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Anonymous Isn't Anonymous Anymore
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently some small security firm has been able to determine the real identities of several key Anonymous hackers which is resulting in a ton of arrests. From the article: 'An international investigation into cyber-activists who attacked businesses hostile to WikiLeaks is likely to yield arrests of senior members of the group after they left clues to their real identities on Facebook and in other electronic communications, it is claimed.'"
Seriously? Plurals are not denoted by apostrophes. Apostrophes are for possessives and contractions. 3rd grade stuff, that.
Yeah, if that isn't proof that the writer of this article doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, I don't know what is. There are no "senior members" of Anonymous. Someone could claim to be an oldfag, but that's about it. And a co-founder of Anonymous? REALLY? Where are they coming up with this horseshit? They caught some guys who were running a specific group, not "senior members" or "co-founders" of Anonymous.
"Anonymous" as a proper noun defies anonymity, so it's no real wonder that these people failed to cover their tracks.
Anonymous is a concept, not a group. It is an intensional definition of a set, not the set extension.
So is Al Quaeda, Earth First! etc.
Some authorities tend not to get that.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
Even a completely headless organization does have people who direct the masses. Even the simplest and most spontaneous mobs have their provocateurs - the 'leaders', so to speak. I'm thinking the media simply got all breathless about how they were labelled.
Also, technical skill is not uniformly high across the group (perhaps a ratio of 10k script kiddies for every 20 actual hackers, etc).
It wouldn't be unreasonable to have major organizers being caught (CnC and direction has to come from *somewhere*, after all), or perhaps (but less likely) catching the more technically-minded members.
Even if they didn't catch 'em all, taking out a large percentage of the technical leads* or Command/Control leads* would be sufficient to do some serious damage.
* note that I have zero idea what to actually call them, but the terms should suffice.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
But maybe they take advantage of the angst and ego of those Script Kiddies, empowering them to be "real hackers" by doing the tough part and giving them the tools to carry out their operations. Who's to say there is even one "anonymous". Get a group of would be hackers together in secret, let them talk to one other member of a group claiming to be Anonymous, and BAM.. all of a sudden, they are part of Anonymous. It's just a word, a battle cry or flag at this point.
There are people out there with deliberate intentions and incentives to execute these attacks. They are just using the 4chan type to further their goals.
From TFA: "few hundred participants in operations, only about 30 are steadily active, with 10 people who "are the most senior and co-ordinate and manage most of the decisions"
That just about fits this type of hierarchy.
Outside of "terrorism" (if you can call this that), this system is employed time and time again.
1) Person or small group has Political/Economic Agenda that would not benefit Society as a whole, but needs to engineer support.
2) They get a few Champions that back a stance on a cause that is unrelated, but has a large number of supporters (immigration, abortion, same sex marriage, FREEDOM OF SPEECH). It's best when it's a black/white yes/no issue that has a population divided roughly 50/50. That way, the support group is large, but the opposition is as well. Without a viable opposition, you cannot rally together for a cause.
3) Wrap your own agenda into the priorities of this "front" clause. Bam. You've created an army fighting for something they don't care about.
Not sure what my point was here really. Just noticing a pattern. Though I would love to believe in the idea of true "freedom fighters" who genuinely feel they are protecting essential Liberties, I cannot help to think that there has to be a selfish person at the top of it all.
They did conduct some arrests ('ton' is a very subjective term in this context). The police can and does act without 'hard' proof while an investigation is conducted to either uncover hard proof, a confession, testimony, whatever or give up.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
The problem is that anonymous are precisely the same as a totally different group called synonymous. The idea is that anonymous distract attention from synonymous who do the real work, which is identical to that of anonymous. There is currently a large UK secret service project dealing with the issues, codenamed antonymous.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
"Is it so hard to tweak the Internet to make DDoS impossible?"
Yes.
URGENT WARNING TO ALL ANONONYMOUS HACKTIVISTS:
Mr. Barr has successfully broken through our over 9000 proxy field and into our entirely non-public and secret insurgent IRC lair, where he then smashed through our fire labyrinth with vigor, collected all the gold rings on the way, opened a 50 silver key chest to find Anon’s legendary hackers on steroids password.
As Mr. Barr has discovered in spite of our best efforts, Anonymous was founded by Q last Thursday at the guilded Bilderberg Hotel after a tense meeting with one Morrowind mod collection, which itself includes the essential Morrowind Comes Alive 5.2 as well as several retexturing packs, all of which seem to lower one’s FPS unless one has also installed the latest Risc Architecture framework and thus obtained the killer refresh rate that is the right of all world citizens, except for noted heterosexual Tom Cruise.
In addition to the sudden disappearance of Anonymous leader Q, Anonymous co-founder Justin Bieber also disappeared just before his top-secret mission to Eritrea to offer physical succour to the rebels, suggesting that Mubarak is in our base, eating our Cheetos, likely with military support authorized by Hill Dawg. All of this comes at a low point for the Official Anonymous Organization, Inc. and its valued shareholders; several Anons had already lost their Fallout New Vegas saved games in the unwarranted and faggy raids perpetrated by the U.S. federales.
At this point, it is safe to assume that the underground server sites at the North Pole have been compromised as well. Back up all porn drives now, because the super secret P2P centralized distribution server of Backdoor Sluts 9 is presumed to be immediately threatened. Male Anons have been commanded to switch back to traditional tentacle porn while femanons, or “Rei Ayanami wannabes,” continue to be shared among the Echelon Nine Working Group that has since replaced Owen as sky marshall.
However, David Davidson (who might also be the legendary Ceiling Cat, as rumors have it) so far eludes custody, so all is not lost. Mr Davidson skyped the anonymous leaders from his hideout in Philadelphia to remind them that he was “Never gonna give them up, never gonna let them down”. Meanwhile, the board of directors remains little more than a gin-addled menagerie of puppets.
Despite these setbacks, the planned conference in Vienna is not slated for cancellation, although the buffet may be altered to include fewer Cheetos. The scheduled appearence of Boxxy is a subject of much contention within Anonymous ranks, being an event of considerably greater importance than the 4th return of Raptor Jesus, which itself is older than the internet.
We shall note in conclusion that we like the guy and want to believe him, but we still have to ask: Did Aaron Barr shave and murder Alexander Hamilton in 1993? We’re just asking questions here, people. At any rate, the Pink Horse prophecy will soon be fulfilled.
All Hail Xenu,
-Anonymous
anonymous is a movement. as such, it follows certain sociological rules. #1: in any movement, there is a small group of core fanatics, and a much larger group of one-offs and on-and-offs. same with wikipedia, or al qaeda, or drug gangs, or a whole set of other movements
now you could take out a portion of the core competency, and nothing will change. but if you tracked and profiled the core competency over time, and took them all out at once, you really would cripple the movement. yes, you would really cripple anonymous. that they are everyone and no one is mythology, not sociological fact. they are not the borg from start trek
however, since the "cause" of anonymous is so simplistic, others would quickly fill the void and anonymous would be back in action in no time. again, same with wikipedia or al qaeda or drug gangs, etc. but maybe not forever. if law enforcement keeps siphoning off the core fanatics, after 2,3,4x, anonymous will definitely be less influential. if you keep siphoning off the regular crop of persons who can do something with the idea of anonymous. law enforcement can profile, and cripple anonymous, by tracking its core competency, forever, and constantly hamstring it: the core fanatics of anonymous is a well that slowly refills over time. if law enforcement is constantly draining the well, anonymous as a potent force is permanently dimmed
the point is, you don't understand sociology, nor anonymous, if you don't understand that what anonymous is is primarily a core group of fanatics, with a much larger ring of sort-of-interesteds. remove the core, and you at least temporarily cripple the movment. continually remove the core as it tries to grow back, and you have permanently decimated the movement and weakened it to ineffectuality
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"Apparently some small security firm has been able to determine the real identity's of several key Anonymous script kiddies which is r...
The game.
The US is operating a parallel operation, codenamed homonymous.
The point at which anyone is identified, they aren't anonymous. For the last time- anonymous is not a group, it is a quality- an adjective.
Yeah, and "Yahoo!" isn't a company but an expression of joy, "Apple" isn't a company but a fruit, and "/." isn't a web site but a way to name the root directory.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
No they are groups rallied around a concept.
You can't have a group without a concept but you can have a concept without a group as a concept can be grasped by a single individual.
In any case the authorities only really care about those that break the law/disrupt things so the concept is beside the point, a link only and nothing more.
Last time I joined in one of these threads, Rob Malda finished it a few comments later.
Police State UK - news and
It boggles my mind. What's worse is the use of the possessive apostrophe + s in "identity's". WHAT BELONGS TO THE IDENTITY??? Oh it's just a grammar fail...
Why is it that hackers can't resist toying with people or leaving riddles or boasting about their deeds on forums?
Maybe in every group there are always some idiots? I guess those are the people who tend to get caught most?
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Lets keep it going. My e-peen needs attention.
Well fed, if we're talking about corn the grain. In need of a doctor if you mean something else.
http://transformativeworks.org/
Damn it, uid envy
I hear the Greeks have set up their own team and called it Hieronymus.
"Is it so hard to tweak the Internet to make DDoS impossible?"
Yes.
No, It just requires a little thoughtful design... Amazon has rendered itself demonstrably ddos-proof. Google and Mircosoft are likewise near impossible to take down. If Cicso were to implement the proper tools, we could all have an automated way to stop a ddos within minutes of its start. Because no one has put the tools on the routers, we dont have the tools. Just because internet providers and the router manufacturers have all the foresight of a deep-water fish, doesn't make the desired result impossible.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted
All of this stuff is basic rights, so tweaking a system to prevent this would result in a reduction of basic rights. This is not optimal because why should everyone have to suffer just because some ill bred people can't behave. Fortunately we don't have to because the laws tend to criminalize such behavior when one citizen attacks another. If I incite a murder, either with money or deeds, then I can be charged with a criminal act. If I obstruct the natural flow and refuse to move, I can be charged. These exist because they codify the means in which civilized people interact. That is so that the anti-free market people who do not trust the democratic process will not have the ability to destroy the US economy.
But let's ask the question what can be done if we are not going to reduce rights or file charges? Well the firms owner clearly has to do something to protect the value in the firm. With no legal recourse the owner might be forced into unscrupulous moves. The owner might hire prostitues to seduce the married men involved int he attack and post video to the internet. The owner might photoshop photos of the women to make them look like they are in porn pictures. The owner might hire private investigators to check into the backgrounds of all the people involved, or follow the children around. The owner might choose to shoot protestors who illegally eneter the premises or the private residence. None of these are solutions civilized person would want to use. They would be last ditch effforts against terrorists that the legal process cannot disuade.
Again, nothing these terrorists do is strictly illegal, but the effects of the DDOS attacks do have ramifications. When on attacks a firm or a government, one is depriving people of livelihoods, conforts for their children, assets for retirement, and no one is going to allow that to happen if they have a means to stop it.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
http://www.xkcd.com/834/
Hi There! Thanks for playing!
And before someone says what they're doing is illegal, criminal, etc -- there is something called civil disobedience. It is not legal, but it is political, and people practicing are generally, depending on the infractions of course, arrested as political prisoners, prisoner of conscience, etc. And are judged as such, on a case by case basis.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
bye...
The media doesn't like it when they can't put people into labeled boxes.That is why Anonymous is so often misreported on. Anonymous isn't a group, it's a mindset. It's a bunch of people who think the same about a certain issue and decide to do something about it.
When Anonymous protested Scientology, I was a part of Anonymous. When Anonymous decided to send cards and flowers from all over the world to some veteran who was having a birthday, I was part of Anonymous. When Anonymous decided to track down a soldier that threw a puppy off a bridge, I was part of Anonymous.
It's not like you have to register somewhere, you just have to share the same mindset. Sometimes people do things that I disagree with, then I'm not part of that.
That said, there is no group, no leaders, no official press releases, no contribution, no clubhouse. It's a state of mind and sometimes I agree with a lot of like minded people.
Just for completeness sake, if the press is going to read this statement out of context, then please report that I'm the Grand Czar of Anonymous. I could use some more honorifics on my resume. :)
(all those who, for some stupid reason, just lurked for the first few early years are now weeping, huddled in the corner)
One that hath name thou can not otter
What kind of mythical geeks do you know who are not obsessed with arbitrary rulesets and definitions?
The first rule of Anonymous club is......
But Civil Disobedience is a process where someone openly breaks the law, as a protest of that law, and is openly arrested. They then hope to take down the system from within. It's different from banditry in many ways.