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.'"

Comments

identity's?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously? Plurals are not denoted by apostrophes. Apostrophes are for possessives and contractions. 3rd grade stuff, that.

Re:identity's?

[causality]

Thanks for taking care of the obligatory comment bitching about the /. editors. We need at least one per thread.

Seems a hell of a lot more logical to me to blame that on the "editors" who can't handle elementary-school English, not on the users who point it out. The former is the entirely preventable cause; the latter is the nearly inevitable effect.

Senior member of Anonymous?

[DurendalMac]

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.

Re:Senior member of Anonymous?

[Anonymous Coward]

What people who identify with Anonymous believe it is, and what it really is, are not necessarily the same thing.

In reality, Anonymous is a movement that involves people. It did not appear out of nowhere -- someone had the idea and a small group of people liked that idea and it grew from there. We can call the person who had the idea a "founder" and the people who are deeply involved with the movement "senior members". These are words that describe real things that exist. Sorry if they offend your mystic ideas about Anonymous being a magical spirit that lives in the internets or something, but some of us are more interested in people and activities than in the propaganda they spread.

Re:Senior member of Anonymous?

[Goaway]

It did not appear out of nowhere -- someone had the idea and a small group of people liked that idea and it grew from there. We can call the person who had the idea a "founder" and the people who are deeply involved with the movement "senior members".

No, really, you're just showing you don't know what you're talking about here. "Anonymous" isn't some "small group of people", and never was. It's a name for posters on 4chan. That's pretty much it. Some of these people do things, sometimes. They use the name "Anonymous" when doing so, sometimes. Sometimes people who don't even post on 4chan use the name. There is no organization, and there is no membership.

Sometimes some people might organize behind the scenes to do something, while using the name "Anonymous". The next week, someone else might also organize something. It might be the same people, or it might not. This doesn't mean they are somehow more representative of "Anonymous" than anyone else on the planet, or any more than you or me.

The name existed long before anyone was actually trying to use it for direct actions. It used to just be a name for people who looked at porn on 4chan. This group of people was not "small". There was no "founder", other than moot and his helpers, and he has absolutely nothing at all to do with what people do under the name "Anonymous" nowadays.

Re:Senior member of Anonymous?

[peragrin]

Here is the trick though. only a small percentage of any given group is actually capable of organizing even part of that group.

After a while it will always be the same 1% of users who are organizing things and guiding the rest into doing something Those are the "founders" while for 4chan's anonymous that group might be a few hundred people over the last 15 years only a dozen or two will be current.

What I find interesting is that idiots who attack with anonymous use facebook. Now that is a contradiction that is perfect for 4chan users.

Re:Senior member of Anonymous?

[Goaway]

1% of 4chan's userbase is a HUGE number. They could each do only one thing, ever, and there would still be many left over who haven't had a chance to do anything yet. Your numbers there are entirely made up, and likely off by orders of magnitude.

Re:Senior member of Anonymous?

[frieko]

Takes one douche to know another, apparently. How is Anonymous lingo not acceptable in a discussion about Anonymous?

Re:Senior member of Anonymous?

[arivanov]

More like his grandfather's UID if you ask me...

In any case, the perception that a group is democratic and there are no specific movers and shakers is flawed for any group.

Also, the perception of anonymity on the web is deeply flawed. There is a reason why the folks that build Cavium based gear are making good money ya know... However the evidence obtained that way is unusable for normal courts. None of these exists you know and no data goes to no such agencies and other abbreviations without an official budget.

So, a "small security firm" appears out of nowhere and presents key evidence.

Yeah, right and I am the tooth fairy.

Time to reread "Other Days, Other Eyes" I guess... The final bit... Where the inventor of slow glass was called to find an evidence for something where there was already evidence, just nobody wanted to confess where it came from...

Of course Anonymous isn't anonymous.

[Mister Xiado]

"Anonymous" as a proper noun defies anonymity, so it's no real wonder that these people failed to cover their tracks.

Probably a bad choice of title...

[Penguinisto]

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.

Re:Probably a bad choice of title...

[tmosley]

Actually, come to think of it, it's like a bunch of bees that each have their own colony. When one stings, others are likely to follow up, until the victim dies, runs away, or concedes whatever point the original attacker wanted. Or until they get bored. Also, they can sting multiple times, and often do it just for fun. Even if they could easily elucidate the identities of each and every attacker, do you really think anyone has the ability to go out and smash each individual hive? I sure don't. Instead, they try to make an example of a few, as they are doing here, and try to use fear to stop the others. Sometimes it works (more or less, don't mess with football), other times it doesn't.

Probably not 4Chan Script Kiddies (at the root)

[dmomo]

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.

Re:"Identity's"?

[History's Coming To]

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.

Re:apparently?

[dmomo]

"Is it so hard to tweak the Internet to make DDoS impossible?"

Yes.

Anonymous responds

[Anonymous Coward]

The following response was promptly issued by Anonymous, with the title "Anonymous Concedes Defeat".

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

you need sociology 101

[circletimessquare]

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

Re:you need sociology 101

[DurendalMac]

No, you do not understand Anonymous. I'm not sure if anyone really does, but you're QUITE off the mark. Anonymous has no "core group of fanatics" because at any one time, Anonymous is engaged in fifty different things on different scales, and that "core group of fanatics" is never the same across all of them. Most raids in Anonymous have no "core group". Someone makes a suggestion, gets the snowball rolling downhill, and once it accumulates enough mass, all you can do is watch. This is the case with most Anonymous raids. Sometimes a person or subgroup of Anonymous can try to lead a raid, but they can only do so much as the misanthropic bastards start running amok. In the case of the DDoS attacks here, there were likely a number of these subgroups all jockeying for a piece of the action. There are still no "senior members" of Anonymous and there are no "co-founders" of Anonymous. Moot is the closest thing to a founder, but even he knows that he's somehow created a monster that cannot be controlled.

I think your primary mistake was calling Anonymous a "movement". That is complete crap. They're not a movement. They really have no goals or aspirations other than fucking around on the internet, maybe in IRL if they feel brave. They're a huge, unorganized mass of bored teenagers, for the most part. They don't have a cause. They're not trying to affect social change. They may hop on a cause from time to time (ie, the DDoS raids we've seen or Chanology), but it isn't long before they become bored and move on to something else or internal bickering fractures whatever they're trying to do. You cannot remove the "core fanatics" because there is no single core, assuming Anonymous really has a core to begin with.

Re:you need sociology 101

[circletimessquare]

it's kind of weird to say my mistake is to call them a movement, then you talk about things the movement is doing

anonymous IS a movement. all it takes is people acting in tandem. which is what anonymous is. its about similarity of behaviors, not a social structure. you are acting like my words have no meaning because i think anonymous is a corporate entity with a physical location, board of directors and command and control apparatus. i believe none of these things

another movement might be kids buying pokemon cards or facebook gaining members or teens going to a justin bieber concert. like facebook, or pokemon cards, or justin bieber fans, there is a large group of casual members of the movement, and there is a small core of fanatics. remove the core of fanatics AND YOU HURT THE GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT

that's my point, and its a valid point, even if you don't understand what a movement is, and that anonymous IS a movement

Re:you need sociology 101

[pieterh]

"If you remove the core group, you cripple the movement"... this is the kind of thinking that drives the Egyptian internal security to round-up and torture the "core group" of pro-democracy protesters.

Except that it doesn't work that way, anymore. Pre-internet, it used to be that people organized around direct personal connections, and indeed you could break a movement by taking out key individuals, thus breaking its structure. But post-Internet, people organize around issues, and do so without knowing each other, and as long as the issue is there, there will always be someone else to be the "fanatic".

This is how Egyptian crowds spontaneously formed armies of 20,000 strong to fight off pro-regime thugs in Liberty square last week. There are no obvious leaders, no "core", and arresting those who appear to be driving the process, e.g. those who started the facebook pages, or journalists, only makes things worse.

If you don't get this essential aspect of Internet-driven smart crowds, you don't get Anonymous, which represents a form of pragmatic goal-oriented anarchist organization that takes the flash crowd idea to an extreme level. "Anonymous", it's right there in the name. You could be 10 years old, or 70, it doesn't matter and so everyone can participate, at any level whatsoever. There is no core group, by definition, no-one knows anyone else except by temporary memory. It's an internal security service's worst nightmare.

Anonymous is not much more than an idea of what is possible, and when you attack an idea you only make it stronger.

Re:you need sociology 101

[Zocalo]

I think you've missed a point slightly. The arrests are not in connection with some mythical "core group of Anonymous" in the general sense, but in the context of the Wikileaks DDoS specifically. In that limited case there probably was a core group of people who "got the snowball rolling", to reuse your analogy, and at least one of them alledgedy has left clues behind to the identity of both themselves and several other members.

The Wikileaks DDoS is also something of a special case, while most of the other activities of Anonymous could be described as teenage angst blowing off some steam, the Wikileaks situation has got highly political in the last few month. It's entirely possible that Anonymous members may have been used by someone with an agenda who "suggested" that it might be a good idea to point LOIC at certain targets. If so, then that would indeed allow for the arrest of a "core group", and quite likely a few other members of Anonymous who were just along for the ride and a chance to "stick it to the man."

But that's just a wild guess. I guess we're not going to know for sure until things finally grind through the process, make it into court and the prosecution gets to lay its cards on the table.

Re:you need sociology 101

[Torodung]

It's an interesting case you make, but I seriously doubt that experts in the field properly comprehend the sociological forces (if any) that apply to the Internet, let alone 4chan. They're working on it, and it's going to take one talented and speedy researcher to provide us with information that will remain relevant for very long.

IMHO, 25-50 years from now, if our society isn't in ashes, someone is going to write one hell of a definitive work on how the Internet has no sociology (as we knew it), disables most sociological pressures (like shame), and allows people with truly bizarre ideas to find enough peers to reinforce their fetishes/pechants/whims etc. with lethal force, because they are so completely disconnected from the consequences, and can remain fully socialized in appearance whilst being something quite else behind a keyboard.

I'm just glad that all they can do with the thing right now is launch DDoSes at commerce and disseminate restricted information. At the point where they can kill people, they will, and will think of it as "just for the lulz." Some people, absent significant social restriction, behave that way. They're usually loners. Those people in a group, connected by the Internet, I don't know where that leads.

Don't underestimate this trend by claiming it to be "sociology 101." Sociology 101 doesn't inform us of anything regarding this, because basic sociological assumptions become invalid when the interactions occur on the Internet. This is new bleeding-edge ground, and will not be covered in the survey course. It is a field unto itself.

--
Toro

Re:"Identity's"?

[Gerzel]

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.

Re: UID dick-waving

[Denny]

Last time I joined in one of these threads, Rob Malda finished it a few comments later.

Re:Arrests != Convictions

[brusk]

They did conduct some arrests ('ton' is a very subjective term in this context).

On the contrary, I thought it was quite objective: it indicates that the total mass of the individuals arrested exceeds 1,000 kg.

Re: UID dick-waving

[six11]

Lets keep it going. My e-peen needs attention.

Re: UID dick-waving

[MassacrE]

Damn it, uid envy

XKCD

[Scott Wood]

http://www.xkcd.com/834/

Re: UID dick-waving

[ryder]

Hi There! Thanks for playing!

Re:really anonymous, or just named Anonymous?

[h00manist]

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.

Re:Geeks forum, or English forum?

[sortius_nod]

bye...

Mindset

[RenHoek]

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. :)

Re: UID dick-waving

[sznupi]

(all those who, for some stupid reason, just lurked for the first few early years are now weeping, huddled in the corner)

Re:Geeks forum, or English forum?

[Your.Master]

What kind of mythical geeks do you know who are not obsessed with arbitrary rulesets and definitions?