Anonymous Strikes Back, Hacks "Internet Security" Firm

[Reed Spacer]

I mean they could say that the only way to stop them is to catch all of them

Geez, I hope they have enough Pokeballs...

 

[KidTheFat]

Duuue, y'know Baghdad is in Irak.... Makes little sense why they would great him has a martyr. Maybe some people in alfganistan. But then again, I doubt the generall population is very pleased how his actions ended up for them.

Crap. I didn't come prepared for a geography test and I look stupid for it. Well played.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I wish I had seen the look on the FBI investigator in charge of this investigation's face when he walked into the office this morning.

This, a thousand times this.
some guy at the office: "Sir, it seems Anon hacked us and kinda sorta....well.....I really shouldn't say."
The boss: "What!?! spit it out you fool!"
same guy at the office: "They hacked your twitter account and posted your social security number"
The boss: "fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" *rageface*

keep up the good work Anon.

 

[RaffB]

The Beautiful thing about Anonymous?

You could arrest every single person who has ever used that title, and there would be thousands more willing to carry on...

 

[Wow they sure are generous with the usernames]

Unless The Escapist is being admin'd by moonlighting members of this testament to Planned Parenthood, may I humbly request that you stop posting stories about these children? It seems like we are seeing weekly updates on what 4year old Chan is up to, and all it seems to be doing is legitimizing their actions. Anonymous is neither news, nor interesting, nor relevant to the internet. Unless we make them.

Whiskey Echo!!
Mythgraven

Judging by the amount of responses to this thread, and how much people are enjoying it and reading it, I'd say it's both News AND Interesting. If you don't like it, stop reading it.

Constructive post. Ive honestly never seen the "If you dont like X, Don't Y" before. I see where it addresses the fact that posting articles about fools and morons makes it seem like being a fool and a moron are a good thing, worthy of being lauded and/or followed.

Its good that you didnt choose to attack what I typed, and kept your focus on what my over-arching point was. Sometimes it seems as though people lose track of whats really important so that they can focus on things like their ego, or e-go as it would be.

Keep up the good work!
Whiskey Echo!!
Mythgraven

Whether or not the actions of Anonymous is "news" is pretty subjective, especially considering that the escapist focuses on stories pertaining to video games, computers, the internet, and other geeky things. Considering their previous actions against mastercard and visa were reported on by major news sources like the Wall Street Journal, I think it's safe to say that they can be considered news worth in certain scenarios. News coverage does not equal legitimization.

As for them being relevant to the internet, it's pretty hard to not notice how terms and phrases from 4chan have become extremely common even among people who don't spend any time on the internet. Owned? Pwned? Epic Fail? Those goddamn I can haz cheezburger cats? Whether or not they've done anything culturally relevant recently is up for debate, but they're hardly an obscure website.

Also, don't sign your posts, we can see your username right there, it's just obnoxious.

 

[KidTheFat]

I wish I had seen the look on the FBI investigator in charge of this investigation's face when he walked into the office this morning.

This, a thousand times this.
some guy at the office: "Sir, it seems Anon hacked us and kinda sorta....well.....I really shouldn't say."
The boss: "What!?! spit it out you fool!"
same guy at the office: "They hacked your twitter account and posted your social security number"
The boss: "fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" *rageface*

keep up the good work Anon.

they didn't hack the FBI, they hacked a computer security firm that was working with the FBI. the FBI investigator in charge of this' face would have been more like
"Anon hacked HBGary? Ok fire them and find a new one. AND they put the data we were going to pay millions for on the internet for free? Start that download. *smiling coffee sip* It's a good day."

 

[The Hairminator]

Duuue, y'know Baghdad is in Irak.... Makes little sense why they would great him has a martyr. Maybe some people in alfganistan. But then again, I doubt the generall population is very pleased how his actions ended up for them.

Crap. I didn't come prepared for a geography test and I look stupid for it. Well played.

He spelled both Iraq and Afghanistan wrong, I wouldn't feel too bad about it.

Also; I'd say Anonymous actually did the FBI, thus the US Government, thus American Taxpayers a favor by providing the information for free, no? I only see patriotic citizens (and perhaps foreigners) aiding their country here.

 

[dududf]

Dont this people have anything better to do? If they used all that time and energy on legal things they could make lots of money.

wow anonymous really needs to be taken out there too dangerous and too good at what they do

Agreed. 'Anonymous' are really just criminals who use ID theft to fund their crimes. Calling themselves 'heroes' is insulting to anybody who works for a living.

What crimes, pray tell? Protesting against Scientology? Defending Wikileaks? Revealing a sham of a security company that is taking peoples private information and selling it to the FBI? What?

If revealing what the company was doing was all they did it wouldn't be bad but stealing the guys Identity. Defending Wikileaks is one thing but taking down sites like Pay Pal is illegal.

As if Pay Pal is any better then anonymous. Go tell that To India or various other people they rob and steal from. Like for instance, Notch the creator of Minecraft. How much did they steal from him you ask? 600 thousand euros.

Fuck paypal if their site got shut down and lost millions in dollars because of it, it still wouldn't be near from what they've out right stolen from their users. I personally lost 300 bucks to paypal, my account has been "under observation" for the last 4 years.

 

[Canid117]

wow anonymous really needs to be taken out there too dangerous and too good at what they do

You do realize there are anon members who frequent this site right?




And they will hunt you down... and! send you pizza! because they do that! That and cat porn!

 

[Danpascooch]

Does anyone else feel a movie adaptation coming up?

In all honesty, I think the FBI should just hire Anonymous.

You can't hire an idea. Anon aren't all hackers. Anon is a collection of like-minded people tied solely around an ideology. Even then its loosely based. Some are hackers, many are not.

I know that. Doesn't mean they couldn't come to an agreement with the part of Anonymous that is hacker.

Isn't the whole point of this news story the fact that they can't find Anon? Or the Anon who are hacking? =P

Besides, this isn't an example of hacking, honestly. Aside from the entry, its mostly just social engineering.

Well let's see, they broke into their website, replaced it with their own, and infiltrated and published all of the private emails of the company.

What part of this is "not hacking"?

Most of it. Hacking was getting and spoofing the initial e-mail. The rest was social engineering and childs play. Any middle-schooler can make a web page or a torrent.

I'm not saying they didn't do a lot, I'm saying that calling it hacking is downplaying the other skills at work here.

They didn't make a webpage, they replaced GaryHB's.

Honestly, what IS hacking if this isn't it? I understand something like DDOS involves running a premade program, that's not hacking. But they got into the site, edited it, and stole over 60000 emails, what would you consider hacking? Is anything less than the Skynet takeover considered hacking by you?

Remember, before they got the password from the admin, they had to GET INTO THE EMAIL SERVER to make it look like it was from them. Also, they hacked his Twitter.

 

[tunderball]

Im willing to bet that somebody will make this into a film one day. It will be called 'Anonymous' and be all sexed up where the people in anonymous are young sexy freedom fighters and will probably star Angelina Jolie.

 

[Xan Krieger]

I wish I had seen the look on the FBI investigator in charge of this investigation's face when he walked into the office this morning.

This, a thousand times this.
some guy at the office: "Sir, it seems Anon hacked us and kinda sorta....well.....I really shouldn't say."
The boss: "What!?! spit it out you fool!"
same guy at the office: "They hacked your twitter account and posted your social security number"
The boss: "fffffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuu" *rageface*

keep up the good work Anon.

they didn't hack the FBI, they hacked a computer security firm that was working with the FBI. the FBI investigator in charge of this' face would have been more like
"Anon hacked HBGary? Ok fire them and find a new one. AND they put the data we were going to pay millions for on the internet for free? Start that download. *smiling coffee sip* It's a good day."

didn't fully read the post I quoted. Sorry, my bad

 

[Danpascooch]

wow anonymous really needs to be taken out there too dangerous and too good at what they do

Can't be done, specifically because they have no command structure or officials of any kind, they are a group in the same way that we Escapist posters are a group.

For all you know I could be Anon.

 

[Simalacrum]

Haha, I'm gona have to laugh about this one XD

To be fair, I agree with certain aspects of Anonymous - specifically, the whole 'rights to internet free speech' bit. However, I have to point out one thing that confuses me...

On the letter, Anonymous claims to seize the website under section 14 of the rules of the Internet.

Now, the most popular rules of the Internet [http://asset.soup.io/asset/0850/2687_e0ac.jpeg] clearly states that section 14 is "do not argue with trolls - it means that they win", which really doesn't make sense under the context... XD

 

[The Hairminator]

Honestly, what IS hacking if this isn't it? I understand something like DDOS involves running a premade program, that's not hacking.

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service, and basically works in the way that you have a botnet (a network of computers that do your command- the owners may or may not know they're a part of it- watch out for malware people!) that ping and spam the site you dislike to the degree where it simply goes down.

It's not hacking, just a way to be annoying. The guy you quoted probably meant it would only be 'real' hacking if they cracked the password in some electronic way, and without phishing.

 

[Dice Warwick]

Anonymous is the grate equalizer of the information age. If the get an inch, they will go miles until they get board.

 

[Harbinger_]

Should be interesting to see what the backlash for this is. It's hard to fight back against something that doesn't have a structure. It would be ironic if some of the people 'hunting down' Anonymous were actually members misleading them.

 

[Lord_Panzer]

So, I have a question - if Anonymous is this amorphous blob with no organization...who decides what to put in the open letter?

Hivemind.

This is fantastic. Attacking the guys attempting to track you down and completely destroying their credibility, then stealing all the information they gathered on you and posting it online FOR FREE. If there ever was an Epic Win, this would be in contention for it.