Anonymous Strikes Back, Hacks "Internet Security" Firm

[BVBFanatic]

ITT:

-People who do not know how to argue.
-People who have never heard the term "logical fallacy".
-People who do not understand how the internet works.
-People who do not understand how Anonymous works.
-People who do not understand how the FBI works.
-People who do not understand the American legal system and have never read the Constitution.
-People who do not understand economics.

I usually lurk the Escapist, but I had to make an account here just to express that 90% of the people in this thread are grossly misinformed and completely illogical in their reactions. Many of you have blown the issue out of proportion, many of the rest have come into this "discussion" with far too many preconceived notions and erroneous prejudices about the parties involved in this news story.

I see more intelligent discussion on 4chan.

 

[AnonOperations]

ITT:

-People who do not know how to argue.
-People who have never heard the term "logical fallacy".
-People who do not understand how the internet works.
-People who do not understand how Anonymous works.
-People who do not understand how the FBI works.
-People who do not understand the American legal system and have never read the Constitution.
-People who do not understand economics.

I usually lurk the Escapist, but I had to make an account here just to express that 90% of the people in this thread are grossly misinformed and completely illogical in their reactions. Many of you have blown the issue out of proportion, many of the rest have come into this "discussion" with far too many preconceived notions and erroneous prejudices about the parties involved in this news story.

I see more intelligent discussion on 4chan.

You are correct here. If you have time, maybe you could inform some people here.

 

[The Rockerfly]

I find it funny how many people assume anonymous is just a location with a set amount of people and a structure.
Lets take the black market as an example, how many people think there is a location and a designated place for the black market? Enough for me to say this, you are wrong. Whenever an illegal transaction has taken place in anyway it falls under the black market. It's not a place, location or set piece, it is a category for illegal transactions

Same with anonymous. Anonymous is not an organisation, it is not just 4chan and it is not some business model like a lot of people are implying. Anonymous is anyone on the internet without information, a name, a face, address or anything that links them to themselves. They are a collective movement with collective ideas, not a hierarchy. I am anonymous, you are anonymous, your mother is anonymous, your dad is anonymous along with everyone you know and love. Some could even be members of the FBI, I know several anonymous people who are in the police force so what are the chances one of them is in the FBI.

OT: Oh this is turning out to be quite the fight, I wonder what will happen in the end. My predictions either an internet depicted as a barren wasteland where the law fears to tread or they turn off the internet altogether

 

[NeoShai]

I actually really loved hearing about this.

I believe this stemmed from hacks and DDOSs against the corporations against Wikileaks? If so, I'm all for this since I believe how the world is currently handling Wikileaks is terrible immoral.

 

[Neferius]

While They might have had some partial success in bringing down wikileaks,
They're out of luck when it comes to Anonymous.
"How exactly do you plan to fight a group that has no organization, Hoglund?" --indeed.

"Tandis qu'ils dorment, nous gagnerons."

 

[deonte9109]

You know as I was reading this, I all of a sudden had like this Tron-like daydream that Anonymous and pretty much every cyber security firm was waging some massive disc war. Internets shutting down all over the globe at random times, computers and servers exploding and what not. Totally epic.

 

[Demodeus]

you CANT win against an enemy that can be found anywhere and nowhere but knows how to find YOU...

Sure you can, just kill everyone.

Be glad America actually has, and largely adhere's to rules of engagement.

Well if America just decided to go and kill everyone, there would be some nasty side effects like worldwide embargos and even declarations of war.
America vs the world and America will lose that one.

 

[Clockwork Scarecrow.]

Oh Anonymous, how I love thee.

 

[Sightless Wisdom]

I believe there's irony to be seen here. Regardless, Go, Anon, Go!

 

[Therumancer]

Ancient history lesson here kids, really the only force that can deal with a group of hackers is another group of hackers.

Except, what we're already seeing in this case is a bit different from the crackdowns of old. These aren't hackers, they're script kiddies, and their lack of technical proficiency is already starting to catch up with them.

I think this is a popular conception, but ultimatly wrong. I think the whole point of Anonymous is it's sheer size, and the variation of people involved. Obviously nothing the size of Anonymous is going to be made up of skilled hackers, there just aren't that many of them. I think the "script kiddies" involved are largely a human shield for the more more skilled members. Ths is why Anonymous goes from a total joke, with failed raids and the like, to operating on a world class level against goverments and corperations, it all depends on who is involved. Yes, skilless script kiddies are going to be tracked down and busted, but that has little affect on Anonymous as a whole. The "hordes of /B/" are part of Anonymous but not all that it is.

 

[Espsychologist]

Delete my account.

 

[karloss01]

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

They aren't too good at what they do if they were too good they wouldn't of had to trick someone into giving them the password they would have been able to get it only through their programs.

I think its more hilarious that they tricked the admin into giving them the passwords. talk about failing internet 101.

 

[OG-Original Gamer]

It always amazes me that no one ever thinks the bad guys will do anything bad to THEM. People idolize the outlaw. The fact is the outlaw becomes the outlaw because he produces victims. There is a lapse in logic that finds people admiring this group but somehow does not see the glaringly apparent downside to their activities. At least consider the possibility that they might decide to do something bad to you, or your interests.

Also, the difference in this target over some of their others is that they now will have the full multi-force attention of the entire US security apparatus. Prior to this intrusion they were an issue for anti-hack squads, and the FBI. Now they are under the entire alphabet soup of agencies as well as Homeland Security. They face the same scrutiny as a domestic terrorist, and the ability to obtain open-ended tracking subpoenas is now unlimited. Expect the see the surprised faces of these people on the news in short order.

Internet anonymity is a myth, cultivated by those who use a hacker's deep belief in it to catch them.

 

[Therumancer]

you CANT win against an enemy that can be found anywhere and nowhere but knows how to find YOU...

Sure you can, just kill everyone.

Be glad America actually has, and largely adhere's to rules of engagement.

Well if America just decided to go and kill everyone, there would be some nasty side effects like worldwide embargos and even declarations of war.
America vs the world and America will lose that one.

No, actually it wouldn't. There have been breakdowns on this before at various times, and the balance of power does change so it won't remain that way forever especially given our own morality and the way we don't do a good job of protecting our own interests (which is a whole differant discussion).

The thing to remember is that right now the US is the only nation with truely effective large scale missle defense. Old estimates based on things like "Star Wars" are currently wrong. Our demonstrated abillity to intercept missles with submarines, ground batteries, and planes has scared groups like the USSR since one of the thing protecting the peace during the cold war was an agreement that nobodyw ould develop those things, and after the collapse of the USSR we did, and it REALLY annoyed them. It also got some people's goats internationally because it demonstrated that their own pretensions of MAD were not quite what they thought they were.

Right now the USA has the abillity to destroy the world 10x over, and the last time I checked the US has like a 20% chance of surviving a full out nuclear exchange more or less intact with every other nation in the world including our allies emptying their tubes at us. 20% isn't all that good until you consider the rest of the world has no chance of survival at all even under the most optimistic scenatios. If the actual nuclear strikes don't stop them, the after effects will. The US having huge oceans on both sides gives us a pretty decent chance of avoiding destruction from enviromental after effects. Fallout particles in the atmosphere and such seem like they would be an equalizer here, but there have been plans put in force that have shown that the US could probably solve that problem by intentionally causing large enough tidal waves and tsunamis with explosive, we're talking the "visible from orbit" world ending disaster movie type of wave here which would be high enough to pull a lot of those particles out of the air. Granted it WOULD put a lot of radiation into the water, but that is something that can be dealt with even if problematic. Incidently this is why a lot of post-apocolyptic concepts show the coastlines of the US totally eroded, that's not from explosive force, but typically part of how the US survived by setting that in motion, which did indeed cause backlash on it's own coastlines. The point is we'd suffer a lot of losses, but we have a better chance of just about anyone else.

Incidently, I realize there is a lot of dislike of the US simply for us being on top, but honestly for all pretensions of superiority from other nations, the US is a *SUPER*power for a reason. What gives us that designation is that we're capable of things that go beyond what other powerful nations (regular world powers) could conceive of, the general rules the rest of the world follows don't apply to us because we're simply so mighty at the moment, the abillity to potentially survive a nuclear war is a big part of that.

This was also a big part of the whole situation where Russia was threatening Poland over a defensive US missle base. To be entirely honest that missle base was keeping a lot of Russia's power penned in because while defensive it's existance was a serious detriment to the USSR being able to either fire missles into, or through the EU, this is why they even threatened potential nuclear force over it. See, we're not at war with the rest of the world, and share a lot of our power/protection/resources even with people that don't think a lot of us, which is potentially going to be our downfall. The point here being that this technology (anti-missle) which people tend to be ignorant of, exists and is a big deal.

 

[nightwolf667]

I guess you missed the part where this isn't 4chan chester.

AnonOps Press release on this: http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=378


ANONYMOUS doesn't believe hacking is the solution, But if there are media articles, then attention is brought to the injustice in Tunisia.+ It can be of some use for Tunisians who come out on the streets and make their voices heard. I really don't think anyone genuinely believes hacking can change the world ... But I see your point. ANONYMOUS just tries to help in the fight for freedom.

If you have some realistic, practical suggestions on how Anonymous can better spend their time trying to help with wikileaks, egypt etc - I am all ears, or eyes in this case, lol.

I think Anonymous needs to get the fuck out of Tunisia, or at least stop pissing off the authorities. Because when they do, shit like this happens [https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/10773-OperationTunisia-Backfires-Activists-Rounded-Up.html]. I get that pretending to be freedom fighters and trying to help people who are in a bad situation sounds like a good humanitarian idea. But this is the real world. [http://en.rsf.org/tunisia-wave-of-arrests-of-bloggers-and-07-01-2011,39238.html] This is a world, where hacking the Tunisian government's website, especially using language like this [http://anonnews.org/?p=press&a=item&i=118] can have real and deadly consequences. It only inflames an already tense situation, and only gives those who are in power more reasons (not that they needed them in the first place) to focus their actions on those people who are legitimately putting their lives on the line trying to make a difference.

The same has happened in Egypt and I wouldn't be surprised if it also happened in Zimbabwe.

On one hand I applaud Anon for it's attempts at political activism. On the other, I really cannot believe how absolutely and appallingly stupid their "hivemind" is. Anonymous aren't heroes, they're not freedom fighters, they're cowards who have no understanding of the real wold.

 

[stefanbertramlee]

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

Mate you just argued with a troll.

 

[Lionsfan]

Deliciously funny (possible ironic? I don't know all the rules for irony), messing with the company hunting you is something you see out of a movie. That being said, Anon will be short lived, it's people who don't really understand the real world and hide. Well sorry but eventually they're gonna get found, at least the most active ones will

 

[nightwolf667]

Some of the DDoS protesters that were arrested have already been released. These people were taking part in a protest, they are not criminals doing this for money. I don't understand some of the hate people give them.

First off, they were released on bail [V]. They weren't found innocent and their trials are still pending. Not that Anonymous made their situation better bey issuing an open press releases stating that these five were one of their number and threatened the U.K government with "serious action" if they did not let them go. If nothing else, the behavior (and outright naivete) shown in that letter marks them as a terrorist organization. They get what they want through thuggery, humiliation, and thrashing around in terror that the feds are coming to bust down their door next.

Second, protesting is not a right. It can be legal, but you have to stay within certain bounds. Anonymous has often referenced their DDoS attacks as being "peaceful protests" like "sit-ins", nevermind that a DDoS is more like vandalism and bashing open mailboxes with your friends. A sit in is not legal. It's trespassing. It worked with students in the seventies because they had a legal right to be on those campuses. Which made it a legal gray area, for a time. Look back if you will at the African-American sit ins of the Civil Rights movement. They did go to jail and they went and sat. Accepting the knowledge that what they were doing was trespassing. They didn't try to deny the consequences (albeit unjust) that were coming to them, the beatings, etc. They were brave, yes. But what makes them brave wasn't that they took a stand, it was that they didn't hide behind a goddamn computer saying "protesting is legal, therefore our actions aren't criminal", nevermind that DDoSing IS a crime (one that comes with a $7,000 fine and up to ten years in prison), posting a man's social security number online is a crime. Putting the emails up on a file sharing site (which is also illegal) for mass consumption is a crime.

The laws regarding DDoS were likely put in place because criminals use botnets to DDoS big money making sales sites in extortion schemes. This type of denial of service attack often goes on for days or even weeks.

The law don't care why you did it, the law doesn't care at all. All that matters is that you did do it.

It is unlikely that these short DDoS attacks resulted in any serious monetary loss. Just like they already have with some, they will try and track people involved in the protest and make an example of them. It all comes back to the governments of the world dislike of the leaked wikileaks cables.

Really? You don't think the DDoS caused any monetary loss for these companies? You don't think the posting of thousands of credit card numbers on the internet wasn't damaging? Wasn't a crime? (Because it was.) These companies service millions of people, millionsat a time. Their website was down for something like six hours if I remember correctly. Six hours. You think they didn't take a monetary loss? You may not think it's enough to matter to them, but I guarantee you they feel differently.

And what about all the people who needed to get to the Master Card and Visa website? What about them? What about all the people who couldn't use their cards because they were compromised. The terror they must have felt when your identity gets compromised. People who were just trying to buy gas, buy food for their families. The small businesses who's profits were lost because of Anon's actions. (I guarantee that also happened.) You don't think those people matter?

The fact that so many people stopped dealing with the companies after this and that so many news articles were made about the companies stopping business with wikileaks because of the DDoS attacks. Now that would cause some monetary loss. For those that don't know, this was the point in the DDoS attacks - to draw attention to what the companies did to wikileaks. Eg. Paypal freezing a whole bunch of wikileaks donations. This money was promptly released after the attacks.

I don't remember hearing anything like that. I doubt many people stopped dealing with Master Card and Visa. (I mean, look at you debit card, the one issued to you by your bank, what symbol does it have on the side? Which credit card company is sponsoring it.) What are the other options? American Express? They charge very high premiums and are very expensive to have. Discover? Well, they're actually a pretty good card, pity they aren't accepted more places.

Where was the press release stating that Pay Pal had released the money to Wikileaks, I'd be happy if you linked me. Otherwise I won't believe you because it sounds like a bad business practice (giving in to terrorism). Pay Pal exists in a very gray area in U.S law and that makes them exceedingly easy to lean on. They don't want to piss off the government, not when the government can tell them that it's time for them to conform to U.S banking laws if they want to stay active in this country.

The attacks have not accomplished anything, the general public is not on Anonymous's side. They (for the most part) don't care about wikileaks, many of them back the government. They like the government. I like the government. I'm old enough to understand that corruption and bureaucracy are a necessary evils.

People were also asked not to use master card and visa for Christmas shopping, as well as close their paypal account.

Well, that's the only legal form of protest they've committed in this whole affair.

 

[AnonOperations]

On one hand I applaud Anon for it's attempts at political activism. On the other, I really cannot believe how absolutely and appallingly stupid their "hivemind" is. Anonymous aren't heroes, they're not freedom fighters, they're cowards who have no understanding of the real wold.

1 of the links you posted, is an ignorant biased blog post. The other has the below quote that I agree with. A lot Tunisia people were in this operation, so it seems strange for you to say "anonymous should get out of Tunisia". They were also very grateful that a group was finally standing up to their corrupt government after so many years of oppression. These Tunisian anonymous activist were likely caught because they set up blogs, twitter accounts, facebook and websites which can be tracked from the host. They were spreading cables and other info given to them and understandably their corrupt government was pissed. 1 person can make a difference, no one makes you do anything, you choose your own level of involvement and you should accept responsibility for your actions.

?These arrests, intended to intimidate Tunisian Internet-users and their international backers, are likely to prove counter-productive, by stoking up tension. Arresting several bloggers is not the way to get images of demonstrations deleted from the web or for cyber-attacks to be halted?, Reporters Without Borders said. ?Stepping up the repression is absolutely not a solution to the crisis engulfing Tunisia today?.

 

[nightwolf667]

On one hand I applaud Anon for it's attempts at political activism. On the other, I really cannot believe how absolutely and appallingly stupid their "hivemind" is. Anonymous aren't heroes, they're not freedom fighters, they're cowards who have no understanding of the real wold.

1 of the links you posted, is an ignorant biased blog post. The other has the below quote that I agree with. A lot Tunisia people were in this operation, so it seems strange for you to say "anonymous should get out of Tunisia". They were also very grateful that a group was finally standing up to their corrupt government after so many years of oppression. These Tunisian anonymous activist were likely caught because they set up blogs, twitter accounts, facebook and websites which can be tracked from the host. They were spreading cables and other info given to them and understandably their corrupt government was pissed. 1 person can make a difference, no one makes you do anything, you choose your own level of involvement and you should accept responsibility for your actions.

?These arrests, intended to intimidate Tunisian Internet-users and their international backers, are likely to prove counter-productive, by stoking up tension. Arresting several bloggers is not the way to get images of demonstrations deleted from the web or for cyber-attacks to be halted?, Reporters Without Borders said. ?Stepping up the repression is absolutely not a solution to the crisis engulfing Tunisia today?.

Except the responses I've seen from Anonymous, specifically in their open letters show an unwillingness to take responsibility for their actions. Like I said I appreciate their attempts at activism, but they are woefully ignorant. An ignorance I've certainly seen you represent. This idea that the Tunisian people needs Anonymous to save them. I have no doubt that many Tunisians are glad you gave them a voice, but it's also important to remember that they will be facing the consequences of those actions, not those who participated from across oceans.

The idea that one person can make a difference is nice, it's romantic, and it's woefully stupid in these situations. Inflaming the tension through stupid actions (yes, hacking their website was a STUPID action) is only going to bring the boiling point higher.