Internet vigilantism
Encyclopedia
Internet vigilantism is the phenomenon of vigilantic
acts taken through the Internet
(the communication network or its service providers
) or carried out using applications (World Wide Web
, e-mail
) that depend on the Internet. The term encompasses vigilantism against scams, crimes, and non-Internet related behavior.
Some have suggested that the internet's lack of central control has prompted a tendency towards vigilante reactions against certain behaviors in the same way that they have prompted those behaviors to occur in the first place.
Scam baiting emerged in response to e-mail
based frauds such as the common Nigerian 419 scam
. Many websites publish transcripts of correspondences between baiters and scammers, and also publish their "trophies" online, which include videos and images scam baiters have obtained from scammers.
David Furlow, chairman of the Media, Privacy and Defamation Committee of the American Bar Association
, has identified the potential privacy concerns raised by websites facilitating the distribution of information that is not part of the public record (documents filed with a government agency), and has said that such websites "just [give] a forum to people whose statements may not reflect truth."
In December 2010, a video clip was posted on YouTube
of a young man placing two kittens into a vacuum bag and suffocating them. Thousands of online protests and detectives claim that the man is male model Luka Magnotta and he has been hunted since. Even though there is no confirmed evidence linking him to the crime, he has had millions of death threats and had to leave the country and change his name. It was reported in news agencies around the world.
In February 2009, an incident involving the posting on YouTube
of a video clip in which a domestic cat
, named Dusty, was beaten and tortured by a 14-year-old boy calling himself "Timmy". After about 30,000 viewings, this clip and the account were removed by YouTube as a violation of their terms of service
. Members of the 4chan
message board investigated the incident, and by extrapolating from the poster's YouTube user name and the background in the video, they identified the abuser. As a result of these complaints, the Comanche County Sheriff's Department investigated the incident, and two suspects were arrested. Dusty survived the abuse, and was placed in the care of a local veterinarian
. Both the assailant and the cameraman were charged with animal cruelty; as both are juveniles, punishment could include "psychological counseling, court monitoring until they turn 18, community service to provide restitution for treatment of animals, and/or placement in court custody."
In 2005 in South Korea
, blog
gers targeted a woman who refused to clean up when her dog
defecated
on the floor of a Seoul subway
car, labeling her "Dog Poop Girl" (rough translation of '' into English). Another commuter had taken a photograph of the woman and her dog, and posted it on a popular Korean website. Within days, she had been identified by internet vigilantes, and much of her personal information
was exposed on the World Wide Web in an attempt to punish her for the offense. The story received mainstream attention when it was widely reported in South Korean media. The public humiliation led the woman to quit university
, according to reports.
The reaction by Korean citizens to the incident prompted several Korean newspapers to run editorials voicing concern over Internet vigilantism. One paper quoted Daniel Solove
as saying that the woman was the victim of a "cyber-posse, tracking down norm violators and branding them with digital Scarlet Letters
." Another called it an "Internet witch-hunt," and went on to say that "the Internet is turning the whole society into a kangaroo court
."
In 2006, Wang Jue (王珏), a Chinese nurse appearing in an internet crush video stomping a kitten with her stilettos, gave herself up to authorities after bloggers and some print media started a campaign to trace back the recording. In the beginning, she was labeled as the kitten killer of Hangzhou
, because it was believed she was from there; but some internaut
s recognized an island in northern Heilongjiang
province.
Wang posted an apology on the Luobei city government official website. She said she was recently divorced and didn't know what to do with her life. The cameraman, a provincial TV employee, and she lost their jobs when internauts discovered their identities.
Other notable instances also include the case of Evan Guttman and his friend's stolen Sidekick II smartphone
, and the case of Jesse McPherson and his stolen Xbox 360
, Powerbook
, and TV.
In 2008, a girl called Zhang Ya (张雅) from Liaoning
province, Northeast China
, posted a 4 minute video of herself complaining about the amount of attention the Sichuan earthquake
victims were receiving on television. An intense response from Internet vigilantes resulted in the girl's personal details (even including her blood type) being made available online, as well as dozens of abusive video responses on Chinese websites and blogs. The girl was taken into police custody for three days as protection from vigilante death threats.
Stephen Fowler, an English
expatriate
and venture capitalist businessman, gained notoriety after his performance on ABC
's Wife Swap
(originally aired Friday January 30, 2009) when his wife exchanged positions in his family with a woman from Missouri
for a two-week period. In response to her rule changes (standard procedure for the second week in the show) he insulted his guest and, in doing so, groups including the lower classes, soldiers, and the overweight. Several websites were made in protest against his behaviour. After the show, and after watching the Wife Swap video, his wife, a professional life coach, reported that she had encouraged him to attend professional behaviour counselling. Businesses with only tangential connection to Fowler publicly disclaimed any association with him due to the negative publicity. He resigned positions on the boards of two environmental charities to avoid attracting negative press.
In 2008, video of Patrick Pogan, a rookie police officer, body-slamming Christopher Long, a cyclist, surfaced on the Internet. The altercation happened when members of Critical Mass conducted a bicycling advocacy event at Times Square
. The officer claimed the cyclist had veered into him, and so the biker was charged with assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
The charges against the cyclist were later dropped and Pogan was found to be guilty and was convicted of lying about the confrontation with the cyclist.
In 2009, a Facebook group was started, accusing a single mother for the death of a 13 month old child in her foster care. It was the mother's then common-law husband who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the mother was not formally accused of any wrongdoing. However, the members of the group, such as the boy's biological mother, accuse her of knowing what was going on and doing nothing to stop it.
In August 2010, a passer-by in Coventry
, England
later identified as Mary Bale by 4chan
's members, was caught on a private security camera stroking a cat, named Lola, then looking around and dumping her in a wheelie bin, where she was found by her owners 15 hours later. The owners posted the video on the Internet in a bid to identify the woman, who was later interviewed by the RSPCA about her conduct. Outrage was sparked among animal lovers, and a Facebook group called "Death to Mary Bale" was created, and later removed. Police said they were speaking to the 45-year-old about her personal safety.
The woman, who at first downplayed her actions ("I thought it would be funny", "it's just a cat" and "didn't see what all the fuss was about") eventually apologised "profusely for the upset and distress".
Bale has been convicted under the Animal Welfare Act of 2006 with causing unnecessary suffering to a cat. An additional charge of failing to provide the cat with a suitable environment was dropped. She was fined £250 and ordered to pay costs, totaling £1,436.04.
The food magazine Cooks Source printed an article by blogger Monica Gaudio without her permission in their November 2010 issue. Learning of the copyright violation, Gaudio emailed Judith Griggs, managing editor of Cooks Source Magazine, requesting that the magazine both apologize and also donate $130 to the Columbia School of Journalism as payment for using her work. Instead she received a very unapologetic letter stating that she (Griggs) herself should be thanked for making the piece better and that Gaudio should be glad that she didn't give someone else credit for writing the article. During the ensuing public outcry, online vigilantes took it upon themselves to avenge Gaudio. The Cooks Source Facebook page was flooded with thousands of contemptuous comments, forcing the magazine's staff to create new pages in an attempt to escape the protest and accuse 'hackers' of taking control of the original page. The magazine's website was stripped of all content by the staff and shut down a week later.
In 2010 a case was publicized involving a young female, from Sichuan
under the alias name Huang siu siu (黄小小), torturing and crushing rabbits. The group that financially sponsor the making of these videos was later revealed to be called "Crushfetish" who pay young girls to crush fish, insects, rabbits and other small animals. The girl was paid 100 yuan
for each attempt, and she has been participating since 2007. Police said the group makes videos to sell overseas, and the company has allegedly made 279 animal abuse videos with a subscription fee. Because of the concurrent hosting of the 2010 Asian Games
, the animal videos were only limited to hosting just a few hours a day on some websites.
On February 9, 2011, a man supposedly located in Spain posted a video of himself torturing a Pomeranian dog. Within two days, Anonymous
picked up on the incident, and began searching for the man.
After attention was brought locally by Spanish anons, a news website carried an article asking local people to remain calm, and confirming that the IP address had identified Badajoz as the location of the blogger who uploaded the video.
s. Thousands of people generate traffic to a website, flooding it such that it goes over quota or simply can't serve that many requests in a timely manner.
, Girish Kumar's admission of using distributed denial of service attacks against known and suspected copyright violators including some large-profile P2P sites resulted in the company's servers as well as those of the MPAA
and RIAA
suffering a DDoS attack themselves. The attack was launched by Anonymous
, coordinated through IRC; the participants have willingly given control over their LOIC
to the irc, forming a voluntary botnet
in order to overpower their targets.
As a result, Aiplex went offline for a full 24 hours while the MPAA's website was unreachable for 22 hours. The RIAA, the Gallant Macmillan and ACS Law firm, as well as AFACT and the Ministry of Sound has been targeted as well.
On 16 October 2010 Anonymous launched an attack against the UK Intellectual Property Office website. The attack commenced at 17:00 GMT, causing the site to go down swiftly. It was brought back online on October 22nd. The rationale for the attack was that the site was "Perpetuating the system that is allowing the exploitative usage of copyright and intellectual property."
judge, serving in Montana
, has a controversial role as a vigilante
online terrorist-hunter, posing as militant anti-American Muslim radicals online, hoping to attract the eye of those with similar mindsets.
. Some freely hosted blogs claim to expose real or potential child sex offenders.
Another initiative, Predator Hunter, headed by Wendell Kreuth, aims to track down and expose the pornography-related activities of alleged 'sexual predators'. In 2002, Kreuth disclosed details of his activities in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio.
The Australian group MAKO has used the internet to warn families about sex offenders in their areas, and to coordinate warnings about them.
Members of the subculture "Anonymous"
have also been credited for seeking out pedophiles and collaborating with law enforcement. They describe themselves as a collection of individuals united by ideas. They left a mark with the arrest of Canadian pedophile, Chris Forcand. In early November of 2011, Anonymous launched Operation Darknet, which targeted websites that distribute and traffic child pornography. Anonymous reportedly leaked the personal details of more than 1,100 pedophiles to pastebin, and invited the FBI and Interpol
to investigate the information for leads.
Members of the usenet group Alt.Hackers.Malicious have also been known to target and expose child predators, taking credit for dozens of arrests and convictions. They are most well-known for breaking into the NAMBLA servers on three separate occasions, downloading and disseminating the organizations membership information as well as emails which directly led to several arrests and convictions of child sexual abuse.
Other groups specialize in the removal of phishing
websites, fake banks, and fraudulent online storefronts, a practice known as "site-killing". Artists Against 419 is a web site specializing in the removal of fake bank websites. Such groups often use tactics like DDoS attacks on the offending website, with the aim of drawing attention to the site by its hosting service or rapid consumption of the site's monthly bandwidth
allowance. The Artists Against 419 always argued their tools were not a denial-of-service attack. At any rate they abandoned such tactics some time ago.
, a company which used methods such as entrapment, P2P poisoning, and DDoS attacks.
, which was marred by unrest in Tibet
, Chinese hackers claim to have hacked the websites of CNN
(accused of selective reporting on the 2008 Lhasa riots) and Carrefour
(a French shopping chain, allegedly supporting Tibetan independence), while websites and forums gave tutorials on how to launch a DDoS attack specifically on the CNN website.
in the USA and the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
in the UK. Operators of these sites may be counting on the limited purview of libel laws on the Internet in order to make allegations against people that might otherwise pursue defamation cases against them were the allegations published via other media.
, Representative
Howard Berman
proposed the Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act, which would have protected copyright holders from liability for taking measures to prevent the distribution, reproduction or display of their copyrighted works on peer-to-peer
computer networks. Berman stated that the legislation would have given copyright holders "both carrots and sticks" and said that "copyright owners should be free to use reasonable, limited self-help measures to thwart P2P piracy if they can do so without causing harm." Smith College
assistant professor James D. Miller acknowledged the threats to the privacy of legitimate Internet users that such actions would pose, but drew comparisons with other successful crime-fighting measures that can invade privacy, such as metal detector
s at airport
s.
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
acts taken through the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
(the communication network or its service providers
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
) or carried out using applications (World Wide Web
World Wide Web
The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
) that depend on the Internet. The term encompasses vigilantism against scams, crimes, and non-Internet related behavior.
Some have suggested that the internet's lack of central control has prompted a tendency towards vigilante reactions against certain behaviors in the same way that they have prompted those behaviors to occur in the first place.
Methods
The following are methods of Internet vigilantism that have been used or proposed for use:Scam baiting
Scam baiting is the practice of feigning interest in a scam in order to manipulate the scammer behind it. The purpose of scam baiting might be to waste the scammers' time, embarrass him or her, cause them to reveal information which can be passed on to legal authorities in the hope that they will be prosecuted, get them to spend money, or simply to amuse the baiter.Scam baiting emerged in response to e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
based frauds such as the common Nigerian 419 scam
Advance fee fraud
An advance-fee fraud is a confidence trick in which the target is persuaded to advance sums of money in the hope of realizing a significantly larger gain...
. Many websites publish transcripts of correspondences between baiters and scammers, and also publish their "trophies" online, which include videos and images scam baiters have obtained from scammers.
Public shaming
The social networking tools of the World Wide Web have been used as a tool to easily and widely publicize instances of perceived anti-social behavior.David Furlow, chairman of the Media, Privacy and Defamation Committee of the American Bar Association
American Bar Association
The American Bar Association , founded August 21, 1878, is a voluntary bar association of lawyers and law students, which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. The ABA's most important stated activities are the setting of academic standards for law schools, and the formulation...
, has identified the potential privacy concerns raised by websites facilitating the distribution of information that is not part of the public record (documents filed with a government agency), and has said that such websites "just [give] a forum to people whose statements may not reflect truth."
Kittens killed in vacuum bag - 1 Boy 2 Kittens Video
In December 2010, a video clip was posted on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
of a young man placing two kittens into a vacuum bag and suffocating them. Thousands of online protests and detectives claim that the man is male model Luka Magnotta and he has been hunted since. Even though there is no confirmed evidence linking him to the crime, he has had millions of death threats and had to leave the country and change his name. It was reported in news agencies around the world.
YouTube cat abuse incident
In February 2009, an incident involving the posting on YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
of a video clip in which a domestic cat
Cat
The cat , also known as the domestic cat or housecat to distinguish it from other felids and felines, is a small, usually furry, domesticated, carnivorous mammal that is valued by humans for its companionship and for its ability to hunt vermin and household pests...
, named Dusty, was beaten and tortured by a 14-year-old boy calling himself "Timmy". After about 30,000 viewings, this clip and the account were removed by YouTube as a violation of their terms of service
Terms of service
Terms of service are rules which one must agree to abide by in order to use a service. Unless in violation of consumer protection laws, such terms are usually legally binding...
. Members of the 4chan
4chan
4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
message board investigated the incident, and by extrapolating from the poster's YouTube user name and the background in the video, they identified the abuser. As a result of these complaints, the Comanche County Sheriff's Department investigated the incident, and two suspects were arrested. Dusty survived the abuse, and was placed in the care of a local veterinarian
Veterinarian
A veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....
. Both the assailant and the cameraman were charged with animal cruelty; as both are juveniles, punishment could include "psychological counseling, court monitoring until they turn 18, community service to provide restitution for treatment of animals, and/or placement in court custody."
Dog Poop Girl
In 2005 in South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
, blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
gers targeted a woman who refused to clean up when her dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
defecated
Defecation
Defecation is the final act of digestion by which organisms eliminate solid, semisolid or liquid waste material from the digestive tract via the anus. Waves of muscular contraction known as peristalsis in the walls of the colon move fecal matter through the digestive tract towards the rectum...
on the floor of a Seoul subway
Seoul Subway Line 2
Seoul Subway Line 2 is a circular line of the Seoul Metropolitan Subway. The line running clockwise is called the "inner circle line" and the counter-clockwise line is called the "outer circle line." This is Seoul's most heavily used line, and the longest circular subway line in the world...
car, labeling her "Dog Poop Girl" (rough translation of '' into English). Another commuter had taken a photograph of the woman and her dog, and posted it on a popular Korean website. Within days, she had been identified by internet vigilantes, and much of her personal information
Personally identifiable information
Personally Identifiable Information , as used in information security, is information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual...
was exposed on the World Wide Web in an attempt to punish her for the offense. The story received mainstream attention when it was widely reported in South Korean media. The public humiliation led the woman to quit university
University
A university is an institution of higher education and research, which grants academic degrees in a variety of subjects. A university is an organisation that provides both undergraduate education and postgraduate education...
, according to reports.
The reaction by Korean citizens to the incident prompted several Korean newspapers to run editorials voicing concern over Internet vigilantism. One paper quoted Daniel Solove
Daniel J. Solove
Daniel J. Solove is a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School. He is well known for his academic work on privacy and for popular books on how privacy relates with information technology...
as saying that the woman was the victim of a "cyber-posse, tracking down norm violators and branding them with digital Scarlet Letters
The Scarlet Letter
The Scarlet Letter is an 1850 romantic work of fiction in a historical setting, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It is considered to be his magnum opus. Set in 17th-century Puritan Boston during the years 1642 to 1649, it tells the story of Hester Prynne, who conceives a daughter through an...
." Another called it an "Internet witch-hunt," and went on to say that "the Internet is turning the whole society into a kangaroo court
Kangaroo court
A kangaroo court is "a mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted".The outcome of a trial by kangaroo court is essentially determined in advance, usually for the purpose of ensuring conviction, either by going through the motions of manipulated procedure or...
."
The kitten killer of Hangzhou
In 2006, Wang Jue (王珏), a Chinese nurse appearing in an internet crush video stomping a kitten with her stilettos, gave herself up to authorities after bloggers and some print media started a campaign to trace back the recording. In the beginning, she was labeled as the kitten killer of Hangzhou
Hangzhou
Hangzhou , formerly transliterated as Hangchow, is the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China. Governed as a sub-provincial city, and as of 2010, its entire administrative division or prefecture had a registered population of 8.7 million people...
, because it was believed she was from there; but some internaut
Internaut
Internaut is a term for a designer, operator, or technically capable user of the Internet. Beginning with participants in the Internet Engineering Task Force , it gradually expanded to members of the Internet Society and the larger community....
s recognized an island in northern Heilongjiang
Heilongjiang
For the river known in Mandarin as Heilong Jiang, see Amur River' is a province of the People's Republic of China located in the northeastern part of the country. "Heilongjiang" literally means Black Dragon River, which is the Chinese name for the Amur. The one-character abbreviation is 黑...
province.
Wang posted an apology on the Luobei city government official website. She said she was recently divorced and didn't know what to do with her life. The cameraman, a provincial TV employee, and she lost their jobs when internauts discovered their identities.
Evan Guttman and the Stolen Sidekick
Other notable instances also include the case of Evan Guttman and his friend's stolen Sidekick II smartphone
Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
, and the case of Jesse McPherson and his stolen Xbox 360
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, Powerbook
PowerBook
The PowerBook was a line of Macintosh laptop computers that was designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1991 to 2006. During its lifetime, the PowerBook went through several major revisions and redesigns, often being the first to incorporate features that would later become...
, and TV.
Zhang Ya & Sichuan Earthquake
In 2008, a girl called Zhang Ya (张雅) from Liaoning
Liaoning
' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the northeast of the country. Its one-character abbreviation is "辽" , a name taken from the Liao River that flows through the province. "Níng" means "peace"...
province, Northeast China
Northeast China
Northeast China, historically known in English as Manchuria, is a geographical region of China, consisting of the three provinces of Liaoning, Jilin and Heilongjiang. The region is sometimes called the Three Northeast Provinces...
, posted a 4 minute video of herself complaining about the amount of attention the Sichuan earthquake
2008 Sichuan earthquake
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake or the Great Sichuan Earthquake was a deadly earthquake that measured at 8.0 Msand 7.9 Mw occurred at 14:28:01 CST...
victims were receiving on television. An intense response from Internet vigilantes resulted in the girl's personal details (even including her blood type) being made available online, as well as dozens of abusive video responses on Chinese websites and blogs. The girl was taken into police custody for three days as protection from vigilante death threats.
Stephen Fowler and Wife Swap
Stephen Fowler, an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
expatriate
Expatriate
An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...
and venture capitalist businessman, gained notoriety after his performance on ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's Wife Swap
Wife Swap
Wife Swap is a reality television program, originally produced by UK independent television production company RDF Media and created by Stephen Lambert. It was first broadcast in 2003 on the UK's Channel 4. Since 2004, a US version has also been broadcast on the ABC network...
(originally aired Friday January 30, 2009) when his wife exchanged positions in his family with a woman from Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
for a two-week period. In response to her rule changes (standard procedure for the second week in the show) he insulted his guest and, in doing so, groups including the lower classes, soldiers, and the overweight. Several websites were made in protest against his behaviour. After the show, and after watching the Wife Swap video, his wife, a professional life coach, reported that she had encouraged him to attend professional behaviour counselling. Businesses with only tangential connection to Fowler publicly disclaimed any association with him due to the negative publicity. He resigned positions on the boards of two environmental charities to avoid attracting negative press.
Cyclist abuser Incident
In 2008, video of Patrick Pogan, a rookie police officer, body-slamming Christopher Long, a cyclist, surfaced on the Internet. The altercation happened when members of Critical Mass conducted a bicycling advocacy event at Times Square
Times Square
Times Square is a major commercial intersection in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, at the junction of Broadway and Seventh Avenue and stretching from West 42nd to West 47th Streets...
. The officer claimed the cyclist had veered into him, and so the biker was charged with assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.
The charges against the cyclist were later dropped and Pogan was found to be guilty and was convicted of lying about the confrontation with the cyclist.
Vigilante group targets mother
In 2009, a Facebook group was started, accusing a single mother for the death of a 13 month old child in her foster care. It was the mother's then common-law husband who pleaded guilty to manslaughter and the mother was not formally accused of any wrongdoing. However, the members of the group, such as the boy's biological mother, accuse her of knowing what was going on and doing nothing to stop it.
Cat dumped in wheelie bin
In August 2010, a passer-by in Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
later identified as Mary Bale by 4chan
4chan
4chan is an English-language imageboard website. Launched on October 1, 2003, its boards were originally used for the posting of pictures and discussion of manga and anime...
's members, was caught on a private security camera stroking a cat, named Lola, then looking around and dumping her in a wheelie bin, where she was found by her owners 15 hours later. The owners posted the video on the Internet in a bid to identify the woman, who was later interviewed by the RSPCA about her conduct. Outrage was sparked among animal lovers, and a Facebook group called "Death to Mary Bale" was created, and later removed. Police said they were speaking to the 45-year-old about her personal safety.
The woman, who at first downplayed her actions ("I thought it would be funny", "it's just a cat" and "didn't see what all the fuss was about") eventually apologised "profusely for the upset and distress".
Bale has been convicted under the Animal Welfare Act of 2006 with causing unnecessary suffering to a cat. An additional charge of failing to provide the cat with a suitable environment was dropped. She was fined £250 and ordered to pay costs, totaling £1,436.04.
Cooks Source Incident
The food magazine Cooks Source printed an article by blogger Monica Gaudio without her permission in their November 2010 issue. Learning of the copyright violation, Gaudio emailed Judith Griggs, managing editor of Cooks Source Magazine, requesting that the magazine both apologize and also donate $130 to the Columbia School of Journalism as payment for using her work. Instead she received a very unapologetic letter stating that she (Griggs) herself should be thanked for making the piece better and that Gaudio should be glad that she didn't give someone else credit for writing the article. During the ensuing public outcry, online vigilantes took it upon themselves to avenge Gaudio. The Cooks Source Facebook page was flooded with thousands of contemptuous comments, forcing the magazine's staff to create new pages in an attempt to escape the protest and accuse 'hackers' of taking control of the original page. The magazine's website was stripped of all content by the staff and shut down a week later.
Rabbit gate
In 2010 a case was publicized involving a young female, from Sichuan
Sichuan
' , known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan is a province in Southwest China with its capital in Chengdu...
under the alias name Huang siu siu (黄小小), torturing and crushing rabbits. The group that financially sponsor the making of these videos was later revealed to be called "Crushfetish" who pay young girls to crush fish, insects, rabbits and other small animals. The girl was paid 100 yuan
Chinese yuan
The yuan is the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The yuan is the primary unit of account of the Renminbi.A yuán is also known colloquially as a kuài . One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo or colloquially máo...
for each attempt, and she has been participating since 2007. Police said the group makes videos to sell overseas, and the company has allegedly made 279 animal abuse videos with a subscription fee. Because of the concurrent hosting of the 2010 Asian Games
2010 Asian Games
The 2010 Asian Games, also known as the XVI Asiad, was a multi-sport event celebrated in Guangzhou, China from November 12 to November 27, 2010. Guangzhou was the second Chinese city to host the Games, after Beijing in 1990...
, the animal videos were only limited to hosting just a few hours a day on some websites.
Operation Dogfight
On February 9, 2011, a man supposedly located in Spain posted a video of himself torturing a Pomeranian dog. Within two days, Anonymous
Anonymous (group)
Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
picked up on the incident, and began searching for the man.
After attention was brought locally by Spanish anons, a news website carried an article asking local people to remain calm, and confirming that the IP address had identified Badajoz as the location of the blogger who uploaded the video.
Distributed denial-of-service
A DDoS attack can be used to take down malicious websites, such as those being used for phishing or drive-by downloadDrive-by download
Drive-by download means three things, each concerning the unintended download of computer software from the Internet:# Downloads which a person authorized but without understanding the consequences Drive-by download means three things, each concerning the unintended download of computer software...
s. Thousands of people generate traffic to a website, flooding it such that it goes over quota or simply can't serve that many requests in a timely manner.
"Operation Payback"
In September 2010, the founder of Aiplex SoftwareAiplex Software
Aiplex Software is a company based in India contracted by the MPAA to deliver copyright notices to websites that they deem violate copyright laws, and distributed denial-of-service attacks to said sites if they fail to remove the offending content...
, Girish Kumar's admission of using distributed denial of service attacks against known and suspected copyright violators including some large-profile P2P sites resulted in the company's servers as well as those of the MPAA
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
and RIAA
Recording Industry Association of America
The Recording Industry Association of America is a trade organization that represents the recording industry distributors in the United States...
suffering a DDoS attack themselves. The attack was launched by Anonymous
Anonymous (group)
Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
, coordinated through IRC; the participants have willingly given control over their LOIC
LOIC
LOIC is an open source network stress testing application, written in C#. A JavaScript version has also been created enabling a DoS from a web browser and also a Qt edition called loiq written in C++ exists...
to the irc, forming a voluntary botnet
Botnet
A botnet is a collection of compromised computers connected to the Internet. Termed "bots," they are generally used for malicious purposes. When a computer becomes compromised, it becomes a part of a botnet...
in order to overpower their targets.
As a result, Aiplex went offline for a full 24 hours while the MPAA's website was unreachable for 22 hours. The RIAA, the Gallant Macmillan and ACS Law firm, as well as AFACT and the Ministry of Sound has been targeted as well.
On 16 October 2010 Anonymous launched an attack against the UK Intellectual Property Office website. The attack commenced at 17:00 GMT, causing the site to go down swiftly. It was brought back online on October 22nd. The rationale for the attack was that the site was "Perpetuating the system that is allowing the exploitative usage of copyright and intellectual property."
Counter-terrorism
An AmericanUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
judge, serving in Montana
Montana
Montana is a state in the Western United States. The western third of Montana contains numerous mountain ranges. Smaller, "island ranges" are found in the central third of the state, for a total of 77 named ranges of the Rocky Mountains. This geographical fact is reflected in the state's name,...
, has a controversial role as a vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
online terrorist-hunter, posing as militant anti-American Muslim radicals online, hoping to attract the eye of those with similar mindsets.
Anti-pedophile internet vigilantism
Perverted Justice is a well-known example of an anti-pedophile organization that aims to expose and convict adults who, using email or web sites, solicit minors in order to commit child sexual abuse. They often collaborate with television crews such as those from DatelineTo Catch a Predator
To Catch a Predator is an American reality television series that features hidden camera investigations by the television newsmagazine program Dateline NBC. It is devoted to impersonating underage youth and detaining adults who contact them over the Internet for sexual liaisons...
. Some freely hosted blogs claim to expose real or potential child sex offenders.
Another initiative, Predator Hunter, headed by Wendell Kreuth, aims to track down and expose the pornography-related activities of alleged 'sexual predators'. In 2002, Kreuth disclosed details of his activities in an interview with Minnesota Public Radio.
The Australian group MAKO has used the internet to warn families about sex offenders in their areas, and to coordinate warnings about them.
Members of the subculture "Anonymous"
Anonymous (group)
Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
have also been credited for seeking out pedophiles and collaborating with law enforcement. They describe themselves as a collection of individuals united by ideas. They left a mark with the arrest of Canadian pedophile, Chris Forcand. In early November of 2011, Anonymous launched Operation Darknet, which targeted websites that distribute and traffic child pornography. Anonymous reportedly leaked the personal details of more than 1,100 pedophiles to pastebin, and invited the FBI and Interpol
Interpol
Interpol, whose full name is the International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL, is an organization facilitating international police cooperation...
to investigate the information for leads.
Members of the usenet group Alt.Hackers.Malicious have also been known to target and expose child predators, taking credit for dozens of arrests and convictions. They are most well-known for breaking into the NAMBLA servers on three separate occasions, downloading and disseminating the organizations membership information as well as emails which directly led to several arrests and convictions of child sexual abuse.
Identity theft activism
Organizations similar to vigilante action against pedophiles also target ID theft. Posing as ID thieves, they gather stolen personal information such as "dumps" (the raw encoded information contained on a payment or identification card's magnetic stripe, microchip or transponder), bank account numbers and login information, social security numbers, etc. They then pass this information on to the associated banks, to credit monitoring companies, or to law enforcement.Other groups specialize in the removal of phishing
Phishing
Phishing is a way of attempting to acquire information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. Communications purporting to be from popular social web sites, auction sites, online payment processors or IT...
websites, fake banks, and fraudulent online storefronts, a practice known as "site-killing". Artists Against 419 is a web site specializing in the removal of fake bank websites. Such groups often use tactics like DDoS attacks on the offending website, with the aim of drawing attention to the site by its hosting service or rapid consumption of the site's monthly bandwidth
Bandwidth (computing)
In computer networking and computer science, bandwidth, network bandwidth, data bandwidth, or digital bandwidth is a measure of available or consumed data communication resources expressed in bits/second or multiples of it .Note that in textbooks on wireless communications, modem data transmission,...
allowance. The Artists Against 419 always argued their tools were not a denial-of-service attack. At any rate they abandoned such tactics some time ago.
Profit
Some companies engage in internet vigilantism for profit. One such example is MediaDefenderMediadefender
MediaDefender, Inc. is a company that offers services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They are controversial because of their use of unusual tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up users' computers and...
, a company which used methods such as entrapment, P2P poisoning, and DDoS attacks.
Other political activism
Around the time of the 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay2008 Summer Olympics torch relay
The 2008 Summer Olympics torch relay was run from March 24 until August 8, 2008, prior to the 2008 Summer Olympics, with the theme of "one world, one dream". Plans for the relay were announced on April 26, 2007, in Beijing, China...
, which was marred by unrest in Tibet
2008 Tibetan unrest
The 2008 Tibetan unrest, also known from its Chinese name as the 3•14 Riots, was a series of riots, protests, and demonstrations that started in Tibetan regional capital of Lhasa and spread to other Tibetan areas and a number of monasteries including outside the Tibet Autonomous Region...
, Chinese hackers claim to have hacked the websites of CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
(accused of selective reporting on the 2008 Lhasa riots) and Carrefour
Carrefour
Carrefour S.A. is an international hypermarket chain headquartered in Levallois-Perret, France. It is one of the largest hypermarket chains in the world...
(a French shopping chain, allegedly supporting Tibetan independence), while websites and forums gave tutorials on how to launch a DDoS attack specifically on the CNN website.
Real crime vigilantes
Some people form themselves into vigilante groups aiming (overtly) to "investigate" high profile cases, but in reality often their (covert) goal is to harass those people associated in some way with the crime, but against whom no successful case has been made in the courts. Recent cases include the death of JonBenét RamseyJonBenét Ramsey
JonBenét Patricia Ramsey was an American child beauty pageant contestant who was murdered in her home in Boulder, Colorado, in 1996. The six-year-old's body was found in the basement of the family home nearly eight hours after she was reported missing. She had been struck on the head and strangled...
in the USA and the Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
Disappearance of Madeleine McCann
Madeleine McCann disappeared on the evening of Thursday, 3 May 2007. She was on holiday with her parents and twin siblings in the Algarve region of Portugal. The British girl went missing from an apartment, in the central area of the resort of Praia da Luz, a few days before her fourth...
in the UK. Operators of these sites may be counting on the limited purview of libel laws on the Internet in order to make allegations against people that might otherwise pursue defamation cases against them were the allegations published via other media.
Anti-software piracy Internet vigilantism
An example cited on the tech news site securityfocus.com by Kevin Poulsen illustrates how two coders implemented and distributed a program that disguised itself as activation key generators and cracks for illegal software circulating on peer-to-peer file sharing sites. The duo researched software that was popular on these file sharing sites and tagged their code with their names. As soon as the software was executed, it displayed a large message, “Bad Pirate! So, you think you can steal from software companies do you? That's called theft, don't worry your secret is safe with me. Go thou and sin no more." The software then called back to a central server and logged the file name under which it was executed, amount of time the message was displayed on the downloader’s computer screen and their IP address. The information gathered was then re-posted onto a public website showing the downloader’s IP address and country of origin. The program also had a unique ID embedded into each downloaded copy of it for tracking purposes to keep track of how it traversed the different networks.Legislative framework
In 2002 in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Representative
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Howard Berman
Howard Berman
Howard Lawrence Berman is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 2003. He is a member of the Democratic Party. He earlier served in the California State Assembly from 1974 to 1982, and as the U.S...
proposed the Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act, which would have protected copyright holders from liability for taking measures to prevent the distribution, reproduction or display of their copyrighted works on peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer
Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...
computer networks. Berman stated that the legislation would have given copyright holders "both carrots and sticks" and said that "copyright owners should be free to use reasonable, limited self-help measures to thwart P2P piracy if they can do so without causing harm." Smith College
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
assistant professor James D. Miller acknowledged the threats to the privacy of legitimate Internet users that such actions would pose, but drew comparisons with other successful crime-fighting measures that can invade privacy, such as metal detector
Metal detector
A metal detector is a device which responds to metal that may not be readily apparent.The simplest form of a metal detector consists of an oscillator producing an alternating current that passes through a coil producing an alternating magnetic field...
s at airport
Airport
An airport is a location where aircraft such as fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters, and blimps take off and land. Aircraft may be stored or maintained at an airport...
s.
See also
- Human flesh search engineHuman flesh search engineHuman Flesh Search is a primarily Chinese internet phenomenon of massive researching using Internet media such as blogs and forums. It has generally been stigmatized as being for the purpose of identifying and exposing individuals to public humiliation, usually out of Chinese nationalistic...
- "Anonymous"Anonymous (group)Anonymous is an international hacking group, spread through the Internet, initiating active civil disobedience, while attempting to maintain anonymity. Originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, the term refers to the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic,...
- YTMND's conflicts with eBaum's World
External links
- 'From flash mob to lynch mob', CNN, June 5, 2007