Anonymous still says it wasn't them.

[Superior Mind]

I sincerily doubt that this was Anonymous. It's not their style. Bullying and making dicks of themselves, sure, that's pretty much as low as they go. They've never done anything for their own financial gain and there's been nothing to suggest that they would even consider such a thing.

Of course if you have an unregulated organisation where literally anyone can claim membership it's kind of hard to proove innocence or even know that you weren't involved. Anon have been happy to inflate their ego by accepting credit for a number of pranks or messages sent by splinters from what they would call their core group and now they're starting to deal with the other side of it. Remember that WBC incident a while ago when Anon didn't claim credit for a threat, (in fact plausably suggesting that it was a stunt by the WBC,) but recieved the 'credit' anyway? They're the biggest fish, simple as that.

I wouldn't say I like Anonymous much at all but the whole thing is very interesting.

 

[Googenstien]

lol.. criminals saying it wasn't them!? that's new. Sorry,even if in someway it wasn't them, too bad you cant brag about taking Sony down and saying attacks will get worse - and when the shit happens claim NO NO we are good criminals we wouldn't do that. I hope they all get the book thrown at them and spend life in jail.

 

[Mr.Petey]

Nah I don't see this as Anon either to be honest. If someone can hack into their system, they can leave a calling card like this and implicate who the hell they like.

They would be doing a suicide run with this method. It'll taint their reputation moreso if it really was them (it's not being currently helped for the better either) and they made sure to stay away from the PSN, as if you want to take on a corporate giant in any sense, it's not in your best interests to create collateral damage in terms of customers.

But I will say this; their dissidence against Sony prior to this global incident attracted the unwanted attention of sewer dwelling scum to thieve such critical data.
I just feel if Anon didn't make a big scene out of it in the first place, against the whole Geohot incident, then I seriously doubt the following act of theft would have followed

 

[MaxwellEdison]

-head desk- You can't investigate anonymous. It's not even a group in the conventional sense.

It obviously wasn't anyone acting as them, though. No one is stepping forward and claiming credit, which is what EVERYONE does when they're acting as anon.

 

[The Arc of Eden]

Anonymous wouldn't steal Credit card info. Unless it was that of some douchy buisness man who wanted to try and take more rights away from people. Even then, It would just be to say "hey look what we have." According to my friend "A member" they were behind the initial shutdown but pulled out when they realized what kind of shit they were getting into.

Sony themselves had a previous press release showing no signs that directly show it was Anonymous. And you must take them for idiots if your really think they'd blatantly leave a text saying "it was us."

That's not their MO. Either somebody wants sony off their back until they can erase evidence. Or sony's stuck it's thumb up its own ass and are pointing the remaining fingers at the nearest scapegoat.

My vote's on the latter.

 

[Katana314]

Since Anonymous is a decentralized group, and has always claimed amorphousness and that there is no sole leadership, I think it's pretty much impossible that it WASN'T Anonymous. Anyone who feels like they're fighting on their behalf is automatically doing so.

Theoretically, if Sony planned all this...I think it would be a perfect move to hit Anonymous's weakness. That's a conspiracy I'm not gonna try and rationalize, but it would be interesting.

 

[Venereus]

Maybe it's an elaborate plot by the American government and Sony to implicate Anonymous in a huge server shut down and apparent stealing of delicate information when in reality they have just turned the servers off for a while. They're trying to bring Anon DOWN! 0_o

Not paranoid enough. The government is actually doing all the hacking, and they'll continue to do so until they have gathered all the info about evryone. Anon is the scapegoat.

 

[2xDouble]

So by saying "it wasn't us", you're actually saying "it wasn't me", Mr or Ms Anonymous Core Ops?

 

[Rivers Wells]

IF this wasn't Anon, they should be helping to hunt down the people that did this. Come on, guys. Invasion of personal identity and security? Restriction of freedom in a digital format? Isn't this like your thing to fight against?

Also worth noting: I agree with the majority of people posting so far that this was probably a small group who had worked with Anon before and chose to act on their own. However, when you have an amorphous collection and someone starts doing things on their own, they are still a part of your collection. Maybe the majority of people who could be considered 'part' of Anon would disagree, but in the same breath you have to acknowledge that with no way to identify individuals and that certainly not every single person who works with Anon did so on every project but surely on a few, then by that logic any individual member could act as Anon as a whole. The actual culprit is probably just scared out of their mind right now, be it an individual or a small group and won't claim it.

Also, concerning the idea that this does not fit in with Anon's goals: Goals are open to interpretation. Everything is for that matter. Whoever did this, probably did so under the assumption that they were following those rules and supporting the concept of Anon. In any case, it still leads back to the collective.

For what it's worth though, I hope I'm wrong. I don't want this to be Anonymous since I appreciate what the group COULD be. However, if this was in any way connected to them, Anon has to step in and clean up. For that matter, even if it wasn't, by their own code, regardless of interpretation, they should be stepping up to help.

Unless of course, they don't have a vested interest in helping people in this particular situation. Once again, I sincerely hope I'm wrong and this was someone else completely, but Anon's actions are only making them more suspicious in my eyes as this goes on.

 

[jpoon]

I would still believe anon before I'd believe the "theories" coming from Sony.

 

[distended]

-head desk- You can't investigate anonymous. It's not even a group in the conventional sense.

This seems to be a concept that an alarmingly and comically few number of posters grasp. Then again, after reading a lot of the posts regarding the PSN hacking, I would guess a lot of the comments are being made by the 12-14 year old demographic.

 

[Dragonclaw]

I think it's FAR more likely that a group of people (Anonymous) staged a hack for the LULZ, but once the door was open an individual or two decided to stick around and steal some shit...it's like a group breaking into a bank and then saying "OK, we're the awesome...we proved to the world that we could break in! Now we're leaving without taking any cash...hey where's Carl?...Oh, he said go on ahead, he'll catch up in a minute, I think he forgot his duffel bag, dunno why he'd bring an empty duffel but you know Carl...Hey there he is...I must have been wrong about that bag being empty, looks kinda heavy..." Then a week later "what do you mean the bank was robbed and people are pissed? Yeah we were THERE, but we didn't do THAT...and ever since that first time we've had an alibi...we've been riding in Carl's new car...sweeet ride....he got himself a new computer and a big screen too...dunno how he got it on a Gamestop paycheck, but he must have saved up pretty well...so see...NONE of us could have robbed that bank!"