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CBS reports that hot on the heels of its campaign against ISIS, the shadowy hackers' collective known as Anonymous is going after a new target: Donald Trump. The latest Anonymous operation -- #OpTrump -- was announced in a YouTube video featuring a masked activist claiming to speak for the group. In a computer-generated voice, he takes aim at Trump's proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States, claiming "This is what ISIS wants." He goes on to say that "the more the United States appears to be targeting Muslims, not just radical Muslims," the more ISIS will be able to recruit sympathizers. The video concludes with Anonymous' now-familiar threat: "You have been warned, Mr. Donald Trump. We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. Expect us."
After a video message was posted, the website of Trump Tower in New York City went down for at least an hour. However the campaign didn't appear to have much success. Despite the group's apparent distributed-denial-of-service attack, which aimed to take down a web server by flooding it with fake traffic, the Trump Tower website was up and running by 11 a.m. and the alleged damage might not have been apparent, to visitors to the page, because a cached version of Trump's site was programmed to hold the fort in the event of an attack or maintenance issues. Gabriella Coleman, who studies hackers and online activism as the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University, in Montreal, told CBS News it's no surprise that Anonymous would find Trump a juicy target. "He's the biggest bully and the only other bully that's bigger is possibly trolls and Anonymous," says Coleman. "Anonymous isn't necessarily going to take down his campaign, per se, but they could embarrass him."
(Score: 2) by quacking duck on Sunday December 13 2015, @06:02PM
The problem with voting 3rd party is when one of the leading candidates is *demonstrably* using demagoguery language, like not even bothering to hide their hatreds and what they plan to do once in power.
Canada's last few elections saw the Conservatives win because the left vote was split among the traditional Liberals and never-been-in-power-federally NDP. In the election we just had, the NDP and its supporters campaigned on other two parties being two sides of the same coin, which they were as far as corruption and wasting money. However, such thinking ignored that the Conservatives under Harper had been, objectively, far more damaging to Canada's science, environment, history, public service non-partisanship, international reputation, etc than any previous Lib or Con government, and the Cons were ratcheting up the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric in the closing weeks of the election, promising even worse things if they got elected again.
Thankfully, many left and centre supporters banded together and voted strategically to ensure the Conservatives were toppled. It unfortunately also removed some solid long-serving NDP members, and the Liberals ended up with a bigger majority than is democratically healthy, but at least it ensured traditional Canadian values were restored to government, and we stopped a dark chapter in Canadian politics from getting darker. Given the damage Trump's antics are causing in the US, I shudder to think what another Conservative mandate would've done to us. Ugly attitudes are always made bolder and openly expressed when a "leader" validates them, like Trump is doing now, but at least those are being checked somewhat up north.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Sunday December 13 2015, @07:53PM
The problem with voting 3rd party is when one of the leading candidates is *demonstrably* using demagoguery language, like not even bothering to hide their hatreds and what they plan to do once in power.
That's not a problem with voting third party. That's the inevitable result of people *not* voting third party. By continuing to vote for evil, you provide no incentive for them to not put forth evil candidates. As long as one candidate is less evil than the other candidate, you will vote for them like a sucker. This is clearly a race to the bottom.
Third party candidates don't even have to win the actual election for it to make a difference. Enough votes for them can encourage more mainstream candidates to adopt some of their positions.
But even if all of that weren't true, I would still refuse to vote for evil. I do not endorse evil and neither should anyone else.