The 14 suspects are due to appear in court on December 5

Dec 5, 2013 16:00 GMT  ·  By

Today, December 5, the group of people known as the PayPal 14 are scheduled to appear before a federal court. They’re accused of taking part in Anonymous’ distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack against PayPal in December 2010.

A large number of Anonymous members and supporters took part in the attack. However, only these 14 individuals have been charged.

Following the attack, PayPal claimed it had spent $5.5 million (€4 million) to deal with the attack and its effects.

In a post published earlier this week on The Huffington Post, Pierre Omidyar, the founder and chairman of eBay, the company that owns PayPal, has made some interesting remarks regarding the trial against the PayPal 14.

On the one hand, Omidyar understands PayPal’s point of view, highlighting the fact that the company and its customers suffered some considerable losses as a result of the attack. On the other hand, he also understands why Anonymous had launched the attack.

Most importantly, he notes that the individuals set to appear before the federal court should not be held accountable for the actions of all those who took part in the attacks.

He also explains that the money spent by PayPal doesn’t represent only what had been spent on responding to the attack, but also the amount for upgrading equipment to protect the company against future cyberattacks.

“From a justice point of view, I think prosecutors need to look at the actual damage caused by each defendant. First, it would be unjust to hold fourteen people accountable for the actions of a thousand (or however many other people were part of the same attack). Each person should be accountable for the damage they personally caused,” he said.

Omidyar added, “Prosecutors should also look at the circumstances of each defendant, and examine whether or not they were aware of the excessive impact their actions might have. They may have believed they were participating in a legitimate online protest and not aware of the multiplicative effect of the tools they were installing.”