science

Operation Payback

Operation Payback is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Operation Payback rather than just read about it. In short: Operation Payback was a coordinated, decentralized group of attacks on high-profile opponents of Internet piracy by Internet activists using the "Anonymous" moniker. Operation Payback started as retaliation to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on torrent sites; piracy proponents then decided to launch DDoS attacks on piracy opponents.

Key takeaways

Operation Payback belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Operation Payback to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Operation Payback from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Operation Payback was a coordinated, decentralized group of attacks on high-profile opponents of Internet piracy by Internet activists using the "Anonymous" moniker. Operation Payback started as retaliation to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on torrent sites; piracy proponents then decided to launch DDoS attacks on piracy opponents. The initial reaction snowballed into a wave of attacks on major pro-copyright and anti-piracy organizations, law firms, and individuals. The Motion Picture Association of America, the Pirate Party UK and United States Pirate Party criticised the attacks. Following the United States diplomatic cables leak in December 2010, the organizers commenced DDoS attacks on websites of banks who had withdrawn banking facilities from WikiLeaks.

Background and initial attacks In 2010, several Bollywood companies hired Aiplex Software to launch DDoS attacks on websites that did not respond to takedown notices. Piracy activists then created Operation Payback in September 2010 in retaliation. The original plan was to attack Aiplex Software directly, but upon finding some hours before the planned DDoS that another individual had taken down the firm's website on their own, Operation Payback moved to launching attacks against the websites of copyright stringent organisations Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, giving the two websites a combined total downtime of 30 hours. In the following two days, Operation Payback attacked a multitude of sites affiliated with the MPAA, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and British Phonographic Industry. Law firms such as ACS:Law, Davenport Lyons and Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver (of the US Copyright Group) were also attacked.

Attacks on the recording industry

Law firms On September 21, 2010, the website of United Kingdom law firm ACS:Law was subjected to a DDoS attack as part of Operation Payback. When asked about the attacks, Andrew Crossley, owner of ACS:Law, said: "It was only down for a few hours. I have far more concern over the fact of my train turning up 10 minutes late or having to queue for a coffee than them wasting my time with this sort of rubbish." When the site came back online a 350MB file, which was a backup of the site, was visible to anyone for a short period of time. The backup, which included copies of emails sent by the firm, was downloaded and made available on various peer-to-peer networks and websites including The Pirate Bay. Some of the emails contained unencrypted Excel spreadsheets, listing the names and addresses of people that ACS:Law had accused of illegally sharing media. One contained more than 5,300 Sky broadband customers whom they had accused of illegally sharing pornography, while another contained the details of 8,000 Sky customers and 400 Plusnet customers accused of infringing the copyright on music by sharing it on peer-to-peer networks. This alleged breach of the Data Protection Act has become part of the ongoing investigation into ACS:Law by the Information Commissioner's Office. On September 30, the Leesburg, Virginia office of Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver law firm – also doing business as the "U.S. Copyright Group" – was evacuated by the police after an emailed bomb threat was received. It's believed the event could be connected to Anonymous. Non-related copyright or law firms sites, such as websheriff.com, were also attacked. These attacks were originally organized through an Internet Relay Chat channel. The attacks also became a popular topic on Twitter.

Australian pro-copyright organization On September 27, 2010, the DDoS attack on the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) unintentionally brought down 8,000 other small websites hosted on the same server.

ACAPOR In September 2010, in an attempt to ensure that Portuguese citizens could not access thepiratebay.org, Associação do Comércio Audiovisual de Portugal (ACAPOR) filed a complaint against The Pirate Bay. The complaint was filed with the General Inspection of Cultural Activities, which is part of the Portuguese Ministry of Culture. According to the movie rental association, The Pirate Bay is directly responsible for about 15 million illegal downloads in Portugal every year. By installing a Pirate Bay block on all ISPs, ACAPOR hoped to decrease the financial damage it claims The Pirate Bay causes. On October 18, 2010, the ACAPOR website was defaced, presenting text from Operation Payback and a redirect to The Pirate Bay after a few seconds. In addition to defacing the website, a copy of the email database of ACAPOR was uploaded to The Pirate Bay. The leaked e-mails so far revealed ACAPOR's methods of denunciation, its dissatisfaction with the Portuguese government and justice system, its perception of the copyright debate as war, and its antagonism with the ISPs. ACAPOR claimed that "the business of ISPs is illegal downloading."

More attacks On October 4, 2010, Operation Payback launched an attack on the Ministry of Sound website and the Gallant Macmillan website. On October 7, 2010, they attacked the website of the Spanish copyright society, sgae.es. As of October 7, 2010, the total downtime for all websites attacked during Operation Payback was 537.55 hours. On October 15, 2010, Copyprotected.com was SQL injected and defaced, and three days later Operation Payback launched a DDoS attack against the UK Intellectual Property Office. Production companies SatelFilm.at and Wega-Film.at were hit by "drive-by" DDoSes on October 21, 2010, in response to their efforts to gain a court injunction against an ISP that refused to block a movie-streaming website, Operation Payback then knocked porn website Hustler.com offline the following day.

Musician and copyright advocate During the 2010 MIPCOM convention, Gene Simmons of Kiss stated:

Make sure your brand is protected ... Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line. In response to Simmons' comments, members of Operation Payback switched their attentions to his two websites, SimmonsRecords.com and GeneSimmons.com, taking them both offline for a total of 38 hours. At some point during the course of this DDoS, GeneSimmons.com was hacked and redirected to ThePirateBay.org. In response to the attack Simmons wrote:

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Operation Payback

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Operation Payback claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Operation Payback before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Operation Payback ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Operation Payback

In research: Operation Payback appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Operation Payback in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Operation Payback is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2010 crimes, Anonymous (hacker group), Cybercrime, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Operation Payback outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Operation Payback in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Operation Payback means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Operation Payback out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Operation Payback in simple terms?

Why does Operation Payback matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Operation Payback?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Operation Payback.