The owners of Restaurant Vejlegaarden in Vejle in Denmark have received support from an unlikely quarter as hackers from across the world have organised to attack the restaurant's opponents in a union conflict. Anonymous have issued a statement distancing themselves from the hack (see comments below).
3F, a Danish trade union confederation have been in conflict with the restaurant since the restaurant decided to cancel their agreement with 3F late last year. Instead the restaurant have made an agreement with Krifa (Christian Trade Union), a so called yellow union, that has lower membership dues, but refuses to take part in industrial action. This means that wages for workers organised in Krifa are lower than those for workers organised in 3F.
In response, 3F have mounted pickets outside the restaurant and stopped deliveries to the restaurant from the restaurant's normal suppliers. Support from other unions has meant that the restaurant will not receive any post while the conflict is ongoing and only rubbish can be collected from the restaurant.
The struggle has received large-scale coverage in the press and a series of rightwing politicians have made a point of eating at the restaurant to mark their support for the management.
However, it was 3F's recent threat to launch a sympathy strike in the printing house of a local newspaper which carries the restaurant's adverts which caused Anonymous to get involved.
A video posted on YouTube on 20th July by AnonDK declared war on 3F for attacking the restaurant's right to freedom of speech and declared the union's "carbon based class struggle" to be old fashioned and irrelevant.
Over the weekend, supporters of the action participated in Distributed Denial of Service attacks which caused the union's website and IT systems to be taken offline for several days. This has had serious consequences for 30,000 union members who needed to use the system to receive their unemployment insurance. Because of the attacks, these payments will be delayed by several days at least. The attacks have since spread to the websites of the national trade union confederation, LO, the Social Democratic party and their youth wing underscoring the political nature of the actions.
Comments
Anonymous has always been
Anonymous has always been shit. I'd like to see the workers Doritos and Mountain Dew factories cut off production just to smite these fucks. :bb:
Has Anonymous in Denmark
Has Anonymous in Denmark always been stupid and right wing?
Steven. wrote: Has Anonymous
Steven.
actually, I withdraw this question. And perhaps the article could do with editing?
Basically, now a group calling themselves Anonymous Denmark have put out this video criticising these hackers, saying they are not really Anonymous and having a go at them for supporting capitalist interests (or so I gather not understanding any Danish):
[youtube]g9Bbt9AGzZY[/youtube]
I suppose that is the problem of having an anonymous group, if anyone can call themselves it!
If temporarily shutting down
If temporarily shutting down a newspaper is an attack on free speech, then surely so is shutting down a website?
I have no idea how online class struggle would work. Anyone understand what that would include?
Steven. wrote: I suppose
Steven.
I can't wait till the Nazis start calling themselves FAI-IRF!
There are a fair amount of
There are a fair amount of right libertarians involved in anonymous. They may have their own caucus type thing within it. However, this ddos sounds a bit suspiciously massive.
The AnonDK youtube channel was apparently only created on Jul 20, 2012 (only a few days ago), another suspicious indicator.
Who knows if this is even genuine. It is completely possible that the restaurant management paid organised crime for the use of an illegal botnet. (This is more possible than a state orchestrated attack). This has been done in Russia by IT bosses against the site "antijob.net". In this case the management may not want it known they have paid for this, due to the massive bad press it would generate for the restaurant (not to mention illegality), and paid an additional amount to a hacking criminal syndicate to pretend it is a political entity doing it.
Of course, it could also be a couple of high level hobby/political hackers that own botnets and use them for fun. Maybe a non-anon hacking group that wanted to both attack unions and discredit anonymous.
I'm not defending anonymous, just thinking this is unusual and an anomaly compared to their usual targets (which in typical washy liberal fashion try to avoid taking either side in the class struggle)
Is it possible to cange the
Is it possible to cange the title of this thread now we have the statement from the real anonymous DK? I'm not saying anonymous are some super-miraculous perfect thing, but that's not the sort of thing that would actually be done by anonymous, not like that, not in such a high-profile way as that.
communal_pie wrote: Is it
communal_pie
i have clicked spam on your post to draw the attention of an admin, as it is a good point.
communal_pie wrote: Is it
communal_pie
I think that's a bit misleading, at least as presented. Talking about the "real" anonymous kinda misses the point; anonymous is made up of a host of tendencies and activities, including anything from deliberately triggering epileptic fits and flooding hip hop boards with racist imagery on the one hand, to leaking info on fascists or DDOSing the Knesset website on the other. The main underlying themes seem to be a focus on hacktivism usually combined with a fairly liberal concern with free speech, plus some anon groups linking themselves to particular social movements like occupy, anti-fascism, etc. And the Guy Fawkes masks of course.
The only way I could see a reference to the "real" anonymous making sense would be if, as Harrison suggested, this is a case of the bosses paying off hackers to do it on their behalf, both to crash the sites and to drive a wedge between anon and others.
That said, it would make sense to add in the video from some Danish anons criticising the action and maybe going into a bit more detail if such details are known. The headline as it stands is also somewhat misleading, though not sure what would be better.
I'm surprised you're
I'm surprised you're assigning a political outlook to Anonymous and that you're talking about the fenomena as an organisation. I guess it's changed a lot but it's still a name up for grabs to anyone. Claiming to be the true Anonymous sounds totally at odds to the earlier ideas.
To be honest the latter pro labour video is more surprising to me. I mean classic left politics is not something I would expect from Anonymous.
Fractions, rivalries and subgroups are what Anonymous was always about? Sorta the ultraleft reality turned into the defining feature and goal ;) Perhaps they can avoid the Peoples front of Anonymous split by this clever trick of internalising it, this particular incident shows that perhaps even this strategy is to weak though.
people often talk about
people often talk about anonymous as an organisation, but i think its just any identity,
Harrison wrote: communal_pie
Harrison
to be honest, both sides are claiming to be the real anonymous, so we can't know which is which.
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thanks steven, didn't know
thanks steven, didn't know that.
radicalgraffiti
i guess it kind of is, but thats if you read and believe their we are legion blah blah. in reality it each operation functions with an informal leadership of the most high profile hackers who take the lead, some of whom own botnets and therefore control a vast amount of its ddos'ing power. an operation being started basically means nothing until it has a few powerful hackers behind it (who can actually do useful stuff like rooting servers to gain internal access to sites, or have massive botnets) and 90% of anons are pretty rubbish when it comes to hacking and just use things like LOIC (which is like being 1 part of a botnet). successful operations are ones with at least few powerful hackers
its the equivalent of a consensus based anarchy group where the very few members that actually do useful stuff meet in the pub separately from the rest of the membership to decide stuff.
i know this even just from hanging around anonymous for a while, whilst never actually taking part in stuff because i realised unless i had mad hacking skills, i was basically a drone and had no clout within it. plus if you just blindly install LOIC (without paying for a dedicated VPN) and allow it to fire away you'll get in really bad trouble with your ISP and governments very quickly.
Harrison wrote: its the
Harrison
this massive exaggerates how organised anonymous are
its an analogy, its not
its an analogy, its not perfect.
You could say both sides ARE
You could say both sides ARE Anonymous, however that being said if we want we can try and root for the better side which seems to denounce the other one, I presume.
I'm sorry if this is not
I'm sorry if this is not presented 100% clearly, direct translations can be a bitch, but I will try and do it justice to it's original wording and meaning.
"Dear Denmark, we are Anonymous"
"At the time, paid script-kiddies are roaming the internet, calling themselves "Anonymous Danmark", but actually represent, and act in the powerful and capitalists interest."
"Their DDOS attack against 3F.dk and Mit3F.dk has put as much as 30.000 unemployed at risk of losing their income if they don't show up in person and sign their benefit card physically."
"And at the same time, they are calling a blockade in front of Vejlegården, a symbolic demonstration, where nobody is physically restrained from entering, for mafia-methods."
"But who is it, exactly, who are using Mafie-methods, when people like you are willing to put 30.000 peoples lives at stake in your battle for a 'free union-choice' and lower wages for the employees?"
"If 3F's methods are considered 'bullying', then the hacking of 3F must surely be defined as "terror" when looked from a conservative standpoint?"
"Our false brethren feel that their methods against 3Fs worker's blockades for a better work environment, which are legal and have been used for more than a century, is fair because, "the free choice", and the employers possibility to force the employees to work as much as 45 hours a week, in spite of the normal 37 hours a week, is more important than the employees right to proper working conditions."
"But the free choice has never excised."
"Because when have we ever been offered freedom from hunger or wage-labor?"
"When was the Iraqi people ever asked, if they'd rather avoid all those civilian costs, which took place under the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the attack on Saddam Hussein?"
"When have we been offered freedom from the politicians theft of the tax income, which was meant to save the banks in 2008, when the financial sector collapsed as a result of greed and fraud?"
"When will we be free of economic thoughts, and of being able to afford, next time we're hungry and wander out to the grocery store for our own survival?"
"It is not freedom to go down in salary. It is not freedom, that the excising members of 3F at the workplace were forced to change to Krifa, or endure lockouts, which would effectively result in their job termination would they not toe in line."
"Kifa is not a union. Krifa is a cooperation with a board, and the director, as he is so proudly called, has 5 times in 2008 used the "members" quotas on abroad trips and gifts for himself."
"In Krifa you are a customer, because there is no members democracy and no annual gathering, where opinions are shared, as it is in the LO-union assembly and in 3F."
"And you're not allowed to go on strike, being a member of a so-called yellow union as Krifa, who in real life is a business, that lives off of people, and pretends to be a union as to gather more customers, and by that mark up profits."
"This also means, that in the case of a strike, customers of Krifa will have to actively work against their co-workers's struggle, whereas the employee becomes enemy rather than friend in the shared cause."
"The agreement, which Vejlegården wants to draw with Krifa, is worse than the agreement signed with 3F on 41 out of 46 occasions, and puts the 'weak' - wage-laborers - worse than the 'strong' - employer and business-owner Amin Skov, who has the power over the wage-laborers in the daily."
"Anonymous DK has chosen the wrong side and actively support the 1%, who pollute the environment, prey upon nature and have thrown the world economy out into the biggest financial crises ever since the 1930's great depression, which lead to widespread poverty, and in it's final paved the way for Hitlers takeover of Nazi Germany, the second world war and the mass extinction of i.a. the Jewish people."
"Let us make it clear that these traitors to Anonymous' Internationally known, respected and feared reputation, is a pestilence towards the whole movement of internet activists, who daily fight for a more fair and free existence, with free flow of information, without wars or dictatorship, without surveillance and without starvation wages for the workers around the world."
"We call to ask anyone with knowledge of these treacherous comrades, that they make their private information freely available so that others may confront them and serve them justice, just as we from abroad are known for exhibiting, for example, neo-nazi and cooperation's unethical behavior."
"Don't let a group of Danish morons spoil our good reputation, and all of which our movement has spent several years building."
"We are Anonymous."
"We Don't forget."
"We Don't forgive."
"And we despise people, who pretend that they are us, and the protectors of the weak, while keeping the weakest people down themselves."
"Expect us."
I can tell you this much. Whoever did the hacking is NOT anonymous, but they can very well think that they are, and that they acted in favour of the movement. Denmark is one of the most liberal countries in the world, and so many people, especially the youth, value privacy and freedom of speech sometimes higher than social freedom or even economic freedom. These people are not libertarians, though, and while I can tell you the whole mess with Vejlegården took years, justice was served in the end. I'm not 100% sure on this, I can read up on it, but I'm pretty sure 3F won when the owner and employer of Vejlegården tried to burn it down, claim insurance and call it vandalism. I even think he got jailed. I'll try to find some more concrete info on the case and translate it if anyone would wanna follow-up on it, but what I stated above is second or even third hand information, so don't hold it against me. You can hold the translation against me, though. I'm proud of that one! Spot on.... sort 'a.. xD
Also, the video response was
Also, the video response was NOT created by a danish anonymous group, it was created abroad, they say so themselves. In danish you'd have used other wording as well, as many of these words are constructed or somewhat new to the danish language. This is translated work. Could be either french, german, english, maybe?
Also notice how the YouTube channel has not had a single video before or since. It's because it's inactive. Because there is no Anonymous in Denmark, really. Another anonymous group uploaded it on behalf of the rest of the anonymous movement as a way of distancing themselves from Anonymous DK.