Are the extremists really so ignorant? So far, the attack is successful:

• We know the group's name
• We know what the group wants
• The attack is very expensive to mitigate and powerful people/corporations are footing the bill

Peragrin's comment about "forgetting a liberal democracy" might be true. It seems like I read a story about our government selling out to the highest bidder every day. If something can't be scrubbed from the Internet without superhuman effort and/or government intervention, why not attack the people with money until they ask the government to solve the problem?

I'm probably stretching this comparison too far, but look at the 9/11 attacks by Al Qaeda for a moment. Did the victims of the attack have significant ability to change our country's foreign policy? I would say they didn't. We could argue about the United States being a democracy versus a republic and throw in some talk about our two party system, but that's not my point. One thing is certain - the attack acquired the attention of the party with the ability to enact some kind of change.

The changes resulting from the 9/11 attacks have been discussed here before, I won't try to enumerate them. What are the possible outcomes for this DDOS attack? Will the banks just eat the bill and wait for the world to change? What if the banks cut services to ISPs that don't require all customers to use trusted/secure hardware? Will our government change its policies with respect to free speech on the Internet? Will the attack dissolve before it costs anyone enough money to make a difference? How many times can things like this happen before "real change" is enacted?

The world is a big place with lots of people and ideas, the Internet may be bringing us together faster than we can handle. I hope the extremists are proven to be the ignorant party and that the world will learn to get along in the future. Then again, I'm probably very ignorant myself.

Gotta love the space heaters that they are... Keep your toes warm in the winter! =^_^=