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?

[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.

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.

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.

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: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.