Angles On Anonymous

A number of readers are sending in links related to Anonymous, the Internet phenomenon — don't call them a group — behind the controversial DDoS attacks on commercial entities that fail to support WikiLeaks. The best insight into Anonymous comes from the Economist's Babbage blogger, who hung out in one of their IRC channels. Reader nk497 points out that UK users looking to join Anonymous's DDoS army should be aware they could face a jail term of up to two years; simply downloading the LOIC software used in the DDoSing could suffice to earn a conviction. One 16-year-old has been arrested in The Netherlands and is charged with participating in the DDoS. Reader ancientribe sends in coverage of a claim by one security outfit that several existing criminal botnets have joined forces with Anonymous's Operation: Payback. And reader Stoobalou notes a Thinq.co.uk story on a manifesto of sorts that purports to come from "ANON OPS," even though Anonymous disclaims any central spokesperson or entity (press release here, PDF).

Comments

The most successful trolls

[FredFredrickson]

The most successful part of their trolling is that major news outlets still don't understand the joke. They're anonymous. They're not a group. You could just as easily say "bunches of people who have never met"

Re:The most successful trolls

[DurendalMac]

The second most successful part of their trolling is convincing people that they're actually some kind of hacker group when 99% (at least) are nothing more than skiddies with no empathy and a healthy dose of misogyny.

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

Yeah. I did a major double-take when I read “the Internet phenomenon — don't call them a group” on a kdawson story. I had to go back up and check again.

kdawson has actually posted something that is very much not seeming like FUD.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

They have a healthy dose of hating women? Do you mean a health dose of misanthropy? Or maybe Anonymous just hates women, I don't know. I'm too scared to be anonymous.

Re:The most successful trolls

[robthebloke]

I dunno, I'm getting very tired of the continual 'news' regarding anonymous on the bbc website. It's typically involves some random 'source' who is apparently affiliated with anon, who hasn't been involved with any of anon's activities, doesn't speak for them, but feels compelled to spout some non-newsworthy opinions. It's not news. It's just 15 year olds on 4chan. Enough already.

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

No, I’m guessing he did mean misogyny. He apparently hasn’t figured out that it’s mostly for show, just like the racism and hatred of furries.

I take that back, the hatred of furries is real.

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

It's not news. It's just 15 year olds on 4chan. Enough already.

They’re feeding the trolls. It’s hilarious. Laugh.

Re:The most successful trolls

[0100010001010011]

XKCD. They need to watch out who they troll though. It could backfire.

Re:The most successful trolls

[entotre]

The correct term is a movement. Much like the tea-party. I think Anonymous is the tea-party of the internet.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Monkeedude1212]

The second most successful part of their trolling is convincing people that they're actually some kind of hacker group when 99% (at least) are nothing more than skiddies with no empathy and a healthy dose of misogyny.

In my opinion, I think thats what makes them more dangerous.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Duradin]

Must be a pretty quiet irc channel if no one has ever met another member.

Re:The most successful trolls

[longhairedgnome]

Where is the line for show and reality drawn?

Re:The most successful trolls

[Monkeedude1212]

4Chan (or more specifically, /b/) is not Anonymous, though they are anonymous. I think that capital A is starting to become the real point of distinction between the two terms.

Honestly though, if Anonymous decided to make Stephanie Meyer their next target, I would not have any problems with it.

Maybe I should hop on IRC and build a case against her...

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

Whoosh.

If you wanted a serious answer, there’s not one. There’s all sorts of people, and some probably really are racist, but my guess is that for most of them it is for show. So I said mostly.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Optali]

You made my day, lol... well you and Randall Munroe, of course ;)

Re:The most successful trolls

[Darkness404]

The internet is essentially for show. 4Chan is essentially for show. It is all essentially a satire on western philosophies of life. 4

Re:The most successful trolls

[Monkeedude1212]

... Are you reading left to right, top to bottom?

They decide to troll the Twilight forums. The author comes on and asks them to stop. They say no, with attitude. She then writes about THEIR sanctuary in her next book.

Suddenly all the fans that they hate are frequenting the spot where the trolls would meet up, so its almost like trolling on their site.

Re:The most successful trolls

[SuricouRaven]

And the joking about child pornography. Anonymous revels in the violation of social rules. It is precisely because these things are socially unacceptable that members of anonymous celebrate them.

Re:The most successful trolls

[jandrese]

It's simpler than that. By namedropping the website in her book, she would indirectly get millions of tween girls to turn 4chan into basically a big twilight fan board, as 4chans normal chatter (if you can call it that) gets crushed under the threads like "Edward/Jacob, which side are you on?"

On the other hand, Pedobear would have a field day if that happened.

Re:The most successful trolls

[erroneus]

Charisma? Seriously? No. They are all just a bunch of like-minded people. Teens especially have a need to rebel in some way or another. It's all part of creating a sense of identity for themselves and all quite typical. It doesn't take charisma to "convince" a kid to take a firecracker and put it in a mail box. All you have to do is give them a firecracker and say "hey! put it in a mailbox!" Same thing here. Now if the same person said, "hey, firecrackers in mail boxes is wrong, don't do it!" you would probably see even MORE firecrackers in mail boxes. You get what I'm saying?

Re:The most successful trolls

[SuricouRaven]

It's standard journalistic procedure to seek a representative. In this case, they desperatly try, but there just isn't a true representative. So they go for the best they can find.

Re:The most successful trolls

[sycodon]

No, they are more like the Earth First people:

  Loosely affiliated, no central control or organization. But prone to random acts of violence in the name of their twisted philosophy.

Re:The most successful trolls

[robthebloke]

By that I assume you mean me? Seeing as I'm one of the many people who actually pay for that news service?

Wikileaks, Co$, and any other campaign that anon has decided to act upon *are* causes worthy of bringing some serious media attention to. Do you really think having a 15 year old as the spokesperson for that cause (of which it is obvious they have no understanding) is a good idea? If you knew nothing of the wikileaks organisation, the most you will find out in the British media about it, is that some 15 year olds are doing some hacking for the LULZ, and their leader is a rapist.

So no. I am not laughing. Anon is getting the media publicity, whilst the causes they are fighting for are being brushed under the carpet.....

Re:The most successful trolls

[callmebill]

Did you say "yoots"?

Re:The most successful trolls

[Agent0013]

That indicates a central intelligence with charisma. It may be a group intelligence, but there's something there that is irresistable to disillusioned youths.

That is like saying when a site gets slashdotted, there is a central intelligence with charisma behind it. It's just a bunch of people who want to jump on the bandwagon and cause trouble for something they think is a good cause.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

We're no strangers to love. You know the rules and so do I.
A full commitment's what I'm thinking of. You wouldn't get this from any other guy.
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling. Gotta make you understand.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

We've known each other for so long Your heart's been aching but You're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on We know the game and we're gonna play it
And if you ask me how I'm feeling Don't tell me you're too blind to see

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

(Ooh, give you up) (Ooh, give you up) (Ooh) Never gonna give, never gonna give
(Give you up) (Ooh) Never gonna give, never gonna give (Give you up)

We've know each other for so long Your heart's been aching but You're too shy to say it
Inside we both know what's been going on We know the game and we're gonna play it
I just wanna tell you how I'm feeling Gotta make you understand

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

Never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down, never gonna run around and desert you.
Never gonna make you cry, never gonna say goodbye, never gonna tell a lie and hurt you.

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

I'm one of the many people who actually pay for that news service

You pay for news?

Do you really think having a 15 year old as the spokesperson for that cause (of which it is obvious they have no understanding) is a good idea?

Some anonymous person on the internet saying something doesn’t make them a valid spokesperson for a cause.

and their leader is a rapist

Only in Sweden, where having consensual sex is rape if the condom breaks. Or something like that.

Do they have to figure out who really broke the condom? I mean it might not have been the male, it might have only broke because of the friction caused by the vagina. Since the condom is to protect the male just as much as it is to protect the female (STDs aren’t choosy), isn’t it just as possible that she raped him?

Or you could just conclude that the whole thing is ridiculous slander drummed up to discredit him for political reasons.

Re:The most successful trolls

[entotre]

I can't follow that at all. There is no infighting for one thing, and those who participate have common, predictable goals and means. Like the tea party movement, Anonymous participants are rebelling against government and the established order.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Reziac]

Great, now we're gonna have a bunch of obese trolls. ;)

Re:The most successful trolls

[Chakra5]

I would further that point by saying that even when the is on Wikileaks itself, it is mostly focused on JA as a person. And either of this levels of focus misses what SHOULD be the focus if all this is actually worth it. The actual information is just tertiary right now to everyone but foreign governments and such who are no doubt lapping this up.

Re:The most successful trolls

[secretcurse]

You pay for news?

If he's British he does. The BBC is funded by British taxpayers. Also, I wish the BBC would give us Yanks the option of paying some portion of the TV tax to get access to the BBC One player...

Re:The most successful trolls

[mgabrys]

re: "Anonymous, the Internet phenomenon — don't call them a group"

I'll call them a banana if I want. Fuck you - GROUP GROUP GROUP GROUP GROUP - look at the grouping groupy group. They're a grouptacular groupable bunch of groupers. Man what a group.

Group!

Re:The most successful trolls

[sea4ever]

Actually, I've been sitting in their IRC channel for a little while now. To be fair, a lot of the people talking in there are pretty immature.
In fact just a few minutes ago they were having a shouting contest on whether they should DDoS RuneScape or WoW. (Completely bizarre)
I think that it's pretty plausible that they're younger than 20.

I was eating breakfast and watching the chat at the time, and yes I did laugh.

Re:The most successful trolls

[ivucica]

AFAIK, BBC subscription is mandatory in the UK. So yes, if GP's British, s/he's paying for the news.

Re:The most successful trolls

[hedwards]

Except that unlike the Tea Party movement they've got the collective brains to select a name that actually relates to them. Plus, they're significantly less hypocritical. I don't recall Anonymous spending any meaningful time trying to pretend that they're something they aren't.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Hottie Parms]

Successful troll is successful. But what's next? Am I the only person here who is concerned that these acts will be used as ammunition by politicians to push their agendas for eliminating net neutrality?

Re:The most successful trolls

[Moryath]

Wait. I thought the internet was for porn?

In any event, yes, theoretically, you could be arrested for "participating" if you downloaded and installed LOIC.

On the other hand, protesters get arrested all the time in noble causes. There were dozens of arrests in lunch counter sit-ins and bus sit-ins and this is no different: people, by the mere weight of participation, showing abusive governments and businesses that their abuses will no longer be tolerated.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Anonymous Coward]

An open letter to slashdot:

Stop posting xkcd. It's really not that funny anymore.

The Internet.

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

4chans normal chatter (if you can call it that) gets crushed under the threads like "Edward/Jacob, which side are you on?"

That’s just trolls trolling the newfags. Followed by the trolls trolling the trolls (and newfags) by pretending to rage over the newfaggotry. With probably a few actual newfags adding their voices to the cacophony, but more likely than not they’re just trolls too.

It’s trolls all the way down...

Re:The most successful trolls

[Monkeedude1212]

Well at least I deliver.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Remus Shepherd]

That is like saying when a site gets slashdotted, there is a central intelligence with charisma behind it. It's just a bunch of people who want to jump on the bandwagon and cause trouble for something they think is a good cause.

But that is a central, group intelligence with persuasive power.

Don't confuse what I'm saying. I am not suggesting there's one Svengali-like figure behind either Anonymous or Slashdot. I am saying that there is a zeitgeist -- a bandwagon -- that has coercive power over the group. No one person is in control of that zeitgeist.

Slashdot readers collectively decide what is attractive to them. The editors then follow that decision and post links to sites that become slashdotted. It's not malicious, it's human nature, a mob mentality but one that is directed and that is enabled by a central group of elites. But the elites have to play to the will of the masses or the masses won't support their site.

Anonymous seems to work in the same way. The group decides on an attractive course of action. Elite individuals -- the ones in charge of the botnets -- then enable the group to take that action. The elites cannot work against the will of the people, and no one person has the power to both decide and enable.

Slashdot and Anonymous, looked at from a sociological perspective, are exactly the same. The elites aren't in charge, they're just enablers. All that matters is what the group finds persuasive...and since groupthink is self-reinforcing, this implies a hivemind with coercive charisma.

As a sociological study this could be fascinating, if everyone involved doesn't end up in jail first.

Re:The most successful trolls

[hesiod]

There is no infighting for one thing, and those who participate have common, predictable goals and means.

You really don't understand Anonymous at all if you think that.

Re:The most successful trolls

[mcgrew]

Um, although I mostly agree, where does the lack of empathy and misogyny come in?

Re:The most successful trolls

[entotre]

What I understand is that a growing number of people download the same application (the means) to bring down sites (the common goal) that are supporting the government in the wikileaks case. What am I missing?

Re:The most successful trolls

[Requia]

Nobody is 'in charge' of the botnets. The closest you can get is convincing people to use your IRC channel for the hivemind function, but that stopped working soon after the attacks on wikileaks started (DDoS attacks against wikileaks were redirected to anonops (for some reason the press has been almost totally silent about the zombie botnets on the other side), coupled with a substantially larger userbase than the hivemind function was designed to handle), everything is being done by word of mouth now.

Re:The most successful trolls

[StikyPad]

In Soviet Russia, ancient memes mod YOU down!

Re:The most successful trolls

[Requiem18th]

I almost read that like "a healthy dose of virginity".

Re:The most successful trolls

[Requiem18th]

We need +1 On-topic

Re:The most successful trolls

[Stregano]

Hey now, what is wrong with furries?

Re:The most successful trolls

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

I wish I could get it to overwrite your scrollback buffer. :-)

Re:The most successful trolls

[publiclurker]

sounds like your average teabagger before they are old enough to leave their parent's basement.

Re:The most successful trolls

[The Clockwork Troll]

There is actually a way to do it. It was the subject of a previous Slashdot article.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Coren22]

An open letter to this AC:

You don't have to like xkcd, we do, get over it. /.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Requiem18th]

It's been already agreed that it would not work like that, /b/ can easily conjure images that would forever scar the brain of the average Twilight forum-goer.

Re:The most successful trolls

[AftanGustur]

The most successful part of their trolling is that major news outlets still don't understand the joke. They're anonymous. They're not a group. You could just as easily say "bunches of people who have never met"

I think you simply don't understand hivemind ..

Re:The most successful trolls

[GoneAwry]

A group of people, young as they might be, who willingly download LOIC, willingly give control over to a hive mind, willingly put themselves at risk for arrest, all for combating censorship and governmental corruption that they feel strongly about, and you're saying that this is a group that's 99% children with no empathy? Disregard Payback - what about when they hit affiliates of the RIAA? Or the corruption of Scientology? Hal Turner? Gene Simmons, who suggested that if people downloaded some mp3s, that they should have their livelihoods taken from them? I mean, yeah sure, I'll agree that there's probably a lot of people/kids that go along with it without really understanding the implications (as is shown in a lot of the stupid shit that's undertaken, like trolling various forums or CWC or Habbo), but I'd hazard that a large portion of Anonymous is likely cognizant of what they're doing, and are being driven by personal values and intelligence as well as mass appeal. Your suggestion is biased; I can tell from some of the exaggerations and from having seen quite a few people upset with 4chan in my life.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Shikaku]

>:(

Re:The most successful trolls

[Elektroschock]

Wouldn't it be better even smarter to distribute software to people that achieves and convince users of the software that it helps to delete child porn from the net or kill some evil internet worms?

Because it makes a difference whether underage persons become "criminals" willfully wanting to crush wikileaks offenders or concerned parents willing to remove child porn kill wikileaks offenders. Seems smarter when an attacker kiddie does not know what it does and why. Screensaver bots with a jumping bunny.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Elektroschock]

And the attack does not even involve suicide!

They are not the real talibanksters!

Re:The most successful trolls

[ocdscouter]

Well paint me red and call me gullible, cause I actually fell for that.

Re:The most successful trolls

[ocdscouter]

I almost read that like "a healthy dose of virginity".

Does it come in pill/capsule form?

Re:The most successful trolls

[Draek]

No. The easiest way to unite a group is not to provide them with somebody to rally behind, but to give them somebody to rally *against*. And given its actions this past decade, it should be no wonder that the US government has become the perfect entity for that role.

Re:The most successful trolls

[hesiod]

What am I missing?

Those people are a subsection of "anonymous", and do not represent the whole. Most in anonymous are not taking part in the DDoSes, and many disagree with the attacks. So to say anonymous have "common, predictable goals and means", and that there is no infighting is simply incorrect.

Re:The most successful trolls

[martin-boundary]

Just because it's a group, doesn't mean it's a group-mind. "Zeitgeist" isn't an artificial (or natural) intelligence. It's a literary metaphor, like saying "mother nature", invented by romantic German philosophers.

Re:The most successful trolls

[der_alte]

Not so anonymous, though: http://i53.tinypic.com/faa61k.png

Re:The most successful trolls

[Opportunist]

Photoshopped meme in 5, 4, 3....

Oh, wait, this ain't /b/...

Re:The most successful trolls

[Pseudonym Authority]

They keep ruining my lolicon threads.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Pseudonym Authority]

That is totally incoherent. What the fuck are you trying to say?

Re:The most successful trolls

[eriqk]

Concerned, yes. About this, not so much.
Authoritarians will use any excuse to act authoritarian; if not this, than something else.

Re:The most successful trolls

[partyguerrilla]

Well, moot is a fan of XKCD, so when this comic came out, he changed /b/'s headline from "/b/ - random" to "Twilight appreciation station, the darkest place on the internet" for a few days.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Love.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Pence128]

and in this case, infinitely more.

Re:The most successful trolls

[fishexe]

remember rule 1 and 2! you failed

Since when is Anonymous synonymous with Fight Club?

Re:The most successful trolls

[fishexe]

By that I assume you mean me? Seeing as I'm one of the many people who actually pay for that news service?

You pay for 4chan? Dude, that ain't right. Somebody told you it's not actually a news site, right?

Re:The most successful trolls

[burisch_research]

Only if you have a TV. More specifically, if you have apparatus capable of receiving a broadcast signal. Note that if you have a tv but it is not connected to any signal source, this is not regarded as 'capable' apparatus. I can say this from personal experience, from when I had a TV in UK, but it was used as a PC output and had no broadcast signal connection.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Maritz]

It's fun to read though, like the twisted brain-wrong of a one-off man mental.

Re:The most successful trolls

[PopeRatzo]

The second most successful part of their trolling is convincing people that they're actually some kind of hacker group when 99% (at least) are nothing more than skiddies with no empathy and a healthy dose of misogyny.

You know, I'm starting to tire of this macho attitude regarding "hacker groups" and who qualifies.

First, I give these "skiddies" a lot of credit for deciding that actually trying to do something, however misguided, about a worldwide political situation was more important that discovering some new way to defeat some protection scheme. While the "real" hackers are busy showing off their mad skillz to each other, the members of anonymous are trying to influence events outside of their basements.

Second, the heroic notion of a "hacker" is so 1990s. If you're some thirty- or forty-something and you still consider yourself a "hacker", it might be time to lose a few pounds, take a shower and go forth into the world and meet some people.

Third, that you're still believing there is some internet pecking order with hackers at the top and ordinary users at the bottom may be the most pitiful thing of all. It might be time to realize the world has moved on.

Re:The most successful trolls

[PopeRatzo]

It is precisely because these things are socially unacceptable that members of anonymous celebrate them.

Transgression is a very important part of any social revolution, but it's never the point. And it certainly is not the point here.

While the members of Anonymous were downloading DDOS tools and trying to defend (in their own way) Wikileaks, what were you doing? Now, I don't mean you, specifically SuricouRaven, but I mean all of us. We were sitting and watching the RSS feeds unfold with the latest stories and Anonymous was trying to influence events.

NOW who's ahead of the curve and who's the newfag?

Re:The most successful trolls

[rtb61]

If you are going to indulge in this activity unprotected by real anonymity make sure you have a dysfunctional Trojan client installed on your hardware and feign ignorance, funnily enough very likely to be true if you are foolish enough to to attempt these kind of activities as a amateur, not a dysfunctional one of course.

So at a minimum hack your desktop wirelessly using a notebook with a boot from USB OS and software and have no computer books on the premises, also helps to have Tea party posters and Republican literature http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2010/12/science (the ignorance is more believable).

Re:The most successful trolls

[Duradin]

You don't defend with retaliation. You deter with retaliation. The Anonymous thugs were not defending anything. Wikileaks was already cut off when they went into "action". The damage was done, their "defense" was too late. And now they've made sure no sane business will work with Wikileaks lest the mob turn on them too on some whim as well as evaporating whatever little goodwill the public had left for Wikileaks.

Re:The most successful trolls

[PopeRatzo]

And now they've made sure no sane business will work with Wikileaks lest the mob turn on them too on some whim as well as evaporating whatever little goodwill the public had left for Wikileaks.

I think you underestimate the "public's" ability to determine good guys and bad guys, and who's who in a simple playbook.

I bet most people understand that Wikileaks is not Anonymous, just as they understand that the students protesting in England are not the Tea Party. The simple storyline of a bunch of kids rising up to take on the mightiest forces in our world is an underdog story of massive proportions. And everybody loves an underdog.

The fact that Wikileaks has any support at all says a lot about the sophistication of the general population. Sure, there are those that would say "all those internet groups are alike" but they also understand that there are powerful invisible forces that are screwing with them, and neither Julian Assange nor Anonymous are part of those forces.

I have to say I'm just amazed at how many mainstream commentators have actually taken the side of Wikileaks in this situation. I was sure there would be absolutely zero support for them, and day by day I'm hearing more people coming out and saying "we just can't trust the people in power any more", and I don't mean just the government.

I'm telling you, before this is all over, the corporatist Republicans will be sorry they started the Tea Party. They thought they could just use these people to get rid of a black guy in power, but anti-authoritarian sentiment is not a genie that easily goes back into the bottle.

Re:The most successful trolls

[Denihil]

It comes in MMO form.

Re:The most successful trolls

[mundanetechnomancer]

i wish i had mod points

Re:The most successful trolls

[thunderclap]

Thank you for the text rick roll and be careful or you might convince glee to do the song.

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

I'm telling you, before this is all over, the corporatist Republicans will be sorry they started the Tea Party. They thought they could just use these people to get rid of a black guy in power, but anti-authoritarian sentiment is not a genie that easily goes back into the bottle.

The corporatist Republicans, as you call them, didn’t start the Tea Party. Much like Anonymous, the Tea Party kick-started itself because the “corporatist Republicans” felt they could get away with ignoring a lot of what the party’s tentative supporters were asking for, and the so-called lone wolf John McSame was just the last straw.

And I could think of many reasons to get rid of the “black guy in power” but his skin colour is not one of them.

Re:The most successful trolls

[PopeRatzo]

The corporatist Republicans, as you call them, didn’t start the Tea Party.

Have you ever heard of Dick Armey and "FreedomWorks"?

They are the beating heart of the corporatist GOP. Before FreedomWorks got involved, the "Tea Party" was a bunch of yahoos stapling teabags to their meshback caps at whites-only picnics.

If you believe the tea party creation myth, then you really need to try to get out more.

Re:The most successful trolls

[clone52431]

You’re the one who seems to be preoccupied with people’s race. Why?

Re:The most successful trolls

[Elektroschock]

I was talking about the need-to-know-principle. When you code a tool for DDOS it should be in a way that a person participating in the attack can say, oh I thought it was a tool for virus filtering.

Seriously Don't Call Them a Group!

[eldavojohn]

Or they'll DDoS you.

Who laugh? Hmmm? Who was it? Speak up so you can be added to the list. We'll see to it that your internet connection never functions right again.

I heard that if you post something bad on Slashdot, CmdrTaco hands over your IP address to Anonymous -- where do you think all the GNAA/Goatse trolls went?

Did somebody just sneeze? That's a DDoS. Who laughed when the witnessed testified that Assange has a smaller than average penis? That's a DDoS. If you're replying to this post? Oh, boy, you better believe that's a DDoS. In fact, if you're reading this right now let's just say there's not a lot you can do to stop from being DDoS'd by Anonymous for trying to find out more information about that particular group %*&#$^#%@#$ no carrier

Re:Seriously Don't Call Them a Group!

[TheL0ser]

Strange, I'm replying to this post right now an@$&#$%^#!*! NO CARRIER

Re:Seriously Don't Call Them a Group!

[noidentity]

Apparently if you talk smack about Anonymous, they'll install a 56k modem. What good is an Internet connection if you can't.... download?

Re:Seriously Don't Call Them a Group!

[DigitalSorceress]

The first rule of Anonymous club is "you don't talk about Anonymous club".

The second rule of Anonymous club is that you don't talk... oops sorry the second rule of Anonymous club is "No Smoking"

The thir....^%&$*NO CARRIER

Re:Seriously Don't Call Them a Group!

[jandrese]

I thought the second rule was "No Scientologists".

Re:Seriously Don't Call Them a Group!

[fishexe]

I heard that if you post something bad on Slashdot, CmdrTaco hands over your IP address to Anonymous -- where do you think all the GNAA/Goatse trolls went?

They went to 4chan. True story, he doesn't hand your IP address over so they can DDOS you, he hands your IP address over so they can recruit you. You don't think /b/ would be the cesspool it is without absorbing the goatse trolls, do you?

Re:Seriously Don't Call Them a Group!

[thunderclap]

No that's actually a misquote. the first rule is you don't talk about /b. if you are making a joke you failed. It references raids. 4chan is on its way out anyway. Moot wants real money so he cut a deal with the founder of tumblr. That's why the ddos of them failed.

Very easy explanation

[oic0]

Bored people looking for a little excitement and a cause. Not a bad cause really, if nothing else it has brought attention to the fact that these companies bent under the governments will and cut off funding to wikileaks even though our government hasn't figured out anything to charge them with yet.

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

Good idea, crappy implementation. All this does to the public perception of Wikileaks and their supports is make them look like a bunch of hackers and deviant cybercrooks. It won't make a damned difference in the long run.

I've always found it sadly ironic that Anonymous, who very much wants to keep online anonymity alive, is doing more than almost anyone to destroy it. Their antics just keep giving politicians reasons to clamp down on the internet. Way to go, idiots!

Re:Very easy explanation

[Monkeedude1212]

Their antics just keep giving politicians reasons to clamp down on the internet. Way to go, idiots!

Politicians don't need reasons to clamp down on the internet, they are going to do it either way. Just like they have with airline security, it's gotten worse over the years despite nothing happening after 9/11.

Their antics are at least trying to bring about some change or awareness before the internet gets clamped down. Think about it, some script kiddie in junior high has contributed more to the world situation these past few months than you might ever in your life. If you think they are idiots, why don't you try and stop them for ruining things for you?

Re:Very easy explanation

[quintessencesluglord]

But one of the problems is more conventional means of protest are equally liable to garner negative publicity.

Either you are carted off to freespeech zones which are equivalent to no protest at all, or some instigator turns the whole event into a riot, garnering the derision of the public.

Even commenting to your congressman is pointless if the one topic that drew the largest public disapproval is passed anyway (bailouts).

So what options do you have left?

I'm just pleased that there are enough folks paying attention to do something like this rather than the apathy that marks most of the public. I am frightened to death that most of them aren’t old enough to vote.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with those kids is that they have no idea how to pick their targets. Yeah, they brought down www.visa.com, that's great. Visa doesn't fucking use their website for anything! It's purely decorative! If they were smart, they'd try to go after the servers that are actually used for transferring financial data. Which, of course, would be highly illegal and a grave threat to our liberty and our way of life, and I'd never, ever advocate that sort of thing.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Chakra5]

So they bent to government pressure...when exactly did PayPal sign on to be revolutionaries. The key to living free is letting people (and thus their businesses) go their own way. This is not an act of freedom no matter how high the ideal, rather an act of repression because they don't agree with someones politics. You can shout at them, you can call them names and boycott them all you want. that's freedome of speech, but the second you impede them from their own freedoms, you are out of bounds as they have broken no law. And until their are boots in the street, we are still a country of laws. The culprit is the US government. That is the valid target that I see in this context.

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

I'm not saying that Wikileaks isn't giving politicians rationalizations, but they're a recent development. Anonymous has been giving them rationalizations and excuses on a silver platter for years now, and very little of it was any kind of rational dissent.

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

Because DDoSing people over Wikileaks is the only nefarious thing that Anonymous has ever done, right? Newsflash, pal: Most of what Anonymous has done (at least outside that cancerous rectal cavity known as 4chan) has not been any kind of "free speech".

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

So DDoSing a few websites will do...what, exactly? Nothing. Nothing at all. It's not a "protest". It's flagrantly illegal. A few websites deal with DDoS attacks, they come to and end after a short time, and the ONLY thing it does is make Wikileaks look even worse because now the supporters of this site are making themselves look like a bunch of criminal hooligans. It doesn't even take opportunistic political asshats thumping their chests to do that.

People have every right to protest sites that have trying to screw Wikileaks. They have every right to boycott and criticize the hell out of them. They do not have the right to DDoS these sites. When they do, they cross the boundaries of the law, and that doesn't exactly make them look rosy to the public at large.

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

And you want to help? Want to make a difference? Work to get more mirrors of Wikileaks up. Keep the information out there and make sure that new info has a place to go. What you can do is show these organizations that their attempts to shut down Wikileaks will not succeed. DDoSing is nothing more than a revenge tactic. It solves NOTHING.

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

DDoSing is not the answer. You know what options are left? KEEPING WIKILEAKS ALIVE. Help get mirrors up and maintained. Make sure that info has somewhere to go and that the public can access it. Support sites like OpenLeaks that do largely the same thing. That's how you can show the politicians that their efforts will not succeed, because enough people will support these sites to keep them going and that the flow of information will not stop.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Monkeedude1212]

Because DDoSing people over Wikileaks is the only nefarious thing that Anonymous has ever done, right?

Uhhh, I don't remember saying that. But It's definately the issue that's brought them to the spotlight, isn't it?

Politicians will try to screw with everything, but Anonymous has done PLENTY over the past few years to hand them excuses and rationalizations on a silver platter. This isn't about awareness. For the vast majority of Anons, this is about hopping on the bandwagon to do some damage. That's it, really

Then you didn't read the article nor do you really understand how it works. Yes - for a vast majority of them, its just about doing something when you're bored. Hop on the net, run your LOIC, pretend you're a leet hacker, totally cool. But these Skiddies aren't really running the show. They are just the assembly line workers, they don't decide what gets made. The ones who propose targets, build cases, and participate in debates, those are the ones who essentially "Run Anonymous" (in any sense that you could try to apply it, even that has a hard time sticking).

For a majority of Anonymous, it's not about principles or values, but they're activities are promoting someone elses (or even multiple people's) values.

Are you actually trying to argue that Anonymous has made the net a worse place? How many new laws over cybercrime have actually been a result of Anonymous' activities? Because when I hear actual changes getting applied to the internet, I hear it about Child Pornography and Chinese Spies. Internet Kill switches to stop the oncomming cyber war.

Almost NOTHING has changed because of Anonymous, the only clamping down thats taken place of it is police arresting it's members.

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

Sending cash, mirroring the site, and even reading the documents are deemed illegal, and thus give the politicians reasons to clamp down on the internet. Should they all send letters of disapproval?

[citation needed]

Re:Very easy explanation

[Monkeedude1212]

If they were smart, they'd try to go after the servers that are actually used for transferring financial data. Which, of course, would be highly illegal and a grave threat to our liberty and our way of life, and I'd never, ever advocate that sort of thing.

Maybe you just figured out WHY they went for the webserver and not the transaction servers.

They're not as dumb as you think they are.

Re:Very easy explanation

[DurendalMac]

And DDoSing is CERTAINLY going to get more people to join and will absolutely sway public opinion, right? Oops, no, it just makes Wikileaks and its supporters look like a bunch of crooks. You're right, a proper protest needs to break the law! Because the best press is when protests turn violent and people start smashing in storefront windows, right?

Re:Very easy explanation

[shentino]

What worries me is that simply downloading an open soruce piece of software can get you jail terms.

This is like DeCSS all over again.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you didn't read the article nor do you really understand how it works

Anyone who hasn't forgotten their teenager years knows how it works. It's groupthink.

The ones who propose targets, build cases, and participate in debates, those are the ones who essentially "Run Anonymous"

More bored teenagers that learn to control the group. Nothing new, even when I was still in highschool and that was ages ago. The alpha of the group just became faceless and uses HTTP more often instead of a louder voice.

For a majority of Anonymous, it's not about principles or values, but they're activities are promoting someone elses (or even multiple people's) values.

You're overthinking this. Back when I was a teenager we had a protest march against the incompetence of the justice department. A few people handed out fliers, and the rest said "Oh hey, I was bored anyway. Let's go there." Many weren't even interested in promoting someone's values, nor even aware of the issues the march was about. Needless to say that it ended in vandalism.

No agent provocateurs, no people with a cause, just plain old "Look at the crowd here, let's go trash something. Fuck yeah!" groupthink. Try getting these numbers for something non-disruptive. Go on. Go to /b/ and become the fabled mastermind that herds the flock into doing something productive. Bonus points if they get out of their chair.

Are you actually trying to argue that Anonymous has made the net a worse place?

Are you actually trying to argue that Anonymous hasn't? Really now come on. That was Ebaums, right? It's bored kids pulling silly tasteless pranks, sometimes funny, sometimes not so much. Sure, they're not a "threat" to the Internet other than being obnoxious.

For every "cause" they've supported they've gone and harassed at least a dozen people who did nothing wrong but be at the wrong place at the wrong time (on the Internet).

Re:Very easy explanation

[openfrog]

Good idea, crappy implementation. All this does to the public perception of Wikileaks and their supports is make them look like a bunch of hackers and deviant cybercrooks. It won't make a damned difference in the long run.

I've always found it sadly ironic that Anonymous, who very much wants to keep online anonymity alive, is doing more than almost anyone to destroy it. Their antics just keep giving politicians reasons to clamp down on the internet. Way to go, idiots!

Pity, I don't have mod points. You express the whole point of these antics succinctly and clearly.

The fact is, we have no idea who these people are, and it is obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that their actions has for immediate effect to discredit whatever cause they ostensibly support. If they had not been there already, those who want to clamp down the Internet ought to have invented them...

Oh wait...

Re:Very easy explanation

[Tom]

Their antics just keep giving politicians reasons to clamp down on the internet. Way to go, idiots!

As if.

Politicians make up reasons if you don't give them some. It really doesn't make a difference. What do you suggest instead? Bending over and taking it like a man?

Re:Very easy explanation

[Elektroschock]

When AMAZON enforces 1-click patent against Barnes&Noble about Christmas time poor Barnes and Noble.

When ANONYMOUS kiddies DoS Paypal that is indeed an issue and damage can be done, the service dips a bit, but the attack won't last forever.

When WIKILEAKS publishes information about J.P.Morgan the US financial market collapses a bit.

Re:Very easy explanation

[JockTroll]

Politicians need absolutely no excuse or rationalization to do anything: when they want to do something, they just do it and pull reasons out of their asses, just like the WMDs in Iraq. Might as well make those WMDs for real and use them.

Re:Very easy explanation

[JockTroll]

So, are you going to ban the study of nuclear physics, so nobody will learn how to build a nuke? Then you will ban the study of chemistry, so nobody will be able to make bombs. Then you will ban reading, so nobody will learn about other dangerous stuff. Who are you, Franco "I want to censor the internet because of terr-ow-rism while I'm butt buddy with real terr-ow-rists who happen to have lots of lovely oil" Frattini? Kill yourself and make the world a better place.

Re:Very easy explanation

[JockTroll]

Amen to that. We vote, they don't care. We speak, they silence us. We protest, they ignore us. We raise our heads, they send the thugs in uniform. The point where people actually have to take up arms has come. Some will say that the majority is against this kind of action, but it is always the case in any revolt: at the beginning, the rebels are minority and this changes only as power is shown to be not so scary, after all, and starts to crumble. Well, they asked for it. No mercy.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Labcoat Samurai]

Anonymous take down websites for a few days. Woah, big deal! Much better than, I don't know, starting a war in a foreign country and bombing buildings full of civilians to the ground because your over-equipped soldiers are afraid of an idiot with a pistol hiding inside. Anonymous could have been killing people like the fanatics who kill doctors who practice abortions. They could assault people with paint like some stupid animal rights activists. They could be bombing corporation headquarters like some "ecologists" do.

And presumably those things would be bad enough to earn your disapproval? This isn't an argument at all. Something isn't ok just because it isn't something worse.

I'm scared that I will raise my kids and live most of my life in a world similar to Nazi Germany.

Ah, there it is. Is there some corollary to Godwin's law that the longer an individual diatribe goes the closer the probability of referencing the Nazis reaches 1?

I don't think we're far enough gone that we have to resort to bullying and hooliganism to get our way. Maybe that day will come. Maybe I'm wrong and it's already here. But in the meantime, let's not make Visa and Mastercard look like victims of a nefarious hacker conspiracy. It's not going to help the cause.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Labcoat Samurai]

I don't intend to participate, but everyone I've talked to about the subject has smiled a little at the news that a credit leviathan or retail juggernaut was, even for the briefest of moments, crippled by people who had had enough of them.

Except they weren't really crippled. I honestly don't even know, off the top of my head, what is on either of their main websites. Presumably brand logos and lots of generic marketing-speak. Can you get a credit card directly from them? I suppose you probably can (all my cards are through banks). Would anyone bother? I get a million credit offers a week in the mail and I get hassled about another one everywhere I shop.

Re:Very easy explanation

[horza]

I've always found it sadly ironic that people vote, who very much wants to keep democracy alive, are doing more than anyone to destroy it. Their antics of often voting for the party that isn't currently in Government gives the established politicians reason to clamp down on voting. Way to go, idiots!

Keeping your head below the parapet, and crossing your fingers and praying the next victim isn't you, hasn't proven the best course of action for society from the history I have read. Politicians are your paid representatives, and if they aren't looking after your interests then they aren't doing their job. In the case of anonymous, they are going after organisations that have elevated themselves above the law and so they have decided direct action is the only way to raise awareness. I am not condoning DDoS attacks, no matter whether I sympathise or not, but your speech would only go down well at a Vichy government reunion.

Phillip.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Labcoat Samurai]

Well, sometimes the *only* way to protest is to break the law, and some laws do need to be broken, but, as a rule of thumb, only when the law itself is unjust. There may be exceptions, but I don't think this is one of them. It's not even Wikileaks doing this, but you're probably right that people will make that association. If Wikileaks and Julian Assange are on a march to martyrdom, do you really want to let them be martyred *and* confuse the issue by letting Mastercard and Visa look like victims too?

If it's true that they bowed to government pressure, then they need to be shamed for it. But if you make them admit it by bullying them, in what way are you better than the government you're opposing? The only difference between you and them is a power gulf. Personally, I think it's important to maintain the moral high ground as well.

Re:Very easy explanation

[horza]

DDoSing is nothing more than a revenge tactic.

It is a publicity seeking tactic.

It solves NOTHING.

It has raised the issue of Paypal, Visa, etc, in every single major news outlet including the BBC. They've had their quotes published in every major news outlet. It appears you are completely and utterly wrong.

Phillip.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Unkyjar]

Stop encouraging crime.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Almahtar]

Taking down visa.com did two important things, in my opinion:

1. It sent the message "We saw what you did."
2. It drew massive attention in the media. NPR (National Public Radio) had covered the wikileaks situation only sparsely before, but I've heard about it at least a few times a day now.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Duradin]

Does the username fit the post or does the post fit the username? The world will never know.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Pence128]

Hell, I'm surprised you don't know how to build a nuke.

Re:Very easy explanation

[ToasterMonkey]

some script kiddie in junior high has contributed more to the world situation these past few months than you might ever in your life

Can I have some of your overflowing Insightful points? Good lord.

Re:Very easy explanation

[JockTroll]

The world knows that loserboys fit into trashcans. That's all that needs to be known.

Re:Very easy explanation

[PopeRatzo]

Something isn't ok just because it isn't something worse.

Well...maybe.

Is it OK to watch your family go from middle-class prosperity to working-class sustenance to steerage-class poverty in a decade while your wealth is transferred up the chain to bankers and the elite, just because you're still breathing? Is it OK that your father will have to work in the coal mine until age 70 so that a millionaire won't have to pay an extra $3000 in taxes just because you should be grateful your dad still has a job? That the most vulnerable members of society should be cast to the ground just so a banker could pad his golden parachute?

But sometimes you have to break some eggs to make an omelet, and when you are overmatched you have to resort to "asynchronous" warfare. The corporatists and plutocrats have limitless money and nearly limitless power. Anonymous has DDOS spitballs. Maybe disruption is the best you can hope for. It gives you a few seconds during which people might notice what's going on and maybe wake up.

At least the members of Anonymous did something this week. What the fuck did you do to make things better besides cover your own backside and genuflect to your boss so you can still afford to pay the minimum on your credit card?

Re:Very easy explanation

[PopeRatzo]

They may be script kiddies, deviants, and botnet slavers, but they seem to care, and they're protesting.

And brother, at least that's something. The rest of us are trying to figure out how much electronic crap we can fit on our bursting at the seams credit cards without actually falling into the bankruptcy singularity and disappearing below the surface.

Re:Very easy explanation

[PopeRatzo]

[citation needed]

With all respect, you don't need a citation, you need to put down the 6-axis controller and notice what's going on around you. Read a few of the news articles that have filtered to the bottom of your RSS feed.

Get a clue.

Re:Very easy explanation

[PopeRatzo]

a few people taking it upon themselves to have power they shouldn't.

Oh, you're the guy who decides who should and should not have power. I've always wanted to meet you.

Re:Very easy explanation

[PopeRatzo]

when exactly did PayPal sign on to be revolutionaries.

Never, they signed on to deliver money from one person to another. Not to pick winners and losers, not to screw over customers who have done nothing wrong, not to freeze accounts arbitrarily.

Nobody is asking PayPal to do anything but their core business model. Just don't fuck over your customers.

When did PayPal sign on to become the tool of extra-legal US intelligence operations and nameless political hit-men?

Re:Very easy explanation

[Duradin]

I won't say what I did but I will say what I didn't do: throw a temper tantrum or resort to petty thuggery.

There are still four boxes. You don't get to use the fourth while you still have the first three. Just because the first three are inconvenient to you is not an excuse to not use them.

Re:Very easy explanation

[PopeRatzo]

There are still four boxes. You don't get to use the fourth while you still have the first three. Just because the first three are inconvenient to you is not an excuse to not use them.

I understand discretion, but why don't you come out and say what you mean? You're usually not so elliptical. I don't have time or energy to solve puzzles in order to have a discussion.

Re:Very easy explanation

[Duradin]

Soap box, ballot box, jury box, and then ammo box. Use in that order.

Re:Very easy explanation

[PopeRatzo]

Soap box, ballot box, jury box, and then ammo box. Use in that order.

You left out a very effective one: boom box

When you change culture, you change culture.

We do not hate women.

[GNUALMAFUERTE]

Now, TITS or GTFO.

Re:We do not hate women.

[Anonymous Coward]

Cool story, bro.

Re:We do not hate women.

[Anonymous Coward]

I, for one, welcome our newfag overlords.

No, really, they're the next generations, if only by a few years. Most of them will simply come and go as is the churn in most places, but some will remain and constitute the core of the community. We were all newfags at one point. Reject them and you're sentencing the community to death by age. Welcome them and you're propagating the community.

Democracy?

[melki0r]

Looks to me like The Economist's blogger mistook mob rule for democracy.

Re:Democracy?

[Monkeedude1212]

I'd like to know how you are making the distinction - because a lot of people say that Democracy IS Mob Rule, and those who argue it's seperation would say that Anon's setup is more like Democracy than Mob rule.

Re:Democracy?

[SwordsmanLuke]

What do you think pure democracy is? By *definition* democracy is rule by the biggest mob.

Re:Democracy?

[Darkness404]

Democracy is mob rule. The only thing that prevents democracies from becoming mob ruled is with limited government where the government has numerated powers and can't expand beyond them. Because we no longer have much limited government in the US, we have become essentially mob ruled.

Re:Democracy?

[Rysc]

The only thing that prevents democracies from becoming mob ruled is with limited government

No, there's also the fact that most democratic governments are actually republics; certainly the USA is.

Re:Democracy?

[Steauengeglase]

I'd argue that it isn't limited government, but limited transition of power. Had we not had that *it-works-because-it's-broken* feature, the US would have probably have gone through numerous republics by now.

It keeps thing an angry public from voting in communists and giving them full power, who kill off the capitalist, who destroy themselves before a group of oligarchs buy out everyone and sell off the military and Washington monument, who get killed off by a group of nutty-home-spun nationalists, who then turn into fascist because they are incapable of running things, etc, etc.

From the standpoint of stability there is a certain grace to the idea of making sure your rulers get mildly corrupted before you add a new batch in.

Re:Democracy?

[hedwards]

Precisely, there are enough cowards and morons out there that things are unlikely to get any better any time soon via democracy. It's a shame that we wasted our poll tax and voting requirements trying to keep black people from voting, when we could've used it to keep stupid people and cowards from voting.

It's perfectly legitimate to have many different views, but when they're primarily driven by emotion without any consideration, that's dangerous.

Re:Democracy?

[hesiod]

By *definition* democracy is rule by the biggest mob.

That's an oversimplification that steps way past the line of reason and into complete BS. "Mob rule" would be true if every member of that "mob" had the exact same viewpoints on every topic. But since people have differing opinions, that "mob" changes drastically based on the decision to be made. Therefore, it's not the biggest group that rules, but that for each decision being made, the side that has the most support wins.

Re:Democracy?

[Paracelcus]

"Democracy" what country are you from?
In the good `ol USofA we have:
Sham elections
Faux news
The largest prison population in the world
The highest infant mortality rate in the "developed" world (right up there near the top worldwide)
The shortest life expectancy in the "developed" world (right down there near the bottom worldwide)
The worst/most expensive educational system by far (outside of Haiti/Afghanistan)

"Democracy" Who among us voted for the patriot act? Or enhanced screening, Or Tax free billionaires? Or crumbling roads/bridges? Or the endless farce of the Washington crowd pig fucking us over and over again?

Re:Democracy?

[gmuslera]

That a big mob had the same viewpoint only on the topic on who should be the president is the most common way of working of democracy each year. It not must be the same mob each election, but the ones that express that opinion are the ones that count.

But thats not the problem. Its not democracy, is DDoScracy (or DDoScrazy), don' t need to be more people, just the big enough amount to DDoS some sites, and with the tools and bandwidth available to end users don't need to be millons to make their work (not even being in the same country, or even legaly own the computers used to do that work)

Re:Democracy?

[Duradin]

""Democracy" Who among us voted for the patriot act?"

Did you vote for anyone that voted for it? If so, then you did vote for the patriot act.

"Or crumbling roads/bridges?" If you voted for someone running on a "no new taxes" platform that would save you some money it was likely that you voted for crumbling roads/bridges.

Re:Democracy?

[trawg]

Lucky you've got those guns then, I guess

If no one is in charge

[geekoid]

then how can you official say no one is in charge?

Re:If no one is in charge

[Monkeedude1212]

I don't follow.

Re:If no one is in charge

[Steauengeglase]

Because they don't have a theater to shout, "fire" in.

Re:If no one is in charge

[Rysc]

This is a fair question and hard to answer in a way that is convincing. I know no one is in charge because I know who anonymous is. Explaining the back story (and thus the joke) takes a lot of ink; you kind of had to be there. All I can say, briefly, is "Trust me," which is not going to be convincing to you.

There *are* some clueless people who are trying to be "Anonymous the group", which I call captial-A Anonymous because this is what reporters have insisted on saying since the Scientology raid. That was a bad raid, because even though it was funny it brought in too much attention by supporters who were not in on the joke. Ever since then, and just before then with the Fox News piece on "Anonymous", reporters trying to cover this have been saying "Anonymous" like it's an organization or group of some kind. If you were anonymous at the time, even if not participating in the raids, it would have been obvious how silly this was. Actually, a lot of fun was had making fun of this mistake. A lot of fun is still being had.

Some anonymous are definitely out to be activists and like trying to incite the mob for their personal agendas, but mostly they are not successful. The mob will react when it is interesting to do so.

By now, thanks to reporting, there are people out there who want to "join" the "Anonymous protest group." I assure you that 99.99% of these people are ineffectual and are not involved in any actual site takedowns. Some who try are like the guy who got arrested. Arrests like that won't stop the DDoSes because they're just picking off the fringe hangers-on.

The thing to keep in mind is that anonymous is a name, not a plural, or it is a description of a characteristic. Anonymous is no more a group than "Youth" is a group; yes, it's a group in the sense that it's a classification, but in no other way. A bunch of kids in a schoolyard may represent Youth in a certain sense, but they do not speak for Youth. In a similar way many are anonymous and many groups of anonymous exist, but no one speaks for anonymous. More accurately no one speaks *directly* for anonymous; anonymous tends to make his opinions known in the form of memes--not image macros or catch phrases, but ideas that appear without apparent direction in the minds of many different people and spread through word of mouth. You can get a broad sense of what anonymous thinks and feels from the aggregation of a lot of things. These thoughts and feelings are by necessity few and/or general, and they may not be universal to every anonymous. It's just that, on the whole, anonymous tends to agree. Quintessential example: furries are bad.

Re:If no one is in charge

[Blakey Rat]

Randall: Look, do you want to be leader of this gang?
Strutter: No, we agreed: No leader!
Randall: Right. So shut up and do as I say!

Re:If no one is in charge

[Stregano]

The thing that seems to be confusing about this from an observer point of view, is that the group of anon skiddies has to communicate somehow. How would so many know to hit visa.com? They had to communicate about it somehow. It is not like a bunch of skiddies somehow all thought about it at the same time without communicating. Also, if I was an anon skiddie, I would want a reason for DDoS'ing visa.com, which means somebody had to have said at one point, "let's go for visa.com for X reason". I guess I am coming from an outside perspective where it makes alot of sense that there is actually a small group of people coming off saying they are anon skiddies and pushing these kids in that direction. It is very hard to believe that a bunch of 15 and 16 year old skiddies all just happened to want to DDoS visa.com.

Re:If no one is in charge

[Anonymous Coward]

I think some people would recognize what you describe by the term "Stand Alone Complex".

Re:If no one is in charge

[jack2000]

Oh the usual, mostly image boards, forums ,instant chat(irc based and otherwise).
Sometimes flayers are made to advertise a raid.
Since the death of /i/ (the invasion board, it changed three major image boards before dissolving in hiatus) most major image boards shun threads inciting raids. Such threads are clamped down on by site moderators.
Of course there are image boards with positive attitude about invasions, indeed there are entire sites dedicated to this. ( Their effectiveness is another thing )

Re:If no one is in charge

[agrif]

Your description is good, so I'll attempt to ride your coattails and tack on my own. It's not an original idea, but I think it's a good one.

Anonymous is a Stand Alone Complex, or a group of copycats with no original. Or, a sort of similar thinking (and action) caused by a confluence of similar media and the rapid exchange of ideas (such as over the internet). Particularly (from above link):

A Stand Alone Complex can be compared to the emergent copycat behavior that often occurs after incidents such as serial murders or terrorist attacks. An incident catches the public's attention and certain types of people "get on the bandwagon", so to speak. It is particularly apparent when the incident appears to be the result of well-known political or religious beliefs, but it can also occur in response to intense media attention. For example, a mere fire, no matter the number of deaths, is just a garden variety tragedy. However, if the right kind of people begin to believe it was arson, caused by deliberate action, the threat that more arsons will be committed increases drastically.

What separates the Stand Alone Complex from normal copycat behavior is that there is no real originator of the copied action, but merely a rumor or an illusion that supposedly performed the copied action. There may be real people who are labeled as the originator, but in reality, no one started the original behavior. And in Stand Alone Complex, the facade just has to exist in the minds of the public. In other words, a potential copycat just has to believe the copied behavior happened from an originator-when it really did not. The result is an epidemic of copied behavior having a net effect of purpose. One could say that the Stand Alone Complex is mass hysteria over nothing-yet causing an overall change in social structure.

Re:If no one is in charge

[fishexe]

then how can you official say no one is in charge?

I can say it by opening my mouth and working my vocal cords. And why are you calling me an official?

Re:If no one is in charge

[thunderclap]

"Sometimes flayers are made to advertise a raid." Those never work. The screams of the bloody victims never carry far, and cleaning the whips is a tedious task. So they generally make fliers to advertise the raids.

Re:If no one is in charge

[Rysc]

You could be right, but note here that your definition of "group" isn't the same as typically used by the journalists and not what I was trying to debunk. I disagree on one point: If you arrested moot and shut down 4chan you'd simply see an explosion in the population of the other chans. Actually, shutting down the 'popular' chan would probably be a good thing as it would drive away a lot of the riffraff. Since most of the people are not engaged in anything *especially* illegal most wouldn't have sufficient cause to fear and so would continue.

Re:If no one is in charge

[Rysc]

Interesting. Yes, this pretty much describes 90% of activities you see that originate in chan culture, raids like this included even though they are the least of it. There sometimes is an original source, but since the thread for it 404s in minutes it might as well not exist.

In fact this harkens back to the very concept of the internet meme: It's a shared thought that (generally) springs into the minds of many people all at once, and then is exchanged like a revolving epidemic back and forth, prolonging its life (perhaps indefinitely).

Don't bother with the darkreading link

[Nigel Stepp]

I stopped after I got to "www.irc.paypal" being named as critical infrastructure. It's also reported that at least *two* ISPs have been found supplying an internet connection to Anonymous. Two! That's probably all of them right?

I swear this must have been written by a quick AWK script (not even perl)

Download LOIC ? hahahahaha

[unity100]

All that one needs to do is to go visit those websites and hit F5 a few times to see whether they come up or not. like, sec, let me see .... nope, they are not coming up. and i even checked 4-5 times ...

Re:Download LOIC ? hahahahaha

[Monkeedude1212]

You managed to cause 5 requests in the course of about 5 seconds, whereas LOIC can do that tenfold.

Re:Download LOIC ? hahahahaha

[VortexCortex]

You managed to cause 5 requests in the course of about 5 seconds, whereas LOIC can do that tenfold.

50 requests in the course of about 5 seconds? That's 10 requests a second... a puny (and false) figure.

Meh, just hold ctrl while clicking the links to those sites as fast as possible.

Then, click: Bookmarks > Bookmark all tabs.

Then use the "Open all in tabs" option multiple times. Then right click the tab bar and select: "Reload all Tabs". I can easily use Firefox to generate hundreds of requests per second; This is still very small amount of traffic.

My hardware can send more than 1 packet per 10 milliseconds, but we'll go with that nice round number.

A true DDoS attack works by sending spoofed SYN packets to many servers while including the target IP as the spoofed "origin" IP. Then, one machine can cause many hundreds of machines to send the target "syn-ack" packets. One attacker is distributing the denial of service flood attack, hence the name: DDoS.

When an "ack" packet is not received, the TCP protocol states that multiple "syn-ack" packets should be sent -- one spoofed "syn" and we generate 5 or more "syn-ack" packets. Spoof a hundred TCP syn packets a second and you easily generate 500 or more distributed packets per second. 100 spoofed packets per second to 2000 different IPs in a rolling list, remember, one syn gets you 5 syn-acks from that host, spoof a few syns, move to the next.

Get a large number of machines to do this type of DDoS attack and it can generate an order of magnitude more traffic than just the network itself can produce... very devastating, much more so than reloading browser pages. 50 machines can produce 25,000 packets per second directed at one IP.

The Sixteen Year Old that Was Caught...

[RobotRunAmok]

...was their oldest member. They're like a bunch of chipmunks without an Alvin.

Re:The Sixteen Year Old that Was Caught...

[Anonymous Coward]

He's actually the youngest part of Anon I've ever heard of, pretty much everybody I know who associates with the group is in their 20s (though that wasn't always true).

Anecdotal evidence of course.

Angles

[frovingslosh]

What does this have to do with Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln? Are they saying all Germanic-speaking people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln are behind this, or just some of them?

Re:Angles

[Patte_De_Lapin]

It's the one who invaded britain of course.

Good idea, crappy implementation ..... and

[unity100]

What you have done, on your part, really ? at least, these people are implementing a good idea, with a crappy implementation. that's something there. nothing on your side to show for it yet ?

Re:Good idea, crappy implementation ..... and

[Duradin]

Doing something isn't always better than doing nothing.

Re:Good idea, crappy implementation ..... and

[DurendalMac]

How is a DDoS a good idea? It's a bad idea, and it's WORSE than doing nothing because:

A) It does absolutely nothing to help Wikileaks. It's just a revenge tactic. The decisions have been made.
B) It makes Wikileaks and their supporters look like a bunch of hooligans.

So tell me how that's a good thing, please.

Re:Good idea, crappy implementation ..... and

[unity100]

A) It does absolutely nothing to help Wikileaks. It's just a revenge tactic. The decisions have been made.

it does.

paypal was at frist blabbering about 'tos violation' regarding wikileaks cut-off. after what anonymous did, they have come up saying that they did it due to political pressure.

other companies will probably follow suit or take similar routes to unload responsibility. this will put the blame where it lies.

this, if anything, is much more important in that it will make it clear that censorship is being attempted by politicians.

Re:Good idea, crappy implementation ..... and

[DurendalMac]

And that still means that Wikileaks isn't getting money from Paypal. Furthermore, did it take a DDoS to do that or just bad press and a lot of angry emails?

Re:Good idea, crappy implementation ..... and

[Draek]

It brings awareness that companies out there are caving to pressure from the US government, it grabs headlines and makes it far more costly for other companies to bow down to the US.

Of course, in theory an universal, peaceful protest done by refusing to use the services of Visa, Mastercard et al would've been far better and more effective, but in the real world we know how effective that would've been (ie, not at all).

Re:Good idea, crappy implementation ..... and

[unity100]

noone would hear it.

Who is Anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous is everyone you depend on. They're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. They make your bed. They guard you while you're asleep. They drive the ambulances. They direct your call. They are cooks and taxi drivers and they know everything about you. They process your insurance claims and credit card charges. They control every part of your life. "They are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday they'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but they won't. And they're just learning this fact."

Re:Who is Anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that a quote from Fight Club?

Re:Who is Anonymous?

[smbell]

Anonymous is everyone you depend on. They're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. They make your bed. They guard you while you're asleep. ... They are cooks and taxi drivers and they know everything about you. ...

MOM?!?

Re:Who is Anonymous?

[Dachannien]

No, I'm pretty sure 99% are unemployed college students, with the other 1% having dropped out of college to write DDoS scripts.

In other words, 1% evil, 99% hot gas.

Re:Who is Anonymous?

[Bucky24]

I agree. If the person who does my laundry knew how to do this kind of stuff they wouldn't be doing my laundry.

Re:Who is Anonymous?

[Abcd1234]

His name was Robert Paulson, his name was Robert Paulson...

Re:Who is Anonymous?

[Facegarden]

Anonymous is everyone you depend on. They're the people who do your laundry and cook your food and serve your dinner. They make your bed. They guard you while you're asleep. They drive the ambulances. They direct your call. They are cooks and taxi drivers and they know everything about you. They process your insurance claims and credit card charges. They control every part of your life.

"They are the middle children of history, raised by television to believe that someday they'll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but they won't. And they're just learning this fact."

While poetic, that's not very true (I realize you probably know this, but I feel like I should chime in). Yes, I know that's just an interesting quote from Fight Club, but its not accurate for 4chan's anon. 4Chan's anon is mostly just fat teenage boys. And some older people. But mostly fat teenage boys. Although anon is no one in particular, it tends to be the people that have jack shit else to do other than spend time on 4chan. So they don't guard anyone, or drive ambulances, or direct your call. Though they will run your raids in WOW, or x-ray some picture you got off of facebook of a girl you want to see naked.
I wish it was as poetic as Fight Club, but it's just not.
-Taylor

Re:Who is Anonymous?

[fishexe]

No, I'm pretty sure 99% are unemployed college students, with the other 1% having dropped out of college to write DDoS scripts.

In other words, 1% evil, 99% hot gas.

You're forgetting about all the high-school students. Also hot gas, but younger and dumber than the college students.

Not this s**t again

[TideX]

I am so sick of hearing about /b/. Its not that I'm against wikileaks or julian assange, I'm all for freedom of speech and transparent government. I'm against how everyone misuses the name Anonymous constantly. They are not the only board on 4chan for gods sake. Every time the media focuses on them it makes the rest of us look like idiots. For the record pretty much every other board on 4chan is against this nonsense. Anonymous is not a terrorist organization, its just a name nothing more. Anyone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask doesn't know the first damn thing about freedom and just follows the trend of his fellow /b/tards and its been this way since project chanology. Conformism and ignorance is the very thing were against. Theres no reason why they do it except maybe for some false sense of righteousness. They disgrace our name and our website. Call them /b/tards, terrorists, idiots, but not Anonymous. That name belongs to us and were sick of being grouped with them.

Re:Not this s**t again

[Xaedalus]

The problem is, Anonymous is falling victim to a mis-applied "No True Scotsman". I get what you're saying, but the very nature of Anonymous allows the /b/tards to come in and co-opt it, ultimately becoming Anonymous in the process and rendering your defense moot.

Re:Not this s**t again

[Rysc]

Who is anonymous? Whoever is posting right now. People doing raids against credit card companies because of international politics can call themselves whatever they like. Each one is anonymous. I cannot speak for them but they cannot speak for me. The only problem here is that some of them sometimes try to say what "anonymous" thinks.

In unrelated news, I'm starting to think we need /i/ just so this crap can get segregated from the cat pictures we all desire.

Re:Not this s**t again

[dotar]

Anyone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask doesn't know the first damn thing about freedom

You do know the nature of the symbol is to change, yes? Symbols are not their original meanings, the power of the symbol is what it means now.

Re:Not this s**t again

[horza]

Q: why do you care?

Is your public image a problem? Do you want to be seen turning up to the board via the right brand 'Sportster' 14k4 modem? And who other than yourself brought up terrorists?? Just do your own thing on your own board, and stop telling others what they can and cannot do.

Phillip.

Re:Not this s**t again

[Opportunist]

You know, just yesterday I came to a very sad realization: That they're not really that different from the religious loonies that blow up abortion clinics. No, wait, well, they are. But the motivation is the same: Boredom, the feeling of emptiness in their life and finally finding something "righteous" to fight for.

The difference is that the average /b/tard isn't too religious to begin with, so the whole "fighting for the will of God" thing doesn't really fit well with his set of believes. But aside of that, the motivation works out. In both cases we're dealing with people who don't have any real problems in their life. There's no goal to achieve, nothing to really to aspire to, yet the driving motivation to do something "right", to make some impact, to change the world, to be heard and to be able to say "I did that".

Some blow up abortion clinics. Some DDoS webpages.

Personally, I prefer the latter. Mostly because I'm not really the religious type and because I ... I think sanctioning acts that might be illegal is illegal itself in my country, so I better stop here.

Re:Not this s**t again

[Opportunist]

Ok, but aside from people dying...

Details, details.

Re:Not this s**t again

[thunderclap]

Honestly? http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Anonymous You are not them.

Unified beliefs

[Darkness404]

I think that the one thing that really unites the majority of the internet culture is open access of information. And because of that, the internet as a whole likes the fact that the government's "dirty little secrets" are now out in the open. Despite there being a wide range of political viewpoints ranging from communist, to libertarian, to socialist, to anarchist and everywhere in between, much of the internet can agree that open access to information is an essential thing to have.

Re:Unified beliefs

[Optali]

What 'dirty little secrets' exactly? That the French prez is a swollen toad ? That there may be or may no be nukes on Dutch territory? One thing I have to admit: Assange is the biggest scammer since Madoff, or maybe even bigger.

Re:Unified beliefs

[NanoGeek]

That's not completely true. Take for example the most recent diplomatic leaks. While they have provided a fascinating look into the world of international politics, some of the info they posted was down right dangerous. For instance, Iran now knows that its neighbors wants the U.S. to attack. What is that going to do to the already dangerous situation there? On the same token, North Korea has been told that China, their biggest ally, would consider abandoning it. Assange really should not have leaked some of these documents. We don't need to know everything, and we shouldn't know some things.

Re:Unified beliefs

[uniquename72]

These are the examples of "dangerous" things? Had you asked 20 random people on the street whether Iran's neighbors had thought of attacking it, or whether China might not be a trustworthy as it pretends to be, 19 could have predicted the correct answers.

There was nothing new in the leaks. At least, nothing that's been released so far.

Re:Unified beliefs

[he-sk]

It's one thing to suspect government duplicity, it's another to see it written in black on white.

As an example, I am sickened how the German authorities caved to US pressure with regards to El-Masri's abduction by the CIA while calling for a "thorough investigation" publicly.

Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,733860,00.html

Re:Unified beliefs

[Mister Whirly]

You do realize that less than 1% of the 250,000 cables in WikiLeaks possession have been released to the public so far, right? I am certain there is more damaging information in them than what US diplomats think of foreign leaders. Wikilekas isn't going to release the juiciest ones first - they have to build the excitement.

Re:Unified beliefs

[nelsonal]

http://www.mytechinterviews.com/is-your-husband-a-cheat This situation isn't all that different, think of the US as the mayor in this problem.

Re:Unified beliefs

[HeckRuler]

-USA taxpayers paid a private defense contractor to buy Afghan cops a boy sex toy. Apparently it's a pre-taliban tradition.
-Our diplomates were instructed to get the U.N. leader Ban Ki-Moons biometrics, passwords, and encryption keys.
-We've pushed our own IP laws onto Spain

But holy cow, you may just want to take your pick of anything on the wiki page. There's plenty there. Most of it is, yeah, stupid things like candid descriptions by diplomats. But some of is examples of people in power abusing said power.

Re:Unified beliefs

[HungryHobo]

really?
it's gradually emerging that this information was available to a remarkably large number of government employees and contractors.
You can be utterly certain that all the juciest stuff has already reached any forgien intelligence agency that wanted it.

If anything this exposes how poorly the US has been securing such "secrets".
Mainly it's just embarasing to the US government.

it's a safe bet that china and iran already knew damn well everything that was in those cables, they could just pretend they didn't when it was politically expedient.
Anything that can be lifted by any one of tens of thouands of staff is eventually going to get put on an SD card and quietly exchanged for a wad of cash.

Re:Unified beliefs

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

What I hate about the Wikileaks thing is that most of the headlines is stuff that isn't surprising at all and a lot of it has made it to the mainstream media as it happened

[Citation Needed]

No, seriously, plenty of this stuff makes it to the news and is promptly dismissed as being based on flimsy or no evidence.
We all "know" a lot of this stuff, but now wikileaks has provided the Citations Needed for anyone to verify the claims.

Re:Unified beliefs

[nospam007]

"it's gradually emerging that this information was available to a remarkably large number of government employees and contractors."

Not in my country nor in a couple of hundred other countries.

Re:Unified beliefs

[HeckRuler]

Hmmm. True. I should have said "A private defense contractor, funded by USA taxpayers, bought Afghan cops a boy sex toy.
But while it was obvious and the leak irrelevant that the Chinese government was behind the hacks into Google, the leaks about US wrongdoings is very relevant to me. It's evidence of illegal activity. We're (supposed to be) a civilized country. Wrong-doings get punished.

Re:Unified beliefs

[jpmorgan]

And if you actually READ the memo, you'll see that they were. This was in the New York Times a year ago, and didn't become a huge issue because the people involved were punished. The system worked.

Re:Unified beliefs

[MrKaos]

-USA taxpayers paid a private defense contractor to buy Afghan cops a boy sex toy. Apparently it's a pre-taliban tradition.

Lets be call this what this particularly wrong tradition what it is. Whilst I don't know the exact spelling it's called "batca bazzi" - which apparently translates to "to be with the boy" or "to have the boy" - in other word to have sex with boys.

This Afgan tradition of the warlords and other power elites is no more than a form of institutionalised paedophilia and is one of the sickest forms of repeated rape of a child. I really don't want to know what sort of mental gymnastics these sick motherfuckers go through to justify this sort of behaviour all I know is it's wrong. This stands as the case in point about the Afgan vs Iraq war and I just wish that the worlds resources were focused on fixing Afganistan. This one issue illustrates the epitome of the brutality and ignorance that occurs in Afganistan and highlights why actions that expose dirty laundry like this must be supported.

I think - if anything - Wikileaks makes democracy stronger and Anonymous enforcement of it demonstrates the undercurrent of fury that exists in the world over these type of in-justices.

Re:Unified beliefs

[Optali]

It's encrypted and only Assange has the key. This means that they could as well be his grocery list or a dump of /dev/random. Even in the best case only a very small part will be of any interest... There are some, like Cryptome's John Young, who claim that Assange is pimping worthless information as a publicity stunt while he might be selling 'good' data behinde the scenes for a good price. Here is Youngs article in the Nettime mailig list: http://mail.kein.org/pipermail/nettime-l/2010-December/002495.html I am not completely sure that Young doesn't have any private issue with Assange and he seems rather elusive with giving names of his sources (using instead "a friend of mine") so that I would keep a healthy amount of doubt. But on the other side Young has been doing the same as Wikileaks since 1996 and has an exceptional record so far.

Re:Unified beliefs

[Optali]

FAIL: IP laws in Spain Big FAIL... I can proof it:

1) I AM Spanish

2) IP Laws are subject to EU legislation

3) Spain has it's own _very_ powerful IP lobby (SGAE) that receives it's own funding from indirect taxes on storage devices (a LOT of $$$). Note that that these people are very interested in keeping the status quo and that their relative influence on the Spanish politicians (of both left and right) is way higher than what the RIAA has in the USA

4) Some IP related issues like file sharing are protected by law and as 3) applies (SGAE gets money from taxes) they cannot be changed.

So much for your valuable information.

Of course, I cannot verify anything about Afghanistan, I'm not there, but I am in the EU.

And yes, the Boy Sex Toy can really change the history of humanity, but please tell me where the importance of this issue relies, in the fact that it's for boys or that it's a sex toy?

Otherwise: They have surely also bought other stuff like T-shirts and Christmas cards... with tax payers money... Captain Obvious told me that this is because your forces are paid with tax payers money to begin with, and of course: The US forces are not going to produce sex toys themselves, are they?

And what about Ban Ki Moons biometrics? If true it could lead to a minor incident true, but nothing worth a second thought. But if it has the same worth as the Spanish IP claim, "apaga y vámonos" as we say in Spanish.

Re:Unified beliefs

[Optali]

WTF? I though 'boy sex toy' meant 'vibrator device for men in vagina shape'... Man, I need to spend less time in front of my computer X'D

Re:Unified beliefs

[Optali]

I already referred to it...

And FYI: The REG

It seems that Assange's mates aren't quite good at remembering that the guy who filtered this stuff is facing court martial.

While "JesusCrist" Assange is all the day long on TV nobody even remembers Bradley Manning, not even Wikileaks, specially when it comes to fund his cause.

Yes, of course, they are too busy caring for Assange's hairdo

Re:Unified beliefs

[Maritz]

Have you read everything so far ?

Did you know that the Germans caved in to American pressure not to prosecute the CIA over their mistaken-identity kidnap and torture of a German citizen, or that Pfizer gathered some compromising information on a Nigerian prosecutor to get him to drop a lawsuit regarding children being used in tests for a meningitis drug without appropriate legal consent being obtained?

Maybe you have a point in general terms, but be more careful with words like 'nothing'... ;)

Re:Unified beliefs

[joebagodonuts]

I disagree. Many of us have suspected the chicanery that has been brought to light by the coverage , but confirmation of our suspicions is important.

Re:Unified beliefs

[joebagodonuts]

Please. Other countries/governments harbor no illusions about the US Government. The only folks who are deluded are US voters.

Re:Unified beliefs

[Optali]

How do you know that anybody is despaired to get somebody into custody?

How do you know that the accusations are not right?

Why aren't "they" going for John Young who has been "in business" since 1996?

Why only Assange and not any other of his team?

To many questions that need to be answered. I don't believe in good guys / bad guys movies, sorry. I know the whole plot is appealing but real life is unfortunately not Hollywood.

If you can give me solid explanation of the above I will maybe embrace the True Faith and let me baptise to the New Religion and even join 4chan and wear a Vendetta mask. ;)

Re:Unified beliefs

[MrKaos]

I think they're referring to the "real" dolls - a googling you will go

Re:Unified beliefs

[Optali]

Mate, 8 year old girls getting married to decrepit old men... and now this. What a sick country, I'm so happy that my country, the Netherlands decided to get the fuck out of this place. I have just lunched so I will not google anything right now; I would throw up.

Re:Unified beliefs

[HeckRuler]

Two afghan police, and nine afghan civvies got charged. Maybe.
What exactly happened to the private security firm (DynCorp, btw)? or the US citizen working for them who bought the boy prostitute?

Re:Unified beliefs

[HeckRuler]

I was honestly just thinking of this article from El Pais. Is El Pais any good?

Sorry, by "boy sex toy", I meant a young male sex-slave. A "sex toy" that is a boy.
Also, if it were simply biometrics, I'd honestly understand that. You know, from a simply verification standpoint. Gotta fight off the pod people somehow. But they were instructed to get PASSWORDS and ENCRYPTION KEYS. So the biometric part is that much more wrong.

And the winners are: Governments and businesses

[get_your_guns]

All these skiddies are doing is providing fodder to the politicians to enforce more internet control. The governments will get more in bed with every internet hub and access point in their respective countries to monitor all traffic and block encrypted traffic (that they don't have the keys for) and traffic that looks like a hacking or DDoS attack. We will all be paying higher taxes and higher access charges to use what was the open internet. Don't get me wrong, I think the release of these docs is warranted but I don't think the hacking going on right now is doing anyone any good. What good is this going to do for internet users? And this is the problem, the juveniles doing what they think is hacking is just making things worse for the one thing they rely upon, open access.

Re:And the winners are: Governments and businesses

[JockTroll]

You misunderstand: the governments WILL control the internet, no excuse needed. They will do it at the behest of Big Media, and turn it into Cable TV 2.0. We WILL be paying higher taxes, no matter what. The question is not "if" but "when", and if we're going to let it happen without a fight. Internet users have a choice: lay down and die, or shed blood.

Any news about charging anti-Wikileaks DDoS'ers?

[austinhook]

I don't see much news on charging anti-Wikileaks DDoS'ers.

Angels on Anonymous

[BenihanaX]

Am I the only one that misread the title as "Angels on Anonymous?"

Don't worry

[Optali]

Don't worry about negative publicity, the whole mass media is supporting this circus. And if we have to believe Cryptome's Young, Mr Assagne has quite some support from US money and media(he cites Soros).

Re:Don't worry

[Steauengeglase]

When I worked at Spacely Sprockets people thought that the FDA, OSHA, the DOJ and the EPA hated us, but no one wanted us dead more than Cogswell's Cogs.

LOIC

[thisNameNotTaken]

DOWNLOAD: loic.sourceforge.net

Works OK.

Re:LOIC

[jack2000]

Hey you open source junkies, loic is open source too. Go nuts.
Maybe some of you can implement DHT for it.

so

[unity100]

we should just keep doing nothing, because doing something is not always better than doing nothing.

and when we actually do anything, we should go back to doing nothing, because there will always be someone who himself does nothing but comes up saying "doing x is better than doing the thing you are doing" ...

please, act, or shut up. world has enough people who never act, but talk.

Re:so

[Red Flayer]

That analysis is a crock, for it fails when the effect of doing "something" is negative.

Doing nothing is better than doing a negative something.

Far bett, and I think you'll agree here, is to do a different something, one that will have positive results.

Re:so

[Duradin]

Oh, I have taken action. It won't make the news nor land me in jail. Nor will it make much (if any).

Much like a single vote is meaningless without all the other votes, my actions carry little value on their own.

Aggregated with all the others that aren't throwing temper tantrums and resorting to thuggery is when it can make a change.

Re:so

[sumdumass]

Have you ever heard of throwing the baby out with the bath water to cut your arm off to stop a sore thumb from bothering you?

Here is the thing, doing somethings makes the situation worse then it already it. It's like a person who throws his phone out the window while driving because the number he was calling is busy. You can do something stupid, dangerous, or destructive that wouldn't help but only hurt the situation more then it already is. Just doing something does not mean it making anything better. Sometimes doing nothing is better then something. You have to look at what the "doing something" will achieve to figure that out though.

Y'all got trolled

[md65536]

How ridiculous to define Anonymous and issue "press releases from the group."
Simultaneously they explain that the "group" is decentralized and ad-hoc'ly organized, yet they present quotes and info on "group activities" as if they're interviewing authorities within the "group", or "leaders" or something.

Because Anonymous is NOT a defined group, anyone can claim to be Anonymous and anyone can define it. In fact, I'll go on the record as an "authority" and define Anonymous thusly:

Anonymous is any individual who would rather poop in secrecy rather than compliantly poop under the watchful eye of someone who tells him where and when to poop.
Anonymous is any individual who still is an individual, and hasn't gladly given up their identity to The System.

Ooh, what is this "System", that is the sworn enemy of Anonymous? Who are they and what is their manifesto? What is their control structure? Do they have official membership cards, like I assume Anonymous does???

Really, Anonymous is anyone who at any time decides they want to be called Anonymous for whatever reason. That's all.

Convicted for "posession" ?

[mspohr]

How can "simply downloading the software" earn a conviction? This software (LOIC) seems to have been developed for legitimate uses for testing networks.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/

Re:Convicted for "posession" ?

[droopus]

They can quite easily hit you with a federal conspiracy charge. Your IP on a list of "downloaders of LOIC" is plenty for a search warrant. A creative examination of your hard drive will come up with enough "suspicious material" to convince a grand jury. (Free lunch and $8 per diem is plenty to convince a grand jury.)

So, ok, you then claim you did nothing. The AUSA says "we do not believe you. We think you are an OP in Anonymous and are charging you with violation of 18 USC 1030 How's twenty years sound, hm?"

And conspiracy is so tangential, that anyone can be accused of it for pretty much anything. For example, I say to you "Hey dude! How about a free pound of coke!" You jokingly say something like "LOL sure dude, bring a big straw." And we both laugh it off. But you're neighbor overhears and calls the cops/DEA.You just conspired to buy a pound of cocaine. And you'd lose in court, like 97% of fed trial defendants. But I digress. This is the conspiracy section of the federal hacking law: .....
Whoever conspires to commit or attempts to commit an offense under subsection (a) of this section shall be punished as provided in subsection (c) of this section.
(c) The punishment for an offense under subsection (a) or (b) of this section is—
(1)

(A) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than ten years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(1) of this section which does not occur after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; and

(B) a fine under this title or imprisonment for not more than twenty years, or both, in the case of an offense under subsection (a)(1) of this section which occurs after a conviction for another offense under this section, or an attempt to commit an offense punishable under this subparagraph; ....

Now, the AUSA says to you "ok, you have two choices. Go to trial, and I will beat you and you will absolutely do at least fifteen years. Or sign this admission of responsibility, plead guilty to this minor count and do five. Your choice."

Many people say "I'll fight!!" Almost all of them will reconsider that as they pass year 12 at Fort Dix.

Re:Convicted for "posession" ?

[VortexCortex]

How can "simply downloading the software" earn a conviction? This software (LOIC) seems to have been developed for legitimate uses for testing networks.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/loic/

::Sigh:: It's really not any different than the way purchasing a gun earns you a murder conviction.

Look, Guns kill people. If you buy a gun and get caught, you go to jail for killing people, it's simple.

The Low Orbit Ion Cannon is a HUGE gun! If you buy a Huge Gun, even for $0.00, you WILL GO TO JAIL!

Re:Convicted for "posession" ?

[Shimbo]

How can "simply downloading the software" earn a conviction? This software (LOIC) seems to have been developed for legitimate uses for testing networks.

You need criminal intent:

"A person is guilty of an offence if he obtains any article with a view to its being supplied for use to commit, or to assist in the commission of, an offence under section 1 or 3." (Computer Misuse Act 1990)

Re:Convicted for "posession" ?

[geschild]

For example, I say to you "Hey dude! How about a free pound of coke!" You jokingly say something like "LOL sure dude, bring a big straw." And we both laugh it off. But you're neighbor overhears and calls the cops/DEA.You just conspired to buy a pound of cocaine. And you'd lose in court, like 97% of fed trial defendants.

I regularly do a pound of coke
Occaisionally even with a straw...

Re:anonymity should be banned!

[Beetjebrak]

..says the AC. Funny how that works.. meh.

Operation Payback?

[Anonymous Coward]

We believe in wikileak's right to disseminate information, but we couldn't care less about your right to not do business with them.

What a joke.

Israel....

[mrops]

Maybe a bit off topic, but still related to wikileaks,

Notice how there is nothing incriminating about Israel in these leaks...

Turns out Israel struck a deal with Wikileaks.. brilliant. Wonder if US could have done the same.

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/08/wikileaks-struck-a-deal-with-israel-over-cable-leaks/

Re:Israel....

[Anonymous Coward]

that's your source? really?

all they have an "Arabic investigative site" as a single source of information, and the whole thing reads like a crazy conspiracy theory. the whole thing brings no evidence, and in it's place uses phrases like "secret, video recorded agreement" in order to make it all sound scary. to top it all, they have the video claiming wikileaks is a big Zionist conspiracy to make Iran and Hezbollah look bad, and make people ignore the whole 9/11 Zionist conspiracy.

how on earth does this get moded +5 informative?

Re:Israel....

[Anonymous Coward]

... you're joking.

1) that same site is also convinced wikileaks is IN ITS ENTIRETY a usa plot to police the internet. http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/12/10/wikileaks-a-big-dangerous-us-government-con-job/ - money graf: "The Wikileaks is a big and dangerous US intelligence Con Job which will likely be used to police the Internet."
2) it's a 9/11 truther site.
3) the only source they have which actually suggests assange struck a deal with israel is "syriatruth.info" - very unbiased, i'm sure.

modded informative. good work, /.

Re:Israel....

[drakonandor]

How come the leak about not leaking anything Israeli didn't get leaked... Damn Zionists!

Demonstration at the US embassy, in Kiev (photos)

[Max_W]

This is the demonstration in support of Julian Assange:

http://gallery.korrespondent.net/kyiv/2719-svobodu-dzhulianu-assanzhu-posolstvo-ssha-v-kieve-piketirovali-poklonniki-wikileaks

here they are, the "hackers from Eastern Europe".

OK, who said what now?

[FatdogHaiku]

...purports to come from "ANON OPS," even though Anonymous disclaims any central spokesperson or entity.

Without any central spokesperson or entity, who can disclaim anything?

Re:Question for you...

[horza]

Membership list?? Did you manage to drag that scroll bar down so quickly you failed to register a single comment before getting to the Reply button?

Phillip.

I just want to know when we get to laugh at them.

[LordRobin]

Seriously. I read on the web and hear on the news how Anonymous "crashed Visa.com and Mastercard.com"! Oooh! What a terrifying demonstration of their power! Let me check... Nope, both sites still up. Supposedly their next target was Amazon.com. If that was even true in the first place, the attack was ineffective.

C'mon folks -- These guys are a joke. They're not an awe-inspiring force of Internet destruction. They're an annoyance, a mosquito buzzing in your ear. So they took down a website for a moment or two. Like those sites have never been down before. The sites come back up, the world goes on. I doubt the majority of credit card customers were even aware anything had happened.

Face it, the only reason these kids are gaining so much attention is because the story sounds good on the news.

------RM

Yeah right..

[formfeed]

Anecdotal evidence of course.

Yeah right- the user name you chose somehow tells me that you are involved with that group.

OP is clearly a f@ggot

[DrStoooopid]

I'm sure you meant ANGELS.....not ANGLES....

Learn2spell.

Now TITS OR GTFO.... ....and Ron Jeremy for president.

Re:Question for you...

[jnaujok]

Wow, I got modded down to a score of zero, for a comment that pre-dated XKCD by several days...