Re: Help destroy eToys.com!

[alex galloway <alex@rhizome.org>]

[: hacktivism :]

can you say more about what exactly your political position is?

do you think that etoys should get off, or do you just not support this
particular action (the RTMARK action), but might support other actions of
civil disobedience? or are you against all electronic civil disobedience?

the reason why i'm asking is that the stereotype of the hacker is that
she/he has no politics.. just an interest in the freedom of information, as
you yourself said. and i'd like to get past that stereotype.

>If we can not police
>ourselves in a responciable manner, with activism, hacktivism, or other
>non-destructive means, who else is going to police us?
>
>I think we all know the answer to that question.

yes, i know the answer. we are policed by justice.

best regards,

-ag

>[: hacktivism :]
>
>
>Now this is TOTALY MORONIC.
>
>Help destroy eToys.com? Hello? The topic alone should give you a bad
>feeling. This is not what Hacktivism is about, or activism, or hacking for
>that matter.
>
>There is a big diffrence in attempting to bring a wrong into the spot
>light by causing attention, and attempting to take the law into your own
>hands. What they are calling for is just wrong.
>
>This group, by attempting to quote some 10 year old script kiddie, and
>calling him a hacker in order to cause people with some sort of skills to
>fight for them, have shown themselves to be nothing more then another
>group of kiddies attempting to call up a "hacker war" and bring attention
>upon themselves. This really angers me!
>
>I find it hard to even comment on anything in this because it is so
>immature and unintelligent. Come on people, what are we coming to? Last I
>saw we still had a legal system in this country, and even if it fails,
>that dosen't give us the right to destroy anything. Thats like saying the
>riots after the first Rodney King trial were justified.
>
>I'd tell these people to get a clue and find a better, positive, and more
>constructive way to bring their plight to the people. And lastly, don't
>try and quote a "hacker" or anything like this, for most of the times it
>backfires and brings down the heat upon them.
>
>Grow up...this kind of crap went out with the 4th grade...
>
>regards,
>   Bronc Buster
>  bronc@2600.com
>
>
>On Sun, 12 Dec 1999 rdom@thing.net wrote:
>
>> [: hacktivism :]
>>
>> December 12, 1999
>> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>>
>> NEW INTERNET "GAME" DESIGNED TO DESTROY ETOYS.COM
>> Stock plunge must be accelerated, groups say
>>
>>     Contacts: mailto:etoyfund@rtmark.com, mailto:toby@etoys.com
>>     More information: http://rtmark.com/etoy/
>>                       http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html
>>                       http://rtmark.com/sitin.html
>>
>> RTMark has joined the growing torrent of outrage, sometimes violent in
>> tone,
>> against Internet toy giant eToys (http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html) by
>> helping
>> create and distribute what RTMark calls "a new toy": a multi-user
>> Internet
>> game whose goal is to damage (or possibly even destroy) the company.
>>
>> The game, which aims to punish eToys for shutting down prominent
>> Internet art
>> group etoy's domain (see http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html for more
>> information), takes the form of an RTMark "mutual fund," or list of
>> sabotage
>> projects (http://rtmark.com/etoy/). All projects in the "etoy Fund,"
>> some of
>> which have already been financed, aim to lower the company's stock
>> market
>> value as much as possible. The site also includes pages that will help
>> visitors to cripple the eToys servers during the ten days leading to
>> Christmas
>> (http://rtmark.com/sitin.html), pages providing detailed financial
>> information
>> about the company, and a page of links to the dozen or so other groups
>> calling
>> for eToys' downfall.
>>
>> Since November 29, when eToys lawyers shut down the art group's domain
>> and
>> news of the massive and violent-toned reaction began to spread, huge
>> sellouts
>> (including a 2.5-million-share sale by Moore Capital Management, Inc.)
>> have
>> caused eToys stock to fall from $67/share to $45/share, or nearly 33%;
>> before November 29 eToys stock had been rising. RTMark's new projects
>> group
>> aims to systematically capitalize on and accelerate the eToys share
>> fall.
>>
>> "The etoy Fund projects are a game the whole world can play," said
>> RTMark
>> spokesperson Ernest Lucha. "Many of the projects--boycotts, pickets,
>> e-mail
>> campaigns--can be played by anyone, while other projects--countersuing
>> eToys,
>> disturbing the eToys servers, etc.--require specialized work. There's
>> something for everyone, and we know we can easily count on 10,000
>> players
>> to start with."
>>
>> There's also something for hackers, who are normally apolitical but have
>> by
>> and large taken eToys' attack on etoy as an attack on themselves. "eToys
>> is
>> trying to take advantage of a legal situation in which there's basically
>> no
>> protection against corporations, whether you're an artist, an activist,
>> or
>> just someone in the wrong place at the wrong time," said a hacker who
>> identifies himself as "Code Blue." "But they're relying a bit too much
>> on the
>> legal. They're saying f*ck you to everything that etoy stands for, and
>> that's
>> like spraying tear gas all over the entire hacking community."
>>
>> "This game is much more exciting than any other computer game, because
>> you
>> have a real-world bad guy to fight," said RTMark spokesperson Lucha.
>>
>> "We think it's especially exciting that the court date [December 27, at
>> which
>> the final fate of etoy.com will be decided] falls so close to
>> Christmas," said
>> Richard Zach, a graduate student at the University of California at
>> Berkeley
>> who has closely followed the dispute since the beginning. "The holiday
>> season
>> is a time of giving, but since eToys decided to take, we're making an
>> example
>> of them during their busiest season. Christmas won't be the end of the
>> game,
>> but it's an important first milestone."
>>
>> It's not just about etoy, nor about art or hacking, according to Lucha:
>> the
>> etoy Fund and directly hostile efforts like it could help lead to a new
>> balance of power between citizens and big business. "Why should global
>> culture
>> be dominated by business? The net is a playing field that could help to
>> create,
>> through law, a worldwide balance of power that just doesn't exist now."
>>
>> The anger against eToys is not likely to dissipate soon, even with a
>> favorable
>> outcome to the case (i.e. the survival of etoy.com), according to Lucha.
>>
>> "eToys says etoy.com was hurting sales by disturbing those who stumble
>> upon it.
>> Well, eToys' domain is disturbing people who want to see great internet
>> art
>> but stumble upon eToys instead, and so why not say eToys shouldn't
>> exist? Why
>> should financial might make right? If they want to play by barbaric
>> rules, we
>> will too."
>>
>> "eToys feels comfortable destroying art for the benefit of its business,
>> so
>> all the players of this game can feel great destroying eToys--for the
>> benefit
>> of art," said Lucha.
>>
>> OTHER ATTACKS
>>
>> RTMark and its "etoy Fund" collaborators are only one group among dozens
>> to
>> mount digital and real-world attacks against eToys in time for
>> Christmas.
>>
>> Two other anti-eToys "products," soon to be announced independently,
>> come from
>> groups of programmers who have, like the hackers, taken eToys' action as
>> a
>> personal affront. One such group is nearly finished with an "action
>> entertainment product" inspired by some of etoy's well-known pieces
>> (such as
>> the "digital hijack," which won Ars Electronica's most prestigious
>> award,
>> and $7,375, in 1996; see the etoy site, still available at
>> http://146.228.204.72:8080/, for more information). The "product," which
>> will
>> shortly be available at http://www.toywar.com, "will enable any net user
>> to
>> directly attack eToys.com," according to one of the programmers involved
>> in
>> its development.
>>
>> Another anti-eToys tool that has already been deployed and will be
>> announced
>> within the next several days, according to a source within the
>> above-mentioned
>> group, is a program that generates fraudulent web page accesses ("hits")
>>
>> disguised to look like those of Internet shoppers coming from numerous,
>> randomly-chosen locations. The aim of the tool is to make the financial
>> valuation of eToys.com, which depends heavily on web access counts,
>> unreliable. This uncertainty, which should become more evident in the
>> days to
>> come, should increasingly make investors even more skittish about
>> investing in
>> the company, according to the source.
>>
>>
>>
>> eToys is the third largest e-business on the Internet; etoy.com, which
>> eToys
>> lawyers have shut down, is the domain synonymous with the oldest,
>> best-known,
>> and most influential Internet art group, etoy. etoy has owned etoy.com
>> since
>> 1995, before eToys existed, and two years before eToys registered its
>> own
>> URL. etoy.com has never made any reference to eToys. See
>> http://rtmark.com/etoypress.html for more information.
>>
>> RTMark, which is in no way associated with etoy, aims to publicize the
>> widespread corporate abuse of democratic institutions like courts and
>> elections. To this end it solicits and distributes funding for "sabotage
>>
>> projects"; the groups of such projects are called "mutual funds" in
>> order to
>> call attention to one way in which large numbers of people come to
>> identify
>> corporate needs as their own. RTMark projects do not normally target
>> specific
>> companies; the etoy Fund projects are an exception.
>>
>> RTMark is no stranger to the hot topic of domain-name control. The World
>>
>> Trade Organization's press release about http://gatt.org, accusing
>> RTMark of
>> "illegal practices" in publishing information critical of the WTO at
>> that
>> site, merely brought the WTO ridicule from the press
>> (http://rtmark.com/gatt.html); George W. Bush's and Microsoft's legal
>> attacks
>> on GWBush.com (http://rtmark.com/bush.html) and MicrosoftEdu.com
>> (http://rtmark.com/allpress.html#mse) failed to affect the domains. See
>> also
>> http://rtmark.com/othersites.html for more on this issue.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
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