It will remain unclear whether DOS protests are illegal until a lawsuit is won or legislation is enacted against them. A case could be made for civil or criminal action if intent to harm and actual damage or profit loss is shown, says Tony Carbone, managing director at Richards & O'Neill, a New York law firm.
Interestingly, some groups are taking a more corporate approach to their anticorporate activities. For example, RTMark (pronounced art-mark), which claims it's a legitimate corporation, relies on laws designed to protect shareholders from their companies' wrongdoings. As a "brokerage," RTMark raises money for and encourages corporate sabotage while at the same time it's shielded by the limited liability protections designed for companies. How? It sells virtual shares in so-called "mutual funds" to finance its pranks, such as a phony campaign Web site for George W. Bush.
RTMark has even turned to eBay to raise funds. The company auctioned off four tickets to the Whitney Art Museum's biennial exclusive VIP party on March 21, raising about $8,000. Previously, RTMark raised $4,500 to fund attacks against Mexican government sites, the U.S. Defense Department and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in 1998 in support of the rebel Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico.
Neither Etoy.com nor the affiliated Toywar Resistance Network use DDOS tools in cyberattacks. "We do not and will not use them," states TRN Founder Randy Kruzan. "However, we do not dispute their use in protest, and we do believe them to be a highly effective way to get the attention of the sites they are used against. E-mail can be filtered to disregard messages containing protest-related messages, phones can be screened and snail-mail can be thrown away. The most effective attack on an e-commerce company is to block user access to the product, thus preventing sales."
That's why the Electrohippies continue to improve denial-of-service software to help others launch cyberattacks. "In our view, cyberspace is another part of society - just like the street or the council chamber," Mobbs says. "We are therefore devising tools, methods and best practice to enable others to undertake effective grassroots protest and lobbying via the Internet, just as they would via the conventional media or public spaces.
"We're serious [about] what we do; this isn't a stunt."
When the Net Is a Weapon
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