I'd be willing to go out on a limb and estimate that maybe some private interests in Hollywood, with certain four letter acronyms, despise open source media player projects like VLC, since they might represent a channel that can potentially enable bypasses that can circumvent precious, precious DRM.
The perception being: if you can see the source of a media player program, the encryption might be implicitly compromised. This is a silly idea though, because it neglects certain realities about the very nature of electronic encryption, and media consumption. Maybe having source code lowers the bar in some respects, but the reality is that determined people will simply bootleg media anyway, by other means.
Not an accusation though, just that my tinfoil hat is tingling. Who else might be so motivated to attack an awesome software project like VLC?
Cool / "good" projects get attacked all the time. I suspect this is because the attacker is guaranteed an audience on HN to marvel in the results of their work. I think this is probably simpler and more likely than the tinfoil hat theory.
Or, less likely but more timely, the GPL→LGPL relicensing to get an AppStore port, or the consultation to get the French DRM police to play its role in enforcing a conflicting law about interoperability.
> Who else might be so motivated to attack an awesome software project like VLC?
Anyone who wants to show off a proof-of-concept attack to potential customers, without stepping on any huge toes. (e.g., it's relatively safe to DDoS VLC, not so much a U.S. government agency or a huge multi-national company.)
Why DDOS Reddit? Why DDOS Wikipedia? Why DDOS the New York Public Library website??
Within the last year or two I've given up trying to find reasons for DDOS attacks. I think of them now like Internet traffic weather. They just happen at random times and you better be prepared.
The perception being: if you can see the source of a media player program, the encryption might be implicitly compromised. This is a silly idea though, because it neglects certain realities about the very nature of electronic encryption, and media consumption. Maybe having source code lowers the bar in some respects, but the reality is that determined people will simply bootleg media anyway, by other means.
Not an accusation though, just that my tinfoil hat is tingling. Who else might be so motivated to attack an awesome software project like VLC?