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Anonymous Denies Targeting Westboro Baptist Church

Posted by Soulskill on from the listen-to-admiral-ackbar dept.

lenwood writes "Last week we discussed news that the hacking group Anonymous was staging an attack against Fred Phelps' Westboro Baptist Church. It turns out that this was a publicity stunt staged by WBC themselves. Anonymous issued a press release disassociating themselves from this."

3 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. But... by Mishotaki · · Score: 4, Interesting

    it was anonymous from an anonymous group did an attack anonymously... just not the same anonymous guy from the same anonymous group doing an anonymous attack...

  2. WBC are *very* professional trolls by billstewart · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you think they're not genius viral marketers, you haven't been paying attention to how you heard of them or why you know what they claim to stand for or why TV covers them when they're standing out there with signs. They're not just dumb bigots, they're a sociopathic family of lawyers, who go out and make themselves as publicly offensive as they can, so that people will attack them and towns will ban them and they can make money by sueing them. They're also happy to get donations from actual knuckle-draggers and from right-wing politicians who profit from the Culture Wars, but it's really about the lawsuits and the publicity.

    --

    Bill Stewart
    New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
  3. Haven't Seen Proof WBC did the Anon Press Release by JumperCable · · Score: 3, Interesting

    It's not like AnonNews announced they traced the IP address of the poster back to the WBC. Sure. It could have been them. It could also have been just about anyone who has a beef with the WBC. Many people are chomping at the bit to take them down and have tried to recruit 'Anonymous' to do this. But they haven't been successful in the past. For all we know it was the folks from HBGary trying to pick a fight between the two groups to provide ground cover. But again, that is still nothing more than idle speculation.

    I don't think Anons will ever do anything against the WBC just because they have no power. WBC may be annoying assholes. But at the end of the day that is all they are. They can pretty much only offend people who allow themselves to be offended.