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Anonymous Denies Targeting Westboro Baptist Church
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."
I was a bit perplexed when I heard they were bothering with the WBC, and figured it was somebody's publicity stunt. There are much better targets in the world than a bunch of loons and their opportunist leader...
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Those responsible for sacking the people who have just been sacked have been sacked.
Way to get yourself on anon's shit list. Not something I'd be eager to do.
Take what ye can. Give nothing back!
It was probably written by Westboro themselves to get some publicity.
How can a group that by it's very nature has no central control or even consistent make-up release such a statement. How does one member or group of members of Anonymous know whether or not any other part of Anonymous is/was doing something?
... then anyone could do something on behalf of Anonymous, and you couldn't deny it was done by them.
Or maybe that's just what they want you to think ...
I am not your blowing wind, I am the lightning.
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...
Here we are talking about it. How about we all just make a mental note to forget the name of the barber shop that did this, close the thread and carry on?
From TFA: The church sent out its own open letter, telling the online hacktivist group to “bring it.” “A puddle of pimple-faced nerds organised under the cowardly banner of ‘Anonymous’ claim they plan to hack Westboro's websites Bad miscalculation, girls!” said the letter. “Let us tell you how this will go: rebels will build a full head of steam based on false hope; the media will predictably do much breathless anticipating while giving another tsunami of coverage to Westboro's message; God will defeat your council; your efforts will fail.” This is obviously BS. You're getting trolled slashdot.
Anonymous isn't a defined group of people. That's kinda the point. It's very possible that some of them, or even a single person, has severe enough of a problem with the WBC to try to attempt such a stunt. I suspect however that the vast majority have the good sense not to get involved with something so senseless.
Similarly, Anonymous can't "issue a statement" that represents the entire group. This AnonNews website, whoever they are, have no more say in the doings and actions of Anonymous than any other member of the group. Can the SlashDot staff make claims on behalf of every nerd who happens to visit the site for technology-related news, especially on things in which the SlashDot community is deeply divided? Of course not. Same thing here.
This whole thing is freaking ridiculous. You've got two groups of trolls trying to figure out who's attempting to troll whom, and if said trolling is a threat to their own trolling efforts. Why exactly this is considered news is beyond me.
Every time an article comes on here about Anon everybody bashes the news organizations for saying Anonymous has a hierarchy with 'senior' members, leaders, and so forth.
So why are you so quick to accept this? How can this press release saying 'Its not really us' carry any more weight then one saying "It's us".
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Not DDoS WestBoro Our riposte - http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=494 >>What to actually do: http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=492 >>> READ: http://goo.gl/fwaLG
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Anyone could claim they spoke for anonymous. How do you verify it? Thing is, someone threw out the idea of targeting WBC, and a lot of people agreed that they were being enough of a dick to warrant becoming their next target. Anonymous must have some trouble filtering the real messages from random spam out there.
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I heard they have scientific proof that god exists. it's on their website. Somewhere. I'm sure. If we all look for it for about 5 or 10 minutes I'm sure we'll find it.
Privacy is terrorism.
Anonymous state they're too busy now to bother with these clowns, but I wouldn't be surprised if something nasty happened to the individuals behind the WBC in the future.
It's the same principle as the HBGary story -- you don't poke a wasp's nest with a stick.
The people at Westover are just loudmouth jerks. It's the seriously fringe nutcases at Landover Baptist who worry me.
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.
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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.
Exactly. The WBC is like a lone mosquito buzzing about. Very annoying and might cause you some minor irritation, but in the long run nothing to put a ton of effort into catching. There are other groups out there that are much larger threats.
That said, there are times when the WBC makes it very hard to be a defender of Freedom of Speech.
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These "Anonymous" folks are all over this thread!
p.s.... Just want to ensure Anonymous knows it was Taco, not us, that labeled you Cowards!
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Anonymous claims they're not an organization. They're just a bunch of random people that get together to do something. Each time they get together, they're a different group of people. Anyone and Everyone is Anonymous because all you need is two or more people to get together and say you're doing something as Anonymous.
Anonymous may also be a community, and since there is no membership requirement, anyone that shows up is, by default, part of the community. Part of the community can claim that other part isn't really part of their part, but then the other part can say the same about the other part.
Either Anonymous *IS* an organized group, with a command and control structure, and someone pulling the strings. Or it's not. You can't have it both ways.
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That is exactly what I thought at first.
At second thought, it was 'why would Anonymous even bother with replying to an obvious troll?'
Third thought was to suspect some third party as the instigator in this.
I don't know, by nature[theoretically] Anonymous is, well, anonymous, and has nothing to fear from WBC, thus should have no interest in any opinion that WBC has to offer, but there is the 'street cred/e-peen' POV to consider for Anonymous.
The more I think about it, the more I'm torn between taking sides with Anonymous, and a third-party 'stirring the mud-puddle'.
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