Anonymous Denies Sony Claims of Disruption, Credit Info Theft

An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, in a letter to Congress, Sony detailed the steps they were taking to resolve the issues that have been plaguing them since the PlayStation Network and SOE online components were hacked, claiming to have found evidence linking the crime to Anonymous. Now, Anonymous has responded."

Comments

No they havent

[OverlordQ]

Now, Anonymous has responded.

No, one person has responded. As has been touted many many many times by people on Slashdot whenever news organizations do it, there is no central authority, there is no registered list. So yes, while that clique may not have done it, does not mean another clique didn't.

Re:No they havent

[MightyMartian]

In other words, some part of the infantile emotionally-retarded "collective" didn't penetrate Sony's network, but some other part of the infantile emotionally-retarded "collective" did. But, maybe they were forced to do it while John Travolta held a gun to their head and Halle Berry gave them a blowjob.

Re:No they havent

[Ruke]

This brings up some interesting questions about the Anonymous collective. If some Serbian hacker who wanted credit cards, and does not participate in any of the IRC/BBS/etc that "Anonymous" hangs out in, claims to be Anonymous, is he? Do you need to hold any of the (loosely defined) common values that Anonymous tends to, in order to be properly considered Anonymous?

I understand that the implication in this case, however, is that some members of Anonymous are claiming that this was done by a person or group who would not self-identify as Anonymous; rather, this person or group merely wants to make it look like the loose-collective "Anonymous" performed the hack in order to shift attention away from themselves and towards others who would self-identify as Anonymous.

Re:No they havent

[Legal.Troll]

This is a rather predictable consequence of forming a "group" based on anonymity and total absence of central authority. Anyone who claims to be Anonymous is Anonymous. Anyone who says "Anonymous" did something is lying if and only if the thing was NOT ACTUALLY DONE. Wonderful message-spreading platform you've got for yourself, kids.

Re:No they havent

[anomaly256]

call them whatever names you want, they've still done a lot of good work bringing to light corruption and lies our governments feed us. The means might not justify the ends but I dare say they do..

Re:No they havent

[gandhi_2]

Halle Berry gave them a blowjob

Insha'Allah

Re:No they havent

[mug funky]

i'd contend that if nobody shared their intention with others, then there was no acting as a group.

even if "the leader of anonymous" performed this data grab, if they didn't tell anybody there's no way you can say "anonymous did it".

so IRC chat logs, postings on anonops or whatever they call it, etc. it's a trivial matter to look this stuff up if you want to find it.

if there's no sign of these places discussing hacking into PSN and stealing member's details, you can be pretty sure that Anonymous didn't do it.

i believe they've actually stated early on that their DDoS was hurting PSN users, and they didn't want that - they wanted to hurt Sony, but not gamers. so they changed their strategy (or at least, issued a statement saying "if you're DDoSing PSN, plz stop lol kthxbai", which is as much authority as anon can have over its own members).

of course, some internet tough guy might have got in during the anon attacks, who identified as anonymous, and decided to take it upon him/herself to steal shit and leave a calling card on behalf of his group. remember there's a lot of misfits out there.

Re:No they havent

[Aryden]

Laura Lane gave the BJ iirc. Halle just watched excitedly.

Re:No they havent

[Mr. Underbridge]

Sony alleges that 'Anonymous' did it; that clearly implies the flavor of the group that has become surprisingly centralized for such a decentralized organization. That core group is presumably the one that responded. Within this context, 'Anonymous' must mean the somewhat centrally led version, otherwise the central question ('Did Anonymous do this?') isn't even well posed.

Put another way, if the allegation itself can't even be properly bounded, it doesn't really need to responded to. And if Sony can't do better than 'Anonymous did it', they certainly won't get to issuing subpoenas, asset seizures, or criminal charges anyway, making the point moot anyway.

Basically, put up or shut up, Sony. You need better evidence than 'Kilroy was here'.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

If you want to understand Anonymous you need to watch the Ghost in the Shell anime. Anonymous is a seeded attempt at the "Laughing Man" of the series.

With respect to this case, the entire body of evidence linking Anonymous with this intrusion is nothing more than a single file that Sony "claims" to have found on their system. Even "if" this file actually existed, and was found rather than "placed" by Sony employees, it's is analogous to finding a business card on the bank floor after a heist has taken place.

Regardless of who actually penetrated Sony's systems, there is a serious issue that doesn't seem to be getting the attention it deserves. Sony wasn't minding the shop. Independent researchers informed Sony of their vulnerable systems and Sony ignored them. If a very attractive girl decides to strip naked and run around inside a men's prison should the girl not be at least partially responsible for anything that happens to her. Now in the case of Sony it isn't much different, except for them they aren't just opening themselves up for abuse, they are opening up everyone of their customers whom entrusted them with their exploitable financial data.

Re:No they havent

[Anonymous Coward]

If they did any good it was purely a side effect that occurred while they were getting their lulz.

Re:No they havent

[Anonymous Coward]

making the point moot anyway.

I see what you did there...

Re:No they havent

[bane2571]

Basically what sony are saying is "[someone] Anonymous did it!". IE: we do not know the name of the person/people that did it.

Re:No they havent

[oliverthered]

it's also amazing plausible deniability.

Re:No they havent

[Fluffeh]

Which doesn't detract from the good itself.

One sides lulz (like busting Gary for example) might well be a laugh, but for me it shows a wonderful insight that many more people need to see.

I don't care what the reason is for a good action with a good outcome. The end result is the same.

Re:No they havent

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you want to understand Anonymous you need to watch the Ghost in the Shell anime. Anonymous is a seeded attempt at the "Laughing Man" of the series."

And you need to re-watch it. The name "Stand-Alone Complex" comes from the fact that there was no Laughing Man. All the "Laughing Man" attacks were all actually inside jobs, corporate attempts at scamming insurers and securing government bailouts. They were all "copycats" for which there never really was an original.

Anonymous isn't trying to recreate "Laughing Man" here, Sony is, and for the same reasons.

Re:No they havent

[schnell]

they've still done a lot of good work bringing to light corruption and lies our governments feed us.

I thought this was about Anonymous, not Wikileaks. Anonymous in particular and 4chan in general has not brought to light anything I'm aware of except tentactle porn torrents.

Or have all Slashbot favorite entities merged into one? We can call it GNU WikiBuntuDroidNonymous. Like "Muad'dib" becoming a killing word, its very name will become a nerd totem of +5 Righteousness and +20 Defense Against Potential Girlfriends.

Re:No they havent

[meerling]

Anonymous is known to have a core group that decides upon and coordinates their activities, as well as provide "spokesmen" for the media and make press releases.

What did you expect, something that large and coordinated is just a random flash mob?

Re:No they havent

[wvmarle]

We don't know if this was the response of just one person: the linked article was purportedly written by a company called Anonymous Enterprises LLC (Bermuda). Now I'm too lazy to do any more research on that (I leave that to the experts) so I can't tell who is behind that company. But somehow, somewhere one or more individuals have apparently set this up, and the same or other individual(s) wrote this press release.

This whole "Anonymous" movement, apparently largely concentrated around 4chan, is, well, anonymous. So anyone could be talking "in name of" Anonymous. I quite often see quotes in newspaper from "a spokesperson of Anonymous", who invariably is anonymous him/herself, or at most identified by an on-line handle. How is such a spokesperson identified? Does the rest of the group agree with it?

On the other hand it may be an interesting subject for more research on "crowd intelligence". This I believe is one of the few, if not only, organisations in the world with significant size and without central authority or even charter. They just are, and that in a way fascinates me. Who are they? Why are they? How are decisions made? Can we call their decision making process the ultimate form of democracy, where anyone has an equal vote? Or are there actually individuals with more influence than others - "all are equal, but some are more equal than others"? All I can tell is that this group is highly idealistic, and of course mainly active in Internet related issues.

And then now this company has appeared, claiming to talk in the name of Anonymous. Is this going to be the focal point of this group? If so it'll definitely change shape. Maybe split up, if it's not a group of groups to begin with.

It's remarkable how little is known about this movement, even though their communication is done out in the open, and they're happy to talk to the press.

Re:No they havent

[Orffen]

Or, if a very attractive girl sits naked in her car with her wallet sitting on the dash, and somebody reaches in through the open car door and swipes the wallet, surely she's at least partially responsible for her wallet being stolen. I'm not sure I got that car analogy quite right.

Re:No they havent

[Requiem18th]

So what? The kind of people who know that Anonymous can't disclaim involvement with certainty also didn't buy Sony's accusations in the first place.

The kind of people that would be fooled by Sony's baseless accusations are also clueless enough to demand "official" word from Anonymous.

The one thing we can be sure of is that the people behind the DDoS and the people behind the break in weren't the same since a DDoS makes breaking in next to impossible, with the service being denied and taken offline and all that.

If any, the DDoS delayed the crackers, since it's hard to break into a service you can't access.

Re:No they havent

[TapeCutter]

If a very attractive girl decides to strip naked and run around inside a men's prison should the girl not be at least partially responsible for anything that happens to her.

No, a stupid victim is not responsible for the immorality of their attacker. If think what you are trying to say is that Sony failed to apply due dilligence, which AFAIK is yet to be proven.

Re:No they havent

[anomaly256]

Perhaps you're forgetting the blatant fraud and forgery HBGary were guilty of, the underhandedness and blatant lies from The US Chamber of Commerce, The Bank of America, others.. the conspiracies HBGary and Palantir enacted. The way the US Government in general has approached the issues of 'Rights' (or lack thereof) Management. Bringing public awareness to the mishandling of Sony's trials and their intent to violate the principles of capitalism at large.

Re:No they havent

[PopeRatzo]

If they did any good it was purely a side effect that occurred while they were getting their lulz.

Which makes the good they do that much sweeter.

Noble intent is fleeting and often unreliable as a motivation. Lulz are forever.

Re:No they havent

[exomondo]

If you want to understand Anonymous you need to watch the Ghost in the Shell anime. Anonymous is a seeded attempt at the "Laughing Man" of the series.

No it isn't, in a stand alone complex there is no 'us' unlike with Anonymous who's media releases reference 'we' or 'us' and the actions of participating individuals are far from being unrelated like they are in a stand alone complex.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

Perhaps we watched two different versions...? There was an actual hacker that committed the first incident--the kidnapping of the head of Serano--named Aoi who was inspired by the discovery of a file deep within the net detailing rampant corporate corruption. Aoi put a voice to what might be considered the original Laughing Man, the author of that file. He manipulated (puppetted) some and inspired many others to take up the cause of truth becoming a Laughing Man type. A corrupt group in the government took advantage of the appearance of the Laughing Man to further their aims through corporate sabotage using the Laughing Man branding as a cover.

Re:No they havent

[socsoc]

It's plausible deniability for others to shift the blame.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

I beg to differ, a stupid victim is in part responsible and so do in a manner of speaking by your statement about Sony failing to apply due diligence. Which of course they hadn't. Researchers months prior discovered that they not only did not have a firewall, but also, unpatched server software. These researchers notified Sony of this vulnerability but Sony ignored them.

Re:No they havent

[justinlee37]

Anonymous was never really about spreading a message anyway. It's just for amusement. The chief past-time of the group is pulling elaborate pranks and sharing jokes and stories.

I found it particularly annoying when people started referring to Anonymous as a group that was formed to combat Scientology. Making fun of Scientologists is amusing, but pretending that Anonymous has some sort of credo or mission or organization of any kind whatsoever is just annoying and wrong.

Re:No they havent

[countertrolling]

Halle Berry gave them a blowjob.

While she was driving...

Re:No they havent

[countertrolling]

You need better evidence than 'Kilroy was here'.

Oh... NOW we're demanding evidence...

Re:No they havent

[osu-neko]

Yup, looks like OP was right -- you need to rewatch it. :) Aoi was never able to determine the origin of that file, and we'd have to know a lot more about where that file came from, and ever after knowing that, where the author of the file got the information from, to ever know whether he was the "original" or yet another in a chain. Maybe there was an "original Laughing Man", but Aoi didn't think so, and we'd certainly need to know a lot more than we do to judge whether the author of that file was it.

Re:No they havent

[Vectormatic]

But, maybe they were forced to do it while John Travolta held a gun to their head and Halle Berry gave them a blowjob.

Where do i sign up?

Bonus points if Samuel L. Jackson is also in the room screaming " motherfucker, do you type it?"

Re:No they havent

[Tolkien]

Actually, I don't believe just one person has responded. I believe Anonymous has. I've read that these sorts of press releases are always discussed at length by those involved in their writing. Many people contribute thoughts and ideas about what to write and how it gets written.

Re:No they havent

[Vectormatic]

bah, slashdot ate my tags

$PROGRAMMING_LANGUAGE motherfucker, do you type it?

Re:No they havent

[alienzed]

It's not a clique either!! sheesh Simply the fact that no one has taken responsibility makes them anonymous. It's an adjective people!

Re:No they havent

[osu-neko]

No it isn't, in a stand alone complex there is no 'us' unlike with Anonymous who's media releases reference 'we' or 'us' and the actions of participating individuals are far from being unrelated like they are in a stand alone complex.

You sure about that?

If you are, you must be one of the participating individuals, and it a position to verify that all the actions by "Anonymous" to date have been by your group and not by copy-cats like in SAC. If you aren't, then you have no possible way of knowing if they are or not.

Re:No they havent

[exomondo]

No it isn't, in a stand alone complex there is no 'us' unlike with Anonymous who's media releases reference 'we' or 'us' and the actions of participating individuals are far from being unrelated like they are in a stand alone complex.

You sure about that?

If you are, you must be one of the participating individuals, and it a position to verify that all the actions by "Anonymous" to date have been by your group and not by copy-cats like in SAC. If you aren't, then you have no possible way of knowing if they are or not.

Not necessarily, particularly since a SAC is not a copy-cat, and even then this isn't copy-cat behavior, it's just attributing different actions with different ends to one name with knowledge of the other actions and ends attributed to that name, that is nothing like a stand alone complex.
Either they are one group of people (maybe not always the same individuals) doing many different things or many different groups of people doing many different things and attributing it to the one name, neither makes it a stand alone complex.

Re:No they havent

[Bacon Bits]

"If you want to understand Anonymous you need to watch the Ghost in the Shell anime. Anonymous is a seeded attempt at the "Laughing Man" of the series."

And you need to re-watch it. The name "Stand-Alone Complex" comes from the fact that there was no Laughing Man. All the "Laughing Man" attacks were all actually inside jobs, corporate attempts at scamming insurers and securing government bailouts. They were all "copycats" for which there never really was an original.

Anonymous isn't trying to recreate "Laughing Man" here, Sony is, and for the same reasons.

To my knowledge the imagining of "Stand-Alone Complex" was to use the same plot as that present in the OAV, but this time the mystery hacker was never caught and never truly identified like he was in the movie (although there he merged with the Major rather than being "caught" in a strict sense). The team only ever found copycats of the Laughing Man, but there was an actual true Laughing Man -- which is why they talk about the Original Laughing Man Incident so much. He (it?) was real. He just got away. Didn't you notice how similar the one known a Aoi in the series was to the shell the program inhabited in the movie? Same character different outcome.

And remember, it's Ghost in the Shell. You're never given the whole story.

Re:No they havent

[Paradise Pete]

As has been touted many many many times by people on Slashdot whenever news organizations do it, there is no central authority, there is no registered list. So yes, while that clique may not have done it, does not mean another clique didn't.

By your own argument "Anonymous" cannot respond nor do anything else. Therefore Anonymous did not do it. If a group has no leader, no structure, no membership, and does not act in concert (or at least in the spirit of it) then it can hardly be called a group at all. All groups, even group friendships, have at the very least informal leaders and followers.

Re:No they havent

[Paradise Pete]

I'm not sure I got that car analogy quite right.

Perhaps not, but it certainly was intriguing.

Re:No they havent

[anomaly256]

flamebait? seriously? Sorry guys but voicing a legitimate opinion in an online discussion is not inciting a flame. Not being able to handle someone else's opinion *is*.

Re:No they havent

[JosKarith]

Plus, she's not a ugly-ass guy...

Re:No they havent

[JosKarith]

Anon has a credo - "4 teh Lulz"

Re:No they havent

[vegiVamp]

No, some other part might have done it.

Apologies if this rapes your fanboi sensitivities, but Sony offering "proof" means precious little to me until independent, competent entities have reviewed it.

Re:No they havent

[AmiMoJo]

Anonymous released material that ACS:Law accidentally posted on its web site, which saved thousands of people in the UK from being intimidated and threatened with bogus copyright infringement claims. It lead to the fall of a borderline criminal (Andrew Crossley). How is that different from the stolen material that Wikileaks publishes? At least the ACS:Law material has had real tangible benefits to ordinary people.

Re:No they havent

[Random2]

Actually, Durarara! Is far closer to the story of Anon (and specifically moot) than GiTS or GiTS SAC.

Other than that I share the same sentiment.

Re:No they havent

[AmiMoJo]

So all Sony has to do is post a few messages in /b/ claiming to be Anonymous hackers, throw in a bit of insider knowledge just to add credibility, and they have an instant scapegoat. Internet terrorists did it! We are the victims!

All this tells me is that Sony either has no clue who did it and is tying not to look totally incompetent, or does know who did it and doesn't want the fact that it was professional criminals who are bound to use the data to commit mass fraud on millions of people's identities and accounts to come out.

Re:No they havent

[mhelander]

"The Internet did it!"

Re:No they havent

[Jurily]

I thought this was about Anonymous, not Wikileaks. Anonymous in particular and 4chan in general has not brought to light anything I'm aware of except tentactle porn torrents.

That's it, I've had it with this thread. Read this whole discussion again, but with "Allah" instead of "Anonymous". They're equally real.

Re:No they havent

[illumnatLA]

I am anonymous

Oh, crap... I forgot to log out...

Re:No they havent

[rtb61]

Consider this. The anonymous platform is about tackling the problem, not elevating those that tackle the problem. It is all about solutions to some of the troublesome threats to the peoples digital revolution and not about creating phony mass media heroes.

Sony of course does not wish to admit that organised crime via corrupt aliments within it's own corporate organisation set about to personally profit at the expense of Sony's customers.

Sony wants to bullshit it's way out of it's problems rather than having to pay the hefty fine and damages arising from a class actions lawsuit.

So yeah, some 'Anonymous' Sony system engineer gave the inside info on stealing all that customer data, Sony still has to pay for the privacy fines and fiscal damages, blaming it on the 'Anonymous' bogey man is just some PR=B$ scam that will go no where.

Re:No they havent

[WNight]

the same or other individual(s) wrote this press release.

Some individual must have, yes, or many. I imagine was composed on IRC or in a wiki by anyone who cared to drop by. But it's all fairly obvious.

How is such a spokesperson identified? Does the rest of the group agree with it?

Usually by not being booed out of the IRC channel when they respond to a reporter's question.

As for who agrees with it, anyone who wants. There's no party line. Many 'Anonymous' from the Scientology stuff couldn't care less about Sony and while they haven't burnt their membership cards they just don't participate unless they care to.

Who are they? Why are they? How are decisions made?

"They" aren't. Aren't an entity. Just a bunch of people who hang out discussing things. If someone starts doing something that looks like fun sometimes others join them.

Can we call their decision making process the ultimate form of democracy, where anyone has an equal vote?

It is a participatory democracy. Everyone has as much vote as they have energy. You do what you want, others may or may not help or hinder.

Or are there actually individuals with more influence than others - "all are equal, but some are more equal than others"?

Of course, some individuals always have more influence than others - the proof is that some people (not just anonymous members) hardly say anything and of course have little influence. But it isn't like one person gaining power in the organization and issuing orders, influence is being able to explain how to yank Scientology's chain and how much fun it is so that others want to do the same.

All I can tell is that this group is highly idealistic, and of course mainly active in Internet related issues.

Almost everyone who hasn't had it beaten out of them, or who sees a chance, is idealistic. The anonymous tactics are quite powerful at combating many PR-sensitive organizations, thus many people see the chance to uphold their ideals.

It's remarkable how little is known about this movement, even though their communication is done out in the open, and they're happy to talk to the press.

Actually almost everything is known about Anonymous, as a whole, because it is only what you see. The 'members' wouldn't accept any inner cabal because there's no structure for identifying people or delegating authority, no leaders - just compelling goals.

Re:No they havent

[drinkypoo]

In other words, some part of the infantile emotionally-retarded "collective" didn't penetrate Sony's network,

That's true. Some part of slashdot did not penetrate Sony's networks.

Ad Hominem against Anonymous is hilarious. Keep it up, maybe they'll DDoS you next.

Re:No they havent

[drinkypoo]

If a very attractive girl decides to strip naked and run around inside a men's prison should the girl not be at least partially responsible for anything that happens to her.

No.

Medium form: you should have a right to not be raped regardless of what you are wearing.

Longer form: You are part of the rape culture. It's not your fault; you were indoctrinated into it. Rights are something you can't give up and which can't be taken away from you (we have remarkably less rights than "guaranteed" in the constitution.) But you ought to become aware of it so that you can stop spreading the "she was asking for it" meme under another guise, consciously or no.

Re:No they havent

[Coren22]

Thank you, now I need a new keyboard...

Re:No they havent

[drinkypoo]

i believe they've actually stated early on that their DDoS was hurting PSN users, and they didn't want that - they wanted to hurt Sony, but not gamers.

But that is an incredibly stupid thing to say, because you can't hurt Sony without affecting their customers. Further, the Customers are the PROBLEM... they keep giving Sony money which they use to harm their customers.

Re:No they havent

[Syberz]

I know nothing about hacking, but if Halle Berry's giving out blow jobs to those who try to hack SONY, I'll certainly try.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

Hmm, I can't speak for which is "closer" but it looks to be an interesting anime series, thanks, I'll have to look into it...

Re:No they havent

[The13thSin]

Don't worry, I've seen a lot of Anonymous up close and believe me they are not even half as organised as you might think they are.

the linked article was purportedly written by a company called Anonymous Enterprises LLC (Bermuda). Now I'm too lazy to do any more research on that (I leave that to the experts) so I can't tell who is behind that company. But somehow, somewhere one or more individuals have apparently set this up, and the same or other individual(s) wrote this press release.

I didn't check the business registry of Bermuda, but knowing how this loosely tied group called Anonymous works, you can be sure there either is no Anonymous Enterprises LLC registered in Bermuda or if there is they have nothing to do with this. I'm pretty sure this was just added for the so called Lulz.

Furthermore, I can assure you while sometimes a "press release" like this is first shown in IRC channels to see if most people think it's ok, a lot of times it's just an Anonymous user who feels this is what most of Anonymous is thinking (whether wrong or right) and posting it right away. If you need more proof, check anonnews.org for the many contradictory "press releases" on their site. While there is an active (but still loosely tied) core of Anonymous that seems to be more active in creating these press releases, setting up websites, thinking up "diabolical" schemes and "Ops", they too are consistently being replaced by others. There's no real center of operation or spokeperson.

In short: almost all "members" of Anonymous don't really know what the hell they are doing over half of the time and structure and order is contrary to how Anonymous operates. That is, if you can even call a bunch of trolls, idealists, lulz-seekers, bored teens and what have you, who constantly disagree on everything, even the definition of Anonymous, a real group.

Back on topic: while it may be very possible someone who has at one time or another sympathized or acted as part of Anonymous is responsible for the hack. I'm pretty damn sure there was no secret meeting, nor any group effort by the collective we call Anonymous to hack the PSN as occurred. While I do believe Sony may indeed have found a file named "Anonymous" with the contents "We are legion", it is both silly for Sony or anyone else for that matter to think they have much to do with it.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

You would cloak yourself in meat and expect the wolves to uphold your right to personal integrity? Really? I'm not trying to excuse/escape the men that would violate the girl but at the same time responsibility needs to be taken for baiting her violators which was my point with Sony. Not only did Sony walk around "naked" but when they were warned that that was an open invitation to be compromised they ignored the warnings. Low and behold, guess what a few months later they were. Did the girl deserve it? No. Does Sony and it's customers? No. Did each place themselves into a compromising position that advertised their exploitability? Absolutely.

Re:No they havent

[sabt-pestnu]

> Anonymous ... has not brought to light anything I'm aware of ....

Perhaps you've not been reading the news, then. Or perhaps you've forgotten HBGary (Wikileaks published it, but Anonymous provided it) despite it being referred to in TFA.

Or perhaps you're blinded by having read tentacle porn....

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

No one has ever stated that the "business card" was located inside the vault, it could very well have been on the lobby floor. All the same, what is to stop someone from leaving a tag that does not reflect/represent the meme?

Re:No they havent

[TheCarp]

Hmmm I agree that "no means no" and all that but... there is right, and there is right.

I, personally, have no problem with people who grow, sell, or smoke pot. I consider laws against it to be little to no different than laws against say.... being jewish. Really, I put them on about the same level of legitimacy.

So in my eyes, a person who gets arrested for weed is.... being oppressed.... being harmed by criminals in blue.

That said... everyone knows it is illegal. If you walk out of the house with a lbs of weed in a clear freezer bag under your arm, and you get stopped and arrested for it.... I will agree thats inappropriate, and the police and courts are wrong to do this injustice to you, but... you are still a fucking moron.

When you know there is danger, right or wrong, and you take no precaution to protect yourself, you may not be morally at fault or to blame, but for all practical purposes, it is partially your fault.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

Actually they are pointing fingers at "Anonymous" the meme as a way to deflect, distract, and punish all a the same time.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

Anonymous is a meme, just as the Laughing Man was a meme. Sure Anonymous may have groups that act in an organized fashion rather than individuals, however they are still just components that independently identify with and operate under the meme. The outward manifestation of this is as a hive mind or swarm intelligence. Individual units operating under a meme which produce in aggregate an emergent intelligence that operates as if but with out a centralized governance. This is the Laughing Man, this is Anonymous.

Re:No they havent

[zeroshade]

Wow. Exceptionally laughable really.

Anonymous is a random bunch of PEOPLE some are kids in it for the joy-ride others are obviously adults with their own motivation, and everything in between. As has been said, they are literally anonymous so positing who they might be as individuals is just an exercise in futility. The guiding message that is publicly put forth under the name of Anonymous is one that most would identify with as a good thing, free speech, transparency, removing corruption, etc. Sure organized events may or may not fancy your liking as the right approach. Claiming they do this with the consent of any government is laughable considering the arrests that have been made (such as over the DDoS's).

There's nothing stopping the Feds from shutting down 4chan

It would just get mirrored outside their jurisdiction. While you could probably tie 4chan to distribution of child porn, and even that would be difficult due to the evidence disappearing quickly due to the nature of the site, I highly doubt any connection could be made to any kind of "organized crime" at least not one that would hold up in court.

Notice that the US is making no attempt to charge Assange?

Notice that the US has no grounds on which to charge him with anything.

The subtle manipulation of 4chan by the US government to target governments or foreign corporations gives the US government plausible deniability in the "cyberwar."

Uhm....you DO know what 4chan is right? The vast majority have nothing to do with Anonymous and are immature kids who think they are on the edge of a culture war and rebellion who have no aspirations of "fighting for freedom" or whatever.

Please tell me I just fed a troll....otherwise my faith in humanity just took a nose-dive lower than it's usual amount.

Re:No they havent

[zeroshade]

I believe the point GP was trying to make was that Stupidity != fault. In the case of the naked girl stripping naked and running around inside a men's prison, I would call the girl an idiot, I'd say she was stupid, I would in no way claim that it's her fault that someone decided to take advantage of the situation. Stupidity is not the same as responsibility.

Re:No they havent

[Nethemas the Great]

Sony was not at fault then? My insurance company should pay me for my stolen car even though I left the doors unlock, the key in the ignition? I can sue the driver of the car that ran me over because I chose to dart out onto a busy interstate highway?

There is culpability here because the actors at play chose to either consciously or otherwise conduct themselves in a manner that disregards a substantial and unjustifiable risk (or possibly worse, a certain and unjustifiable risk) such that the material element (the crime) will result from their conduct. The disregard of this risk involves a gross deviation from the standard of conduct that a reasonable person would observe in the actor's situation. The question is what degree of culpability they have. If they knowingly disregard these risks (such as Sony) they have a greater culpability than if they unknowingly disregard these risks (which may be the girl, but I was assuming a reasonable actor). If it was common practice for ordinary girls to run naked around prisons, or companies to take no consideration for network security then this would be different. This however, is not the common practice which makes these actors culpable.

Re:No they havent

[drinkypoo]

Your scenario is dumb because only the girl is hurt in example A, while Sony's customers to whom they have made promises are hurt in example B. If the girl in your example were to run through this prison waving a big stack of other people's personal information which she had promised not to expose to risk and it was stolen from her, passed to the outside, and then used to harm others, you might have something.

Re:No they havent

[datsa]

Well, if someone does something and takes the "credit", then they're not part of Anonymous. But yes, Anonymous includes anyone who identifies with Anonymous, who may or may not be people you want to associate with, if you're also part of Anonymous. How can you ever trust your fellow Anonymous member? It's not sustainable.

Re:No they havent

[exomondo]

Anonymous is a meme, just as the Laughing Man was a meme.

wow, that sure is some similarity.

Individual units operating under a meme which produce in aggregate an emergent intelligence that operates as if but with out a centralized governance.

So of course that would mean any sort of 'we didn't do this' or 'we've gotten bored of this' announcements on behalf of Anonymous would be complete bullshit then.

This is the Laughing Man, this is Anonymous.

Anonymous is different attacks on different targets with different goals being attributed to the same name and discussed/planned in a number of known places. This is not the Laughing Man at all, you may manufacture similarities but they are far from the same thing.

Deflection

[Trip6]

Blame your own incompetence on a well known public entity. A trick as old as the hills.

Re:Deflection

[shish]

And made all the easier by Anonymous' nature -- it only takes one member (or one mole) to say "we did it", and even if all the others say "we didn't", the media can still point at that first voice as an authoritative one...

Re:Deflection

[mug funky]

the hills have eyes, and they're alive with the sound of music.

Re:Deflection

[drb226]

In (conspiracy theory) reality, Sony is secretly behind Anonymous. They are just playing a game of cat and mouse with themselves now to confuse everyone. Because really Microsoft secretly owns Sony and is trying to make itself look better by throwing Sony's reputation in the toilet. But then they realized that they can still make tons of money off of Sony products anyways.

Re:Deflection

[ColdWetDog]

So, Jimmy Hoffa killed John F. Kennedy?

Re:Deflection

[Mashiki]

You know what? That's more plausible than anonymous doing it. I suppose it's because Sony has no credibility with the general public.

Re:Deflection

[countertrolling]

Not really... Only a little less than ten years..

Re:Deflection

[ZombieBraintrust]

Are you talking about Sony or Anonymous here?

Re:Deflection

[Stupendoussteve]

No credibility with the general public?

The general public, and their customers, have largely complained about Anonymous hacking PSN. This is one of the main reasons that this "sect" released a press release. The general slashdot crowd may not believe a word Sony says, but that is not representative of the general public.

It's also not hard for the general public to believe they are behind it, because they have heard of the HBgary hack and the DDoS on Sony, don't know or don't care of the motivations.

Also, you have articles like this, which was just released and claims that Anonymous is now planning an attack on Sony.

Re:Deflection

[Mashiki]

I could 'claim' I'm going to nuke the world from inside the earths core. That doesn't make it true. And sorry no, the average idiot blames anonymous. The general public believes that sony has no credibility.

Confusion

[Toam]

I'd like to think that this has come about due to someone at Sony saying that the act was done by "an anonymous hacker" being misunderstood as "an Anonymous hacker".

Re:Confusion

[MightyMartian]

I'd like to think both Sony and Anonymous are unforgivable assholes.

Re:Confusion

[Zandamesh]

I like to see it more as:
Sony: lawful evil
Anonymous: chaotic neutral

Re:Confusion

[geminidomino]

At least they are predictable and can be controlled

Not when they make the laws (or, at least, can have them cut-to-fit).

Re:Confusion

[SBFCOblivion]

Mercy? You want mercy!? I'm chaotic neutral!

Re:Confusion

[zeroshade]

Predictable? Maybe. Can be controlled? Uh.....yea...sure....

Derp

[Lysander7]

People need to research more before assuming anything. Sony explicitly stated they found verifiable evidence it was Anonymous, as the files the hacker had left behind said "We are Anonymous. We are legion." How that can be confused for anything else is beyond me.

Re:Derp

[Lysander7]

Also, Anonymous is more than a well-known public entity. Many are trolls, whiteknights, immature children, and sophisticated hackers. I know, as I'm one of them. Not just a casual 4chan lurker, I mean the Anonymous underground. I don't agree with the hackings, but just because Anonymous officially denies it does not mean their word is to be trusted, or that it wasn't a member doing it independently of the organization.

Re:Derp

[Anonymous Coward]

$ echo "We are legion" > Anonymous.txt

Should I call the FBI now and get them to investigate an "intrusion perpetrated by Anonymous"?

Seriously, if you think a text file left behind is proof of anything, I hope you never get called into jury duty.

Re:Derp

[xMrFishx]

What he said.

Re:Derp

[Lysander7]

No, but it can't be discredited either. Are you saying we should just take Anonymous at their word simply because they deny it? I'm not saying Sony's response or initial security wasn't pathetic, because it was, fact still remains it was *probably* Anonymous, especially when looking at the timeline of events.

Re:Derp

[Anonymous Coward]

No, but it can't be discredited either. Are you saying we should just take Anonymous at their word simply because they deny it? I'm not saying Sony's response or initial security wasn't pathetic, because it was, fact still remains it was *probably* Anonymous, especially when looking at the timeline of events.

Yes, you should take them at their word. Pretty sure that is the basis of innocent until proven guilty.

Re:Derp

[Ruke]

While the DDOS-attack does seem like it was very likely Anonymous, the credit breach doesn't quite seem their style. Anonymous tends to be in it to make Sony look bad - if they had stolen 100 million PSN accounts, I'd expect to see 100 million PSN accounts up on The Pirate Bay pretty quick. I'd expect a statement bragging about how easy it was, how lax Sony's security was. I wouldn't expect for-profit identity theft. Stealing credit card info seems a step or two above "doing it for the lulz."

I could be wrong. It would definitely be wrong to put Anonymous above suspicion; they have a motive and and the ability. It just doesn't seem like their MO.

Re:Derp

[blair1q]

s/independently of the organization/in keeping with the disorganization

Re:Derp

[Etrigoth]

Hate to use this line, but please; mod parent up.

I'm convinced anyone who's missing parents point is doing so purposefully.

Re:Derp

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because a government officially denies something etc... At the end of the day, it's not organisations who want anonymous destroyed, it's individuals within these organisations. When an individual representative does something indefensible, their organisation will disown them. Under what grounds could anonymous be held to a higher standard in this regard than corporations or government institutions?

Re:Derp

[mark-t]

If you are one of them, why aren't you posting as AC?

Re:Derp

[Ruke]

I believe he is responding to a sibling, rather than a parent:

I'd like to think that this has come about due to someone at Sony saying that the act was done by "an anonymous hacker" being misunderstood as "an Anonymous hacker".

Re:Derp

[Etrigoth]

Although, as you've just posted with your /. handle; you're arguably *not* Anonymous.

I understand what you meant to say; however what you said is different.

Re:Derp

[Ruke]

Much like I just responded to the wrong post. Apologies. =(

Re:Derp

[Ruke]

I believe that he is responding to a sibling, rather than a parent:

I'd like to think that this has come about due to someone at Sony saying that the act was done by "an anonymous hacker" being misunderstood as "an Anonymous hacker".

Re:Derp

[Nyder]

Also, Anonymous is more than a well-known public entity. Many are trolls, whiteknights, immature children, and sophisticated hackers. I know, as I'm one of them. Not just a casual 4chan lurker, I mean the Anonymous underground. I don't agree with the hackings, but just because Anonymous officially denies it does not mean their word is to be trusted, or that it wasn't a member doing it independently of the organization.

Sure, so you claim. Mr. Anonymous.

We'll take your word that Anonymous can't be trusted, because obviously, you can be trusted. After all, you admit to being the man inside.

Nice try, but you didn't impress anyone here, 'cept the stupid mods who don't know any better.

Re:Derp

[Nethemas the Great]

Innocent until proven guilty. Just because it is a major corp pointing the finger doesn't make it so and yet people are quick to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Re:Derp

[Colonel Korn]

People need to research more before assuming anything. Sony explicitly stated they found verifiable evidence it was Anonymous, as the files the hacker had left behind said "We are Anonymous. We are legion." How that can be confused for anything else is beyond me.

I just searched my trash can and found a piece of paper proving you broke into my house. It said, "I am Lysander7. Derp." I'm not going to produce the paper, but I think I'll point it out in a press release and accuse you of breaking into my house.

Re:Derp

[Colonel Korn]

No, but it can't be discredited either. Are you saying we should just take Anonymous at their word simply because they deny it? I'm not saying Sony's response or initial security wasn't pathetic, because it was, fact still remains it was *probably* Anonymous, especially when looking at the timeline of events.

Lysander7, despite showing no evidence to prove it, you and I both agree that we should assume there's a good chance you broke into my house. Sure, there's no proof, but we can't discredit that I claim I found your name on a piece of paper in my house.

Re:Derp

[bwayne314]

But don't you think that stealing all those CC numbers and immediately releasing them into the wild on TPB is much, much, much, much worse than waiting a couple of weeks, let Sony shit their pants, allow time for all the PSN customers to change/chancel their cards and reset their passwords, and THEN after all that data is essentially harmless release everything, you know, for the lulz?

Granted, it still sucks for the guy with a playstation in his living room, unable to play online for a week and then having to go to the trouble of calling Visa(or whatever) to get a new credit card number, while shitting his pants that his identity might get stolen. But then again, maybe it is just a hard-learned lesson that could have been much worse.

Re:Derp

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

Not just a casual 4chan lurker, I mean the Anonymous underground.

Soooo.... you post on 4chan.

Re:Derp

[mentil]

It gets stranger. According to their recent updates for the SOE hack, the hackers used 'sophisticated means [...] to cover their tracks'.
Why go to a lot of trouble to cover your tracks, yet purposely leave a file implicating Anonymous? Either the access was done over a period of time, and the tracks were covered to keep continued access (not something I'd imagine Anonymous would care to do), or the evidence was left to divert investigators away from the real source of the hacks.
Leaving behind a calling-card then letting Anonymous make 2 statements (one when the PSN outage first began) that they weren't responsible, without releasing a counter-statement claiming responsibility and acting on behalf of Anonymous, suggests that this person is either so on the fringe of association with Anonymous they have no contact with other members, or they're trying to pass suspicion/investigative efforts/blame to Anonymous.
Any way you look at it, you can't blame the greater body of Anonymous.

Re:Derp

[Artifakt]

The real question is not, why should anyone trust the word of Anonymous, the real question is why should anyone trust the word of Sony any further? Sony has repeatedly shown incompetence on a vast scale, their prosecution of various Playstation hardware hackers and such in the past has show a strong lack of ethics, and their earlier relationship with Anonymous gives Sony a major reason to lie this time. If Sony were anything except a for profit corporation, were Sony a political organization, even if it were an actual government, most people would be giving it less benefit of a doubt than they are as a business. The 80 Megaton elephant in this discussion is "Why are so many people so quick to believe a negative claim about a group like Anon, or a more established or publicly accessible group like ACORN, or even a major nation state, but so slow to begin to doubt a group such as Sony?"

Re:Derp

[jd2112]

Police! Arrest Lysander7! He is Anonymous, the proof is in the parent post.

Re:Derp

[laxguy]

SONY NEVER SAID IT WAS ANONYMOUS. They said they found a file called Anonymous.txt with the contents "We are Legion". Everyone took that as meaning "GUIZ IT WAS ANONYMOUS WE NEED 2 FIND DEM". Seriously, get your shit straight.

Re:Derp

[Anonymous Coward]

Try posting AC sometime. Pretty much every AC comment, unless it is a joke posted 5 min after the article, never gets above 0 and is therefore never seen.

Re:Derp

[schnell]

Yes, you should take them at their word.

Whose word? I thought that was the whole point of "Anonymous."

99.99% of however the hell you define "Anonymous" could have been uninvolved and 0.01% could have been been the perpetrators - how do you determine then if "Anonymous was involved?"

The strength of "Anonymous" is its untraceability in attacking things. The weakness of "Anonymous" is its inability to speak a coherent message because... the group is by design not coherent, with a single voice. This is precisely the reason that anarchic groups like Anon are very good at tearing things down, but very bad at building things up where you need to work together and follow a single voice or a common plan.

Re:Derp

[JWSmythe]

And being that you posted the same phrase, that means you are part of the group "Anonymous". Congratulations, now we know who the evil "Anonymous" group is.

    In other news, the tide goes in, the tide goes out. Never a miscommunication. There is an invisible being in the sky who will torture your soul for all of eternity if you don't talk to him, but he really loves you. And if that isn't clear enough, it was God who did it. God hates Sony and the Japanese, and especially all those heathens who use the Internet.

    Excuse me I have some paying customers who need tinfoil hat adjustments to take care of.

Re:Derp

[JWSmythe]

    Were they the American Sony servers, or the Japanese servers? If it's the American servers, the burden of proof falls upon the defendant to prove they didn't do something. Don't get all confused by those pesky laws, law enforcement and the courts don't.

Re:Derp

[JWSmythe]

You know, I was tracking defacement attacks for a while. For the ones I investigated, I found that the "evidence" they left behind rarely if ever really corresponded to the actual hacker. I saw so many "Chinese" and "Russian" defacement, that could be easily traced to kids in the US, especially during school vacations.

    Hell, if I just broke into Sony's network, stole a metric fuck-ton of passwords and credit card credentials, I'd sure as hell leave behind some "evidence" that pointed towards someone else. What'd they expect? "Hi, I just broke into your server. My name is JW Smythe. My address is 14 Hacker Way, New York, NY, 10011. Come by and visit me any time. I'll be buying Internet porn with all these stolen cards, so knock before you come in."

Re:Derp

[ZombieBraintrust]

Seriously. The 'anonymous' twerps always vacillate between having and not having an organization, usually choosing whatever hat is most convenient for the issue at hand. So when they don't want to take the blame, some single person can deny participation; when someone threatens to prosecute and take them down, it's a headless ad-hoc collective.

The reality is almost certainly between the two, in that there is a core of a few people who, practically speaking, organize the Anonymous activities. Anything that group doesn't have a hand in is 'not Anonymous'. This isn't to fault the tweens, just to acknowledge the fact that humans are political animals and naturally sort themselves into hierarchies. Since, we are told, there are some standard Anonymous chatrooms etc., then it's nearly inconceivable to think that a cadre of people who are relatively better suited to leadership, through their organizational or motivational abilities, hasn't by this point become de facto leaders of the group.

Boys will be boys.

Its simple members of anon who think it is an ad-hoc collective are sheep. The sheep do as their told and believe the group is hugs, masks, and rainbows. The shepherds of Anon are an organized criminal gang.

Re:Derp

[ZombieBraintrust]

FYI SkyNet is the supercomputer made from PS3's the Air-force built. It was the PS2 Emotion Engines included in the launch PS3's that when activated caused SkyNet to turn evil.

Re:Derp

[MBaldelli]

No, but it can't be discredited either. Are you saying we should just take Anonymous at their word simply because they deny it? I'm not saying Sony's response or initial security wasn't pathetic, because it was, fact still remains it was *probably* Anonymous, especially when looking at the timeline of events.

Bull. If it were anonymous, Sony would've been screaming it from the parapets the instant that it had occurred and PSN went down. They could've ridden the media wave for it without even a second thought.

Sony didn't. Sony hid it. From the public, and from their user base. For far longer an amount of time than they should have. And to add salt to the wound, when they did actually get around to notifying their user base and the public, they did so from a blog. Not in getting in contact with their user base. Not without hitting the news. They hid it from there hoping that no one would notice because they didn't know the extent of the damage that had happened.

Some of the folk that I've watched on the various discussion boards about this act get their knickers in a twist about Anonymous being the cause of this and how evil and wrong they are... The thing is their actions to date (at least that which has actually hit the news) has been the actions of civil disobedience in a network/internet setting. Equipment has not been destroyed, code for web servers haven't been wiped. Bombs haven't been detonated. Lives have not been lost. They have renamed files and replaced them with their own, which is not entirely unlike plastering pamphlets over the sign of a store. A DDoS attack is not entirely unlike blocking the door to a cafe to prevent patrons from entering. The sort of thing Martin Luther King Jr. and another from the 50s and 60s did to get through Segregation and fight for civil rights. While I might not be old enough to have done that sort of thing back in the 60s, I did get the opportunity 30 years later when I was volunteering time for Queer Nation. What makes my actions considered civil rights, and Anonymous' the acts of hooligans/trolls/sophisticated hackers/immature children? Because they have the guts to be civilly disobedient, or because people are simply acting in fear of a faceless group and treating them like the boogie man?

Again, to date Anonymous' actions have been against corporations that seem to think they're above the law. That they can get away with raping the end user. Taking all this information from almost 100 million end-users -- e-mail addresses, usernames, passwords, credit card numbers? Attacking those that they have been defending would turn the mob against them and anything they are attempting to accomplish into a manhunt that would eventually bring the whole thing crashing down.

Sony is the one under scrutiny here. Any "proof" that Sony thinks they're posting against Anonymous is simply a red herring to cover up the fact that they have questions left unanswered.... And the lot of people agreeing it's Anonymous, are buying into that red herring... Hook, line and sinker...

Re:Derp

[qubezz]

This is precisely the reason that anarchic groups like Anon are very good at tearing things down, but very bad at building things up where you need to work together and follow a single voice or a common plan.

I disagree. Anonymous has certainly demonstrated their willingness and ability to use their coordinated numbers for both good and evil

Re:Derp

[MemoryDragon]

This is no proof at all, a one liner on the command line produces such a file.

Re:Derp

[TFAFalcon]

So when there is a murder and you find 'Osama was here' written in blood on the wall it's an open and shut case?

Re:Derp

[AmiMoJo]

A text file containing a well known meme is verifiable evidence that Anonymous, a random mob mostly consisting of /b/tards and script kiddies, hacked not only PSN but other Sony on-line services in a way that went undetected for some considerable period of time and which was apparently so sophisticated that fixing the hole is taking weeks? And once inside rather than engaging in epic lulz they quietly stole personal data and credit card details, and then unlike every other hack Anon ever did failed to post a .torrent to The Pirate Bay?

Re:Derp

[JohnRoss1968]

Maybe so, but is that because you are related?

Re:Derp

[Ash-Fox]

Bull. If it were anonymous, Sony would've been screaming it from the parapets the instant that it had occurred and PSN went down.

That's your argument? I'm sorry, that's not enough at all for me.

Sony hid it.

They released a lot of information, so I'm still not convinced on this statement either.

What makes my actions considered civil rights, and Anonymous' the acts of hooligans/trolls/sophisticated hackers/immature children?

Anonymous was essentially created from those kind of people to begin with and you can't see why they would be labelled as such...?

Again, to date Anonymous' actions have been against corporations that seem to think they're above the law.

The failed attacks on Amazon's servers had nothing to do with Amazon thinking they were above the law. Please don't distort the truth.

Re:Derp

[ConaxConax]

Don't worry, AC, some of us browse at -1

Re:Derp

[Agent0013]

In fact, I seem to remember Sony stating that they discovered the security breach after they had been DDOS'd. It is entirely possible that they had been broken into a long while before and the infiltrators had access for a long time. It would take a while to get 77 million identities out of a system. If the sophisticated hackers covered their tracks so they could get back in to get more, it even seem likely that it wasn't a recent event. Sony only discovered it when they started looking after the DDOS attack.

Re:Derp

[Syberz]

So Lysander7, you're anonymous?

Re:Derp

[sseaman]

The "sophisticated means" used to cover their tracks cover their IP addresses, not their group affiliation. No one wants to be personally indicted for this.

Re:Derp

[steelfood]

I'm not sure one member of Anonymous is equivalent to Anonymous. Anonymous somehow implies a collective of sorts. A group of one doesn't really make a collective.

I think when it comes to Anonymous, the sum is greater than its parts. The more parts of the collective move, the more "Anonymous" the act becomes. And that's what's so incredibly interesting about it.

Re:Derp

[JWSmythe]

    Those are the tin-foil hat wearing hackers. They've made it so secret, even the USPS doesn't know where it is.

    I prefer hiding in plain site. With a population density of about 71,000 per square mile (393 sq/ft per person), it's rather impractical to walk up to each person and say "Excuse me, are you JW Smythe?". When I've visited 31337, the population density of 3 per square mile makes it pretty easy to find a specific person. But hey, if the [feds|aliens|"they"] come looking for those folks, it's easy enough to take everyone and sort them out later. I'm afraid to know how they'd detail 71,000 people to possibly find me. :)

Re:Derp

[zeroshade]

You assume that there was some organized group within Anonymous who did the hack, which is unprovable. In fact, I would posit that it was not a group inside Anonymous because they have proven, good or bad, that things done in the name of Anonymous tend to be bragged about and otherwise mentioned and thrown in the face of whoever it was perpetrated against, while this was not.

Re:Derp

[nilbog]

It would have been impossible for someone outside of anonymous to forge such a file!

But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized

[poity]

They're like-minded individuals who coalesce to serve a shared whim at a particular time. If so, then it is indeed difficult to pin any particular action or crime upon its body for prosecution, but at the same time it is equally difficult, if not more so, to unpin any accusations. I think we're seeing here one of the downsides to organizations whose structure of responsibility is nearly flat, where not only does the left hand not know what the right is doing, each hair on each finger doesn't know what the rest are doing. In light of their historic antics, those who align themselves with Anonymous fight an uphill battle to shed themselves of ill-repute whenever any such indictments surface. But they get no remorse from me -- it's a choice they've made and a reality they have to deal with.

Re:But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized

[poity]

oops, i meant they get no sympathy. I knew I shouldn't have been typing that fast :(

Re:But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized

[Anonymous Coward]

Anonymous is not a noun, it's an adjective. That's the point of the whole exercise: anyone can say they're anon, but unless there's a significant positive reaction (i.e. lulz of some sort..) then anon can simply walk away - it's the audience after the fact that makes something anon, not the people who actually commit the act.

Anon is benign unless you try to fight it. Anon is absolutely its own worst critic. Anyone who tells you something is anon is probably trolling.

I'm tired. Ooh, look, a kitty!

Re:But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized

[wvmarle]

Yet for many other attacks they do claim/admit responsibility. They sometimes even announce it in advance. Their communication channels are no secret, anyone can listen in if they like to do so, to keep track of what Anonymous is up to.

Credit card theft doesn't go together with loosely banded idealistic movements. That is for professional thieves, usually operating alone or in tightly closed small groups, as there is profit to be made for them. Those thieves may again align themselves with Anonymous of course. Anonymous has too many members that act individually that such a theft while possible would have its results end up on major torrent sites.

Re:But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized

[osu-neko]

If so, then it is indeed difficult to pin any particular action or crime upon its body for prosecution...

You don't prosecute organizations in criminal matters. You prosecute individuals.

Re:But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized

[Ash-Fox]

Yet for many other attacks they do claim/admit responsibility. They sometimes even announce it in advance. Their communication channels are no secret, anyone can listen in if they like to do so, to keep track of what Anonymous is up to.

Maybe for AnonOps, but that most certainly isn't the only 'Anonymous' group out there, there are quite a few that aren't public and are secret.

Credit card theft doesn't go together with loosely banded idealistic movements

Not everyone in anonymous has this magical morale compass as you portray them to have.

usually operating alone or in tightly closed small groups

Which certain people who are Anonymous actually do.

Anonymous has too many members that act individually that such a theft while possible would have its results end up on major torrent sites.

Regardless, they act individually on behalf of Anonymous, there is no central authority on what acts are approved or disapproved.

Re:But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized

[JohnRoss1968]

"I think we're seeing here one of the downsides to organizations whose structure of responsibility is nearly flat, where not only does the left hand not know what the right is doing, each hair on each finger doesn't know what the rest are doing."
Please Stay On Topic, And Leave the Republicans Out of This!!!!!!!!!!!

lies

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, can't have it both ways. You can't accept credit when a loner decides to hack something, then deny credit when someone else attributes their actions to anonymous.

With no central leadership or community registration, any damn fool can do whatever they want and pin it on you guys.

It's the nature of the beast you've created; in any group there will ALWAYS be those in it for ideological reasons as well as those looking to decrease personal culpability.

Re:lies

[JohnRoss1968]

If your going to flame Anonymous, shouldn't you at least NOT be doing so while posting anonymously???

No Plausible Deniability

[bluemonq]

I was under the impression that *anyone* can be Anonymous. If that's the case, Anonymous can't prove that Anonymous didn't do it.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[PhilHibbs]

They have communication channels that they use to co-ordinate. If there was no mention of it on the Anonymous channels, then it's not an Anonymous activity. According to the article linked, they invite journalists into their channels.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[pixline]

I was under the impression that *anyone* can be Anonymous. If that's the case, Anonymous can't prove that Anonymous didn't do it.

Neither you can prove that Anonymous did it, a txt isn't enough.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[anomaly256]

So by extension, Anonymous are guilty of all unsolved crimes the world over.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[The Dawn Of Time]

Who says those people make the rules? How does one impose order on an anarchist organization?

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[shish]

Some of them have communication channels that they use to co-ordinate. If there was no mention of it on those Anonymous channels, then it's not activity of that branch of Anonymous. According to the article linked, some of them invite journalists into some of their channels.

FTFY

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[exentropy]

Innocent until proven guilty.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[DreamArcher]

It's just playground-rules. A few of the strongest egos call the shots, and the mob follows. Anyone can be anon and nobody can be anon both at the same time. No-org is just an attempt to stay out of trouble. It's just semantics and it won't keep the guilty out of trouble.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[AlexiaDeath]

If Anonymous did it, you would have heard about it at the time. Anonymous relies on a public call to arms to mobilize its sleeper agents among us. There would have been battle calls and if it was taken up by a significant number Sony would have cried foul and Anonymous would have gloated like there was no tomorrow. It didn't happen. That is all the proof it takes. Anonymous cant operate secretly, its just not possible. If there is a legion marching, you will know.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[PhilHibbs]

So far the messages released by Anonymous have been fairly consistent. I'd like to see some stylistic analysis to see how many different people the releases have come from. Sure you can say "anyone can be or pretend do be Anonymous", but so far it looks to me like they have been acting more as a group than as diverse factions.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[Ash-Fox]

You seem to think that everyone who is apart of "Anonymous" operates and thinks in the same way. You are mistaken, anyone can be Anonymous. Not everyone who is Anonymous feels the need to call on others or gloat about it. Not everyone who is apart of Anonymous has the best of intentions either.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[AlexiaDeath]

Anonymous is just like the public, it contains people of all sorts. But its not a group of people with a label. It's a phenomena. It happens when assorted people, strangers, act with a common goal. For that to happen the goal needs to be known and agreed up on and to do that the vision needs to be forwarded to as many as possible. You cant be loud, even obnoxiously so, and secret at the same time. It just doesn't work. No matter what your intentions are.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[Ash-Fox]

Anonymous is just like the public, it contains people of all sorts. But its not a group of people with a label. It's a phenomena. It happens when assorted people, strangers, act with a common goal. For that to happen the goal needs to be known and agreed up on and to do that the vision needs to be forwarded to as many as possible.

Cool story, bro

You cant be loud, even obnoxiously so, and secret at the same time. It just doesn't work. No matter what your intentions are.

Indeed, and that is why their organis^H^H^H^H^H^H^H"phenomena" fails.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[JohnRoss1968]

True but if anyone can be Anonymous who is going to arrest Anonymous?
The Cops making the arrest could be Anonymous.
The prosecuting attorney could be Anonymous.
The Judge could be Anonymous.
The guards at the jail could be Anonymous.
I see some conflicts of interest here.
Its SIMPLE people...
1. Investigate and gather evidence of who actually did this.
2. Prosecute the individuals who did this.
3. Punish the people who did this.
4 Punish SONY for their part in this.
5. ??????
6. PROFIT

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[udoschuermann]

It doesn't even matter how Anonymous is composed or organized, you simply can't prove a negative: You cannot prove that God does not exist. You cannot prove that there is no life on Mars. You cannot prove that Anonymous was not somehow involved in the attack on Sony.

But three words in a text file do not constitute proof that Anonymous raped Sony. And neither does a claim "we didn't do that" vindicate Anonymous.

The burden of proof does lie with Sony, however.

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[Jonner]

Yeah, it's equally impossible to prove that Anonymous did or did not do it. What I'm still trying to figure out is whether turning "anonymous" into a proper noun has any meaning. What could it possible mean to name something "that which is not identified by name," or "that of unknown name."

Re:No Plausible Deniability

[AK Marc]

Anonymous doesn't require anarchy. The government asserts it when they work to take away our privacy, but that doesn't make it true. That the people in the chat rooms don't identify themselves in a manner verified by others doesn't mean they don't identify themselves (if they so choose), nor does it mean that the informal Anonymous organization necessarily contains all unidentified people. The organization has one manner in which they "officially" operate, and this wasn't done through that channel.

Who makes the rules? The mob does. Mob rule isn't the same as anarchy (in which case there are no rules). And "anarchist organization" seems silly. If they are an organization, they can't be anarchist. Unless it's like the political organizations who wanted political change and called themselves anarchist, but had very strict rules, a clear leader, and a defined and purposeful goal. They are anarchist like the founding fathers were anarchists for opposing the standing government.

WHO responded?

[melikamp]

If the response was anonymous, how do we know that the people who responded were the same as those who DDOSed? This, in a nutshell, is the idiocy of treating Anonymous as a group of people, however loosely organized. It would be better to call them what they are in this particular instance: Sony customers who are really pissed off.

Re:WHO responded?

[blair1q]

Calling who that?

Was it a pissed-off customer who stole $millions worth of data from Sony to aggravate Sony?

Or was it a thief interested in the $ part of the $millions worth of data, who may or may not also be a member of Anonymous, and wanted to grief them on top of making shekels from their database?

We could probably safely assume, given the scope of DDoS that it would take to wax a major aggregator like Sony, that Anonymous was responsible for that part of it. J. Random Thief would probably not have that big a botnet. Though nobody could rule a lone wolf out. But it's a pretty safe assumption.

And I read Sony's letter. They didn't have conclusive proof that the DDoS was a deliberate smokescreen for the intrusion. Nor, really, did they have proof that there wasn't more than one intrusion.

Frankly, their testimony should consist of "we have nothing conclusive as to who did this or with whom they are affiliated."

And, frankly, nobody "in Anonymous" should be concered either way about being linked to it, if they intend to remain black-hattish. Only the person who did it could say for sure.

Re:WHO responded?

[Nyder]

If the response was anonymous, how do we know that the people who responded were the same as those who DDOSed? This, in a nutshell, is the idiocy of treating Anonymous as a group of people, however loosely organized. It would be better to call them what they are in this particular instance: Sony customers who are really pissed off.

If your DDOSing the server, wouldn't it make it a little hard to hack into that computer? How are you able to hack in the computer when it's being overwhelmed with fake requests?

Re:WHO responded?

[bane2571]

I think the idea is to Ddos after the fact, to cover your tracks and to tie up the resources that would otherwise be responsible for noticing your breach.

Re:WHO responded?

[Nyder]

I think the idea is to Ddos after the fact, to cover your tracks and to tie up the resources that would otherwise be responsible for noticing your breach.

ah, yes, didn't think of that.

thanks.

Re:WHO responded?

[Anonymous Coward]

If your DDOSing the server, wouldn't it make it a little hard to hack into that computer? How are you able to hack in the computer when it's being overwhelmed with fake requests?

Usually, a DOS in practice, is used as a smoke screen, you DOS one server on a network while you exploit a hole in another server. The dos shows up in all their fancy IDS software while you break in unnoticed (one warning on another server is easy to miss when you're getting thousands from another).

This gives the attacker a lot more time to work before cleaning up and leaving without anyone ever knowing. At least, until its too late.

You don't DOS the server you're also trying to break into.

Re:WHO responded?

[RobbieCrash]

Cover your tracks by leaving your calling card?

Is this the long-form response?

[blair1q]

How do we know this is really from Anonymous?

Did they include all of the required information in their identification?

Is there even a check-box on the form for "We are Legion?"

Re:CIA FTW

[Ruke]

No, that's pretty out there. Assuming government involvement introduces several unnecessary logical leaps, along with even more unanswered questions. Also, it presumes that the public at large both know and care about this. (They don't.) Anonymous are basically a gang of hackers. (Civilly-disobedient hackers, if you must, but still.) They break the law; that's kind of their thing. If the FBI wanted to go after them, they would - they already have all of the legal justification they need.

Anonymous

[Wolfling1]

Anonymous is the ultimate form of democracy. It is the unwashed masses, taking a whim upon themselves, and challenging the remainder of society to vote with (or against) them. They are the power of the masses, and at the same time, they have the mentality of a mob.

Take a look at recent events. American SEALs assassinate OBL despite a 30YO executive order banning such actions. No trial, no jury. Just straight to the execution. The legality of it is worthy of being questioned - but the vast majority of Americans support the action - which grants the senate the impetus to democractically 'make it legal'.

This is the definition of democracy. If you get enough people together, who agree on something, it becomes law. It doesn't have to be moral or just.

Anonymous is simply the mob who agree. They are democracy manifest in all its failings. And characteristic of all democracies, the loudest voice has the appearance of steering the ship. Anyone who claims to speak for Anonymous clearly doesn't understand it. And anyone who speaks against it is in the same boat.

Interesting name for a group

[Nefarious Wheel]

"Anonymous" as a targetable group? There's sort of an interesting semantic fan-out here. It's kind of like calling a movie "Closed For Repairs".

AnonOps is not the broader 'anonymous'

[rickzor]

'Anonymous' (at least in this article) refers to the group AnonOps Communications, who host the numerous IRC channels, have a loose leader base, publish various 'flyers' of propaganda, and are the people behind 'Operation: Payback'. There is a difference between the group itself and an anonymous hacker, even if the anonymous hacker was acting out in the 'name' of anonymous.
what this article is saying is that the 'AnonOps' group had no involvement in the stealing of sony data, even if an anonymous hacker did.

references:
http://anonops.blogspot.com/
http://anonops.blogspot.com/2011/04/we-didnt-do-it-sony-incompetent.html
http://anonops.blogspot.com/2011/04/anonymous-hacks-westboro-baptist-church.html
http://twitter.com/intent/user?screen_name=anonops

Sony didn't blame the 4channers

[YesIAmAScript]

They said they found a file called "Anonymous" with "We Are Legion" inside. They didn't draw conclusions. At question 7 when asked if they know of the individual(s) responsible for the break-in, they say "no".

Please stop misreporting this just to troll your readers.

Sony gave factual answers, when the allegedly well-informed tech press can't even read it without stating information that wasn't in the release, what chance is there for accurate info to get out?

the Japanese's Naive

[hacsia]

Why don't the heads of the large corporate act as grown ups? they all like to speak big words, deny the obvious things, finding excuses.

Reason to hate Sony

[Ironhandx]

The worst part of this whole thing is that something like 1 in 10 people in North America at the very least probably have SOME motivation in their background to do something like this to embarrass Sony without having to get Anonymous involved.

Generally a higher portion of those 1 in 10 would be tech savvy folks. I would expect 50% or greater(almost all of the people I know that boycott sony would be in the "tech savvy" group, based on that anecdotal evidence I'd estimate 90%+ but since I'm pulling numbers out of my ass I'm going with more reasonable ones, they hurt less on the way out)

So, even allowing for the fact that those numbers could be way out of wack )but be honest with yourself, probably aren't that far off, if anything, thanks to that rootkit scandal, I'm under estimating), you've got 1 million + people who could potentially have had the motivation and the means to compromise such a shoddy setup.

Oh, and those numbers are pre-PSN scandal. Now you've probably got an extra million+ with either means or access to means and motivation to do something.

Re:The true face of Anonymous.

[presidenteloco]

How do we know you are not Anonymous cleverly disguising yourself as a coward?

I can imagine the court case

[presidenteloco]

Have you ever posted anything as Anonymous or any variation of that name?

uhh. Yeah. I guess so.

Guilty! Bam!

Building a case against Anonymous is like chasing your own shadow to the end of the rainbow.

Sony: It were Anonymous, guv, honest

[David Gerard]

“We discovered a file making a clear reference to ‘Username unknown,’” the company said in a letter to the US Congress on Wednesday, “and a blank user icon which therefore was ... anonymous! D’you see what that means? It means George Hotz and his hacker friends are loathsome criminal masterminds! So obviously we can’t be held liable for negligence in the face of forces like these. In conclusion, give us money.”

Reminds me of Hamas

[Prien715]

Not that Anonymous are terrorists -- far from it.

But one of the challenges in making peace with loose organizations like Hamas, Mahdi Militia, or the IRA -- just to give a few examples -- and while the leadership of the organization legitimately wants a cease fire, they're not in control of their members. If some guy becomes disillusioned by a peace deal and wants to bomb something, he's going to and the organization he or she is part of can't stop them.

I wouldn't put it past them to be the same thing here. And again, regardless of what the 'leadership' does, until they start turning over members of their community to law enforcement when someone violates their code of ethics (in addition to the law), the acts being engaged in may continue to go more extreme.

That said, Sony's screwed if they think they can work this out without "negotiating with the enemy" or else seriously beefing up security.

They never said that.

[Cant use a slash wtf]

If I recall correctly, Sony never actually claimed that Anonymous were behind the infiltration. All they said was that the recent DDoSing from Anonymous was annoying and somehow distracted them enough for someone to leave massive holes in their security. It was really just a retarded way of trying to shovel blame on to someone else, but they were not actually pointing the finger directly at Anonymous. They were merely saying Anonymous it was partly Anonymous's fault the PSN was hacked.

Now they have gone too far...

[DrVomact]

I haven't been able to log into EQ in days. Clearly, this "Anonymous" is a terrorist organization that seeks to strike at core American values. Seal Team Six is on the way.

Ooops...does this mean I've blown my anonymity? Guess I'll just have to confiscate /.

Re:The true face of Anonymous.

[JohnRoss1968]

Your saying it wasn't Anonymous, it was you?
But your name is Anonymous, so it was Anonymous and it was you? And you were Anonymous and still are?
????
SCREW IT GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN

/dot Editors caught Blowing Matt Welsh in alley

[JohnRoss1968]

I BLAME Matt Welsh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish the damn editors would hurry up and finish blowing him so someone could change the quote of the day.

It's brilliant!

[CPTreese]

Think about it, Sony needs to blame someone and so they blame a group that cannot be quantified or prosecuted and in turn Sony can't be sued for defamation. If anyone thinks that Sony actually believes their own evidence, I've got a bridge I'd like to sell you. Personally I'm furious at Sony. I am one of the people that had his identity stolen. What kind of company stores valuable information in such a careless manager? I have been a faithful Sony dupe since the PS2 and the only reason I haven't switched to the XBOX is because I thought that Sony technology was better (let the flaming begin). Now for the first time I'm not sure what gaming system to use.

If the world were Dune...

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Or have all Slashbot favorite entities merged into one? We can call it GNU WikiBuntuDroidNonymous. Like "Muad'dib" becoming a killing word....

To clarify your awesome point:

GNU - Bene Gesserit
Wiki - Orange Catholic Bible
Ubuntu - Shai Hulud
Droid - Ixian
Anonymous - Fremen
Wikileaks - Muad`dib
Information - Melange

Statement is stupid.

[JustAnotherIdiot]

Anon, to my knowledge, has no central authority and no real leadership. Saying they did it is about as vague as saying the internet did it.
It's very possible the hacker(s?) were part of Anon, but if so, so what? If anything, that makes them look worse...
I personally see Anon as a group of stupid kids online, are you seriously admitting that kids could take you down? That's pretty sad.

Ewwwww....

[TiggertheMad]

But, maybe they were forced to do it while John Travolta held a gun to their head and Halle Berry gave them a blowjob.

...or maybe Halle Berry held a gun to their head, and John Travolta gave them a blow job...