I haven’t written on this blog in a while (been busy, and not doing much gaming, so I haven’t had a lot of gaming material to write about). I usually do not delve into politics here. But after two months of the “Occupy Wall Street” movement, I’ve decided to discuss my thoughts on it.
Ever since OWS started, something about the movement has bothered me. I knew that I did not agree with what the people participating in it were saying, nor what they were doing, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Although I absolutely believe in people’s right to protest or demonstrate, I have thought since day 1 that it is not acceptable for people to pitch tents in public parks that expressly do not allow camping, or to so crowd into a public area as to prevent the rest of the public from using it. However, I could not really articulate the real reasons behind my dislike of the OWS movement, until today. Watching the news stories of the Occupiers crowding into the area of the New York Stock Exchange and purposely blocking streets to cut off access, I finally realized that what they are doing is the physical equivalent of an old-school Denial of Service attack.
A Denial of Service attack, or “DOS attack,” is a term that usually refers to a person or group trying to make an electronic or computer service unavailable to its users. An example is the attack in 2000 by a teenager named “Mafiaboy” who was able to bring down the servers of Yahoo!, eBay, and many other big companies. If you attack Yahoo! in a way that makes their service inaccessible to the people trying to use it, you are denying the users the Yahoo! service… hence the term “Denial of Service.”
One of the curious behavior patterns by those who commit DOS attacks is that they often claim to have some sort of honorable or noble motive. Some claim they were “trying to show the vulnerabilities” in the system to “help” the company see the dangerous holes. Sometimes, they will claim to be trying to “improve things,” as when a group of players purposely swarmed one zone in the online game EVE, deliberately trying to lag the server into rebooting — to protest some new game system that they didn’t like. One way or another, DOS attackers frequently advance the defense that they made the attack “for the greater good.”
I have always viewed this justification as a poor excuse being put forward to defend atrocious, frankly indefensible behavior. If you think Yahoo! is dangerously unprotected, tell them. Don’t attack them and ruin the web experience of thousands. If you don’t like what EVE Online is doing in the game, cancel your subscription in protest. Don’t prevent thousands of other players who don’t mind the changes from playing the new version of the game. If these folks really wanted to help make things better, they’d help make them better — not make them worse. After all, even Hitler claimed to be doing the horrible things he did “for the greater good” of Germany. ”For the greater good” is just a fancy, less hackle-raising way of saying “the end justifies the means.”
And now back to Occupy Wall Street. The similarity of what they are doing to a Denial of Service attack is uncanny. They swarm into public areas — areas meant to be used by tons of different people every day — take over, cram the area, and basically prevent anyone else from using it. They stay there for weeks, then months, physically filling the area, and completely denying use of the park to anyone who has no political interest and is not a part of OWS. This is, quite literally, a denial of service attack — they are denying park amenities to anyone but themselves. When evicted (finally!) from the park, the OWS crowd moves to the NYSE, where they purposely block traffic and sidewalks, again deliberately attempting to physically deny use of the area by the “everyday” New Yorkers who are trying to do things like go to school, work, out on dates, and the like. They are preventing regular city services and activities from being used by thousands of citizens — thus, denying service. A clearer non-electronic case of a DOS attack, I cannot recall.
In addition to denying access to public areas, the OWS crowd uses the same excuses to justify their actions that hackers use after getting caught performing DOS attacks: “It’s for the grater good.” Although OWS members may not use those words specifically, this is what “We are the 99%” means. Claiming to stand for 99% of the country, the OWS hooligans use their representation of the greater part of society (the “greater good”) to justify every disruptive and unacceptable tactic they employ. Clearly, in their view, the end of achieving their goals justifies any means necessary… Including breaking city laws, physically assaulting law enforcement officials, and utterly trashing a public place that is used by far more than the “1%.”
This, then, is why I have had, all along, a visceral negative reaction to the OWS movement — because at its heart, it is quite literally a denial-of-service attack on public property. Because I believe that DOS attacks are never justified for any reason — because I believe the end does not justify the means, and that certain means are unacceptable — I will never be able to get on board with the “Occupy” movement. I can honestly say that I don’t know exactly what their goal is, what ends they wish to achieve, and beyond that I do not care. No end is worthy of using the reprehensible means the OWS mob has employed to this point. No end can ever justify a DOS attack against public resources.
The Occupy crowd may have a point buried beneath all the filth and slime of their dirty little encampments, but I refuse to hear it until they stop employing unacceptable methods. The very first step has got to be an agreement that the end does not justify the means, and that there is no end on earth — none! — that can justify a denial-of-service attack against public institutions, property, or safety. Until the Occupiers start behaving like responsible citizens instead of hooligans, I will not deign to even consider the issues they are pretending to raise.
Democracy has never been pretty. OWS is no different. The T-party has money, OWS has tents. Quality vs. Quantity. For now the Quality is winning, but clearly the natives are not happy. As inequality spreads and corporations move towards a one world govt. run by corporations, democracy will have to go so people can vote more effeciently with their dollars instead.
Quality and quantity have nothing to do with it. The thesis of my essay here is that the entire premise of the OWS movement is to conduct a denial of service attack against the general public in regard to public places. By taking over the park, OWS denies its use to every other person who might want it. My argument is that there is no justification for this. They have a right to hold, and express, their opinions, and to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, and I support those rights whether I agree or disagree with them. They do NOT have the right to completely take over a (privately owned, by the way) public park and deny the use of that park to the entire rest of NYC for upwards of two months’ time.
This very much falls under the category of “the right to swing your fists ends where the other man’s nose begins.” Their protest has become a fist in the face of hundreds of other people, and thus it has taken on an unacceptable form.
I found your blog because I came to the same conclusion myself, and wondered if anyone else had made that connection. What’s interesting, and a little troubling to me is that if OWS had made their protest as a virtual DOS , for instance against city or federal web sites, they would be cyber-terrorists and actively pursued by law enforcement. And while I don’t want to encourage either hackers or campers abusing public sites, the disparity between being labeled ‘terrorist’ and a fine for camping in a public park is a bit large. I’m not sure what the answer to that one is.