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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."

6 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. How? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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?

  2. Wait a minute by OverlordQ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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".

    --
    Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
    1. Re:Wait a minute by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Parent is correct.

      We need another press release by Anonymous to confirm this is from Anonymous.

  3. Re:Written by WBC? by Call+Me+Black+Cloud · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But since anyone can act as Anonymous then the WBC claim was legit. I can put up a server, make myself a part of Anonymous, attempt to hack my server, leave Anonymous, then claim Anonymous tried to hack my server.

    In fact, how do we know who issued the Anonymous press release? On the anonnews website it says, "Anyone can post to the site, and moderators will approve relevant posts. No censorship takes place!"

    Maybe Anonymous should look into LifeLock...

  4. 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
  5. Re:Written by WBC? by justleavealonemmmkay · · Score: 5, Funny

    "ffs...why don't italics tags work anymore?!"

    because God hates tags