Anonymous Now Attacking Corporate Fax Machines 410
An anonymous reader writes "Anonymous has claimed responsibility for distributed denial of service attacks against several anti-WikiLeaks websites this month. In a novel twist to the campaign, Mission Leakflood has started a new DDoS attack against fax numbers belonging to Amazon, MasterCard, Moneybookers, PayPal, Visa and Tableau Software. Some numbers have already stopped responding, and Twitter and PostFinance have since been added to the target list."
A what? (Score:5, Funny)
What's a Fax Machine?
Re:A what? (Score:5, Funny)
It's a machine that stores, retrieves, and serves Fax. Fax such as "how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop" and "how often does Google watch me in the shower?"
Current forms of Fax Machines are Wikipedia, and Answers.com. They serve their purpose and serve it well. Previous incarnations include the Rosetta Stone, Newpaper Rock, and the Black Monolith. While comparatively primitive by modern standards, these archaic Fax Machines undoubtedly sparked the minds of those who used them.
Honorable mention goes to Baghdad Bob for keeping faithful to the true heart of Fax Machines, though ultimately his Fax were deemed inaccurate.
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I love the way both of these are modded Insightful rather than Funny. Just the fax.
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Tru fax.
Re:A what? (Score:4, Funny)
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i think it must have been a typo, fox machine maybe?
as in "fear and misinfo spreading, fox news machine"
btw whats a fox?
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btw whats a fox?
I've heard that that lady in Transformers, what's her name again, is a real Fox.
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I don't understand businesses (and government agencies!) that insist on faxes in 2010.
Sure, you get a delivery receipt, but you get that with e-mail too -- the SMTP server that the recipient states in their MX record also "signs off".
Sure, you can get a caller ID, but that's as easily spoofed as an e-mail header..
You'd think that telefax would have died fifteen years ago, but then again, there are still people who pay with cheques and listen to mp3s.
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Governments are always slow to change, and thus are many years behind the current tech. Once thy catch up, faxes will go away.
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At a twelfth the resolution you get if you print out an e-mailed PDF/PS file.
I've seen so many faxes (and faxes of faxes) that are completely illegible that I can't understand why some people insist on using them. Can't they sign a print-out, scan and e-mail it? Which can even be done through signed e-mail, so you can feel reasonably safe that the "hand signature" isn't just a copy sent you by someone else.
Re:A what? (Score:4, Interesting)
Faxes aren't going anywhere any time soon. It is still more convenient for many tasks, and software hasn't done a great job when it comes to standardization of attachments. I still get email attachments from people who just installed the newest version of Microsoft Office, and when I tell them to save it in an older format, they have no fucking clue what that means. They just save in the default format, which is always the "new" format, and we don't run MS Office in our office, on purpose. We run OpenOffice (which is now LibreOffice) but I digress. So I tell them "Then fax it to me" because I don't have the time to explain why they are a 'tard for not knowing how to save a file as a "word 95" file.
And of course, what they end up sending me is nothing more than plain text anyway, which could have been done using Notepad, but they have no idea what that is. Sometimes they use a fancy font, usually one that is barely readable. We avoid this by simply having a "print to PDF" feature in our office, so we just send everyone a PDF when we email, unless of course we are just sending text, in which case we type it. Unless it is a page from an old owners manual, in which case we just copy it then fax it.
Have I made myself clear? No? Good. Because most people in the biz world are too busy trying to get business done to care how they get it, and faxing is easy, cheap and fast.
As for checks/cheques, they will also be around for a long time as they are handy for a creating paper trail and delaying payment for a couple days. And you can fax them to the other party to show them that the check is in the mail, which doesn't make much sense as technically, it is in a fax machine, but it makes them feel good if you are a week behind on the payment for some reason. Then you wait another week, send the check, and blame the post office. I times are really hard, you can just seal an empty envelope, then use a letter opener to open the empty envelope, then mail that, then when the receiving party says the envelope was open and empty, tell them that someone must have stolen the check, so it isn't your fault, and that you will send another check TODAY, which you then fax a copy of, wait one week, then mail.
So in short, the reason that faxes and cheques exist is that they are simple and efficient.
Not Very Anonymous (Score:5, Insightful)
I love how all these "Anonymous" noobs are basically reporting themselves to the authorities by running Denial of Service attacks from their home computer.
"Sorry, the FBI took all our computers dad. I was doing some 1337 hacking for 'Anonymous'"
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not unless if you claim your machine has hijacked and you were not aware of it.
are they going to fine/jail everyone?
Re:Not Very Anonymous (Score:4, Interesting)
It doesn't matter... I'm not sure how much time you've spent with the police or in front of the judge, but it's really a pain. For most people, having to go through all of those things can be life impacting. It is hard enough for alot of thee people once corporations grab onto them (see DMCA, etc). It's a whole lot worse when you've pissed off the federal government and they latch on.
It will be interesting to see how this goes down... but I have a strong feeling that there will shortly be a large numbers of household raids w/ electronics confiscations. Good luck telling them that your machine was hacked. With that defense, you might see your computer again after a few years of courthouse battle.
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But what if it really was hijacked? With all the news about unpatched Windows XP hosts lying around and botnets with millions of nodes, surely someone in "Anonymous" has access to a botnet or two?
Oh well, if it leads to educating the people to patch their computers (yes, their new one), it's one small (large?) plus.
Incidentally, I wonder how many defense contractors are -- using PowerPoint probably -- trying to convince each other and those who would listen and give them money the Gawker database breach was
yeah. large numbers of household raids as in (Score:2)
goes WAY over the population limit of many countries, mind that.
Re:Not Very Anonymous (Score:5, Interesting)
You may never see your computer again period.
Innocence is truly not a factor in these cases. They will come down on your hard enough to "put the fear of God" in you, so that you never make the mistake of even thinking of being an activist. That is if you are truly innocent, too.
Regardless, your computer is now evidence in another case, one that they will be building against the person that hacked your machine. Of course, that investigation could go on for years, then the inevitable court cases, multiple jurisdictions, possibly multiple countries involved, etc.
By the time you get your computer back from the evidence room everything will be on the Internet (translation Google) and accomplished by omni-present holographic interfaces in your whole house, including the shitter. More than likely you will get a form first asking if you want to donate it to the Smithsonian.
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
What are these guys server setups? Tor? (Score:2)
not unless if you claim your machine has hijacked and you were not aware of it.
are they going to fine/jail everyone?
Most likely they will just join IRC, forums and mailing lists just like everyone, see who's coordinating the actions, and go after them. I would like to know how their servers are set up, what IP address, country, proxies, etc. If there's any running inside Tor, it's a bit of test of Tor trackability.
Yeah - Why not add a Federal Perjury Charge... (Score:5, Insightful)
That defense may actually work if your computer is actually part of a botnet. Otherwise, you will likely find yourself learning more about computer forensics and perjury laws. No, your not going to just be able to lie to the FBI about your computer and get away with it.
The police / FBI may have a little trouble with 'the botnet defense' when they discover that your computer is not actually controlled by a botnet. Or is your computer under botnet control?
For those naive enough to take 'the botnet defense' seriously:
If the police are talking to you, you have already lost
The kind of lawyers that can actually get you off cost alot of money
Lying to the police is easier in theory than in practice
Your best defense against the police is silence. Just shut your mouth and get a lawyer.
"They can't arrest us all"
No, but they can log all of our IP addresses and arrest whoever they want. They can't arrest every drug user, but that doesn't stop them from filling the prisons with them. If you want to stay out of trouble, you should do your best to make yourself a small target.
Re:A life lived in fear is a life half lived. (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, what he is saying is pretty smart.
You see, when people get busted for smuggling drugs across the country, they generally get hit not because the cop said, he might have drugs, lets search him, but because they are speeding or sampling the merchandise and weaving or driving erratic or something. They failed to make themselves a small target.
The same goes with a concealed weapon. It's the people who show it to everyone who get busted for carrying it. Well, that unless they get busted for something else. In either case, they failed to make themselves a small target.
What he is saying is that if you don't want to get into trouble, don't do anything wrong. And if you do, do as little as noticeable so you don't become a big target on their radar.
Re:A life lived in fear is a life half lived. (Score:4, Funny)
> You see, when people get busted for smuggling drugs across the country, they generally get hit not because the cop said, he might have drugs, lets search him, but because they are speeding or sampling the merchandise and weaving or driving erratic or something.
I especially loved the guy who drove a semi full of pot on the cars-only level of the George Washington Bridge.
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What if you only send one fax?
If you're only going to send one fax, make it count. Fax them a box of green-bar paper.
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Starbucks free net FTW... ...we're not all just sitting there and trying to look trendy writing something on a Mac, you know.
I AM SPARTACUS - google civil disobediance (Score:4, Informative)
It's not a case of being clueless noobs.
It's a classic example of Civil Disobedience ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience [wikipedia.org] ) not unlike refusing to sit in the back of a bus - and when many people do it in large numbers, it changes policies.
This is a million geeks saying I AM ANONYMOUS just like the guys saying I AM SPARTACUS in that old movie.
Re:I AM SPARTACUS - google civil disobediance (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a million geeks saying I AM ANONYMOUS just like the guys saying I AM SPARTACUS in that old movie.
You do know how that ended, right?
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The Roman Empire fell and slavery was abolished?
OK, so it took a little time...
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Civil disobedience is, for the most part, flat out illegal too. And, for the most part, it involves disruption of other people's services. What makes it "right" rather than "wrong" is not a matter of whether there are laws against it or whether people are depending on you not doing it, but whether those laws or that allocation of services is just in the first place.
You don't think that the Mississippi sit-ins disrupted white folks' services at restaurants? You don't think countless young activists engaged i
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Refusing to sit in the back of the bus is most certainly civil disobedience, if the law (or policy) says you must sit in the back of the bus.
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That's ridiculous. The purpose of civil disobedience is to disrupt unjust (according to the disobeying party) policy and make it too costly to maintain. That there is some risk involved is a consequence of the injustice; wanton self-risk without regard for purpose is exactly how *not* to accomplish anything worthwhile in activism. It's at least as useless as having neither purpose nor taking risk, but quite a bit more destructive as it's likely to cause needless waves of repression in response.
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Going Backwards (Score:2, Insightful)
It looks like the "hacktivist" (better known to me as "vandals") are going backwards in time. Maybe they finally recruited someone older than 12?
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It looks like the "hacktivist" (better known to me as "vandals") are going backwards in time. Maybe they finally recruited someone older than 12?
Or maybe it is part of a bigger plan that is slowly escalating - aka: Tell me when to stop...
... ...
1) DDoS against your websites - Little damage, little inconvenience, little embarrassment.
2) Wardialing your faxmachines - More annoying, more interruption to actual business, not likely as embarrassing.
3)
4)
Sooner or later, someone calls uncle.
This is just going to get worse (Score:5, Interesting)
Mommy won't be happy... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Mommy won't be happy... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems unlikely anyone will go after dozens of kids behind international proxies.
The best 60s technology. (Score:2)
Can Fax die now? Lets move on to something from the 90's at least. How about email?
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I find it amusing that companies are willing to accept blurry, low-quality, could-have-been-signed-by-Bigfoot black-and-white signatures delivered by fax, but not high-resolution color scans delivered by e-mail...
I am also amused that "Anonymous" thinks DDoS'ing a fax number will make companies listen to them.
Junk faxes are against the law (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Junk faxes are against the law (Score:5, Insightful)
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Only outlaws fax advertisements and junk (Score:3)
So is spam. ("Spam is actually illegal but many people are still receiving messages because people don't care about the laws" -- spamlaws.com)
So is phishing. (It's considered fraud.)
So is war dialing (In some places under "placing a call with no intent to communicate" and other laws).
So is robocalling.
These people don't fucking care.
After they outlawed faxing advertisements and junk, only outlaws faxed advertisements and junk.
junk faxes are actually enforced (Score:2)
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Between e-fax and hacked SIP accounts, I think fax spamming would be trivial. Do you think the attackers care if the efax service gets shut down?
It's not like those spammers are actually using their own computer to send out e-mails, why would fax attackers behave any differently?
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Re:Junk faxes are against the law (Score:5, Interesting)
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and FCC rules generally prohibit most unsolicited fax advertisements. In addition, the Junk Fax Prevention Act, passed by Congress in 2005, directs the FCC to amend its rules adopted pursuant to the TCPA regarding fax advertising.
A Black Fax [wikipedia.org] doesn't advertise anything or solicit anything and therefore cannot be realistically prosecuted under either act. I did actually read the Junk Fax Prevention Act in quite a bit of detail. It specifically covers advertising of some sort, no matter how it is passed as "Savings, information, value to the customer etc..." it has to be an ad of some sort.
So, Junk Fax Advertising is indeed against the law, but it is NOT against the law to send a fax to someone without prior dealings, or without their permission or without an "Opt out" clause.
Re:Junk faxes are against the law (Score:5, Informative)
So, Junk Fax Advertising is indeed against the law, but it is NOT against the law to send a fax to someone without prior dealings, or without their permission or without an "Opt out" clause.
Bollocks. It may not be against THAT law... but sending faxes with as benign an intent as annoying someone can be criminal. In NYS, for instance, you'd be violating the penal code.
Aggravated harassment in the second degree.
A person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when, with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, he or she:
1. Either (a) communicates with a person, anonymously or otherwise by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or (b) causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise, with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or
2. Makes a telephone call, whether or not a conversation ensues, with no purpose of legitimate communication; ....
Aggravated harassment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.
There may be a federal equivalent elsewhere in the law. Good rule of thumb: If it interferes with someone else, don't assume you're not violating any laws until you talk to a lawyer.
(And don't get hang up on that "how could they figure out my intent!" argument. Near every criminal locked up in the state had a jury of their peers infer their intent. [the exceptions being those who pled guilty])
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Are these advertisements? I'm not being sarcastic -- I'm just wondering. I guess the legal definition of advertisement could be different than what I'm thinking an advertisement is, but I don't believe the faxes are selling anything.
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They are ads for the "Once You Go Black, You Never Go Back" dating service.
More intelligent coordinated actions? (Score:2)
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Is there any proposal of more advanced planned joint actions? I just dont think attacking websites and fax machines is that effective, and from your own home not terribly smart. There has to be some mass coordinated action that is both more efficient, and perhaps less legally punishable.
It certainly does bring attention to their customers about it though. It certainly brings a lot of bad media attention to the companies. Consider it a digital spanking. The idea isn't to knock them off the face of the planet. The idea is to make them think twice about something like this again in the future.
It is the same concept as taking someone to court. You make it more expensive/difficult to do the wrong thing than it is to do the right thing.
Seems like a step backwards technologically... (Score:2)
I can't quite see their logic here:
1) DDoS corporate websites
2) DDoS corporate fax machines.
3) DDoS corporate record players?
4) DDoS corporate 8-track machines?
Reminds me of this Onion [theonion.com] article.
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Anonymous-kun shall not sleep untill all Post-it Notes are DDoSed.
Animus news day? (Score:2)
Meaningful action without breaking laws/things (Score:3)
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This is the 3rd article today mentioning them. Why is anyone even paying attention to them? Give them anonymity with obscurity. If these are just a bunch of rotten 12 year olds, then ignore them and maybe they'll grow up. Assuming Wikileaks is a good cause, was it even worth it to "hit" Amazon, Mastercard, and PayPal?
First they came for our telephone conversations,
and I didn't speak up because I *had nothing to hide*.
First they came for liquids over 100mL,
and I didn't speak up because I could purchase a new bottle inside the terminal for $3.50.
Then they came for X-Ray pictures,
and I didn't speak up because X-Ray radiation will only cause cancer in 1 of 30M cases.
Then they came for leaked transcriptions of their own wrong doings,
and I didn't speak up... because I am a:
a) Raging pussy to cowardly to stand up for injustice
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Oh shut up :)
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You would be suprised who makes up anonymous.
It always reminds me of the following line from fight club.
Tyler Durden: [to the police chief] Hi. You're going to call off your rigorous investigation. You're going to publicly state that there is no underground group. Or... these guys are going to take your balls. They're going to send one to the New York Times, one to the LA Times press-release style. Look, the people you are after are the people you depend on. We cook your meals, we haul your trash, we connect your calls, we drive your ambulances. We guard you while you sleep. Do not... fuck with us.
I for think it is funny to see "Project Mayhem" take form.
Dont worry - Sen. Joe Liebermann will pay (Score:4, Informative)
in case some of you havent kept up, here is how we know it was sen. joe liebermann :
day 1 : amazon cuts wikileaks from their cloud. it is rumored that liebermann pressurized them personally, but amazon does not comment. cites tos violation on balooney terms.
day 2 : everydns cuts wikileaks.org domain. they are not as secretive as amazon. they directly and openly state that joe liebermann called them, and threatened them. towards the evening, they mysteriously retract their statement.
a few days later : paypal cuts wikileaks donations and holds their funds. they cite tos violation, inquiry, and so on.
in the meantime : visa, mc do the same.
a week later : anonymous constantly attacks paypal since a week, keeping api.paypal.down and causing them millions in business. paypal comes around, and admits that they have suspended wikileaks due to political pressure.
a few days more with anonymous : paypal releases wikileaks funds that were being held.
today : anonymous starts attacking corporate fax machines.
count the times how many times word 'liebermann' passes in the above chronology.
after pressurizing the PRIVATE companies to cut down a perfectly legitimate customer, while in the meantime totally violating first amendment, modern principle of freedom of speech even outside us constitution, intervening and pressurizing private companies, going against journalistic freedoms, it is only natural that he would come up and pay for the business he cost all those companies. of course, not even counting the clients that started to bail out of american providers. not only payment like paypal etc, but a lot of small to medium size businesses are bailing out of u.s. based web hosting companies, datacenters, and content delivery providers.
surely, joe liebermann has the funds to make up for that business lost. else, he wouldnt be going around violating civil liberties, constitutions, and intervening in business for censorship
right ?
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What Next? (Score:3)
A lot of people don't seem to understand... (Score:4, Informative)
... how important fax numbers are to companies like Paypal and Mastercard and Amazon.
Like it or not, a faxed document with a signature is still much more legally recognized as valid than a scanned email, even if said email has been digitally signed. As such, companies like Mastercard/Paypal/Amazon *ROUTINELY* rely on fax to send and receive legal documents, both among other businesses and their own customers.
Cutting off faxes would be a BIG BIG deal to a financial company like Paypal/Mastercard, and likely Amazon as well.
Then that means (Score:2)
It is very likely some script kiddies are going to wind up in jail. If this is provably costing them money and having an impact on their business, that makes it a much larger crime and one the feds care about more. It also makes it one they'll complain about and demand action. Next part of that is that phone calls are completely traceable. The nature of the phone system makes it so that it is always known what number is calling. It has to to be able to switch the call. While caller ID can be messed with, th
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Large companies don't even bother with having fax machines print stuff to paper, they give employees their own fax number which when a fax is received simply generates a digital version of the fax and emails the receipt. Oh no, a variety of departments are getting lots of black image emails ... oh the horror.
the swines (Score:2)
Why attack Twitter? (Score:5, Informative)
Why twitter? (Score:2)
didn't twitter come out and say that thanks to Justin Bieber, the trends tracker tracked sudden spikes in activity rather than gross aggregate tweets?
I don't get it.... (Score:2)
Yes, being able to receive faxes is vital to a business. It's a pity, but that's the way it is.
But I doubt that those large companies have actual faxes. They will simply feed all faxes into a web front-end or email gateway directly. A secretary will then sort through them. And you can't even block lines as even the most ancient phone systems support multiple connections behind a single number. Higher-volume fax numbers will be load balanced, anyway.
tl;dr: I don't get it.
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:5, Insightful)
I get this feeling that this is mostly a prank to weed out the kids, if even to amuse (or protect) the ones that know what they're doing.
First, DDoS app used by masses of kids that don't know how to obscure who they are. Now wardialing fax machines? Not only are they more easily traced, but there are very specific laws about it (at least in the US) that have been around forever. No grey area here... people are going to find themselves in trouble. :(
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:4, Insightful)
I wouldn't assume this is simple wardialing. There are a great many sip servers on the internet now with PSTN access. It could just as easily be someone's list of compromised sip boxen doing this.
Bonus points due to the fact that UDP is stateless and with the right timing, its possible (but less accurate) to wardial bad faxes spoofed perfectly anonymously assuming you know the credentials are valid.
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You obviously don't know that much then since it can easily be hidden.
Fax hacking is low-tier hackery.
This hasn't even been the first time it has been done.
Of course, those who are idiots and just obey very basic instructions will get caught since most of them are script kiddies amongst a select bunch who abuse the large numbers of anonymous people on the web with time to spare.
They develop the techniques and software, post it somewhere, direct some board to it, bham.
I love how you also fell for such an obv
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Easily? I wouldn't go that far. That ALI is hard to get around, short of aligator clips, or someone's poorly set up PBX.
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I used to remember the sequence for going into the nortel system configuration menu. Anyone who spends a few evening configuring these things can eventually memorize every menu.
Back in the day I actually picked up a handset at a major retailer and checked to see if anyone had changed the passwords. In my experience, there are lots of poorly configured systems or at least those waiting to be poorly configured. A very basic feature of even the most basic systems is a redirect. You can setup a dialing pool on
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:5, Interesting)
the law states that i can't falsify who i am when faxing - and that at the receivers request i must stop sending unsolicited faxes.
problem is... if i'm always busy (dialing your fax number) you can't exactly call me to ask me to stop - nor can you fax me to ask me.. best they can do and is within the law is to call the bell and request either an operator override and block the number and have the bell send the request.
either way given the short window given for this DoS as long as people aren't trying to hide who they are when sending them then they aren't breaking the law.
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Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:4, Interesting)
either way given the short window given for this DoS as long as people aren't trying to hide who they are when sending them then they aren't breaking the law.
Yes, yes they are. Read up on "harassment" for starters, and that's just the one I know off the top of my head.
Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:4, Interesting)
Easily traced until you get to the POP of the Voip call. Or it's not out of a company's compromised phone system.
Sorry but prank calling phone numbers is 100% untraceable and easy to do in the world of Voip and tons of companies with outbound services that are not protected as well as they should be.
Phone calls are the easiest to hide behind, because they can't do the CSI trace the call crap. Your education in the matter is from TV and is very flawed.
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Why would they want to weed out the kids, instead of having them available for the next prong of the attack?
The evident intent of the Wikileaks, and the resulting "Anonymous" group, is to incur government costs, crippling the government at every level. It's a multi-pronged DDoS: sure, the fax machines and the servers are one thing, but they're denying resources further down the line, as well:
* The people maintaining the servers
* The people who rely upon the servers
* The people who's lives are disrupted by i
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Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:5, Interesting)
You seem to think that the US == the entire world.
You seem to think geography matters when the big dogs want to put you behind bars. Just ask Julian.
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I don't see some /b/tard spending international rates to wardial. That'd be a tremendous amount of money.
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Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:4, Informative)
You seem to think that the US doesn't have treaties with many (most, when you consider the source of most of the /b/tards out there) foreign countries to allow for prosecution of spam faxes.
Not only is sending junk faxes illegal in the states, it's illegal in most of the EU, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Canada, and most of South America. The least penalty in any of those countries is the disconnection of your telephone service, and in some it can result in significant fines or jail time.
Doing a DDoS on a website is much more difficult to prosecute, because it's way too easy to spoof your number. While you can spoof your number on call display, the telephone company can still quite easily trace the source of a harrassing call for prosecution.
Obligatory disclaimer: I work for Ma Bell, and have performed such traces in the past.
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From the link, it looks like they've directed participants over to myfax.com's free service. My guess is that'll be taken down soon and they'll move on to another.
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Re:Ah, Wardialing (Score:5, Insightful)
Assuming myfax is "the bad guys", then yes.
Otherwise, you've managed to destroy an innocent company.
Go team!
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hahahahaha faxed goatse
Re:Okay that's some funny shit (Score:4, Interesting)
hahahahaha faxed goatse
Actually, the best method would be to use a Black Fax [wikipedia.org] rather than something like stick figures or Goatse. Better yet, not only a simple Black Fax, but one that is looped, so that it endlessly feeds itself through the fax - assuming the originator is a fax machine itself. Otherwise if the fax is originating from a computer or IP address of some sort, then multiple pages of plain monotone black - with the emphasis on MULTIPLE :)
Re:Okay that's some funny shit (Score:5, Interesting)
That hurts, but is pretty juvenile and easily dealt with.
The best way to do it is if they faxed all those cables that Wikileaks has released. Black pages can be recycled easily. Sensitive data? That has to be shredded. And people who aren't supposed to be looking at these things may end up seeing them.
Imagine all the banks and Paypal and Amazon having to now deal with printouts of all the cables themselves - do they shred them? Recycle them without shredding? Also imagine people who shouldn't be looking at them looking at them accidentally (like all those trying to apply for federal jobs).
DDoS the fax? Doesn't do much. But use the fax to DDoS the company is more interesting because someone has to handle the document in the end, and they have to look at the incoming fax to determine routing. They may have to read the cables whether they want to or not to figure out if it's something to can or forward. Black pages - canned easily (and since it's all electronic these days, costs disk space). But pages and pages of readable material...
Re:Okay that's some funny shit (Score:4, Informative)
since most of the major corporations have moved from hardcopy faxes to digital ones, easier to handle, less waste.
i would assume since Amazon...paypal are large enough and have enough corporate structure (rules) that they would have moved to digital faxes, expecially to fulfil their archive responsibilities
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Amazon and Paypal don't do classified work for the government, so they aren't bound by the same standards for destruction of classified documents as a defense contractor.
The places that actually do classified work for the government would have this "problem" solved in seconds. It's not like their shredders are slow, and it's quite common to have cleared office staff who'd be handling the material.
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I'm not sure this would have the desired effect at these locations.
I have four or five offices I administrate that receives faxes and stores them without ever printing. It looks through the image for the attention tag and then the name after that and attempts to assign it to an email of a specific person. If that doesn't work right, it goes to one of the receptionists who sees the first page and manually determines who to send it too. If that can't be figured out from that little bit of information, it then
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Can you fax me some white paper? I'm running out.
Re:Nice blunder! (Score:5, Insightful)
These large companies probably don't even have real fax machines. All a black-page fax would do is put a black-page PDF in some inbox or file share somewhere.
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...sure, it might go to a mail server as an attachment. ...but they have a limited number of phone lines, and all of the 1-page junk faxes in my inbox are 40k.
If their fax number is perpetually busy, then they're missing whatever business they need that fax for.
DDOS.
And because the fax line is for "real" business, someone has to, at minimum, open and look at all of them.
Further, despite the fact that I have a fax that dumps to my Exchange mailbox, it doesn't mean that we don't have physical fax machines sti
Re:I, for one, (Score:4, Informative)