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Yet now that the attacks have subsided, it’s time to see them for what they are: Nothing more than a blunt instrument that accomplishes nothing constructive.

As of today, only one of the Web sites attacked by the hacker troupe Anonymous is still apparently affected, and that belongs to the Universal Music Group recording label. It currently displays only a message saying “The Site is under maintenance. Please expect it to be back shortly.” Others that had been attacked yesterday, including the sites of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America all seemed to be operating normally.

Thursday’s attacks, which have been described as the biggest action yet organized by Anonymous, were launched in apparent revenge for the FBI’s arrest of several people associated with the file-sharing site Megaupload.com over suspicions of online piracy. Taking place against the backdrop of a wider, more civil protest against anti-piracy legislation currently before the U.S. Congress, the atmosphere around the attacks has been politically charged.

As Molly Wood of CNET put it, the #OpMegaUpload attacks — coming as they did on the heels of Wednesday’s peaceful anti-SOPA protest — seem like an “unsettling wave of car-burning hooligans that sweep in and incite the riot portion of the play,” spurring equally unsettling reactions from the powers that be.

Many outlets have portrayed the attacks as “hacks,” implying that someone had picked a lock in order to commit some kind of sabotage. But the tactic used — a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack — is more aptly compared to a blunt instrument, requiring neither skill nor knowledge, only large numbers of willing participants who team up to swarm a site with more requests than it can accommodate and thus overwhelm its ability to function normally.

The adjective “willing” is debatable, and perhaps inaccurate. Anonymous was able to generate such impressive numbers with the operation — it claimed more than 5,000 participants — by spamming a link in chat rooms and via Twitter that, when clicked, triggered a tool used to launch the attack. People tricked into following the link are given no context or information, and so may or may not have any idea that they’re participating in the execution of a crime.

For the record, it is illegal in the U.S., the U.K., Sweden and other countries to launch and participate in a DDoS attack like the one Anonymous organized. As anyone who has observed the evolution of Anonymous (and its various affiliates using the names LulzSec and AntiSec) should know, the FBI arrested 16 people last July, many of them charged with participating in a DDoS attack against PayPal in protest of its shutting down an account used by WikiLeaks.

In 2009, a New Jersey man was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for launching a DDoS attack against the Church of Scientology. And in 2010, a 23-year-old Ohio man was sentenced to 30 months in prison for launching DDoS attacks against several prominent U.S. conservatives, including the author Ann Coulter, former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani and Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly.

Records like that suggest to me that DDoS attacks never accomplish anything that the people who organize and carry them out attempt to do. At most, they inconvenience the people who visit and operate the targeted sites for a few hours, until the attention spans of the attackers shift elsewhere. They also generate headlines that are forgotten by nearly everyone except the targets, and sometimes law enforcement.

And so it will be this time. Mark your calendars, because the Megaupload revenge attacks will spur a series of arrests later this year. Some of those arrested will be people who didn’t know they were committing a crime. And that certainly won’t help Anonymous’ image. Nor will it further a single bit of what passes for the Anonymous agenda.

It is saying a lot about this video that the CGI news wizards at Next Media Animation have produced a doozy.

It’s based on a report by Forbes.com, which asked the two largest pest exterminators, Orkin and Terminix, in the U.S. to pick the cities with the worst infestations of bedbugs.

Those would be New York, Chicago, Detroit, Columbus and Cincinnati.

And how NMA decided to illustrate it, well, you might look at deep-dish pizza a little differently after seeing it.

Enjoy:

“We as members of Congress are never inclined to censor testimony in open congressional hearings,” Rep. Zachary Space, an Ohio Democrat, said when introducing the professor, Eben Moglen. “But Congress tries to foster highest level of decorum. I would ask you to avoid personal attacks against any companies or company employees.”

The hearing focused on the possibility of legislation requiring data companies and Web browser makers to provide a “do not track” tool allowing people to opt out of having their Web surfing tracked.

In written remarks submitted before the hearing, Mr. Moglen did not mention “do not track” but talked generally about online privacy. He criticized Facebook Inc. extensively, describing the social networking site’s privacy settings as “mere deception.” Facebook “has uncontrolled access to everybody’s data, regardless of the so-called ‘privacy settings,’” he wrote.

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Here at All Things Digital, we’ve always prided ourselves on our journalism efforts, while also fully embracing the fast-paced new world of blogging.

So, we could not be more thrilled to announce the hiring of Ina Fried as our new reporter and blogger, covering the critically important mobile beat. She is pictured here.

Her new beat will range from wireless carriers like AT&T; to handset makers, such as Nokia and Research in Motion; to the smartphone kingpins, Google and Apple.

And if Facebook ever does make a phone, Ina will surely have the scoop.

Mobile is a beat that reaches across companies and is at the dead center of Web 3.0.

Ina is one of several new journalists we will be announcing over the next week, part of an expansion of the ATD universe. That includes a recently announced new conference series, beginning with D: Dive Into Mobile.

There is much more to come, but let’s focus on the stylings of Ina first.

As most people know, she has been at CNET for the past 10 years, most recently covering Microsoft as a senior writer.

And although she hasn’t been focused solely on mobile, Ina has been covering the area since 2000, when folks like Kyocera were trying to shove a Palm Pilot and a phone together, most recently doing a behind-the-scenes series for CNET on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

During her time at the tech news site, she also covered Apple for four years and led CNET’s coverage of the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger, as well as covering all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the Audrey (I have no idea what that is, but Walt Mossberg does).

Before that, she covered the chip industry for financial wire service Bridge News and also worked at the Orange Country Register and Orange County Business Journal.

She’s a graduate of Miami University (she reminds me that’s the one in Ohio not Florida, pointing out they are better at ice hockey than football.)

Beyond breaking all kinds of stories on the Microsoft beat, Ina has closely followed Bill Gates in his shift from software titan to global philanthropist, interviewing him frequently and tagging along on his college speaking tour earlier this year. (Last week she published separate interviews with Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the same day.)

Ina also traveled to Brazil and Colombia to explore the impact of computing in emerging markets.

She’s a former vice president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and has won a number of journalism awards, including some that she says would be seriously dangerous during an earthquake.

For example, she was named three times as one of the top 30 financial journalists under 30 by TJFR and has also been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists and Western Publishers Association, among others.

A huge softball fanatic, part of the reason she won’t start at ATD until late November is that her women’s softball team is headed to the gay softball World Series in Las Vegas (I wonder if Audrey is going).

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with Ina by following her on Twitter at Twitter.com/inafried.

Here at All Things Digital, we’ve always prided ourselves on our journalism efforts, while also fully embracing the fast-paced new world of blogging.

So, we could not be more thrilled to announce the hiring of Ina Fried as our new reporter and blogger, covering the critically important mobile beat. She is pictured here.

Her new beat will range from wireless carriers like AT&T; to handset makers, such as Nokia and Research in Motion; to the smartphone kingpins, Google and Apple.

And if Facebook ever does make a phone, Ina will surely have the scoop.

Mobile is a beat that reaches across companies and is at the dead center of Web 3.0.

Ina is one of several new journalists we will be announcing over the next week, part of an expansion of the ATD universe. That includes a recently announced new conference series, beginning with D: Dive Into Mobile.

There is much more to come, but let’s focus on the stylings of Ina first.

As most people know, she has been at CNET for the past 10 years, most recently covering Microsoft as a senior writer.

And although she hasn’t been focused solely on mobile, Ina has been covering the area since 2000, when folks like Kyocera were trying to shove a Palm Pilot and a phone together, most recently doing a behind-the-scenes series for CNET on the birth of Windows Phone 7.

During her time at the tech news site, she also covered Apple for four years and led CNET’s coverage of the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq merger, as well as covering all manner of gadgets from the Palm Pilot to the Audrey (I have no idea what that is, but Walt Mossberg does).

Before that, she covered the chip industry for financial wire service Bridge News and also worked at the Orange Country Register and Orange County Business Journal.

She’s a graduate of Miami University (she reminds me that’s the one in Ohio not Florida, pointing out they are better at ice hockey than football.)

Beyond breaking all kinds of stories on the Microsoft beat, Ina has closely followed Bill Gates in his shift from software titan to global philanthropist, interviewing him frequently and tagging along on his college speaking tour earlier this year. (Last week she published separate interviews with Gates and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on the same day.)

Ina also traveled to Brazil and Colombia to explore the impact of computing in emerging markets.

She’s a former vice president of the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association and has won a number of journalism awards, including some that she says would be seriously dangerous during an earthquake.

For example, she was named three times as one of the top 30 financial journalists under 30 by TJFR and has also been honored by the Society of Professional Journalists and Western Publishers Association, among others.

A huge softball fanatic, part of the reason she won’t start at ATD until late November is that her women’s softball team is headed to the gay softball World Series in Las Vegas (I wonder if Audrey is going).

In the meantime, you can keep up to date with Ina by following her on Twitter at Twitter.com/inafried.

Here’s one very kooky political performance, by a Republican nominee for Stark County, Ohio, treasurer named Phil Davison.

Davison did not win, but he does manage to finally top former Democratic presidential candidate and former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean in the intensely crazy and deeply awkward speech department.

Enjoy, with the infamous Dean clip below it for comparison:

Oh, that scamp John Mayer is such a jokester.

Here’s a spoof video the singer did in the wake of all the controversy around the basketball star choosing Miami to play for and leaving behind a dejected and angry Cleveland.

Big surprise, given his promiscuous reputation: Mayer will play his music for everyone.

Enjoy:

The Florida Elections Commission has decided a mayoral candidate’s ads on Google and Facebook appear to violate the state’s election law because they don’t include a disclaimer that indicates who bought them. Many other states, including Texas, Alaska, Connecticut and Ohio, also require similar disclaimers.

The candidate’s campaign, however, argues that the messages in question aren’t technically ads, but rather links to ads, and that it doesn’t pay for them unless a Web user clicks on them.

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Diebold Elections Systems is changing its name to Premier Election Solutions. The change to Premier signifies a new beginning for the company.”

– Diebold Press Release, Aug. 16, 2007

So the hundreds of votes that were dropped in Ohio’s March primary elections? The ones that Premier Election Solutions, formerly called Diebold Election Systems (DBD), insisted were caused by faulty antivirus software and not a critical source code error?

They were caused by a source code error–one that’s been present in the company’s software for the past decade. Said Premier (Diebold) President Dave Byrd, “We are indeed distressed that our previous analysis of this issue was in error.”

Yeah, I bet you are. But not nearly as distressed as the voters who will use the company’s machines in upcoming elections. Remember, Premier (Diebold) is the company that designed its widely criticized electronic voting systems in such a way that the the locks protecting them from tampering can be picked open with a hotel minibar key. The company posted a detailed photograph of its authorized key, showing size, shape, and cut pattern, on its online store. It’s the company whose e-voting machines once relied on hard-coded security passwords like “1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8″ and “11111.” It’s the company that evaded election transparency laws in North Carolina. It’s the company that can’t seem to safeguard its source code. And it’s the company that modified its machines without notifying election officials. Twice.

So much for that “new beginning.” Once a Diebold, always a Diebold, eh?

“The findings in this study indicate that the computer-based voting systems in use in Ohio do not meet computer industry security standards and are susceptible to breaches of security that may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process,” said Brunner. “To put it in everyday terms, the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as … using a magnet and a personal digital assistant.”

A Treo and a magnet? That’s all you’d need to compromise Ohio’s electronic voting systems? All of them? Yes. “It was worse than I anticipated,” Brunner told the New York Times. “I had hoped that perhaps one system would test superior to the others.”

So what’s the solution? Brunner recommends Ohio’s electronic voting systems be replaced with optical-scan paper ballot machines. But that’s expensive, and, some say, unecessary. “Certainly this report … will just absolutely throw Ohio into a complete tailspin going into the presidential election,” said Hamilton County Board of Elections Director John Williams. “I don’t think there has ever been a documented case of that happening. There certainly has never been a prosecution. … If you gave me the keys to the bank and combination of the safe, do you think I could break in? I could. Those again are not real-world scenarios under which we operate.”

“The findings in this study indicate that the computer-based voting systems in use in Ohio do not meet computer industry security standards and are susceptible to breaches of security that may jeopardize the integrity of the voting process,” said Brunner. “To put it in everyday terms, the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as … using a magnet and a personal digital assistant.”

A Treo and a magnet? That’s all you’d need to compromise Ohio’s electronic voting systems? All of them? Yes. “It was worse than I anticipated,” Brunner told the New York Times. “I had hoped that perhaps one system would test superior to the others.”

So what’s the solution? Brunner recommends Ohio’s electronic voting systems be replaced with optical-scan paper ballot machines. But that’s expensive, and, some say, unecessary. “Certainly this report … will just absolutely throw Ohio into a complete tailspin going into the presidential election,” said Hamilton County Board of Elections Director John Williams. “I don’t think there has ever been a documented case of that happening. There certainly has never been a prosecution. … If you gave me the keys to the bank and combination of the safe, do you think I could break in? I could. Those again are not real-world scenarios under which we operate.”