Anonymous' Target Planned to "Take Down" WikiLeaks

[Chibz]

The anonymous vs bank/FBI/etc is less a good vs evil fight and more a chaotic neutral vs lawful evil fight.

The lawful evil organizations are working against anon for what they do best: dedicated self interest. They seem to operate with some semblence of honour, and (usually) within the confines of the law. Unless they can get away with breaking/bending that law. Or, for that matter, completely rewriting the law for their own gain.

Anonymous is thoroughly chaotic neutral (overall). The "moralfags" may be shades of good and the shadier parts of anonymous may be shaded with evil but overall. Neutral. They're only in this because they feel personally wronged, and that their personal freedom has been attacked. Mostly if you leave a CN person/group alone, they won't ever quite pick that fight with you.

Just to make it abundantly clear, Chaotic Neutrals tend to...

Fight Dirty
Flee a battle that's obviously going poorly
Gloat over a victory
Perpetrate humiliating pranks on an enemy
Refuse a fair contest/challenge
Taunt an enemy into fighting
and walk away from a challenge

 

[Binerexis]

It really isn't difficult to hurt Anonymous' credibility. Besides, Anonymous isn't this amazing group of cyber vigilantes looking out for the good of everyone, they're children on a message board. Just because people use this perceived persona to hide behind doesn't mean that's who they say they are.

Come on guys, one of the first things you learn on the internet is that not everyone is who they say they are; to say that all these attacks are done by Anonymous is just silly.

 

[rioki]

Any way, this thread needs more DESU!

 

[EOD Tech]

Can't believe you people defending WikiLeaks. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Good honest Iraqis that I knew when I was deployed in 05-06 had bounties put on their head for "collaborating with the invaders" when their names were exposed by WikiLeaks last year. Thank God none that I know personally have been murdered--yet--but it's happened to others.

Again: if you support WikiLeaks you should be ashamed of yourself.

Huh? This makes no sense. The US and UK armies have killed plenty of iraqis for no good reason and then they get all huffity about one or two that might theoretically be in danger. If wikileaks had been around in 2001/2 then perhaps there would have been no war in the first place given how much our governments lied about it. If anyone should be ashamed it's all those involved in fighting a war that has absolutely no point whatsoever.

If there had been no war in the first place then millions of Arabs would still be living in a state of constant terror of their own government. I gladly fought the Iraq war and continue to do so, and none of the reasons I went to war have turned out to be lies.

And there's no "theoretically" in danger--my old Iraqi platoon has about half of them living inside the wire on their FOB since their names were made public, and a couple have had to move their families out of the city in the middle of the night. You simply don't know the truth on the ground in Iraq, which is understandable but also means you have zero standing to analyze the situation there.

 

[-|-]

Can't believe you people defending WikiLeaks. You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Good honest Iraqis that I knew when I was deployed in 05-06 had bounties put on their head for "collaborating with the invaders" when their names were exposed by WikiLeaks last year. Thank God none that I know personally have been murdered--yet--but it's happened to others.

Again: if you support WikiLeaks you should be ashamed of yourself.

Huh? This makes no sense. The US and UK armies have killed plenty of iraqis for no good reason and then they get all huffity about one or two that might theoretically be in danger. If wikileaks had been around in 2001/2 then perhaps there would have been no war in the first place given how much our governments lied about it. If anyone should be ashamed it's all those involved in fighting a war that has absolutely no point whatsoever.

If there had been no war in the first place then millions of Arabs would still be living in a state of constant terror of their own government. I gladly fought the Iraq war and continue to do so, and none of the reasons I went to war have turned out to be lies.

And there's no "theoretically" in danger--my old Iraqi platoon has about half of them living inside the wire on their FOB since their names were made public, and a couple have had to move their families out of the city in the middle of the night. You simply don't know the truth on the ground in Iraq, which is understandable but also means you have zero standing to analyze the situation there.

The "you don't understand until you've walked a mile in my shoes" response eh? What a crock.

So killing 1000's of iraqis is ok when it's for your own naive 'we are freeing them from terrorz!!!' beliefs but when it comes to somebody else's interpretation of what freedom actually means, suddenly life is ever so precious and even one life is too high a price to pay. Your position is not only illogical; it is ideologically unsound. Never mind, hypocrisy is fairly common in people that work for the 'man' and is to be expected.

You and all the other wiki-leaks haters seem to fail to understand that the government has absolutely no right to keep secrets from it's population. We may temporarily waive the right to know what the government is doing due operational requirements in certain contexts. But what you should remember is that the rest of us pay your wages; we therefore have the right to know what you are doing in our name.

 

[Gindil]

It should probably be noted that in so far of the FBI investigation(and the very limited information available) the feds do seem to be targeting those Anons who behave like "leaders"/staff. IRC channel admins who organize the different "operations" and the like.

There has to be some kind of structure, they can't have people coming in and spamming etc. These people prosecuted are comparable to forum moderates.

As I witnessed last night and today, press releases are a combined effort from whoever is available and willing to work on them at the time. There is no specific people doing each of them, anyone can help and add ideas etc.

But this undermines the idea that "anonymous has no leadership" because you just admitted there to be leaders (in whatever context you feel it's necessary to put it). Just because you say there are no leaders, doesn't mean there are no "leaders". You say you are not an organization and then proceed to behave like an organization through press releases (let's not even get into the American jingoism presented towards Iran) recruitment drives through youtube and elsewhere. I hardly consider the death threats made against one of the Swedish prosecutors who was working on the Julian Assange/Wikileaks case to be nonviolent, I hardly consider the death threats and erroneous intimidating phone calls to Aaron Barr's home to be non-violent. I don't consider the threats of extortion made against HBGary for his removal in exchange for the retrieval of the stolen data to be non-violent either. Sure no physical acts of violence where committed but Anonymous still threatens those involved.

I don't think the U.K considers Anon's declaration of war against their government to be a particularly nonviolent action done by peaceful protesters. If everyone is involved with the press releases, than anyone who's idea it was to release such a stupid release is culpable.

It's a decentralized organization. They pull from whoever's there at the moment. What you're thinking about is like a place such as BoA has a CEO who is responsible for ALL of the things that their organization does. This is not the case with Anon. Sure, you have some people that say, "do XY and Z" and they have volunteers. But how they're fighting this battle, it's more or less if you take down one or two of them, 5 or 6 pop up in their place. Such is when you have a centralized system such as the US Government or BoA, battling a decentralized system such as Wikileaks, Anon, or even the internet against filesharing.

 

[BlindChance]

Well please don't credit me as the author, that's already an established meme...

Really? Darn. I am seriously out of touch.

 

[Gindil]

I'm gonna start my comment here by saying I have a slight bias towards anonymous, but I'm gonna be as fencesitting as possible.

Firstly, for those people that Anon are bad because they do this without honour, fight with underhanded tactics and so on and so forth, let me ask you this; if you had far less resources and power than your opponent, what would YOU do?
Let me quote Code Geass (cos that's where I saw it)
"What do you do when there is an evil you cannot defeat by just means? Do you stain your hands with evil to destroy evil, or do you remain steadfastly just and righteous even if it means surrendering to evil?"
Not meaning to say Anon is good and the others are evil, but if they went up against something like that which threatened what they are going to protect, and would lose if you did it in the normal, 'honourable' way, would you fight it back with an evil? Heroes of past have won fights with underhanded tactics, staining their hands as 'evil'. Honour is not necessary in being the good side, so stop saying Anon are bad because they fight with no honour.

On the other side of the Spectrum; what if in the extreme case they get found of all of this and the Bank of America starts losing more stocks and such? The American economy is in the hole already, and if the largest bank goes down, what the hell will happen then? Yes, Corporations are easy to corrupt and are quite cruel, but sometimes it is a necessecity to have, otherwise more good would be lost than the evil.

Fair warning...

Just because BoA loses stocks and options, it doesn't mean that it holds that the rest of our economy will decidedly tank as well. We can embarrass BoA and make them look bad to the extent that a LOT of people will find a new bank to support.

If I remember my Art of War, you basically fight with what you have. In this case, Anon has technology while the corps have the funding and resources of the government. So Anon, in this case is doing what it can to fight a guerrilla war.

It's the same thing they did to Scientology.

 

[BVBFanatic]

It's a decentralized organization. They pull from whoever's there at the moment. What you're thinking about is like a place such as BoA has a CEO who is responsible for ALL of the things that their organization does. This is not the case with Anon. Sure, you have some people that say, "do XY and Z" and they have volunteers. But how they're fighting this battle, it's more or less if you take down one or two of them, 5 or 6 pop up in their place. Such is when you have a centralized system such as the US Government or BoA, battling a decentralized system such as Wikileaks, Anon, or even the internet against filesharing.

I think the phrase you're looking for is "ad hoc".

 

[Gindil]

It's a decentralized organization. They pull from whoever's there at the moment. What you're thinking about is like a place such as BoA has a CEO who is responsible for ALL of the things that their organization does. This is not the case with Anon. Sure, you have some people that say, "do XY and Z" and they have volunteers. But how they're fighting this battle, it's more or less if you take down one or two of them, 5 or 6 pop up in their place. Such is when you have a centralized system such as the US Government or BoA, battling a decentralized system such as Wikileaks, Anon, or even the internet against filesharing.

I think the phrase you're looking for is "ad hoc".

They both basically mean a structure without a central figure that's leading them.

 

[LondonBeer]

Always preferred 2014

Speaking of WTF is my plug ?

 

[The Funslinger]

Yeah...I really think that anonymos would fake over 60000 documents just to so they could screw with them. [Sarcasm]

Way to cover your asses.

I'm not defending the big corporate guys here, but let's be fair. The dangerous part of anonymous is the elite corps of 35 year old basement dwellers. It's not as if they don't have the necessary time on their hands.

 

[nightwolf667]

It's a decentralized organization. They pull from whoever's there at the moment. What you're thinking about is like a place such as BoA has a CEO who is responsible for ALL of the things that their organization does. This is not the case with Anon. Sure, you have some people that say, "do XY and Z" and they have volunteers. But how they're fighting this battle, it's more or less if you take down one or two of them, 5 or 6 pop up in their place. Such is when you have a centralized system such as the US Government or BoA, battling a decentralized system such as Wikileaks, Anon, or even the internet against filesharing.

I never said they were a centralized organization, but you seem to be mistaking the definition of leadership the same way Anon is. I understand that Anon has no "recognizable" leaders, they have no one they shove to the forefront and say "this is who we're fighting for, our figurehead!" Oh wait, there is Julian Assange. Now, I don't mean to say Assange is their leader, he's not, but there are people who will certainly blame him for ALL of Anonymous's actions.

Now, what I meant about leadership is simply this: in any organization, whatever the kind, there are those who rise to certain prominence due to influence, ability, etc. Their position may not be official, but there always must be someone to help corral the wayward, answer questions, and collect the votes. It's simply human nature. It's like that rumor I heard from a guy who worked for PostFinance, who said that in the middle of Anonymous's DDoS attack after the server admin left, they stopped pressing fire, wandered off and started DDoSing Justin Bieber's website. I accept it as likely since it fits with what I've come to expect from Anon. Do they have a structured leadership? No. Is it like the United States Government (lol) or the CEO of Bank of America (who is not going to be held responsible for everything the company does)? Certainly not. Can they claim protections as an organization under the law? Probably not. But someone's or many someones' fingers are loosely on the reins here.

In my many conversations with h264 over the past few days, he has gone from saying there is no leadership to identifying "AnonOps Command", from saying there are no official press releases, to admitting that "everyone" (I suppose everyone who is there at the time) decides what goes into them. He says Anonymous doesn't brag and fails to understand what bragging means, especially since many Anons (him included) brag all the time. He and the other drones may not be able to identify the leaders (especially since they define leadership in such a narrow way) but it doesn't change the fact that they are there in one form or another. Most likely the IRC server admins that the Feds searched and seized. (Meaning they have all those lovely IRC conversations.) Or those that Anonymous identifies as "staff".

 

[Latinidiot]

This keeps getting more and more intersting. I have a feeling that this event will have a massive influence on the future.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

It should probably be noted that in so far of the FBI investigation(and the very limited information available) the feds do seem to be targeting those Anons who behave like "leaders"/staff. IRC channel admins who organize the different "operations" and the like.

There has to be some kind of structure, they can't have people coming in and spamming etc. These people prosecuted are comparable to forum moderates.

As I witnessed last night and today, press releases are a combined effort from whoever is available and willing to work on them at the time. There is no specific people doing each of them, anyone can help and add ideas etc.

But this undermines the idea that "anonymous has no leadership" because you just admitted there to be leaders (in whatever context you feel it's necessary to put it). Just because you say there are no leaders, doesn't mean there are no "leaders". You say you are not an organization and then proceed to behave like an organization through press releases (let's not even get into the American jingoism presented towards Iran) recruitment drives through youtube and elsewhere. I hardly consider the death threats made against one of the Swedish prosecutors who was working on the Julian Assange/Wikileaks case to be nonviolent, I hardly consider the death threats and erroneous intimidating phone calls to Aaron Barr's home to be non-violent. I don't consider the threats of extortion made against HBGary for his removal in exchange for the retrieval of the stolen data to be non-violent either. Sure no physical acts of violence where committed but Anonymous still threatens those involved.

I don't think the U.K considers Anon's declaration of war against their government to be a particularly nonviolent action done by peaceful protesters. If everyone is involved with the press releases, than anyone who's idea it was to release such a stupid release is culpable.

It's a decentralized organization. They pull from whoever's there at the moment. What you're thinking about is like a place such as BoA has a CEO who is responsible for ALL of the things that their organization does. This is not the case with Anon. Sure, you have some people that say, "do XY and Z" and they have volunteers. But how they're fighting this battle, it's more or less if you take down one or two of them, 5 or 6 pop up in their place. Such is when you have a centralized system such as the US Government or BoA, battling a decentralized system such as Wikileaks, Anon, or even the internet against filesharing.

Who decides who gets to step up? Who is doing the "pulling" from the ranks to elevate to the front? The irony is that effective, powerful protests and movements require severe amounts of organization... so much so that the success of the protest movement itself can hinge entirely on the efficiency and ability of the organization's leadership. Without proper leadership, you don't have a "protest group", you have a bunch of a-holes milling about whining about their relative inconveniences simply because they think its "cool" to be rebellious.
Without defined leadership like the NAACP, Black Southern Baptist Leadership Alliance, Martin Luther King, et al, The American civil rights movement would have gone no where, wound up turning into occasional little offshoots of blacks sitting in on a restaurant until beaten and sent home, accomplishing nothing.
What occurred in Egypt didn't happen from a bunch of people suddenly deciding to throw a big party in Cairo and oh, let's also ask the President to resign? They had a powerful and efficient campaign, organized with precision, and implemented to perfection. Would what they accomplished have been accomplished if they were all "anonymous?" If the people were decentralized and cared about hiding their identities for the cause?

Honestly, I think its insulting to compare Anonymous at this point to these REAL progressive movements and protest groups. DDOSing a website for a few inconvenient hours is NOTHING compared to standing in the street getting hit with a water cannon and tear gas. I'm ashamed to even contemplate a comparison.

 

[AnonOperations]

For anyone that hasn't seen the wikirebels documentary or is new to this anon + wikileaks thing going on, please watch this.

If you have seen wikirebels, skip to part 2.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcBbuIKRshI
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5W0coXq3lI

I gladly fought the Iraq war and continue to do so, and none of the reasons I went to war have turned out to be lies

Check part 2 of the vid above. A primary reason used to gain support for the war was the LIE of WMD's.

to say that all these attacks are done by Anonymous is just silly.

You have no idea what you're talking about.

Check out the Aaron Barr vs Barret Brown Anonymous Phone Conference here. http://piratepad.net/HBGary

In my many conversations with h264 over the past few days, he has gone from saying there is no leadership to identifying "AnonOps Command", from saying there are no official press releases, to admitting that "everyone" (I suppose everyone who is there at the time) decides what goes into them. He says Anonymous doesn't brag and fails to understand what bragging means, especially since many Anons (him included) brag all the time.

What I am trying to say is Anonymous is a leaderless, hierarchy-less group where good ideas and bad ideas are naturally permeated or ignored respectively. Any form of directorship is quickly quelled as pride is one of the few taboos in the Anonymous community.

"Anonymous" is a cultural movement
"Anonymous" is not centralized in AnonOps irc.

Anonops is an infrastructure that *can* be used by anons. Anonops is an irc network, a collective. It's not the same as anonymous. There are plenty of anons everywhere else. IRC is just a small cell of the greater hive.

 

[BVBFanatic]

Who decides who gets to step up? Who is doing the "pulling" from the ranks to elevate to the front? The irony is that effective, powerful protests and movements require severe amounts of organization... so much so that the success of the protest movement itself can hinge entirely on the efficiency and ability of the organization's leadership.

No one decides who gets to step up. The person who gets to step up is the person who takes the initiative.

Anonymous operates in a somewhat flash-mob/viral mentality. It could easily start with one person making a post about how horrible so-and-so dictator is. At that point if enough people see it and decide to take action, the need for organization is no greater than someone to just say: Okay we'll meet here, at this time to protest against this guy.

Your analogy about Egypt does not function. This started out of a random Facebook/Twitter group that rapidly escalated into millions of protesters. It's not a hard leap to make when the internet settles most of the logistical issues for you. You just need the people to be properly motivated. In Egypt there was a pre-existing sentiment of anger towards now-ex-President Mubarak.

The French Revolution occurred in much the same way. People were hungry, they disliked their indecisive monarch, and the treasury was hemorrhaging money. All it took was one wrong move from Louis XVI and suddenly Paris went bat-shit.

TL;DR - Organization and logistics are sufficient but not necessary for protests/riots/uprisings/revolutions/etc. Sometimes a lot of angry people is more than enough for the job.

 

[BankWhistleBlower]

Beautiful article, many thanks! Will Hunton Williams be next? It would be fascinating to see who else they engaged to attack Wikileaks and their supporters.

The Powerpoint pdf you posted shows how some large corporations and banks deal with their adversaries. Anonymous should be applauded for disclosing this criminal activity.

In particular, it illustrates how bank whistle blowers are silenced. See http://ReportingWrongdoing.com

Ever wonder why we don't hear more from bank whistle blowers given all the fraud in the banking and mortgage industries? National security contractors like HBGary are hired to silence them:

See: http://www.reportingwrongdoing.com/who-is-silencing-bank-whistle-blowers.html

We need to expose and end this criminal activity before it completely erodes justice and rule of law in the U.S.

 

[AnonOperations]

I hardly consider the death threats made against one of the Swedish prosecutors who was working on the Julian Assange/Wikileaks case to be nonviolent, I hardly consider the death threats and erroneous intimidating phone calls to Aaron Barr's home to be non-violent.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. Just because someone doesn't leave there name - it is considered 'anonymous'. And now you're trying to say its this same group? I supposed the death threats from anonymous phone calls to Assange and BBC journalists are also this group /sarcasm

I don't think the U.K considers Anon's declaration of war against their government to be a particularly nonviolent action done by peaceful protesters. If everyone is involved with the press releases, than anyone who's idea it was to release such a stupid release is culpable.

I do my part in forums and future press releases so anons do not come off as terrorist. U.K. is much like a nanny state now so this doesn't surprise me considering many anons are libertarians or even anarchist. I haven't heard of the declaration you mentioned, do you have a link?

 

[SinisterGehe]

Here's an idea. To prevent Anonymous from stealing your email, send a letter via mail. There for if that gets stolen copied and revealed it is an outright felony and the criminal get caught much easier, and he can't plea for any "internet freedom" nonsense.

But on topic, this is going to get interesting.