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".
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...
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?
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?
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.
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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.
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 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.
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
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!
"there is absolutely NOTHING which conservatives don't live in terror of" you say? Hmmm, I consider myself to be somewhat conservative, and yet there are quite a few things that I don't live in terror of. For instance, I'm not at all scared of bunny rabbits. Well, perhaps if I met the bunny rabbit that was featured in the absolutely terrifying documentary "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", I might be scared, but I certainly hold no fear of your average garden-variety bunny rabbit.
Oh, yeah, plush Cthulhu toys. They don't scare me. Well, as long as they're not the plush Cthulhu slippers of course, but that goes without saying.
Kiwi fruit. Sure, they scare me, but I think that "terror" is pushing it a bit far. I might cross the street to avoid one, but I've never yet run screaming from a Kiwi fruit.
In conclusion, I would like to state that your characterization of conservatives as being terrified of absolutely everything is not only inaccurate, but comes close to li . . . libe . . . written slander. Sorry, I've always been terrified of that word.
"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber" -- Plato
It's really a shame.
First off, you have a news station who adds a bit too much drama to their report, making it bigger than it should be. In turn, when this hits the web, it becomes a lambasting of the people who were victimized here.
Yes, these aren't 'hackers on steroids' or anything. The report is just talking about groups of malicious internet users -- I'm sure many of them have no skills and are at best script kiddies. The point is that there are people running around harassing people. Your typical slashdotter may feel the need to make fun of the mom that found a need to get a security system and a dog, but that's EXACTLY the kind of reaction most of our parents would have if confronted with calls of death threats, posting of family members pictures and addresses online, and notices for people to do bad stuff to them.
What you have are groups of people who do have fun being assholes to the rest of the internet. Terrorists, no. But it is a problem, none-the-less. So go ahead and laugh at the people that these assholes victimize. I, for one, don't think it's funny.