Anonymous Members Hint at Unofficial Involvement in PSN Attack
- Thread starter Tom Goldman
- Start date
I think these news feeds are a little misleading. It's not Anonymous that denied involvement in the hack attacks, it's AnonOps, which are a concentrated group of Anonymous members that work in concert to attack very specific targets to maximum effect. AnonOps are a division of Anonymous and do not speak for Anonymous as a whole.
The smart money says it was a small cell of Anonymous who weren't too happy with the way the Sony vs Hotz case panned out, and this is their revenge. In this regard, yes, it was Anonymous who were responsible, but it was not a collective effort by the AnonOps branch.
In fact, i might even take it a step further and say that AnonOps may have been aware of this attack by the rogue Anonymous members and publically denied any involvement in order to "increase the lulz" by making Sony look like fools. If they deny involvement, people will grow ever more confused as to who the real culprit(s) might be, and start pointing fingers left right and center. At Anonymous, at hacktivists, and even at Sony itself for being so incompetant as to letting this happen in the first place. After all, it looks highly embarrassing for Sony to have let this happen after Anon's earlier publicised attacks on them before this debacle started, even more so if it looks like a separate group that got involved and were able to exploit the PSN in a similar, if not greater way than Anonymous itself. It's as though Anonymous is saying "We did it at first, but we didn't do it this time, and the fact someone else was able to do it shows how flimsy your 'security' really is."
The smart money says it was a small cell of Anonymous who weren't too happy with the way the Sony vs Hotz case panned out, and this is their revenge. In this regard, yes, it was Anonymous who were responsible, but it was not a collective effort by the AnonOps branch.
In fact, i might even take it a step further and say that AnonOps may have been aware of this attack by the rogue Anonymous members and publically denied any involvement in order to "increase the lulz" by making Sony look like fools. If they deny involvement, people will grow ever more confused as to who the real culprit(s) might be, and start pointing fingers left right and center. At Anonymous, at hacktivists, and even at Sony itself for being so incompetant as to letting this happen in the first place. After all, it looks highly embarrassing for Sony to have let this happen after Anon's earlier publicised attacks on them before this debacle started, even more so if it looks like a separate group that got involved and were able to exploit the PSN in a similar, if not greater way than Anonymous itself. It's as though Anonymous is saying "We did it at first, but we didn't do it this time, and the fact someone else was able to do it shows how flimsy your 'security' really is."
But we knew that already. The attacks were done by a splinter group, not the official task force, or whatever. But it's not likely that Anon will betray Anon. So...hooray, more crap abound.
My "mental understanding" of the situation comes from the information provided in the article, in addition to past information I've read on Anonymous. They are a group of people, from my mental understanding, that have a collective of ideals they strive for. If you read this part over again, you may understand where the premise of my comments is.ChaoticLegion said:
Regardless of whether or not any of this was "sanctioned" or anything else, when has it ever been a good idea to admit that part of your collective might have had a hand in something illegal. By "illegal" I mean breaking into someones secure files without permission and stealing things that belonged to other people that were held in confidence. My comments had nothing to do with "acting anonymously". They had to do with the collective, and how they are handling the situation.
Anonymous is not a collective of ideals, it is the embodiment of a single ideal. The freedom of information exchange. Everything boils down to this. The most obvious example being wikileaks. The reason Anonymous have targeted Sony is because they are censoring the exchange of information that explains how to reinstate a feature that was once previously available. In other words, by removing the instructions on how to install Linux on the playstation 3, they have censored information. This breaks the freedom of information ideal that Anonymous stands for.Frizzle said:
Do you remember the private security firm, HBGary? Aaron Barr was the former CEO and had planned to sell a list of information regarding members and supposed leaders of Anonymous to the FBI. Anon's response was to hack the company's website and deface it, as well as hacking his twitter account and email, gaining access to more personal information than he ever had on members of Anonymous. Not only that, but AnonOps stole the information that HBGary was planning to sell and gave it to the FBI for free to undermine him. The result? The man resigned from his job.
This was an open, public assault on not just any company, but a security firm. Anonymous does not care for legality and acts openly. Don't forget, AnonOps had admitted to attacking Sony before the PSN went down. If they want to make a statement, they will.
ChaoticLegion said:
You are conflating the word anonymous with the group 'Anonymous'. Anonymous is not about actions taken anonymously. It is about the ideal of freedom of information exchange held anonymously within a faceless collective with no identity, leadership or authorship. To believe in the freedom of information is to be a part of Anonymous. To act anonymously is not.
Anonymous is an odd thing. As I said in a different thread, it's not a group, it's an idea. It has its dedicated followers, it has (some) standards. I find it interesting.
Okay, once more -- Anonymous is anyone who posts to the internet anonymously. Period. You, whoever you are; probably Anonymous. Anonymous is not a group of hackers. Anonymous is simply freedom of anonymity on the internet heavily taken advantage of.
So yes, Anonymous did it. No, you can't punish all of Anonymous without turning off the internet. Whatever group of hackers were responsible for this will need to be punished based not on who they associated with anonymously, but on who they are.
That's going to be much easier said than done, especially if this is the handiwork of a highly organized and well funded attack. It probably is.
So yes, Anonymous did it. No, you can't punish all of Anonymous without turning off the internet. Whatever group of hackers were responsible for this will need to be punished based not on who they associated with anonymously, but on who they are.
That's going to be much easier said than done, especially if this is the handiwork of a highly organized and well funded attack. It probably is.
What? cause you were the only one ever who figured that the group running DDoS attacks on Sony weeks prior to the hack were actually involved in the hack? Man you got some brains there... you can really work through the clues to solve a mystery.Regiment said:
Well, you could put a razor, an orange, a remote control, a gold ring, and a cat in a box and say it contains a group of objects and not be wrong. The thing is we almost always make certain assumptions about groups of people, and I think the people who write for The Escapist are just now starting to realize and work through that.Gladion said:
Or, you know, maybe this just means that Anons are a bunch of dis-organized dickheads with Robin Hood complexes.
Also, thank you Escapist for running an expose on Anonymous being behind the PSN hack. Maybe you'll write up a few articles on why the sky is blue and where babies come from next week.
Also, thank you Escapist for running an expose on Anonymous being behind the PSN hack. Maybe you'll write up a few articles on why the sky is blue and where babies come from next week.
They don't even always organize there. They're not really a threat to society the way the media makes them out to be, anyway. They're harmless at best, a scapegoat at worst (like now.)OutrageousEmu said:
And Christ guys, have none of you even read the article? Or know what "Unoffical" means?
That's not really how it works. The burden of proof isn't on them to prove that they didn't sanction it. Just because one of their members might have done it doesn't mean they're to blame.Kheapathic said:
You're all jumping to conclusions, and I'm guessing the lot of you don't even have a vague understanding of how they operate to begin with. You don't "sign up" for anonymous, so saying they have "members" is a bit far fetched to begin with. There are no names, either, hence the moniker. So there is no way to keep track of who posts on their forums, which is what the anon in the article was trying to say.
Hell, hacking isn't even necessarily the activity they gather for. It's just something they do to feel powerful.