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McAfee Labs Predicts Decline of Anonymous
Every years, McAfee Labs produces a list of predictions relating to computer security for the next 12 months. Last year (PDF) they said Anonymous would have to reinvent itself, and that there would be an overall increase in online hacktivism. This year's report (PDF) is not as optimistic for the hacking collective. "Too many uncoordinated and unclear operations have been detrimental to its reputation. Added to this, the disinformation, false claims, and pure hacking actions will lead to the movement’s being less politically visible than in the past. Because Anonymous’ level of
technical sophistication has stagnated and its tactics are better understood by its potential victims, the group’s level of success will decline." That's not to say they think hacktivism itself is on the decline, though: "Meanwhile, patriot groups self-organized into cyberarmies and spreading their extremist views will flourish. Up to now their efforts have had little impact (generally defacement of websites or DDoS for a very short period), but their actions will improve in sophistication and aggressiveness." The report also predicts that malware kits will lead to an "explosion in malware" for OS X and mobile, but that Windows 8 will be the next big target.
McAfee the person hasn't been associated with McAfee labs for a long time now.
It will be a target, but nowhere near the biggest.
Hell, Android is a bigger target to attack.
And since they're always right, this is almost a certainty!
...Anonymous....
How is John lately?
How many of these claims Mcaffee corporation's professional prognosticators have actually been remotely true? Tabloid psychics run the same routine every year too.
Which John McAfee???
"Bath Salts are best drug ever" - John Mcafee
-badford
If they could then why didn't they warn John McAfee's neighbor about his future murder? Is it because he was running Norton Antivirus?
Glad to see you escaped and all, and now also have predictions for us?
You go!
Seriously though, Windows 8 is going to be a big target? Really? Because I bet MS was sort of hoping that malware dudes skipped Windows 8 and just paid attention to Apples and Androids OS's and users.
Um, No shit Windows 8 is going to be a big target. Fucking seriously, does everyone at McAfee take bath salts?
Be seeing you...
All it's going to take to kill McAfee is Microsoft Security Essentials, to be honest.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
So many times I've seen McAfee try to sneak its way into my system, and once they get in, your system runs like SHIT!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
Well, McAfee Labs oughtta know. "Anon will have problems. We know -- we're...familiar with trying to remain anonymous and hidden when governments put you on the most wanted list."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
"Every years". Excellent proofreading on that first sentence.
Love the juxtaposition of "patriot" and "extremist".
Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
Anti-virus company predicts viruses.
Not to say they're wrong, but hardly an unbiased opinion.
It's great that McAfee Labs has published this report on Anonymous, but isn't this only a distraction from the search for better bath salts and pills to seduce young women?
They've been saying this since the beginning. How long can this last, don't they have jobs, skills fade, they'll get bored etc... etc...
What they still really don't seem to get is that this is just a bunch of people who commit an act and claim to be Anonymous. Anyone can do anything and say they're Anonymous, therefore, Anonymous did it. The few people who may have access to the public outlets like Twitter and such will likely be contacted by someone who's interested in doing something or is in the process of doing something and they'll get yea or nay on whether the mouthpieces will broadcast the activities, thereby being an "officially sanctioned" (if there is such a thing) activity. Or visa versa, the mouthpieces contact the actors.
If some activity is popular, then more people will participate and some level of coordination will take place, likely over IRC.
The lack of coherence existed well before the hactivism phase and will still be there well into the future. That's the nature of a collective which has no leader and many different personalities, personas, skills and backgrounds and will only flock to whatever has the greater interest to those with charisma currently in the group (or feel like participating). In fact, even calling it a "group" is a bit of a mis-label since their constituents and motivations change. It's all very fluid to begin with.
What herds them is a cause; not a person... like McAfee saying they're in decline maybe. Don't they know it's bad to poke a beehive with a stick?
If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
And yet, he's worried about the government of British Honduras coming after him instead. Talk about out of touch!
For now, as they would like to think.
Thats kinda the point of Anon. It has never been this is the leader and here is what we are gonna do. It was more of a bunch of angry people, or stupid, or bored, or someone just looking to hide behind the mask of anon, trying to do something. Good? Bad? Logical? Every time its something different. Its not a collective as much as a revolving door to a community room.
I'm surprised McAfee's argument for its decline has no mention of five of the anonymous core group being busted by the feds after one turned informant.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
McAfee the person hasn't been associated with McAfee labs for a long time now.
No, but that doesn't mean that his actions can't tarnish the brand. It is, after all, named after him, even if he isn't there any more.
"Every years"? Really? Could the Slashdot editors please take some english lessons?
His body double is also named after him as well. In itself having a body double indicates a significant level of paranoia, arguable whether or not it's justified paranoia.
Every years I visit my mama bobbie mae but this here year I caynt cuz little Carl bard my pickup
All it's going to take to kill McAfee is Microsoft Security Essentials, to be honest.
Well, the Belize police didn't manage it, did they?
Yeeeeah, tell that to any media outlet anywhere ever.
Unfortunately "patriot" has come to be associated with the ignorant conservatives and all their destructive, delusion-based, extremism. I'm speaking of Teabaggers, Freepers, and other ignorant people who blame others for their own shortcomings. You know the type. These people are obviously not really patriots, and just people with nothing to contribute who want to be part of the conservative cult and pretend that their ignorance is better than other people's knowledge.
The groups McAfee is referring to here are politically-aligned "cyberarmies" that specifically support "extremist governments", they are one of several different types of "hacktivist" groups that are referred to as growing threats that are specifically being contrasted with Anonymous, which has the kind of broad anti-corporate-and-government power motivation you describe, and which is described as a threat that has peaked.
So, no, they aren't (in the passage you quote) suggesting that "not wanting to live in a corporate dystopia is an 'extremist' viewpoint."
McAfee the person hasn't been associated with McAfee labs for a long time now.
That doesn't mean John can't go out and shoot the members of Anonymous. Who knows, maybe Gregory Faull had a Guy Fawkes mask or two in the closet.
I'm an Anonymous Coward so I'm getting a big kick out of their repeated prediction.
Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
No, just a complete ignorance of history. The "good old days" were good only for a very small segment of the population and these people are now discovering that the very small segment of the population for which things are good no longer includes them.
kiddies get bored, they move on. no real surprise there.
The statement was "That and McAfee's possibly murderous past might catch up with him yet.."
If he hasn't been associated with McAfee labs for a long time, tarnishing the brand or not would have no bearing whatsoever on "catching up with him yet".
And Wikipedia is run by former goatse trolls.
Learn how to install Gentoo, groom your neckbeard and replace your guy fawkes mask with a horse head mask and join the Anonymous clan.
Anonymous 4chan user, Slashdot troll and former Wikipedia admin here.
of anything. Who would trust these people with anti-virus, security or forecasting tomorrows school lunch?
The username and password to their ftp site that stores all of their fully licensed software was publicly known for years!
licensed:321
"all your bath salts belong to us."
Right now they have a huge hard on for the west baptist church hate group and rightly so. They've already doxed their senior membership as an appetizer. I'm sure we'll be hearing more and more...these people hiding behind 'god' are pure scum of the earth.
Wikipedia tracks at least 88 Guy Fawkes wearing kiddies arrested - maybe more, because the US, UK and Netherlands coordinated police effort has not been accurately tracked yet: http://it.slashdot.org/story/12/12/28/156208/mcafee-labs-predicts-decline-of-anonymous. That's the problem with shooting ion cannons that broadcast your IP address.
Here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)
When your primary weapons are lame DDOS attacks and repetitive, predictable poor quality "we are anonymous" youtube videos spoken by dr sbaitso it is hard to see much of a future.
What is really sad is any agreeable lawful or vigilante activities are often trivially derailed and delegitimized by correlating "anonymous" with some asshat who once upon a time claimed to be anonymous defaced a web site dedicated to helping poor children.
Anonymous predicts decline of McAfee.
Are you fucking 12? You do realize all of your diatribe is beyond obvious? You act as if you just discovered how the media manipulates public opinion with catch phrases and labels.
Do you think the term "fiscal cliff" is a real thing or a manipulative simplification of a complex situation? A situation caused intentionally, in all likelihood, by the people with the money and power to benefit from it. The clue is the fact that it appears at the top of Google News and the term "fiscal cliff" is used in nearly every headline. Coordinated manipulation of public opinion.
"Billable hours! I see deep, deep pockets of billable hours!"
The design of the current Anon is structurally and organizationally flawed. There aren't any Anon ethics think tanks to actually guide Anon philosophically. There aren't any professionals to advise or consult Anon on the potential global consequences of their actions. As a result they are a blind politically oriented umbrella organization. This is fine if you're a teenager or young adult in the early 20s range but by the time you reach your 30s and 40s you'll see that Anon isn't the way to go and wont really lead to the results they desire due to how they go about it.
Anon has a function and a reason to exist if it were used intelligently but as it is now it's not used intelligently, it's not a self aware collective. An unaware collective is worse than no collective.
Anonymous predicts decline of McAfee Labs. News at eleven.
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
I'm not against Anon conceptually, but I do not like Anon as it is today. The solution for Anon is to get rid of all "principles" and "list" based ethics. There should be no list of right and wrong. Anon should instead decide on a case by case basis and utilize applied ethics to determine their actions based on the pros and cons.
What they should however avoid doing for the best interest of the Anon public image is avoid criminal activity, remain non-violent, avoid anything which can make Anon look like the bad guys, but do everything possible to make Anon look like the good guys. If Anon were a corporation they suck at public relations. They also suck at philosophy, ethics, math and science, where are their apps? Why aren't they generating source code? Why isn't there a consequentialist philosophy or a methodology for deciding on the ethics of ops? Why isn't there Anon blogs everywhere studying the actual results of ops so that lessons can be learned or promoting best practices?
As Anon exists today, they just suck. They got involved with guys like Julian Assange which was a bad move, as Julian Assange should never have been allowed to use Anon as a personal army. They also messed up by not having level headed smart people to explain what their function is. You're telling me there isn't a single professor in the United States or in the world who can explain Anon in a scholarly and academic manner to the erudites and luddites?
Anon has a function. The technology landscape is becoming dangerously oppressive and it makes perfect sense to maintain the ability of dissent, but their method of dissent is often misguided or unintelligent and I hope my post explained why.
Thats kinda the point of Anon. It has never been this is the leader and here is what we are gonna do. It was more of a bunch of angry people, or stupid, or bored, or someone just looking to hide behind the mask of anon, trying to do something. Good? Bad? Logical? Every time its something different. Its not a collective as much as a revolving door to a community room.
If that is the point of Anon then it's time to replace it. Autopoeitic symbiosis within and between social systems can be achieved but the main thing Anon in particularly has to do is decentralization. Also the Anon banner has been in my opinion permanently diminished as a resource as it's now associated with hackers, with thugs, with criminals.
Anon itself isn't bad conceptually but the implementation was like giving a bunch of children rocks and baseball bats and sending them to go against the mafia and other bigger older thugs with guns. These children weren't even the best and brightest in many cases, creating the perception among the best and brightest that Anon is populated by people who are incompetent. Conceptually if you understand what Anon is on a philosophical level then you understand it's a collective autopoeitic system with the intent of PROMOTING security and symbiosis between systems. The problem is it doesn't do this.
Anon ultimately breaks down to moralist cock shuffling. Those who think their morality is better than the morality of another so they have the exclusive right to break the law to enforce their feelings, afterall they believe their feelings are right simply because they feel more passionately than everyone else or they are louder or more willing to break the law. But that does not mean their feelings are any more correct or are of any more value than anyone elses.
Anon is at this point in time too adapted to moral realism and has not yet adapted itself to the more accurate yet more complex which is moral anti-realism (More can be found here on the problem of moral bigotry in Greene's Dissertation). Moral realism is the problem with Anon in it's current form and in my opinion if Anon is ever going to be effective as an organization it has go under a different banner as Anon is now toxic due to FBI arrests etc, and it would have to adopt moral anti-realism. This way it could actually promote security for everyone or at least the vast majority of people rather than worry about niche issues like West Baptist.
I'm surprised McAfee's argument for its decline has no mention of five of the anonymous core group being busted by the feds after one turned informant.
And does this not display a flaw in their design? The fact that by design they allow for "Core Members" to be arrested and by design allow themselves to be treated as a criminal organization. They fucked themselves. How would an informant get you arrested if you're truly Anon? How would you get busted if you don't break the law? It seems fairly obvious that if you're a criminal then you're not really a core member of Anon.
The problem with Anon is that criminals have become the leadership. When criminals run the organization then no one who is truly an intellectual and who doesn't want to go to prison will be bothered to associate with Anon. Why not just join a local street gang if one wants to associate with that?
Love the juxtaposition of "patriot" and "extremist".
Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
But even if that is the case, if they are more well organized and better designed than Anon was then they'll probably last a bit longer. They wont last but they'll last longer because they at least pretend to follow the Constitution while breaking the law.
more symposynononymous
"all your bath salts are belong to us."
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Kind of hard to say "the corrupt fear us" when you ARE "the corrupt".
Challenge accepted! - Anonymous
Slashdot predicts decline of McAfee antivirus in 2013.
This is an example of one joke calling another one a joke. John McAfee has just about doomed the company he founded and sold, in just a short time with his crazy drug-addled antics. Meanwhile, Anonymous may be popular with a few hackers and the Slashdot crowd, but they're a bunch of collectivists who get no sympathy from the general public, the internet equivalent of gangbangers with spray paint cans.
that Anon was a single group, person, entity or body that had one single focus. Last I knew Anon was much bigger than that, yet it seems everyone commenting has this belief that Anon is either good or bad and that one action directly affects another. I'm beginning to wonder how many of these tech savvy users actually understand what Anonymous is.
Love the juxtaposition of "patriot" and "extremist".
Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
Then don't buy their stuff. ... this is just like every other damned geek-centric "movement", you want other people's stuff, not the way they want to give it to you, and for free. Cry me a river, or make your own stuff. Corporate dystopia... what, do you churn your own electrons, did you carve your house out of the dirt with a pickaxe, do you really think modern society runs on hippie juice and pixie dust?
Does anyone even listen to these idiots anymore? I lost all respect for them a decade a go, anything they say is usually wrong or completely laughable.
Nothing else associated with his name is worth a damn, so why should this be any different?
Is this the year that McAfee stops producing crap ware? That would be a much better newsletter for McAfee Labs to put out.
I'm going to go with.....no it's still going to be a bucket of crap that either bogs a system down (AV and HIDS), doesn't have the necessary useful features of it's competitors (IPS/IDS, Gateway), or only sort of works with only certain versions of the multitude of purchased software rebranded as McAfee (ePO).
but then i read the Dr sbaitso remark and pissed myself laughing..
some anons are truely behind the scenes doing good. they have no interest in ddos but in gathering evidence to expose hidden truths.
Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate or government dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
FTFY. Don't want either dictating how I live.
But most of his investments are still probably company stock. So tarnishing the brand would hurt him.
Actually Microsoft Security Essentials and Microsoft in geeneral are what keeps McAfee in business.
Nothing, right?? Typical /. done zero loser talks a lot, but did zero.
Strangely John McAfee is free. Have you accomplished more? No.
You wish you were John McAfee instead of a /. loser with zero women. He's getting laid in old age. By the time you're there, you won't be able to get up the typical 1" choad you slashdotters mostly have.
Only problem, there's no such program. Just a lot of talk from a done zero with his life slashdot chatter. Such accomplishments you have.
You ought to try them and then perhaps you might do as well as John McAfee, you typical slashdot loser with zero to show in computing for yourself. You're all such big talkers, but 99% of you haven't done a damned thing and certainly not as well as John McAfee did. Fact.
What has any of you done better in your entire lives? Nothing. You're all a pack of forums board clucks and you know it. You're like a pack of old ladies gossiping. What is it like being such utter failures that all you have is putting down your betters? Being on slashdot is what.
nt
...the new Netcraft?