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Designer Arrested Over Anonymous Press Release
An anonymous reader writes "A Greek designer named Alex Tapanaris, whose name appeared on the PDF press release circulated by online trouble-makers Anonymous has had his web site disappeared and, according to reports, the unfortunate chap has been arrested. THINQ managed to talk to Alex on the phone, and while he wouldn't confirm his arrest, he 'certainly sounded spooked,' the web site reports. 'No comment,' he said and hung up. The press release sought to explain Anonymous's aims and lack of any formal organization. It explained that the Anonymous name is applied to a shifting roster of individuals who come together on an ad hoc basis, depending on individual concerns and practical, day-to-day matter such as who happens to be online at the time. Clicking on the document's properties revealed Tapanaris as its named author."
Attacking financial services, banks and government websites is probably the best idea in the world.
Yes, it is when you're anonymous. Nobody can stop us, nobody can find us. We won't make the same mistake again.
__
A Tapanaris
Clicking on the document's properties revealed Tapanaris as its named author.
Congratulations, Mr. Tapanaris, you've won the "Wow, I'm an idiot for signing an 'anonymous' document" prize!
... if you're going to do something dodgy, you put fake names into your software registration fields. :p
When someone is arrested, isn't there a public record of it? Why not call the local police to verify instead of calling the guy directly? In fact being able to call him directly suggest that he has not been arrested.
Creating a press release describing how Anonymous isn't some group with centralized leadership doesn't seem like a crime to me either.
I can't help but to think that this sounds like media whoring at its worst. Basically a big prank pulled on the public at large.
I read the internet for the articles.
sage
And being silly enough to do it with software that attaches your credentials is an even dumber idea.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Mod parent LOL...
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
If I come out with a press release saying that "Us KKK members killed hundreds of black people." I wouldn't be arrested right? I mean, I am saying I am part of a group that committed murder but that isn't enough to arrest me right?
The news media continues to focus on the drama surrounding Wikileaks and Anonymous instead of focusing on the cables.
How many US new organizations reported on the Cable from Tegucigalpa detailing that the Honduras Coup was illegitimate? This was a big news story, and an important situation in Honduras that has immediate impact on understanding the Obama administration.
It also shows that the Obama administration lied, and helped support the coup government by their actions.
So.. who is covering it? And compare that to another article on the drama surrounding it.
And that's just one cable. How many more will come out of great importance that everyone will ignore to instead focus on what Assange is doing.
It's not Assange or Anons fault, it's the News doing it. But this is their out.
This allows them to totally ignore the importance of the cables. And keep repeating that "nothing significant" is coming out.
http://use.perl.org
Word processors that remember your name and fill in author metadata for you are sure helpful, aren't they?
Is he charged with designing graphics? With sympathizing with an unsavory group? How the heck would that arrest warrant look? How is the creation of that document even something in the vicinity of a crime?
The worst possibility is to be stalked by legions of anti-wikileaks vigilantes.
This guys life may very well be ruined over this as now he's going to face the Greek version of COINTELPRO. Read about operation Gladio.
And because he's Greek the CIA, NSA and US Military can use full force on him. They don't even have to pretend to respect his human rights or civil rights like they would if he were an American. Extrajudicial justice from the vigilantes will be what he could face just by having associated himself with this sort of manifesto.
It's like having signed your name to the US Constitution or Communist Manifesto and somehow it leaks out and now they all know who you are and where you live.
When someone is arrested, isn't there a public record of it? Why not call the local police to verify instead of calling the guy directly?
Oh, they have their sources.
A bloke named Alex Tapanaris, whose name appeared on the PDF press release circulated by online trouble-makers Anonymous has had his web site disappeared from the web and, according to a post on pastebin.com, the unfortunate chap has been arrested.
Everyone knows that pastebin is irrefutable.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
What can be done to protect innocent civilians from the fallout?
Stay anonymous.
I read TFA and all I got was this lousy cookie
It could very well be that he made the info site about anonymous without having participated in the attacks against banks, etc... Just because he in some way assosciates himself with the anonymous, some of whom do occasional crimes, doesn't really prove that he is a criminal... But well, I'm interested to see how this one turns out.
And it's even today's comic:
XKCD 834.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Clicking on the document's properties revealed Tapanaris as its named author
Well that settles it then, because these computer people would never figure out that you could put the name of someone that you don't like in a document like this and cause them problems too while you are doing your original mischief.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The government vigilantes mean business and are completely ruthless. He just got outed as being a member of anonymous, this is like being outed as a communist back during the anti-communist era.
At this point counter intelligence agencies are going to run his name through their national security databases. Then they'll find out what they can use against him, or what they can use to entrap and or destroy him. Then they'll give that information to the anti-wikileaks vigilantes
You can bet on that.
Why will they go after him? To get the names and identities of the others.
So if an arrest has been made on the basis of software user registration details, surely the appropriate response is to start flooding the Internet with questionable documents (kitty porn, bomb-making instructions etc.), all in the name of a specific celebrity target?
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
That (as they say) is all.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
Because if you use your computer you wont be anonymous. If you use the library computer then you are on camera and not anonymous. If you use an internet cafe they'll ask who was on the computer at that time and so you aren't anonymous.
It's a lot harder to be anonymous than you might have thought. It's not impossible but it's not something a 16 year old hacker can do from their living room or a 40 year old hacker can do from his parents basement. It's something a sophisticated Russia or Chinese state sponsored hacker could do, or an experienced amateur hacker could do.
Slashdotters,
Here is a case-in-point (rather old) showing that mainstream US media just doesn't get it. Anonomous and Lulz
U.S. Media,
Anonymous is not a secret hacker organization. It is the literal definition of the word. It is not a proper noun. It is just individuals acting without large-scale coordination, all pissed off for their own reasons, acting in semi-cohesion, and participating in groupthink. It is people either trolling for lulz, or lulzing for lulzing.
People downloading music are like anonymous. There is not a collective group organizing the individual downloaders. They just do it. The people "at the other end of the stick" view it as us against "them", and to have a proper OMGSCANDAL, you need a perpetrator, so they made one. And if they didn't cognitively make one for the purposes of degrading freedom on the internet, then it's more lulz for us and more idiot points for you.
Sincererely
The Lulz.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Yes, because the Greeks are sooooooooooo calm. They set their own ministry of finance on fire today.
The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
yea, if I were to do anything like this it would be inside a virtual machine, on someone else's hijacked computer in some other country.
Authorities know who they are and are using this guy to prove a point.
Subversive revolutionaries are usually mistreated by the authorities in any country. Governments hate subversives.
Do you even know what you are talking about? What part of Coup do you think people don't understand? What happened in Honduras was a Coup and everyone knew that long before the Cables came out. All the cables expose is some diplomats opinion of how Honduras should have delt with the Coup. Like the crew that just took over the ship is going to have a trial about how that was not legal. Since when is a Coup legal? Who cares that behind closed doors our diplomats were cursing up a storm. In the end their job is to work with who ever is in charge. We have the choice of withdrawing from the world and saying what we really think of dictators to their faces or we can play in the world and talk behind their backs as long as we don't say it directly to their faces.
This isn't news this is Gossip!
Anonymous knows that it isn't a collection of geniuses. What it does know is that it has the power of a mob. Arrest one person in a mob? You still have a mob.
They know that some of them are going to get busted. See party van for clarification.
Has anybody noticed that the New York Times seems to have stopped printing more cables articles since the 9th?
Have they caved already?
expandfairuse.org
I just want to come clean and be honest in disclosing - GLEN BECK is a member of anonymous. There I've said it. Whew - load off my mind that is.
Good thing you didn't say GLENN BECK, otherwise he might have tried suing you. Although I did hear he raped and mur....never mind.
Somewhere in the world, there is a Glen Beck, and he probably having a rough couple years.
Probably not as bad as Julian Asage, hopefully they don't accidentally pick her up by mistake identity and take her to a torture camp in Afghanistan.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Just as hacking should be left to the real hackers, not the script kiddies, press releases should be written by real PR people, not word processing kiddies.
"You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.."
-- Inigo Montoya
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Messing around with sovereign governments is not a game. If you dont understand how you leave footprints on the web you should not get involved. More mature hackers can avoid this.
If I get a few thousand of my friends to drive down a road at a particular time to create a traffic jam, is that a crime? I'm really asking...
Of course it is.
You have launched a conspiracy to deny others the right to travel without interference and delay. You and your friends are obstructing the public roads with potentially life-threatening consequences.
Police. Ambulance services. Fire and rescue...
It won't matter if you are a thousand miles away when someone gets hurt.
It's your game. Your ball.
Conspiracy law usually does not require proof of specific intent by the defendants to injure any specific person to establish an illegal agreement. Instead, usually the law only requires the conspirators have agreed to engage in a certain illegal act. This is sometimes described as a "general intent" to violate the law.
The conspirators can be guilty even if they do not know the identity of the other members of the conspiracy. Conspiracy (crime)
"disappeared" as a verb is a reference to the book 1984, where people the government doesn't like are abducted and then all traces of them are removed from past media.
Since someone will correct me, let me do it myself. That is to say using the the verb "disappeared" with a direct object. It was already a verb...
Glenn Beck may well be part of anonymous, but his best trolling is done under his own name.
Did some checking, both are acceptable, it all depends on what the intended pronounciation is.
I.E. if you want people to read that and say "anonymouses" then write your version.
A single person walks into that bar and shouts 'I don't like [target], all who agree come help me form an angry mob.' When he leaves, many of the people follow him - some because they agree with the cause, some just because they like being in an angry mob. That is Anonymous.
The USSR did the same thing in reality - political undesireables were not only pushed away from power, but their past involvement never acknowledged, even to the point of manipulating photos (Via the old, pre-photoshop methods) to excise them.
The guy left his name in the "author" field when he compiled the pdf. Nothing say dumb criminal like attaching your name to the evidence.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
Jealous of their cojones?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
That's my point -.-
1. He did it, they arrest him, that's where it ends. He doesn't know any names he could give them (how could he, Anonymous is ... well, guess). The others will just continue as before.
Oh, you mean they'll shit themselves and stop? Yeah, it worked really well for the whole RIAA lawsuits for fantastillion bucks, P2P sharing instantly floundered.
2. It's a HUGE prank along the lines already outlined above, with the name basically being "I. C. Wiener" or "I. P. Freely" and some poor guy actually having that name. /b/ will ZOMFGROFL (or whatever the acronym du jour is) over it for weeks. Might even spawn a meme.
Both may or may not result in Greece becoming the new prank target and prime source for new anti-government memes.
That's basically the net result to be expected.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Ha ha ha ha ha...
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Writing a PDF is criminal now?
I know you didn't pay for the software.
Considering it was OpenOffice, I'm inclined to agree.
Check out the austerity measure riots going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuJZdWTiaJM
I don't see them having time to mess with this kid.
Now what happens if you hire some PR firm to write a press release for your group? Is the person who published your press release guilty of a crime?
Just when you think something so ridiculous wouldn't work
1. Find a news story which is putting the government on the brink of declaring martial law
2. Issue an anonymous press release claiming responsibility with a ludicrously simple "mistake" which attributes authorship to the target
Then the only way to solve the problem is with a mass "I am Spartacus" defense.
Real criminals use .doc.
Obviously he is distributing terrorism recruitment material. Speech is only free if you agree with it and it doesn't cause too much of a ruckus. He practically yelled FIRE! in a crowded theater. ... *sigh*
A libertarian shat on my carpet once. Claimed the free market would sort it out. -Ford Prefect(8777)
Is this anonymous the same kind of anonymous who are hackers on steroids and love to blow up vans or are we talking about some kind of anonymous user not linked to the chans? I keep hearing 4chan this and 4chan that but it often switches away from 4chan to 'Anonymous' so I'm pretty confused here. Well whatever, PUDDI, PUDDI, PUDDI.
You know, that is cute. Let's talk trash while being Anon in /.
/. as Anon and then assuming I am doing nothing is a pretty big assumption. If you want me to post my work schedule for the next 2 months of what is all on my plate, I would be more than happy to show you that I am not kidding when I say I am doing alot of good for this world. No, I am not einstein of ghandi or anything like that, but I am definitely not some skiddie following some other person's cause. Here is a quick example: Today I was seriously working on a program to almost completely automate the process of homeless veterans of war getting funding from the government so that they can have a home to sleep in. Ok, person who wishes to remain Anon, what did you do today? Seriously, 1 day of work for me will make a bigger impact on society than the skiddies ever could. And trust me when I say I am not doing enough to make a difference. I should be doing more and am failing at that, but to sit here as Anon and tell me that some skiddies who ran some other dude's script to DDoS are doing more then me, well, when was the last time you posted on 4chan kid?
Yeah, I may be a programmer, but I work for an NPO that helps with rehab programs all around the world, helps get non violent criminals back into society, helps the homeless.
I am no skiddie hiding behind some other person's cause and thinking I am doing good to the world when all I am doing is running a script some other person wrote for me.
I am personally doing everything in my power to make a difference in this world (and am very, very slowly succeeding). So when I hear people rapping on about how Anon is great and doing good things, it makes me need to go against that. If they want to make a real impact, fighting another person's war is not the answer. And some of the anon supporters I have talked to think that just because they are mindlessly following somebody's orders that they are somehow heroes to the internet. See, hopping into
When they truly make a difference in this world, I will give them credit where credit is due, but thus far, their most famous things they have done are DDos's. Being good at it? Really? I am pretty sure I can run a script that another person on the net gives me as well. That doesn't make me good for doing it.
Also, if all of these people are anonymous, why is there some kid writing up a press release for these guys? Boredom? Maybe he thinks it is cool that he is a part of this stuff. Maybe he should not refer to the people he does stuff with as a group since they are all anonymous.
Also, have you seen the movie Old School? Frank the Tank sound similar to the bar example, and look how many people a drunk idiot gets to follow him when he goes streaking. Now try that at any bar and see what happens. I am 28 years old and have been to many bars, and if you go in there shouting for people to join your cause, nobody will and you will be cut off from drinking for being the weird wasted guy.
As for the guy that was on the news, let's say a group of people want to jump him in the parking lot. That group will not somehow magically not know each other and all up and randomly follow 1 guy who wants to fight him. This will be a group in the crowd that knows each other and even if it is one of the guys, since they know each other, they get each other's back and fight with them. Let me repeat, they would know each other.
There were two bar examples that were really bad. Have you guys been to a bar before? Have you guys been a local at a bar before? I am sorry, but those examples were horrible.
Here is my point: 10,000 retards can be directed very easily. Even if this kid got arrested, the reason for him being let go is so that they can go after the director. Whoever thinks these kids are not being directed is fooling themselves. Who wrote the program they all downloaded for the DDoS's? You telling me that they collectively thought a
The world is how you make it
Good for the fucking Greek. Government and Business screw up and leave the average person with the bill. Perhaps this is a good time for them to water the Tree of Liberty.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/774
A real life stand alone complex: "a phenomenon where unrelated, yet very similar actions of individuals create a seemingly concerted effort". The anime connection isn't farfetched given the youth of those reported to have been arrested for the DDoS.
http://www.despair.com/idiocy.html
"Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups"
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
Remember those little setup/install screen asking for your name and your organization? Type in random characters will make it work.
New Economic Perspectives
Attacking financial services, banks and government websites is probably the best idea in the world.
And if the attacker is anonymous, associating yourself with them in any way, even making a "press release" that sounds like it might be on their behalf, is probably not a very smart idea either.
I suppose based on what the authorities will do, it will eventually become known whether this person is directly involved in the attacks or not, or just some commentator trying to take advantage of a situation for Ad revenues.
Hm... i'm afraid Anonymous may learn a new way to pick a target.
Metadata to make a press release appear to be authored by chosen target.
If authorities will react so spontaneously and so quickly.... anonymous can get anyone arrested that they want, even with no merits whatsoever.
Real-Life "DoS" also known as DoF (Denial of Freedom)
http://slashdot.org/journal/201888/In-Soviet-xkcd, Journal entry by a /.'er who met Randall Munroe IRL, which leads to this picture: http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/1855/01721azf4.jpg
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
Well they found at least one of you so far...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Anonymous doesn't mean people who keep their identities secret, shadow figures nobody knows about, mysterious strangers. No.
Anonymous is synonym for "Joe Average". An anonymous person you pass by on the street. Somebody who doesn't mean a thing to you. Name not hidden, but unimportant, totally not worth writing down. Somebody who means nothing as a single person, whose loss won't be mourned by anyone significant, just a disposable person. They are aware of being meaningless people with no worth as individuals. But as a bulk, they form a formidable force. And if one or ten or a hundred is lost, this changes nothing. They were just some anonymous people, but The Anonymous lives on.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
...this guy!
You are seriously going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that some 14 year old in the name of activism wrote a DDoS program to distribute so that he could get thousands of others to DDoS visa.com? Seriously, according to you, that is exactly what happened.
why does it have to be a 14 year old, why not a 20 year old, 30 year old? you don't have to be a teenager to let these things loose for a cause you support.
Hell if you were a 14 year old when 4chan first started getting popular you are well over 20 by now.
Here is something that makes much more sense: a different person knew that he could herd the tards very simply since they were just filled with teen angst anyway, so he/she writes a DDoS program, distributes, and herds these 4chan kids into doing it. That way, no traces back to the original person, and they 100% get away with whatever they want while it is the thousands of skiddies doing it for him.
You make it sound like this person is manipulating children to do his bidding instead of simply being with the cause themselves. If someone who agrees with some aspect of what anon is doing is a thirty-something programmer, is it manipulation if they were to just enable them to do what they were already going to?
I am Alex Tapanaris.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Next time, use seven proxies AND MagicJack.
Yes, as long as the mob only consists of "lower class" people, who neither have intelligence nor education.
The problem is now that more and more people are pushed down that have both and can easily become leaders of rebellions and even revolutions. No revolution in history, at least no successful ones, were led by "serfs". They were led by intelligent and often very well educated people.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, as long as the mob only consists of "lower class" people, who neither have intelligence nor education.
The problem is now that more and more people are pushed down that have both and can easily become leaders of rebellions and even revolutions. No revolution in history, at least no successful ones, were led by "serfs". They were led by intelligent and often very well educated people.
That is true. You make a good point. But in the 1960s highly intelligent people tried a revolution and failed. In the 1930s with the business plot highly intelligent people tried and failed.
Sorry, I typed that after watching Indiana Jones where they were brainwashing kids.
Ok, you are correct, it may not be just kids, but either way, it still stands that whoever is the driving force is doing a really good job. Why do you think in the other article about Scotland, they Scotland is having so much trouble getting these guys? If they wanted, they would snag somebody from the side and take them out, but they are not doing that.
I just have a strange feeling that something else is going on and we are getting blinded by the anon aspect of it.
The world is how you make it
You are seriously going to sit there with a straight face and tell me that some 14 year old in the name of activism wrote a DDoS program to distribute so that he could get thousands of others to DDoS visa.com?
http://www.sidedark-warez.pl/images/LOIC_instrukcja.png
It kinda looks like it was made by a 14-year-old, at least in that screenshot.
Jus' sayin'.