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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."
So, they want to steal peoples' credit card info and use that to donate those peoples' money to charities. Then the banks have to reimburse the people whose info was stolen. There are a lot of things wrong with this. First off, for those people whose info gets stolen, they are out money until the banks go through the process of reimbursing them. With the numbers of people that would be affected by this, that could take a while. So, people will be short of cash at a time when they need it most: the holidays. This is not going to endear people to their cause. Also, what is going to happen to this data? I really doubt it's going to be deleted. Remember, Anonymous can be anyone. This information will end up for sale on black market sites. You should not be breaking the law and endangering innocent people/invading their privacy just because you don't like the bank. They are really showing themselves to be no better than the banks themselves; they are taking other peoples' money and doing whatever they want with it that servers their purpose, regardless of the consequences.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
If they send the money to honest charities like Oxfam, Unicef or Médecins Sans Frontières, they will probably just re-credit the transferred money back to the bank. And if they use some less scrupulous charity, well, that charity shouldn't be getting money in the first place. In any case, there's no real win here.
What would be really cool, though, is if Visa (to demonstrate their unbreachable security) set out a Hack-for-Oxfam challenge, in which any money that hackers manage to route to Oxfam would be stay with them and be considered a charitable donation from Visa. It would be great free publicity if the hackers failed, and a very good deed would be done if the hackers succeeded - plus, they could patch the exploited security holes.
Most of anonymous is in the middle class (if they own a computer and can spend time hanging out at forums then they're not the super poor). So they should just donate their own cash to charities. Think they'll go for this idea, or they'd rather just steal someone else's money and then brag about it on their ipads?
The charities will be worse off since the banks will take the money back and then charge the charity a charge back fee. This action could bankrupt some charities.
Your bank sucks bro. My DBS card center called me once on the suspicious activity right after the charge by an ID thief and with my approval proceed to reverse, cancel, cancel the card, issue me a new card in the mail while keeping the old account number all on the same phone call. I asked them how they know it wasn't me, they said they analyze my previous spending pattern (I only use my card for online payments) and notice this is a weird large sum offline payment. Totally wow'ed me omfg112 props!!
In the fierce competitive banking environment such as Hong Kong, people actually work hard to win your business.
As GP said, if usage falls outside your normal usage pattern, they'll detect it.
Chances are that if those black hats use a thousand credit cards, atleast a few dozen of them will look like normal usage patterns.
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I've never understood people paying 30% interest on their credit cards.
Never let your credit card debt be more than your monthly wage. Pay it off in full monthly and get charged 0% interest. It's that easy.
1. You are always one month ahead. You basically have a free month's wages until the day you die.
2. Many cards, like mine, offer 1-2% "cash back". I actually get supermarket points on mine which can be doubled or quadrupled at certain times of the year. It's like getting paid to use the card. Up to 7% sometimes.
3. Profit.
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