A software engineer is urging anyone and everyone opposed to the President-Elect to overload Whitehouse.gov on Donald Trump’s inauguration day.
Juan Soberanis, or so the activist calls himself, wants netizens to take down the White House’s website “as a show of solidarity for the lives impacted by Trump’s policy agenda.”
As the software engineer writes in his protest pledge code-named “Occupy White House”:
“It’s simple. By overloading the site with visitors, we will be able to demonstrate the will of the American people. There are two ways to participate. You can manually go to www.whitehouse.gov on inauguration day, January 20, 2017 and refresh the page as often as you can throughout the day or you can […] or automatically reload the page. When enough people occupy whitehouse.gov, the site will go down.”
The website for Occupy White House was offline as of this writing.
Soberanis isn’t the only individual who’s embraced digital means as a form of opposition against Trump.
Back in January 2016, a group known as the New World Hackers used a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) booter to attack the campaign website for then-presidential candidate Trump. The attack took down donaldjtrump.com for several hours until IT staff put DDoS mitigation technologies in place.
The software engineer is also not the only one who’s using Inauguration Day as an excuse to launch a digital attack against the President-Elect.
Earlier this week, the hacking collective Anonymous called on its followers to gather “kompromat,” that is, compromising materials, on the soon-to-be leader of the free world. These items, the group feels, would send a powerful message to Trump.
Anonymous said as much in a statement directed to Trump on Twitter. As quoted by The Daily Telegraph:
“You have financial and personal ties with Russian mobsters, child traffickers and money launderers… This isn’t the eighties any longer, information doesn’t vanish, it is all out there. You are going to regret the next four years.”
To be clear, the White House has seen its fair share of security incidents. No doubt it has DDoS mitigation technologies in place, meaning A LOT of people would need to take up Soberanis’ pledge if they were going to have any meaningful impact on the White House’s website.
With that said, anyone who takes up the software engineer’s offer will be participating in a DDoS attack, which is a crime in the United States, the United Kingdom, and elsewhere.
Stephen Gates, chief research intelligence analyst at NSFOCUS IB, agrees with that assessment. As quoted by The Register:
“Participating in a DDoS attack is a crime, regardless if you use a tool, a script, a botnet for hire, or a finger and a keyboard. If protesters move forward with this demonstration, they must remember that their source IP addresses in most cases will not be spoofed, meaning law enforcement can easily track those who participate.”
So here’s today’s lesson: no one said you have to like the incoming U.S. President, but conducting DDoS attacks against him and U.S. government websites is still illegal.
Make smart decisions! If you’re opposed to Trump, vent your disagreement in a more productive fashion.
The shadow government / central banks, really don't like Trump do they? Encouraging the masses to hate him.
Makes me sick to the stomatch to hear Americans falling for Anti-Trump propaganda. They really are not too intelligent in those cases. Pity.
Sort of like his followers encouraging hate? Sort of like Trump's hate (and refusing to denounce hate immediately whilst campaigning for the most powerful nation on Earth is as good as hate)? For instance the swastika and graffiti saying 'Make America White Again'? For one example of many others.
As if America is above propaganda or hate anyway; America abuses it just as much as any other nation (which is to say a lot).
Note this: only weak people will follow someone's hate if they themselves do not already feel that hate (charisma works this way too). Unless of course they're indoctrinated or have but no choice (though the stronger of them will still resist). But opposing hate? That takes strength. What does that say about those who are hateful? So anyone who does protest (or in this case were to DDoS the White House) would have *already been against* Trump. (Not that I have much faith in you understanding this) Not that DDoS is the answer.
And… I'll make no comment on the subject of Americans not being too intelligent. Other than to note it of course (since it's way too good to pass entirely).
Bunch of ignorant, crybaby Democrats. Move to another country, if you can find a country that likes crybabies!
I've adapted to kennedy, johnson, nixon, ford, carter, reagan, bush sr. clinton, bush jr, and I adapted to obama!
I'll adapt to trump.
Get over yourselves 5n0wflak35.
You're not the center of the universe!
Now go play with your legos, have a juice box, find a safe space and take a nap.
You aren't the centre of the universe? Since when are Americans not the centre of the universe?
Well I'm glad you seem to agree… if you're being honest.