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Feds Arrest GeneSimmons.Com Attacker 180

gManZboy writes "Federal authorities have arrested an alleged member of Anonymous in connection with an "Operation Payback" attack against the website of Kiss bassist Gene Simmons. The charges stem from a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack against Simmons' website over a five-day period in 2010. Simmons apparently drew the ire of the Anonymous set after he lambasted their peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading proclivities during a 2010 MIPCOM entertainment content media conference panel discussion, where he lamented the failure of the music industry 'to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material.'"
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Feds Arrest GeneSimmons.Com Attacker

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  • by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:19PM (#38378244) Homepage Journal

    Not a lot of people really visit these sites anyway. If you want to lambaste the guy do it on twitter or facebook.

    Advice to Gene Simmons - don't make China angry.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      What is important to note is that Gene Simmons, being Jewish, is the ultimate bad stereotype and does nothing but harm acceptance of his people. He is greedy, has a large nose, has adopted a reptilian("demonic") stage persona, and is pissing off the same demographic that made him rich decades ago.

      In a series of brief interview excerpts shown on Entertainment Weekly's [ew.com] website, celebrities are asked what the best gifts they received were:

      BRITNEY SPEARS - ''This little butterfly necklace I got from my little sister. She always liked butterflies.''
      GENE SIMMONS - ''Shares in Krispy Kreme. I made a handsome profit.''

      My heart goes out to the captured anon and I hope that Gene takes a

      • by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:37PM (#38378472)

        You name it and he has s KISS logo slapped on it, everything from coffins to condoms...

      • by identity0 ( 77976 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @10:02PM (#38379636) Journal

        Oh wow, you didn't even post the even more stark comparison with the one below his:

        GENE SIMMONS ''Shares in Krispy Kreme. I made a handsome profit.''

        DORIS ROBERTS (''Everybody Loves Raymond'') ''At Ground Zero, the policemen and the firemen gave me a flag and a piece of the first tower that went down. I cried so...I asked, 'Why are you giving this to me?' and they said, 'We've been here since 9/11 looking for pieces of our friends. Then we go home at night and turn on the telly, and there you are making us laugh. You bring us back into life.'''

        Really, Gene? Did you really need those Krispy Kreme shares? Were you hit by high cocaine prices that trashed your savings?

        Mods, please stop hitting the parent post with flamebait tags, it really is insightful about Gene Simmons.

        • Were you hit by high cocaine prices that trashed your savings?

          Mods, please stop hitting the parent post with flamebait tags, it really is insightful about Gene Simmons.

          Your first statement demonstrates you are anything but insightful about Gene Simmons.

          • Boo hoo, did I hurt your feeling by making fun of your favorite clown? At least if it was cocaine he would have an excuse.

            Just looked this idiot up, he supposedly claims never to have done drugs? I guess he has no excuse then, other than "I'm greedy as fuck"

            But not knowing by memory the personal lives of washed-up has-beens from the 70s means it's not "insightful" to point out that he's a douchebag? You and other celebrity fanboys are sick.

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Didnt realize (or really care) that he was Jewish. Just thought he was an all around jerk... But hey his music is decent...

        The lead singer for a band that epitomized monetizing music and you somehow think him being Jewish has any bearing on the matter. Maybe he is just a greedy person? You do realize that greedy people exist right? If you didnt realize he was a jerk long ago you were seriously not paying attention...

        • by mcgrew ( 92797 ) *

          The lead singer for a band that epitomized monetizing music and you somehow think him being Jewish has any bearing on the matter.

          His point was that it furthers a negative stereotype. He wasn't bashing Jews, he was bashing Gene Simmons for making his race look bad. Hell, if I were Jewish I'd probably make the same remark. The fact is that there are jerks of all races, and if you're a stereotypical jerk, regardless of race or stereotype, you're making your own people look bad.

      • Check out Gene Klein's hot wife [zimbio.com]!

        Oh wait, that was his daughter.

        Here is Gene Klein's hot shiksa wife [iofferphoto.com].

        Well, ok, maybe his daughter is hotter than her mother. Must be Gene's genes working their magic for the next generation.

    • by drnb ( 2434720 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @09:50PM (#38379588)

      Advice to Gene Simmons - don't make China angry.

      Why would China be angry with Gene, where do you think the crap he sells is made?

  • Proxies (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hatta ( 162192 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:19PM (#38378248) Journal

    Guess 7 isn't enough.

  • excellent (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Trepidity ( 597 ) <[delirium-slashdot] [at] [hackish.org]> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:27PM (#38378338)

    I cannot think of a better use of taxpayer money.

    • Re:excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:41PM (#38378524)

      Interesting how nobody in the banking community who caused so much hardship for America, Europe and the rest of the world got arrested, and yet the authorities spent years tracking down a "freckle faced kid" who hacked a useless website.

      We all know were the priorities of government and industry lie [newworldorderreport.com].

      • Re:excellent (Score:4, Insightful)

        by the linux geek ( 799780 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @08:28PM (#38378938)
        Which specific people in "the banking community" would you have arrested, and for what specific crime?

        I agree that they fucked things up, but going into witch-hunt mode might not be desirable.
        • Re:excellent (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 15, 2011 @12:56AM (#38380488)

          How about they start with Jamie Dimon (fraud: robo-signing), Lloyd Blankfein (fraud: MBS sales), and throw in Hank Paulson (coercion, fraud) [blogspot.com] for good measure?

          That you would let these complete and total unethical assholes off the hook so easily is extremely disturbing. I sincerely hope you are just trolling. When you wake up one day and wonder why everything went to hell, look at the actions of the above people and realize they were major contributors to it. Not just them either, thousands like them, hiding in the shadows of legal grey areas, loopholes, and outright purchased freedom from prosecution. Steal trillions of dollars and claim it's a-ok because they managed to skirt the law through arcane convolution that prosecutors couldn't understand. Issue threats like "tanks in the streets" whenever regulation or prosecution talk was brought up.

          These individuals are truly worthy of the title "financial terrorist".

          Oh, and fuck gene simmons. Another worthless stain on capitalism's bathroom floor.

          • by geekoid ( 135745 )

            Since you are AC and offer no actual proof.

            Anonymous Coward(fraud: liar and troll)

            see, easy.

        • Which specific people in "the banking community" would you have arrested, and for what specific crime?

          Do you really think that Raj Rajaratnam and the few people around him in Galleon who pleaded guilty are the only people in hedge funds making money from insider trading?

        • by sheddd ( 592499 )
          How about the CEO of countrywide for one? http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7390540n&tag=contentMain;contentBody [slashdot.org]
          • by sheddd ( 592499 )
            Aargh... bad link; sorry. My HTML is rusty. Here it is, and I'd charge him with fraud. link [cbsnews.com]
      • by geekoid ( 135745 )

        Stop spreading the lie. People have gone to jail, and more are going through the court system.

        You know, it's easy not to find anyone who went to jail when you don't look.

    • Re:excellent (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PopeRatzo ( 965947 ) * on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @10:22PM (#38379728) Journal

      I cannot think of a better use of taxpayer money.

      Quoth, Gene Simmons:

      "Make sure your brand is protected," Simmons said. "Make sure there are no incursions. Be litigious. Sue everybody. Take their homes, their cars. Don't let anybody cross that line."

      One possibly better use of taxpayer money would be a Predator strike on Gene Simmons' house, then making sure that his progeny are all imprisoned, to the seventh generation.

      I do believe however, that lenience should be shown to the eighth generation, because to do otherwise would be overkill.

  • I thought the whole point of KISS was the live shows, are there actually people out there who routinely listen to their music?
    • by Spodi ( 2259976 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:39PM (#38378494)
      Of course! Just like GWAR, they are famous for their beautiful and melodic music, not their elaborate stage performances that involve covering the audience in monster blood and semen.
      • by LoRdTAW ( 99712 )

        Gwar actually has talent unlike Kiss. Sure their vulgar lyrics, ridiculous costumes and whacky stage performances most likely keep them out of the mainstream, but fuck they are awesome. Only show I can go to and really have a good laugh. Its like a musical comedy.

      • Their live shows may be more infamous than their music, but that isn't to say GWAR didn't have a few good songs. Don't be shy now, it won't bite. You can have a listen and decide for yourself.

    • As a child of the 70's and 80's, I can unequivocally state the following:

      KISS was a lot of make-up-wearing poofters.

      Notice the WAS. That is because Gene Simmons is a HAS-BEEN.

      Gene Simmons FTL.

      • KISS was a has-been in 1985. It's a has-has-has-has-been by now, and KISS has basically been Paul Stanley's vehicle for a couple of decades anyways.

      • by Artifakt ( 700173 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @10:19PM (#38379718)

        People point out that there are some very good bands that have never made the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (Rush and Yes for two). Then they mention that Kiss hasn't either, and all the Rush and Yes fans realize the process isn't completely broken and chill.

        • While I completely agree that both Yes and Rush should absolutely be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I think that Kiss should be in as well. There is no comparing Kiss with either Rush or Yes in terms of musicianship or songwriting to be sure. But, in terms of showmanship you do have to acknowledge Kiss. I'm not saying they're for everyone, and yes they were over the top but you have to admit that at the time, they were an absolute phenomenon. In the late 70's, you simply couldn't escape Kiss,
  • by BitHive ( 578094 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:36PM (#38378452) Homepage

    Just listen to some of the shit he says to Terry Gross:

    http://www.erim.net/archives/gene-simmons-and-terry-gross-inteview [erim.net]

  • Gene SImmons (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <{moc.oohay} {ta} {dnaltropnidad}> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:36PM (#38378454) Homepage Journal

    is a has been ass who thinks the world owes him money.

    • Hey if it has a kiss sticker on it you owe him royalties. Is there anything out there without a kiss sticker?
  • Big surprise (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RobinEggs ( 1453925 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:38PM (#38378492)
    Anonymous would be a lot more effective if they focused on one thing longer than a week...they've done everything from embarrassment campaigns against child pornographers to hacking secret societies and crime syndicates to various political hacks to that one bizarre incident where they organized a hate mail campaign against a teenager with an anti-profanity site.

    They fancy themselves hacktivists but they don't seem to try very hard at sending messages to the public, which I assume is who you'd like to reach if you think the entire government and corporate landscapes are irredeemably corrupt.

    Bottom line, I don't get them. I don't think they have to be an absolutely coherent, focused force with an official spokesperson in a tie to be taken seriously, but they usually don't even seem like they're trying to change something; they're just fucking around and punishing people at random.
    • Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by rev0lt ( 1950662 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:57PM (#38378666)
      So, are you saying an internet mob still behaves like a mob? Interesting :)
    • Re:Big surprise (Score:5, Informative)

      by Trepidity ( 597 ) <[delirium-slashdot] [at] [hackish.org]> on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @08:03PM (#38378724)

      you do realize that "Anonymous" is just any person who calls themselves that, right?

    • by bky1701 ( 979071 )
      The whole point is arguably that "anonymous" strikes entirely randomly. If you do something dickish, there is always the chance you'll be targetted, which is probably more effective than hammering specific people for long periods of time.

      Anyway, they/we can focus on some things. Ask the Scientologists.
      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by artor3 ( 1344997 )

        Unless of course you do something dickish as part of anonymous, which is quite common. They're just a roving mob of thugs. Sometimes they attack someone who deserves it. Sometimes they attack someone who they thought deserves it, but is actually innocent. Sometimes they attack someone who did do something wrong, but their attacks are all out of proportion with the deserved punishment. Sometimes they just hurt random strangers for laughs.

        They're basically a sterling example of why anarchist mob justice

        • Anonymous isn't one roving mob of thugs. It's just a self-applied label any random mob of thugs can give itself on an ad-hoc basis to attempt to convey some sense of menace. Which is why expecting any of these completely unrelated groups of people to follow some predetermined M.O. is naive at best.
    • Re:Big surprise (Score:4, Interesting)

      by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @11:35PM (#38380128) Homepage

      I see you fail to understand 'Anonymous'. There is no group, there are only individuals who choose to conduct a protest activity and donate the outcome of that activity to 'Anonymous' rather that taking individual or group credit for the activity.

      So anyone at any time can conduct protest activity and proclaim that activity to be the work of 'Anonymous'. There is no group, no conspiracy, just individual choice to participate in protest activity. In the case of denial of service, nothing more than the temporary non-damaging disruption of a marketing channel and where more than one person participates, all that counts is the individual effort. So they must prove that the persons who was involved actually did disrupt, rather that the total efforts of many people ie you can not change one person with an outcome produce by many people, only their individual impact can be measured and whether that would have impacted the service.

  • by girlintraining ( 1395911 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @07:39PM (#38378496)
    The loss to the KISS artist was estimated to be in the tens of dollars, the FBI reported today, after rounding up one of the freckled, young college kids mentioned. The FBI plans to drain the young adult's blood and pump it into the ancient man to revitalize him in time for his next comeback tour, which will feature duets by him and Lars Ulrich talking about how hard it is for them to get by on only a few hundred million a year. Common Sense was unavailable for comment at the time of the article's publication...
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by cffrost ( 885375 )

        Mr Simmons, asshole or not, appears to have had his rights to free speech violated by the attackers who prevented his website from functioning.

        Gimmie a break, Mr. Mnky. Half of the country suffered exposure to this insufferable asshole's mean-spirited rant. Wasn't this Gene Sickens or whatever you call it anticipating a reply? I think that's a reasonable expectation to have when one spews vitriol directed towards the public at large.

        From my perspective, the curtailment of free speech began when the FBI arrested a member of the public for allegedly participating in a public dialog that this crotchety old lizard initiated.

    • by artor3 ( 1344997 )

      Update: Common Sense has been missing for years, and is presumed dead.

  • Legally or illegally, who in their right mind would download anything by Gene Simmons?

  • i think gene simmons is a gigantic douche, but script kiddies are even worse.

    seriously, a DDoS? all that b/w wasted sucks for everyone. lame.

    • by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @10:06PM (#38379656) Journal
      i think gene simmons is a gigantic douche, but script kiddies are even worse.

      You are wrong. The kids will grow out of it in a few years.
      • bahahahahaha!

        to really understand the success of KISS, you had to be around in the 1970's. black sabbath was still "underground" (far too scary for the masses), and music was still harmless, sappy, and/or depressing. kiss comes along and every 14-18 year old suddenly had a raging hard on to terrify their parents. sad to look at it this way, but KISS were the badasses of pop metal. and even the term metal is a stretch: their music was too melodic and "bluesy" to qualify. of course, when i see posters f

        • All visual / theatrical stuff aside, KISS makes Slipknot look like a group of highbrow musical geniuses.

        • to really understand the success of KISS, you had to be around in the 1970's. black sabbath was still "underground" (far too scary for the masses), and music was still harmless, sappy, and/or depressing. kiss comes along and every 14-18 year old suddenly had a raging hard on to terrify their parents.

          If, as Wikipedia claims, KISS's major success started circa 1975, hadn't Alice Cooper already been successful doing something like that for four or so years already at that point (i.e. "scary-for-the-time" light-horror schtick enough to upset more conservative parents while still getting mainstream TV and radio exposure) ? And in a manner that would be more convincing to the 14-18 year olds you mention?

          I'm neither American, nor old enough to remember Alice Cooper nor Kiss's keyday, but from what I underst

          • by Pope ( 17780 )

            Alice Cooper had been doing it for a while when KISS broke out, only they were vying for the mainstream audience where more money would be made, Cooper was still doing it for the performance aspect. KISS went for the teenagers, Cooper went for the adults.

          • That's a good point, as I was a kiss fan when I was 10 but only because my +6 year older cousin and sister were into KISS. And my grandmother would enjoy watching us jump around their albums. Lol. Even she was into it, so I guess they were uber lame. At the time I remember Cooper was for the burnouts that cut class to smoke or get high, kiss was for the wannabees. Further, listening to them as I got older (much older!) I think Cooper was a real musician struggling to get his music out of his head, with

  • Your taxes at work.

  • by The Archon V2.0 ( 782634 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @08:32PM (#38378974)

    where he lamented the failure of the music industry 'to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who downloaded material

    Wonder if he's so quick to lament the failure of manga publishers to sue every fresh-faced, freckle-faced college kid who traced material and then sold it as their own?

    For anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about, look into Nick Simmons' "Incarnate". Not hard to find, just search for the words "Simmons" and "Incarnate" in a search engine and notice how many times the world "plagiarism" can turn up on a single results page.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Thanks for the informative comment. Tasty tasty hypocrisy.

      Found a nice link: http://bleachness.livejournal.com/446299.html [livejournal.com]

      • HAHAHA hypocrisy overload! XD

        Seriously, how did he think he could get away with that for even a second!?

        For those of you not into anime/manga at all, this is like ripping off Star Wars 4-6 just after 6 came out, with scene-for-scene copies of all the most iconic parts. If anything it is worse than that. It will be hard for you to appreciate.

        • by Raenex ( 947668 )

          HAHAHA hypocrisy overload!

          Nick Simmons != Gene Simmons

          Now if Gene tried to bullshit that what his son did was OK, then you'd have a point.

  • by Ben_R_R ( 1177533 ) on Wednesday December 14, 2011 @08:52PM (#38379146)
    I first read it as "Feds Arrest Gene Simmons". You can imagine my disappointment.
  • Gene Simmons can suck it ....

    Last I heard, he got involved in Wall Street stock trading as his new career .... so *any* whining coming from THAT corner about stealing, I turn a deaf ear to.

    (I knew a guy who did I.T. for one of the major firms providing real-time stock quote services to Wall Street traders and he said he met Simmons at one of their parties he got invited to. He still kept KISS figurines on his desk at the firm, but was dressed up in your typical business suit and dress slacks/shoes -- which

  • "Simmons apparently drew the ire of the Anonymous set after he lambasted their peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading proclivities..."

    And then his son traced whole pages out of the Japanese manga 'Bleach' and proceeded to make his own even more terrible comic book out of it. Could that possibly have something to do with it? (Or was this before that? Either way, pretty damned funny!)

  • Maybe give Joe Adler [youtube.com] a call? (Yes, this is a perhaps copyright-infringing clip from Extract.)

  • I never heard about this one before, but if Gene is like Lars, and is trying to cry about losing money for his songs being downloaded, I have to say, he is even more out of touch than I thought, but then again, isn't he going senile now?

  • It seems clear from reading the posts that many of you really do not understand what happened here. So I will explain it to you.
    1) The accused is accused of leading a DOS attack. Not participating but leading it. That's important.
    2) While it is true that he is facing 15 years for this, I would think it's unlikely that he'll do get that much time. Assuming he is a first time offender and he doesn't act like a complete jerk in court and his attorney also doesn't cop an attitude, if he is convicted

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