Operation Freedom is a subversive attempt to enlist criminal hackers in non-free nations to the spread of messages and information that are illegal in those nations. Hackers will be arrested and the possession of illegal content - such as Freedom, Tianamen Square, or Israel. Or, perhaps the authorities of those nations will allow that traffic to continue and ultimately support the cause of freedom.
Like many other web sites, Mightyware has endured its share of hacking attacks, against which, law enforcement is utterly powerless. We instinctively want to hit back in some way.
The largest problem is that hackers tend to be located in countries where hacking and other forms of IP Theft are tolerated. China and former Warsaw Pact countries come to mind, but also middle eastern nations. There, authorities turn a blind eye - for them, attacking Western infrastructure is a winning proposition, and a lucrative one.
A simple answer for a web host is often to block traffic from offending nations. While this approach can help, it is flawed. The proliferation of botnets and other forms of indirect assault makes the job of deciding who to block more difficult. If a criminal in China directs a computer in Australia to attack your site, you can't know who it was that did it. In any case, cutting yourself off is not the same as hitting back.
Now notice! Hacker host nations also tend to be dictatorships of one sort or another. Many make a great deal of effort to filter content and connections from western computers as their citizens do not have free speech. Such taboo topics as inalienable rights, freedom, democracy, and representation are often blocked. Much ado is made about the "Great Firewall of China", for example. Armed with this information, we can think of another thing to do. We can link our subversion to their hacking.
Operation Freedom is simple. Whenever a computer has to communicate as part of an internet protocol, it should send back a message that is subversive, democratic, and illegal in non-western nations, in as many ways possible. Quite simply, if an authority in China, or Russia, allows your computer to be attacked, they must also understand that your computer will be propagating messages about western ideals and ultimately influencing the minds of those who actually control the keys to communications within those nations. Machines participating in Operation Freedom will either be allowed to communicate western ideas in order to be attacked, or they will be left alone. Either way, the West wins.
SMTP is a hacker favorite. Hackers love to attack mail servers. They want to use our mail servers to send SPAM to unsuspecting third parties. But SMTP sends a message. For example, mightyware's SMTP used to say something like:
220 li97-xxx.members.linode.com ESMTP Postfix (Debian)
We can make our message subversive and illegal in rogue nations. In Postfix, this message can be controlled by editing our main.cf.
smtpd_banner = $myhostname ESMTP $mail_name (Operation Freedom Confirmed)
Other SMTP servers have similar ways to configure the message. Note that, in Postfix, you really need to leave the part outside of the parenthesis alone. Otherwise, legitimate mail servers may not be able to connect. In any case, any time someone connects to our mail server, the first little bit of traffic to go out is this:
220 li97-xxx.members.linode.com ESMTP Postfix (Operation Freedom Confirmed)
Thus, we leave it for the curious intruder in downtown Beijing or Tehran to mull over the implications of what being confirmed in Operation Freedom might actually mean, and imagine for a moment what authorities monitoring his or her traffic might do. In the future, we will replace, manually at first, but then perhaps in an automated fashion, that Operation Freedom message with any number of supposedly subversive sayings.
...and so on...the main point is: always send back content that is illegal in the countries that are hacking you
Other protocols have places to stick subversive text as well. Your web server, no doubt, can be configured to include a subversive piece of text in its http headers. Similarly, ftp and secure ftp servers, remote shells, all have some sort of greeting message.
Your freedom of speech is just as subversive to them, as their hacking is to you. Subvert the world with freedom! Who knows, you might help overthrow a dictatorship, or, get a hacker tossed behind bars. Is either bad? It's not like you have anything to lose!