Isn’t this illegal and a wrong thing to do. Just because you don’t agree with ideology, you can’t just go ahead and destroy actual IP .
I’d think if the sites are based in the US and the owners decided to take action, they could force this activist to be extradited and face punishment.
The pseudonymous hacker [...] deleted the servers of WhiteDate, WhiteChild, and WhiteDeal in real time at the end of a talk at the annual Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany.
As of this writing, WhiteDate, which Hoffmann described as a “Tinder for Nazis”; WhiteChild, a site that claimed to match white supremacists’ sperm and egg donors; and WhiteDeal, a sort-of Taskrabbit-esque labor marketplace for racists, are all offline.
Root, Hoffmann, and Fuchs claim to have identified the real identity of the websites’ administrator as a woman from Germany.
There's likely a hacking crime of some nature here, but it's reasonably certain a German website administrator could face charges for running a Nazi aligned and themed website in Germany.
> I’d think if the sites are based in the US and the owners decided to take action, they could force this activist to be extradited and face punishment.
US based content owners have had mixed success forcing hackers to be extradited and face punishment in the US.
Many ransomware gangs are still operating, Anna's Archive is still up, ThePirateBay continues to defy Hollywood.
Sure, some hackers are caught and dragged through courts. Many are not. Enough to make your statement questionable.
The site, and the extended media presence are full of hardcore racist statements not protected under the German constitution, not considered legal expressions of free speech here. If you have seen the talk, you'd know the site/owner has been investigated by the German inland intelligence agency (Verfassungsschutz), but due to incompetence they only got the wrong person fired... In fact, the "Q&A" intro to the deletion bit, references the executive's inaction.
Some information disclosure is also evidently in the public interest. For example the AfD representatives found are additional evidence for anti-constitutional sentiments within the AfD. This is highly relevant for a possible party prohibition process (which has an extremely high legal threshold).
After all, the website security was hilariously bad. (I suspect the members' IQ scores may have been largely self-diagnosed...)
From what I've gathered the publicized data has been somewhat anonymized. The victims of this hack should be rather happy the original data got nuked.
Also good luck extraditing the activist. It's pretty clear the pink power ranger on stage is a borrowed body, and/or, I presume, the voice heard is AI or borrowed recording, as well. OpSec seems alright. But you know, these days, the president of the United States may personally order the NSA and navy seals to snatch the Martha Root off the streets to uphold the holy rule of law and freedom of speech/expression...
So it seems obvious you only care about certain laws some of the time.... So we can dismiss your outrage over the "law" as performative to get what you want. And also draw many conclusion on your character based on what you want... Interesting.
Short of seeing successful left-leaning targets of hacktivism go unpunished, or hacktivism actually being punished across the board, there’s no inconsistency.
Besides, a light sentence on conviction could be conferred with the balance of the consequences relying on the wide and complete dissemination of the hacktivist’s identity.
These power fantasies seem to be all you got going in your life. How often have you written/said "given the Maduro treatment" in the last 48h? Still feeling it?
Pro-tip from Germany: Don't make enemies in South America.
I saw the article title and somehow I predicted the top most voted response on Hacker News without even clicking on the comments - someone having sympathy for the poor poor white supremacist.
Hacker culture is all about unquestionably accepting every law and declining to fight one of the most objectively evil ideologies conceived because of a desire to kneel at the altar of intellectual property, don't you know?
It's probably illegal. It's not wrong though. I'm not generally a fan of vigilante justice, but with the rise of fascism lately it's better to act sooner than later.
I would not bet on a US jury being willing to convict for this, especially not one empaneled by a DC/NYC federal court. A mistrial would be far more likely. (Jury nullification has entered the chat.)
It was basically a site that was scamming nazis. I think the admin was from Germany, but another source said that it was connected to an enterprise based in France, but I cannot find the info anymore. Perhaps it was wrong.
I thought it was commonly understood that most people have racial biases, unconscious or conscious; that's the premise of most equitable programs. I am just aware of mine. I am not saying that's a good thing or making any claims about any kind of people.
I was making the point that people with racial biases are common, usually harmless, and we probably shouldn't call for their blanket execution.
I think it is strange to say that admitting I have biases is a bannable offense.
It will make more sense if you consider the context in which you're posting: a large, anonymous internet forum which is prone to bursting into flames when provoked on divisive topics.
Even if we take the most charitable interpretation of what you posted—say, something like: honest exploration of racial prejudice within ourselves—the tiny text blobs that we have to communicate with here are not a genre that can handle casual detonations like "I just don't like black people very much". That would require a much stronger and more secure container than this sort of internet forum can provide, not to mention safety and confidentiality that don't exist here. Comments like what you posted are simply going to blow up a thread like this into an even more violent conflict than it already is, and that's not something we're ok with.
As I said, that's under the most charitable interpretation, which I don't personally find to be the likeliest. Your GP comment included plenty of other things that support a less savory reading.
Also, this pseudo-debate about who should or should not be "executed" is puerile and obviously off-topic on this site, but I'm not singling you out for that, since plenty of other users were contributing to it.
I disagree with your framing about not wanting a civil war.
At this point it's between the fascists taking over unopposed and them maybe losing this civil war. I'd rather take the chance than give up without a fight.
I agree with the framing of "rather you than me", fwiw.
That's a bit of an arbitrary constraint, given that Nazism is widely understood to be a particular brand of fascism.
Wikipedia does a descent job, if you're really wondering how it might be done using different words. Given your odd challenge, I suspect you might not really care, though.
In case I'm wrong, here are, for your convenience, but also for others who might stumble across this nasty thread:
I asked because his other replies in this topic imply to me that his definition of Nazi is much more broad than the literal definition, and would result in a lot more executions than just of the people who adhere to a Nazi ideology as strictly defined by Wikipedia.
That's a good point. Goes to show how quickly things get arbitrary once you start chopping off heads in the name of ideas. It's disturbing how quickly people get their axes ready, even just from their behind their keyboards. I'm used to it from other places, but it's sad to see this here.
I wish there'd be some sort of dream-like simulation for people to experience the consequences of their ideas: "Congratulations, your policy killed millions of people and fed them to the pigs. Due to the sloppy definition, and a blind spot on your behalf, this includes yourself. Then there was a war and your family is now dead. Would you like to try again?"
Sorry for not-so-politely wondering what was behind your question. It's a fraught topic.
I would recommend just saying "white supremacist" instead of "Nazi", because precision in words matters. As the sibling comment pointed out, they are not equivalent terms. Nazis are usually white supremacists, but not the reverse.
I noticed my use of "indiscriminately" was problematic and I edited my previous post to remove it before I saw your reply. I'd hoped I could fix the ambivalence quickly, before someone misunderstood. I was too late; my apologies.
What I meant to say: indiscriminately murdering people after an ideological lithmus test. Or for their beliefs. For their ethnicity. Stuff like that. You know, not entirely unlike what the Nazis did.
> The ends matter. The means do not.
We disagree here; but even if we take this to be correct, you are wrong about what the ends are. "No nazis around" is in itself only a means, and not an end. The end is what we want to accomplish by "purging the nazis", or what we do end up accomplishing instead.
Their abhorrent ideology does not merely exist in an ideological space. It is abhorrent precisely because of the consequences it leads to: the rule of violence, the establishment of a system for wholesale "purging" of whole groups of people (and lots of other bad things, but we're discussing these ones). That is what we want to avoid.
You may think that you can simply "kill all the Nazis and feed them to the pigs" to avoid this. Even if you think that's a reasonable course of action, have you thought about how this would work?
In order to accomplish it, you will have to put into place a system that catches all potential Nazis, precisely determines their ideology - judge people not by their actual actions, but what is believed are their thoughts, some of which are now a capital crime. Which are the ones, by the way? Where is the line? Who is going to decide this correctly? Even if you can, or are willing to accept some false positives (your "no benefit of doubt"): you will then have to kill all these people and feed them to the pigs. Such an effort is going to require state power and some serious organisation, and likely more than one "pig farm", let's call it that.
Does this remind you of aything in history? There's plenty to choose from, humanity seems quite adept at pulling off such things, whenever instability propels a group to power that hates another group very much. But I believe the prime example, that comes closest to what you envision, happened in Europe in the last century.
For the admittedly noble goal of countering nazis and their destructive doings, you're willing to slaughter, and keep slaughtering, permit me this summary word for "kill and feed to the pigs", everyone who is deemed to be a Nazi. In such a situation, if I were you, I'd avoid things that might get me mistaken for one. You don't want to become a Robespierre!
Take a good look at yourself and what you are endorsing, where you're invariably going to end up. The ends do matter.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. While we still disagree, I understand your hesitation.
When I think of this, I think not of Robespierre, but of Tito, who managed to liberate his own country from the Nazis and keep the reactionaries (of which there are many in the region!) at bay through state repression.
Of course, it all fell apart once he died and the subsequent weakening of repressions created an opening for the reactionaries to return.
However, while Tito ruled Yugoslavia he created the country with the strongest passport in the world (the only one that could travel to both Cold War blocks!), free education, an economy centered around worker-owned coops and liberal freedoms unseen in other Socialist nations.
It's not without reason Yugonostalgia is still a strong force in the Balkans. [0]
I believe freedom needs to be protected from those willing to harm it - aggressively so. We cannot stand by idly while those that wish to harm us set their machinations in place - we need to stomp them out before they do it to us.
No one is saying dont fight nazis. We're saying dont do nazi-things and justify it by saying im fighting nazis.
Because when you beat them, you're going to take your new nazi-powers and ideals and use them against non-nazi's. It's only ever worked that way and you convincing yourself youre the exception is the first step.
What "new nazi-powers" do you believe were asserted here?
Do you believe this is the first time that anyone has taken down a website through hacktivism, or that "the nazis" have never done anything of the sort?
What "not nazi-things" specifically do you suggest would be effective for fighting nazis?
You'll probably say "simply debate them on the merits" but that doesn't work.
And it's odd how in this argument the slippery slope is only ever a danger when people fight nazis, and never when people allow nazis to gain power and proliferate.
