When activism works

Over the past while, Anonymous and the related splinter groups have been attacking business and more.  This moral crusade seems laudable to some, but the reality is that this was detrimental in many ways. No group or individual has the right to say how a company should act other than to not use that company or to compete with it as long as the company is acting within the law.

On the other hand, when things are clearly out of hand, there we see benefit in action. Anon’s operation darknet is an example of how this type of group action can be directed towards a goal that benefits society.

Mere possession of Child pornographic materials is a criminal offense. The protections granted to  Freedom hosting as a mere publisher vanishes as soon as they received notification. They received a warning and did nothing. They had been taken offline and then proceeded to make the illegal data accessible again. This is itself a crime.

Terror groups including FARC / FARC-V have been funding their operations through drugs and kidnapping. The latter being a risky process that commonly results in tragedy and loss. The new paradigm is becoming even more tragic. In kidnapping both locals and tourists, raping and murdering these people (including children) and selling the videos in locations such as #darknet, the risk is significantly decreased and the profitability increases. A clear win for the terror groups and one that will only lead to increases violence.

There are many reasons I oppose the actions of anon for, but this is not one of them.  This is one where they have been directed in the right way.

Many people smuggling groups have started to move to creating child exploitation/rape videos in places such as Sth America as there is more profit for a lower risk and the people videos are sold to can be exploited if the stop paying (mere possession is a crime).

More sites such as xnxx.org/xnxx.com and freebeast.com have been also managing to survive through jurisdictional tricks. Hosting porn is one thing, but when the material is openly illegal in many instances, it is not hard to determine that this material is illegal. Worse, both xnxx.org and freebeast (and hundreds of others like them) serve malware allowing those visiting these sites to be compromised by online criminals who further exploit them. If you go to these sites, it is at your own risk so I do not advise it. Then sites openly and freely promoting rape and bestiality movies are something I would not recommend that you should see even if they did not have malware hosted in some of their links.

The existing criminal justice system is not coping well with this type of violation. The Russian copyright infringer ZML.com was taken down in the last year, but only after a couple years of both operation and investigation. In this, a video was leaked from the Academy awards with a watermark. This (as well as other videos) was used to demonstrate the intent and means that the Russian dragons used to obtain materials illegally.

It will always amaze me that individuals will offer their credit cards and personal details to these criminal actors. What better proof can they offer of complicity?