I don't imagine democrat housewives pulling up lawn chairs and rooting them on, much less calling their neighbors and saying, "Hey Betty, how about those rioters? I am so glad they tore up the A&P - those corporate bastards sure had that coming!"

And I know of NO ONE who thought the riots in LA were a great thing. Gee how great is it when people burn up their neighborhoods.

"Hacktivism is a non-violent act of civil disobedience that can complement street protests in challenging the status quo."

*sigh* Leave it to leftist punks to pervert yet another word meaning.

Hacktivism usually refers to helping people avoid censorship, not add to it. Things such as helping the Chinese avoid the government censors and allowing people to express their political views free from government prosecution.

...looks like the typical leftist, turn-the-word's meaning-upside-down drivel... (sorry if that offends any, but I'm really tired of having to relearn my definitions every time you make a new one -"progressive","liberal", "sustainable development", and now "hacktivism" among other ones)

So - are you at all concerned with GOP plans to rig the elections with the GEMS computer or is your so-called ire only directed at Democrats who try to disrupt websites? I don't know about you, but I think stealing an election is much worse than crashing a server for a couple of hours.

LAT says, "So - are you at all concerned with GOP plans to rig the elections with the GEMS computer or is your so-called ire only directed at Democrats who try to disrupt websites?"

Can you confirm that the GOP is planning to rig the elections?