Slashdot Mirror
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
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.
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.
... if you're going to do something dodgy, you put fake names into your software registration fields. :p
In fact, if you do anything at all you put fake names into your software registration. This time it was only the police that got him - next time it could be telemarketers.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
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?
Associating your name with authorship of a document describing illegal activity is probable cause, and yes it is enough to arrest (at least in US, apparently Greece) someone, but probably not enough on its own for a conviction.
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.
That's why I always register my software with an obviously fake name like "Alex Tapanaris".
Well, he probably used software that he used in his design business. For a designer, anonymity is normally counterproductive, and in any case, non free software encourages or even requires"registration".
He should have burned a LiveCD, and used the tools on that to maintain a semblance of anonymity.
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.
That (as they say) is all.
Something bad is coming when people are suddenly anxious to tell the truth.
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
NOBODY expects the Business Software Alliance! Our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear. Fear and surprise. Our two chief weapons are fear, surprise, and unlimited duration copyrights. Our THREE weapons are fear, surprise, unlimited duration copyrights, and employees who hate their bosses. Our FOUR, no... amongst our weapons... amongst our weaponry... are such elements... as fear, surprise... can I come in again?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
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.
"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.
Glenn Beck may well be part of anonymous, but his best trolling is done under his own name.
Dude, fix your font.
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 -.-
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.
Real criminals use .doc.
the act of overthrowing an entire government often leads to far more death and misery than was present under the existing system.
Not that I disagree with your point, but I must point out a fallacy: by this logic, you'd choose life as a slave instead of fighting for your freedom.
What makes you think the revolutionaries will give you freedom when the revolution is over? It just might mean they'll be your new slave master or worse they could give you death.
Not that I disagree with your point, but I must point out a fallacy: by this logic, you'd choose life as a slave instead of fighting for your freedom.
"elucido" provided a decent response, but it's not the one I would have gone with. You made the mistake of inferring that I was giving a reason to never overthrow any government, under any circumstances. I wasn't. I was merely pointing out the costs associated with such acts - something which must always be considered prior to deciding on a course of action.
Also, it's worth noting that I certainly would chose life as a slave if resistance was pointless and it meant my children would have a better shot at freedom. Blacks in the US could surely have chosen violent revolution, and lost hundreds of thousands of lives on the small chance that they might defeat the white population; instead they chose cooperation and measured defiance, resulting in a progression which eventually lead to complete freedom for their descendants. Later in the process groups like the Black Panthers chose to take a more militant approach; those actions, while initially productive, gained them no new freedoms and ultimately only made the situation worse for people on all sides of the issue. Choosing when and how to fight is not the simple dichotomy that you're making it out to be.
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
"... and a fanatical devotion to Bill Gates?"