Slashdot Mirror
AC = Domestic Terrorists?
Miang writes "A video from a recent FOX 11 (Los Angeles) newscast has surfaced on YouTube. In the segment, reporter Phil Shuman investigates so-called "Hacker Gangs" comprised entirely of anonymous users. The segment, which focuses mainly on users at 4chan, 7chan, and 420chan, seems to confuse /b/ raids and motivational poster templates with a genuine threat to the American public. For added FUD, the FOX team inserted an unrelated video of a van blowing up — twice! Presumably, one is intended to equate anonymous posting with domestic terror. The story and video can be found on the local FOX website, so it does not appear to be simply a clever parody." Cringe as you watch this video explain terms like 'LULZ' and show inspirational poster parodies as evidence of the evils of this terrifying "Group".
"so-called 'hacker gangs'"
They're only called that because you just called them that! Jeeez. There are roving gangs of hackers, lurking the backstreets of the 'net looking for sites to spray their graffiti on.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
How dare you, Slashdot, call us - Anonymous, a COWARD?!
The fact that it's a Fox affiliate isn't relevant, really. I've seen plenty of stories on local ABC, CBS, or NBC stations that were just as cringe-worthy. Even as computers have become more popular, people who really like (and understand) computers haven't.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
I ... wha ... ha ... za ... fuh?
Either the words don't exist to describe just how stupid these people are, or I'm too stupid to describe how stupid they are.
And the FOX reporters are worse!
I'm serious, you all step back, or i'll blow this place SKY HIGH!
They did it for the LULZ!
.... you don't get any karma. :(
I keep telling myself I'm not the desperate type.
Apparently, the ability to phish myspace passwords from clueless users earns you the title of "Hackers on Steroids" now. OMGWTFHAX!
Legalize recreational marijuana. Seriously.
It is the same solution that will always work: Make a law forbidding anonymous posts. Make anonymous posting on the internets a felony and not an offense, so that only criminals will be posting anonymously.
Death to all those fanatics!!!! And yes, i will post anonymously.
I actually have some sympathy for the reporters involved in this, because they have no clue what they're getting themselves in to.
Anonymous is what happens when you give people the ability to act without reprecussions, a good portion of the world turns into total a**holes. And they will surely retaliate, for two reasons. The first being the justification that "oh, we're called domestic terrorists, we better at least do something worth that name now".
The second being the justification "Umm, no. You totally misunderstand what we do here. We're just normal internet stupidity. want a sample? How about everyone in your company? We can do a mass raid if you want"
The second already is happening in droves, if you'll notice their forums.
Now, that said, the people i DON'T feel pity for are the "victims".
The male victim, who fails at trying to be anonymous, now has his name, and his story, all over all of the *chans. All he's doing is trying to get revenge because anonymous wouldn't raid his stupid girlfriend and that they told him he was being a moron. He spends most of his time actively trying to spread dirt on the *chans, including warning potential raid targets, making up lies about what raids actually are.
As for the female victim, her story is similarly stupid, but as I do not know the entire thing with all facts for certain, i will refrain from final judgement and spreading rumors.
But for most raid "victims" in general, their main flaw was that they posted too much personal information online, and made a point of either harassing others, who happened to be anonymous, or whining to anonymous for favors.
I am not anonymous, but it pays to know about them.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
I've got nothing, really.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Two completely different people. Anonymous Coward is a normal Slashdot user who merely has perpetually bad karma. Anonymous is, as the video states, an "Internet hate machine". He is the very personification of the deepest, darkest desires of the Internet. Which, of course, means he spends half of his time masturbating to strange pornography, the other half attacking easily-angered idiots for his personal amusement, and the other other half debating Bush, pedophilia, and quantum mechanics.
Well, 4chan did let us all read Harry Potter 7 five days early...and the video does equate spoiling popular fantasy books with domestic terrorism...so I guess they are terrorists!
They bought a dog. How are you gonna get past their dog? Huh? Huh? Didn't think of that, did you?
I am neither a number or a named individual. Fear my anonymity. f0x 4r3 10s3rs ;)
Damn, too fast to post. Damn this is what you call an unmasked AC - oh well.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
right here on Slashdot who feel the same way. "I ignore ACs" "I don't respond to ACs" "I mod ACs to -6". I think it's sick. Those people are closed minded so-n-sos. Well, all you ACs out there, I DO respond if the comment is worth responding to. I don't care where it comes from. I derive value from the comment itself, not necessarily the author. Don't let anybody shut you down. Use whatever abilities you have to be heard.
What?
It's not FOX's national news that did this report, it was a local affiliate. Check out your local ABC or NBC station for more examples of idiocy.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?
Wow. That's all I can say about that piece. Just wow...
First off, wasn't the Harry Potter spoiler clip in the middle of there taken from the Daily Show? (I could swear that's John Oliver's voice).
Second, the tool with the MySpace account--it's clear to anyone that has any idea about anything that he simply ended up with a virus/keylogger installed. "Anonymous" got his passwords from that and the virus got spread to his friends. Woooooh, that kinda shits been happening on the internet for forever now. He simply appears even more foolish for not having even that much of a clue (hell, my grandparents are aware that there are viruses and nasties out there).
What I find most disturbing about this is that if anyone sends Fox 11 an email/letter/phone call/whatever explaining to them how far off base their piece is, they'll just treat it all as threats that further back up their claim. Truly truly sad....
This guy's the limit!
Midnight Thunder (17205) wrote: "I am neither a number or a named individual."
This guy's the limit!
As long as they get this kind of press, they'll never get bored. The FOX story is a great recruitment piece.
What?
There is a place on the internet called 4chan. It is an imageboard, where you can post pictures of.. stuff. There is a lot of porn on it. There is a lot of very weird porn on it. There is a lot of funny pictures, and people modifying them to become even funnier. It's home to a lot of anonymous posters that enjoy poking fun at idiots on the internet.
a ry.jpgv enn-diagram.png
You might learn more here:
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/B
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:B_summ
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/4chan
http://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Image:4chan-
If you think tubgirl, lemonparty and goatse is funny, this is where they came from. If you think lolcats and ORLY is funny, this is where it came from.
Also, the biggest crime you can commit is to ask for information, just like you did. You clearly need to lurk moar.
They have a plan.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Seriously, /b/ is so mainstream now, it beggars belief. Here is a Slashdot article that mentions it in passing without so much as stopping to explain the term. This was always going to happen. A group of people focused around memes, with a subset of them bent on spreading these memes to other sites? There is no more perfect recipe for notoriety than that. Rules 1 and 2 have completely failed, just as miserably as they would fail in a real-life fight club (where did those new members come from anyway?).
It's a shame really. For a short while, /b/ was a great little internet phenomenon. Anonymity, with all its baggage, and somehow no lawsuits. Now, though, the old guard is quickly moving on. Anybody who's frequented the site can attest to this.
As for the FOX clip... pure garbage. Most /b/tards call images "pictures", and directories "folders", and get confused between wallpaper images and desktop screenshots. The /i/nvasion people are a little closer to "hacker gangs", but even then, the "hacking" only ever amounts to SYN flooding and MySpace phishing.
Despite my pessimistic tone, I predict that "Anonymous" will continue to grow. As more and more attention is given to these "secret websites", more and more people are clamoring to become "hackers on steroids". This new Anonymous will be larger, with more brute force at his call, but at the same time stupider, and less apt to create entertaining content. And paradoxically, he'll be less anonymous than before. I see threads where a bunch of high-schoolers recognize each other based on posted photos and local memes. They greet each other by name and socialize. On /b/.
They say that raiding /b/ is liking pissing in an ocean of piss. But what if the people doing the raiding aren't pissing? What if they think this is a kickass beach where they can hang out and go for a swim with their friends and not worry about taking a piss while they do? It's not cancer, it's a full-on mutation.
I think u need to lurk moar.
You expected fair and balanced reporting from Fox News? Ever watch Fox News before? They're the first news service in history to qualify in the dramatic series category for the Emmy Awards.
Undefined terms in Slashdot summaries are indicative of poor editorial quality, not necessarily widespread familiarity. I have no idea what "/b/" is, let alone the rest of /terms/ used throughout your post. You seem to know what you're talking about; care to provide some background for us?
I dont know who that "Former Anonymous" they had on there was. But he is now the greatest Troll in internet history.
Congratulations, sir. You have my undying admiration for having the balls to do a RL troll the likes of which I have never seen before.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
How is it that after all these years, there are still people who don't realize that nothing that happens on the internet is real? That hot chick you've been chatting with? There's a 95% chance she is a dude and a 5% chance that she is fat, ugly and crazy. That dude who told you he would slit your whole family's throats and shit down their esophaguses because you like original Star Trek better than the Next Generation? He's 12 years old. Porn sites that say their girls are having sex for the first time? They're lying. That e-mail you got from a guy in Nigeria who wants to give you money? You're not going to get it.
ad infinitum.
If only we knew who they were...
As we've had to see for the past seven+ years, there is absolutely NOTHING which conservatives don't live in terror of.
It's little wonder groups like Al Qaeda are outmaneuvering Bush and the other conservatives: the Bushites are so fearful, they only know what they can see from their "undisclosed location". Conservative = coward.
Cowardservatives!
Not to mention that this is wll known theory worked out by Gabe and Tycho; Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience == Total fuckwad.
Nothing new here people, move on.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
We're all the same person anyway. I'm with me!
tubgirl and goatse have been around *far* longer than 4chan has even existed. But yes, they do represent the mentality of the place.
Ah yes, an elitist bastard. How do you do?
4chan is not the place where all this gets started. 4chan is the place where all this collects. Due to 4chan having a rather large population, it is more than likely that most soon to be popular things on the internet will pass through the place.
These things then become popular on 4chan and outside of 4chan simultaneously and independently. 4chan then takes the credit for making it popular. For proof that 4chan cannot propagate a meme, look at Cracky. No one outside of 4chan cares.
Don't mistake your fishbowl for the ocean.
My twitter
As an amateur psychologist and observer of human nature I'd guess anyone who thinks "lulz" is cool isn't a very sophisticated thinker; this bunch are probably just alienated kids.
Alienated? Is that the nice word for asshole? The world is full of them. Most grow out of it.
You don't have to go very far to find paid assholes. M$, telcos, the RIAA are all engaged in some very rough and ugly astroturfing and cracking.
They people raising the alarm over ACs are those who want an exclusive power to harass. Broadcasters, telcoms and software companies are used to having these powers and backing them up with the entire legal system. They want to exert and extend that centralized control over the internet and anonymity is incompatible with that. Eliminating our privacy and freedom to hamper assholes won't limit those who control the switches. They will continue to harass those who annoy them. When the rest of us have lost our freedom and privacy, the assholes will act with impunity.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Cue suggestions to track people by name and number online, to prevent this kind of terrorism. The police state and crackdown on piracy fits lovingly well together.
Yes, that's a bit on the paranoid side. I'm bored.
I lost my sig.
Well, no. You have it wrong there.
Anonymity is a prime ingredient for a functioning democracy. Take camera surveillance. People are going to be scared to do anything out of the ordinary, for fear of being flagged as a peculiar guy (and thus much more likely to be caught doing anything illegal, even the mundane stuff like throwing something on the ground instead of in the trashcan). This fear prevents anyone from questioning the status quo, and thus a "democracy" results in everyone agreeing with the current government.
B.
Every experiment which ends in a big bang is a good experiment.
WTF? Rules 1 and 2, assholes.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
SAGE SAGE SAGE SAGE SAGE SAGE SAGE SAGE If your don't get it, you weren't meant to. SAGE.
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
You people laugh all you want...I've been in hiding now for six months, after receiving credible threats from the terrorist group "LOLCATS"
I have to say I am incredibly disappointed in this post and some of the responses. This group is sending death threats and threatening to blow up stadiums, if that is not the definition of 'terrorism' then I cannot imagine what is. I am suspicious of the motives of those who would defend a group like this.
Every single thing you said in this post are assumptions. You stated absolutely nothing that is factual unless of course you are actually a part of this group. While I admit they are probably are a bunch of social rejects the problem is you only have to be wrong once, and as soon as some innocent person actually dies people like you miraculously just fade into the shadows. As the old adage says, "Its only funny until someone gets hurt"