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Anonymous Threatens Robin Hood Attacks Against Banks
gManZboy writes "Just in time for the holidays, hacktivist collective Anonymous has announced that it has teamed up with like-minded group TeaMp0isoN to donate to charity. The catch: they're using stolen credit data from big banks to make donations, in a campaign they're calling Operation Robin Hood. Is the #OpRobinHood campaign for real, or like previous threats against Wall Street and Facebook, just another hoax? Aesthetically, at least, the OpRobinHood video ticks all of the traditional Anonymous aesthetic requirements: a mashed-up 'p0isoaNoN' logo (green on black), a liberal dose of swelling choral music (via that movie trailer staple 'Europa,' by Globus), together with selected clips of Kevin Costner as Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves."
OK, so banks get screwed, but charities get screwed too. Unless they're "donating" to the RIAA charity fund, this seems pretty evil in itself.
People who frauded entire world by selling water vapor through deriving assets to 60x their value and then lending 10 times nonexistent cash over them are still sitting pretty and posting record bonuses and profits. Thats 599 times nonexistent cash lent as loans to governments, megacorps, factories, organizations, whereas there was only 1 unit of asset to back them. the correct amount of lending should have been 10x at maximum.
To simply put it in streetspeak - these people engaged in cash fraud. And they are drinking champagne in wall street. world suffers through their fraud. at this state noone can persuade me that what anonymous doing is wrong.
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They're going to steal money from the middle class to... theoretically... give it to the poor? And this is going to affect the people at the top, who probably don't even have a consumer credit card (and at the very least have people watching them, and charging back any unauthorized transactions), exactly how?
98% of the 99% are getting a little pissed at this bullshit.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
So, given the demographic that most often uses credit, they're going to steal from the poor to give to the poor? Except they're not even going to give to the poor, but rather they'll give the stolen funds to people who normally help the poor, thus causing trouble for them. So really, they're going to steal from the poor to harass the people who help the poor. This seems poorly thought out.
If they somehow manage to steal exclusively from millionaires, and if they don't keep a dime for themselves, and if they do it in such a way that it doesn't cause headaches for the charities involved, then fine. More power to them. But somehow I suspect that none of those three criteria will be met.
Someone needs a lesson in credit card merchant agreements.
Wait till the charities they give to start getting their transaction fees raised or processing frozen for astoundingly high chargeback and fraudulent transaction rates. I'm sure they'll really enjoy that.
Big win.
All of the charities will end up paying out big bucks in chargeback fees. It is the merchants that are on the hook for credit card fraud. They'll be forced to return the money and pay a chargeback fee ($30 or more). They will end up doing more damage than any potential (and misguided) good.
Let's see Anonymous try that one. Only politicians are legally permitted to do that.
Maybe. If they ever did it. How many Anonymous operations have they announced that simply never happened over the last year? Look, I hate to be the one to say it, but Anonymous has nothing to do with hacking. It has everything to do with PR.
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They're stealing from everyone, which is unacceptable. Anon has finally gone batshit insane.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
This is Anonymous we're talking about. The same group of pissed-off adolescent-minded individuals who think it's perfectly reasonable to kill the livelihood of thousands of online retailers because MasterCard and PayPal didn't want to risk dealing with WikiLeaks.
The kind of people who participate in Anonymous's activities don't often care about silly things like "consequences". They care about making news, so they can feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves. They want the good feeling of doing something to improve the world, without any of the hassle involved in actually contributing to improving society.
Sometime over the past few decades, people have forgotten that major cultural changes were preceded by essays, speeches, and persuasive arguments, endorsed by displays of public support. Now, "protesting" has turned into an orgy of destruction and disruption, in the hopes of extorting change.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
a) In the USA credit card issuers (issuing bank, not the interchange network) are liable for fraudulent transactions, losing 100% of the amount (as the customer will not pay, usually) is a loss to the bank even if they win 2-3% interchange.
b) They will chargeback to charities many of the fraudulent transactions which occur card-not-present (i.e. internet payments), so the charities won't get much or any of it. I don't know if there are any additional fees which may actually hurt the charity.
c) if a particular merchant, like a charity, seems to attract a significant amount of fraud, the issuing banks may start to notice it and block payments from all cardholders, hurting the charity's normal fundraising.
d) if a particular merchant, like a charity, seems to attract a significant amount of fraud, then that charity's bank (acquirer) is likely to drop its credit-card processing agreement, disrupting the charity's normal fundraising. There may even be some penalties if they do not have a sufficiently up-to-date website and on-line fraud detection software/procedures.
I work professionally in some aspect of credit card software (at a tech company and not a bank).
In sum, this proposed action is likely to create some extra work for bank employees, though it will probably not cause financially significant losses as many online transactions (not processing with "Secured by Visa" or MC's similar procedure) can be charged back. Charities are unlikely to benefit. They may be harmed.
Your comment is insightful except for the fact this is anon, not occupy. Occupy does have one thing in common with anon: it is leaderless. That's it. So your little zinger at the end about Occupy isn't even on topic. Let's say it WAS on topic: Occupy is the voice of the people in a Plutocracy crying out for a Democracy. As far as what is being accomplished, let's see what they can do. Its a new movement, but so far it is already re-framing a number of key debates.
they have the money to buy shit dumb fucks.
If you're using a credit card as a way to get a loan ... you're doing it wrong. That's what the banks would love for you to do but you can also think for yourself and not play their game the way they would like you to (by being impulsive, undisciplined, not having a plan, and yielding easily to temptations of instant gratification).
As a form of payment credit cards are great -- that means you buy only what you know you can pay off that same month, and unlike cash you enjoy a paper trail and all sorts of fraud protections and the ability to audit and budget and conveniently purchase online. As a loan, credit cards are horrible -- they are designed to give you just enough rope to hang yourself with. That's why when you show responsibility and make all your payments on time, the banks respond by giving you more credit. They are hoping you will finally get in over your head. That's the way they play this game.
That's why so many of the agreements give the bank the ability to increase your interest when you are late on making a payment, because people struggling to make their payments really need more debt right? It's designed to be a hole that becomes increasingly hard to dig yourself out of. The bank makes more profit that way. If you are so poor that you can barely make ends meet, using credit cards for a loan is only going to make your situation worse.
Sure, emergencies (rare, unforeseeable events) do happen, but aside from that you need to live within your means. Nothing else is sustainable. The banks really love when you try to live beyond your means. Remember that debt is the only form of slavery that's still legal.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
That's easy to do. Save your money and buy it with cash. I've been doing it for years. I refuse to pay the interest rates on credit cards.
Ever heard of the civil rights movement? They cause change without ousting politicians or using force. It's called civil disobedience, and it's proved effective time and time again.
You have it exactly backwards. The civil rights movement succeeded when *voters* decided it would be an electoral issue. The viet nam war ended when *voters* decided it would be an electoral issue, and that decision was made when their lives were affected (increased casualties hitting the middle class) not because of radical anti-war protesters. The true currency of politics are votes not money, money is only useful when the voters are indifferent.
By making ourselves heard (me included) Occupy is waking people up from their fantasy land where government and corporations aren't screwing us.
All Occupy is on a path to do is create a perception of civil unrest and scare the swing voters into going republican, just like the radical anti-war protesters did during the viet nam war resulting in getting nixon elected. Occupy needs to realize that "camping" is going to backfire. Show up, protest, yell and shout, day or night, but when you tire go home or get a room ... repeat as necessary. The more the focus is on "camping" the more the middle will feel that Occupy does not represent them. Polls are showing that this is already happening. In the minds of many Occupy is looking more and more like the "professional protesters" that show up at G20, World Bank, and other meetings. Continue on this path if you wish to waste a great opportunity.
The owners of the card won't be liable for the charges dumbass.
While the owner of the card may not be liable, the charity may still have to pay the fee for payment processing on the fraudulent charges. At a minimum the charity will be put on a higher fee schedule due to an elevated number of fraudulent credit card charges, so they will lose on all legitimate donations in the future.
They've been batshit insane since the very start, it only looked like they weren't because they coincidentally attacked evil companies at first.
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