Anonymous defends the hungry - declares war on Orlando

by Steve Ragan - Jul 7 2011, 19:41

Update 3 (7/7/2011):

Operation: Orlando is still ongoing. There have been media reports of threats made against Orlando's Mayor, which are false, according to Anonymous.  However, someone did visit his house to deliver a protest flyer. For those keeping track, a complete history of the operation is here.

Update 2 (6/29/2011):

Moving Operation: Orlando forward, Anonymous singled out two targets on Wednesday.

First, the website for Lodge 25 of the Fraternal Order of Police, Orlando, has been up and down since about 10:14 a.m. EST. At the time this update was written, the site was online, but considerably slow.

The second target is the campaign website for Buddy Dyer, Orlando’s Mayor. In addition to normal DDoS methods, where a flood of traffic grinds the domain to a halt, Anonymous is also using an often unconsidered method of DoS attack, resource drain.

"We aim to keep Buddy’s site down for the rest of the [operation]," an Anon participating in the Orlando attacks told us, “As we found an easy way to do it that does not require many resources.”

When asked what this method was, the Anon went on to explain that before the attack started, it appears as if the campaign website assumed they would be targeted.

"They had a contact form and button, which was removed. However, they missed a couple other obvious points."

With just over twenty lines of code in total, a script is forcing the campaign’s website to spawn server processes, thanks to a single form on the homepage. The form is a signup for newsletters, requiring nothing more than an email address and zip code.

The script itself is here, but essentially, it fills out the registration form on a massive scale with fake addresses. Each time the form is submitted, a new server process is spawned, which taxes the CPU and Ram.

“They seem to be upping resources,” in an effort to stop the old-school Denial-of-Service attack, the Anon explained. 

“It was being held down with only one box yesterday, now it is taking a few. Adding more server resources on their end is the wrong way to solve the problem. A few lines of code on their end would prevent this from being possible.”

The campaign website, buddyfororlando.com, has been up and down all afternoon.

Original Article:

Food Not Bombs, an organization that has been sharing vegan and vegetarian meals with the homeless in Orlando, Florida, has gained support from Anonymous after members were arrested for city ordinance violations. For their part, Anonymous has said that the city’s actions are a clear declaration of war.

The City of Orlando has an ordinance that requires groups to obtain permits, at a limit of two per year, before they can hold mass feedings in parks within 2-miles of City Hall. When it comes to organized feedings, the ordinance actually stipulates limits on the number of people that can participate.

The ordinance actually exists because of Food Not Bombs and another group, the Vagabonds Church of God. In 2006, residents said that their weekly feedings were becoming disruptive. According to the Orlando Sentinel, some of those gathering for the free meals were creating a nuisance in the area, “aggressively panhandling, littering, using bushes as toilets, etc.”

Two years later, a federal court ruled that the ordinance was unconstitutional, citing that the Food Not Bombs’ actions were protected under free speech. Earlier this year, that ruling was overturned, but the appeals court maintained that feeding the homeless is free speech.

Yet, the court added that the ordinance served the city's “substantial interest in managing park property and spreading the burden of large group feedings throughout a greater area.” So the law itself was not infringing on the group’s rights. The court fight is ongoing.

As things stand now however, Food Not Bombs has exhausted their allotment of permits, so the police have started to arrest members for feeding too many people too often.

Orlando Mayor, Buddy Dyer, has been quoted by the media, reporting that he is fed up with the humanitarian group, going so far as to call them food terrorists. Food Not Bombs says that they share meals to protest war, poverty and the destruction of the environment.

“With over a billion people going hungry each day how can we spend another dollar on war,” the group asks on their website.

Those who have already been arrested, including worldwide President of Food Not Bombs Keith Mchenry, will be arrested again if they arrive at Lake Eola Park, only the next arrest will be for trespassing.

When asked their opinion about the police actions on June 6 by WFTV, one volunteer commented, “This is ridiculous, I was sharing food with people who need it. Food is a basic right, food is not a privilege.”

As word of Food Not Bombs’ problems spread around the Internet, Anonymous took notice. It started with a DDoS attack on Orlando’s Chamber of Commerce website, in addition to email campaigns. However, Anonymous offered the city a chance to fix things, by announcing a ceasefire. When more arrests occurred, OpOrlando pushed forward.

“The City of Orlando has ignored our warnings, and our generous offer of a cease fire. On Wednesday last you not only arrested two more people for feeding but you arrested the worldwide President of Food Not Bombs Keith Mchenry. This is a declaration of war,” the message stated.

Anonymous said that they will begin a massive campaign against Orlando.

"Everyday we will launch a new DDoS attack on a different Target. We will continue to E-Mail millions of people in 50 countries with the Boycott Orlando campaign message…,” the message added.

“Tomorrow morning at exactly 10:00 AM ET Anonymous will remove from the World Wide Web - www.orlandofloridaguide.com - and it shall remain down until 6:00 PM ET. We will also E-Mail Bomb and Black Fax the owners of this site, identified as one Utopia, Inc.”

In addition to the announcement of further attacks, the message also encouraged local police and other officials to expose insider information, sending it to LocalLeaks.tk.

"In our experience a government that acts this way is also corrupt."

Update: The site was offline from 9:52 a.m. EST until 5:57 p.m. EST. So it looks as if Anonymous kept to their promised timeline. Emails to the company seeking comment were not returned.

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