FBI Executes Nationwide Raid of Anonymous Members

Nominei and suraj.sun write in with news about a nationwide raid of Anonymous members. CBS reports that raids occurred in California, New Jersey, Florida, and New York. At least 12 arrests were made with 15 warrants executed. Surely this has nothing at all to do with their recent infiltration of a certain company.

Comments

How about no

[Anonymous Coward]

Surely this has nothing at all to do with their recent infiltration of a certain company.

I doubt there was 12 hackers working on it or that they would had busted them all within 24 hours. How about it's all the other bullshit "Anonymous" has been causing within one year, like the countless amount of DDoS against various companies and governments.

Couldn't have waited?

[gubers33]

Until they released all the News Corp. information and emails? Seems like someone might be a little worried that they are in the bribe list.

Re:Couldn't have waited?

[ElectricTurtle]

I would be surprised if these raids stopped that release. In fact I'll bet most of these guys raided are just dumb script kiddies who front in IRC, or ordinary people who have helped with LOIC and similar ops, and/or people who have had their systems compromised are being used a proxies/bots by real Anon/Lulz people.

That they are even tangentially related gives the feds an opportunity to make big headlines about raids to show that they are 'doing something' (TM) and they aren't incompetent and/or impotent by skill or distance/jurisdiction respectively.

Re:Couldn't have waited?

[Lumpy]

Bingo!

Dumb little fake anarchist kiddies that wear trenchcoats... I wanna be a part of the revolution... Ohh I can download this app and be a part of it! SCHWEET!!!!

Thanks for installing trojan-zombie 3.42r7 Dimitri in Slanovia now uses your computer.

Re:Couldn't have waited?

[Riceballsan]

*some guys getting tracked down*, knowing history of anon my money would say the people caught are more likely then not just idiots that booted up LOIC, odds are the ones that did any actual skilled work and actually captured any information on any group, are unidentified. That is always how anon has worked, throw out a huge mob of random people to the front lines, handful of actual skilled people sneak in the back door. The random mob is expendable, and yes there will be more of them when they get picked off.

Re:Couldn't have waited?

[tsotha]

Maybe so, but just like low-level drug gang soldiers, these people are going to be very, very helpful as they contemplate long prison sentences. Eventually the trail will lead to the people who matter. Most people don't realize it, but financial and computer crimes carry pretty hefty penalties. Some of these people are thinking "Oh, hacking ${evil_corporation_or_government_organization} sounds like fun. Even if I get caught, they'll probably give me probation." Yeah... probation after you finish your 20 year sentence. If you were going to risk this kind of time you would have been better off robbing a bank.

Re:Couldn't have waited?

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, they'll finger someone; because sometime soon, there will be a paper handed to them, across a desk in a dark room, and it'll have names on it, of people and aliases of those who this particular individual may or may not have interacted with... But it won't matter. The truth never does, during a witch hunt. A lawyer will urge his client to sign it; because it's either a slap of the hand, or utter ruination of your life when you deal with these sort of folk, and the men with guns who act in their stead.

Re:Couldn't have waited?

[SethJohnson]

Reading your comment here, it is clear that you haven't wasted the time to research the philosophy / structure of the anonymous group. Which is a perfectly fine way to go about your life. You haven't missed out on much.

But to clarify the expected result of this raid, I thought it might be valuable for those unfamiliar with Anonymous to know that the group is entirely anonymous, even among members. The people who were captured would probably love to roll on others in order to avoid jail time. That is not a choice for them, however. This makes it an attractive mob to manipulate.

The feds will relish a day or two capturing headlines, pretending that "something" has been done to curtail these nefarious hackers. It's exactly as theatrical as the war on terror. At most they'll charge these individuals with possession of child pornography, as their browser cache is undoubtedly filled with thumbnails of illegal content inadvertently picked up while trawling 4chan. It's quite doubtful the FBI has captured anyone of significance.

Seth

What about the script kiddies.

[LWATCDR]

You have to wonder just how many people are going to have to be arrested until the grunts get the picture and bail.
Anon "We are a Hydra chop off a head and two grows back" == You are expendable. Grunts are cheap and made by unskilled labor.
AKA it sucks for you if you are the head that gets chopped off.

Re:What about the script kiddies.

[ElectricTurtle]

How many people executed did it take before the various resistance movements in the Second World War gave up? Why are there still dissidents in China, Cuba, Iran, etc. when they keep being imprisoned?

If you really believe in a cause it doesn't matter how many "examples" are made, in fact as Syria is finding out, the more "examples" you make the more martyrs the people have to avenge.

While the stakes of Anon as a political movement are not as high as the suppression of dissidents in totalitarian states, Anon has become undeniably a political movement, and there are idealists willing to sacrifice themselves for political ends born every minute. Let me tell you something as a former young idealist: it isn't real until it happens to you. You imagine that the purity of your principles makes you invincible until the establishment turns its gaze on you and actually does something.

However once an idea gains enough momentum and there enough people involved, actually acting against them becomes politically more difficult in Western democracies generally. At a certain threshold law breaking becomes civil disobedience, and if you end up fighting masses of people in the streets you've already lost. It will be only a few election cycles before those chickens come home to roost.

I'm not saying this is necessarily going to happen, but I do challenge your interpretation of the situation as overly simplistic and in denial of historical scenarios of similar sociological pressures.

Re:What about the script kiddies.

[Omnifarious]

Yet, thousands die in wars all the time. All the grunts there know they're expendable too.

Re:What about the script kiddies.

[Shark]

A slap on the wrist and a few weeks jail time can mean you don't get a lot of jobs.

In the current US economy, I think this is becoming increasingly moot. You don't get a lot of jobs regardless.

Re:What about the script kiddies.

[ScentCone]

You are making the fundamental mistake of assuming that bored teenage fashionista script kiddies represent, or are even able to meaningfully describe any sort of "cause" other than "it's cool to be part of a group that causes some shit to happen that makes it on the news."

There's no there there. It's not a political movement, except for the possibility of the idiots who have been arrested being classical "useful idiots" in the service of someone else who has preyed upon their boring existence and broadband connection to use them as weak-willed meatbots who make the mistake of thinking they're being cool. You are way over analyzing things. It really is for the lulz, as it turns out. These are just your basic punks. Vandals who think they're impacting The Man, or at least say so, because that babelicious Goth girl in their algebra class seems to nod her head when she hears tales of angsty rebellion from nerds using Mom's FiOS pipe as meat puppets for lefty activists.

Re:What about the script kiddies.

[ElectricTurtle]

When you look at the targets like Arizona law enforcement, and the reasons including specifically retribution for Arizona Senate Bill 1070, and say it's not a political movement, I have to question the rationale of your perspective. Just because you don't like it or don't agree with it and want to malign or dismiss those who are part of it does not negate objective facts about acts and actors.

Political Targets + Political Reasons = Political Movement, like it or not.

Meanwhile, In America...

[girlintraining]

Having solved all other problems, FBI agents today busted down the doors of supersized geeks with cheeto-stained fingers living in their mother's basements. A spokesperson said "these 'hacker' types represent the single biggest threat to the american way of life, and must be stopped." Elsewhere in America infrastructure continued to crumble into dust, fall into rivers, or start on fire as unemployment continues to rise, many urban centers are now 3rd world status, and white-collar criminals are seen driving cars made out of hundred dollar bills and dead immigrants. The FBI insists that random vandalism of websites is a far worthier objective for them than catching terrorists, rich bastards who steal millions from retirement funds, and the occasional rapist.

Re:Meanwhile, In America...

[YodasEvilTwin]

I remember when white-collar criminals still shared a sense of national identity. A true patriot would drive a car made out of hundred dollar bills and middle-class American taxpayers.

Re:Meanwhile, In America...

[MickyTheIdiot]

The laws, however, are subject to the highest bidder....

Re:Meanwhile, In America...

[flaming error]

> You get what you vote for.
I wish that were true but sadly, I seem to keep getting what politicians' campaign sponsors want instead.

Re:Meanwhile, In America...

[arth1]

I once heard a single FBI agent could listen to 7000 wiretaps of innocent civilians at the same time.

She must have a serious headache.

No, Nothing To Do With The Sun

[cmholm]

Anonymous has been hacking into enough of the right kind of computers that it was a given they were going to get Federal attention. It takes a while to pull together a coordinated series of raids, so it's extremely unlikely the Sun (newspaper) exploit had any bearing on these arrests.

word!

[Presto Vivace]

did anyone NOT see this coming?

Re:word!

[Ruke]

I really don't think so. Love 'em, hate 'em, whatever, but no one was kidding themselves into thinking that the feds wouldn't be tracking Anonymous/LulzSec down.

Translation from Law Speak

[GameboyRMH]

Anonymous member = IRC server owner who may not have anything to do with Anonymous

Re:Here we go!

[airfoobar]

Are you kidding? This is PROOF that current laws are more than enough for law enforcement to track down and arrest hackers.

Re:One problem with TFA

[EasyTarget]

'reporting' is probably too strong a word here; they probably just heard it in a FBI agents voice mail.

Re:Nationwide crackdown of 12?

[gnick]

That's what I was thinking.

Ok, ok. I confess - I'm part of Anonymous and I'm willing to cut a deal. I'll roll over on everyone. You know those pseudonyms in the IRC channel you've been monitoring and caught me in? That's the rest of them... *sob*

Very effective.

You can't fight conspiracy theories.

[the_raptor]

Conspiracy theorists are impossible to argue with. No matter what evidence you show to the kooks they will just rationalise it away. Conspiracy theory derives from an inability to accept the chaotic nature of reality, that "random" events outside the control of any central power can utterly destroy someone's life. The belief in conspiracy theory is a belief that SOMETHING is actually in control: THE GOVERNMENT!

And if THE GOVERNMENT could just have its secrets revealed, or if it was destroyed, then all would be right with the world and peace and justice would reign.