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25 Alleged Anonymous Hackers Arrested By Interpol
PatPending sends this quote from an AFP report:
"Interpol has arrested 25 suspected members of the Anonymous hackers group in a swoop covering more than a dozen cities in Europe and Latin America, the global police body said Tuesday. Operation Unmask was launched in mid-February following a series of coordinated cyber-attacks originating from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain,' Interpol said. The statement cited attacks on the websites of the Colombian Ministry of Defense and the presidency, as well as on Chile's Endesa electricity company and its National Library, among others. The operation was carried out by police from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain, the statement said, with 250 items of computer equipment and cell phones seized in raids on 40 premises in 15 cities. Police also seized credit cards and cash from the suspects, aged 17 to 40."
Wording is what society makes it. Sorry hacking is now associated as much with the latter definition as the former and posting that is not going to change anything.
It's standard procedure in policing to sieze anything and everything for which even the slightest excuse exists. There are three reasons:
- Because it's easier to take the lot at arrest and work out later what is actually relivant rather than get that done beforehand.
- Intimidation value. The most miserable the suspect, and the more their life is ruined, the more other potential offenders will fear the police.
- Profit! Much of the equipment is never returned even if the suspect is later found innocent, or even released without charge, and eventually gets sold at police auction.
The thing is that Anonymous is really just an idea. and as we all know, you can't just arrest an idea and throw it in jail.
Yeah. Next, let's arrest a revolution, or a book and other stuff like that. Congrats for wasting taxpayers money!
Hardly. Interpol helps arrest 25 drones who participate in semi-organized cyber-guerrilla warfare against political targets. The idea that Anonymous is serving the "greater good" is not implied by their targets or by their results. Anonymous is not _coherent_ enough to have a well defined purpose. They consistently mistake what is effectively electronic graffiti for meaningful protest, and fail to convey or enunciate what they actually want. Anonymous may well have a few technically competent core hackers, but they rely heavily on their much larger community of script kiddies and poorly skilled hangers on to form the necessary crowds.
Like the fools at political rallies who throw bottles at police and overturn cars, they actively _discredit_ the political causes they occasionally espouse. They encourage police and voters to think of the genuine political movements as similar vandals. And they're not _competent_ enough to be genuine threats to those they claim to battle: they've demonstrated that again and again. If they were competent enough to actually raid corporate email or financial records and get them to Wikileaks, then I'd take them far more seriously.