Slashdot Mirror


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.'"

15 of 407 comments (clear)

  1. Senior member of Anonymous? by DurendalMac · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Senior member of Anonymous? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    2. Re:Senior member of Anonymous? by Goaway · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

  2. Of course Anonymous isn't anonymous. by Mister+Xiado · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

  3. Re:apparently? by dmomo · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    Yes.

  4. Anonymous responds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    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

  5. you need sociology 101 by circletimessquare · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:you need sociology 101 by DurendalMac · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    2. Re:you need sociology 101 by Torodung · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

  6. Re: UID dick-waving by Denny · · Score: 5, Funny

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

    --
    Police State UK - news and
  7. Re:Probably a bad choice of title... by tmosley · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  8. Re:Arrests != Convictions by brusk · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    .sig withheld by request
  9. Re: UID dick-waving by six11 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  10. Re: UID dick-waving by MassacrE · · Score: 5, Funny

    Damn it, uid envy

  11. Re: UID dick-waving by ryder · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hi There! Thanks for playing!