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PayPal, Symantec Hacked In Anonymous November 5 Hacking Spree
New submitter Journe writes "Anonymous claims to have begun a hacking spree for the 5th of November. In their spree, they've laid waste to several Australian Government sites, and, for some reason, the site of Saturday Night Live. They also claim to have leaked VMware source code, along with user and employee info from Paypal and Symantec. There's some argument however that Anonymous is falsely taking claim for Symantec."
They also tried to deface Slashdot by correcting the spelling of "Symnatec", but the Slashdot editors kept them at bay.
Having no leadership, no structure, and no goal (beyond that afforded by the community politics of certain outspoken folks), Anonymous is free to rationalize anything however they like. There is no need for logic or restraint. In an orgy of solidarity, the "with us or against us" mentality reigns supreme. PayPal, MasterCard, government, and anybody else who opposes their attacks are just added to the list of targets.
To each individual, the notion that they could be doing more harm than good is offensive. They've already passed judgement on their enemies, and deemed them evil, and anybody who disagrees must be evil as well. Sure, PayPal, Symantec, and every other company have done some bad things in their history, and should not be lightly forgiven. However, it is important to remember that every individual has also done equally bad things, and should not be the sole judge and executioner of any person, corporation, idea, or organization.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
I think believing that these attacks are targeted that finely, or that there haven't just been a bunch of random people attacking anything that looked vulnerable isn't realistic.
What probably happened is they searched for particular sites running particular combinations of software (it's not all that hard to find out what someone *claims* to be running), or even had just an automated sweep which returns a few likely candidates (my web server is hit all the time by people looking for proxy / malware PHP files that obviously only exist if you're vulnerable / infected already).
I mean, there were Ghanan consulates in that list and all sorts. I think it's more a question of "what was vulnerable" when a particular date for a hacking spree was decided upon rather than any political message (although, sure, one of the hackers might have a motive, or they might look at certain websites first, etc.).
And the age-old argument - Anonymous is not "any one person". It's not even a coherent group. Just about anybody that hacked a site and bothered to tell Anonymous would have been listed there because, by their own admission, they have no idea who their members are / are not and they have no "entry requirement" as such.
It seems much more random to me. If you wanted to make a political statement, you could have gone for US presidential candidates or particular organisations and made the news. But obviously most of those places secure their stuff quite well.
So we end up with PayPal (who are currently denying that anything happened, which I wouldn't be shocked about - there's been a lot of "didn't actually happen" hacks lately where people just post convincing lists of usernames as if they are hacked data), an antivirus vendor and an embassy in some African state.
It's hardly targeted anarchy. It's more like "who left their window open?".
They've already passed judgement on their enemies, and deemed them evil, and anybody who disagrees must be evil as well.
I see. So they're a religion.
Can't get too upset about Anonymous. Think about it. Aren't drone strikes just like Anonymous hacks? They are acts of judgement and execution without due process wrought by anonymous people from a far away distance. Oh, and there is always collateral damage and victims can't mount a legal defense. If you want to call acts like that chicken-shit and douchy, then go ahead.