FBI Arrests 14 in Raids Against Anonymous

[Kopikatsu]

They don't get it. Anonymous is everyone who stands up to fight injustice, corruption and censorship.

If I do it and hide my name I'm Anonymous. And every time I hear about governments stomping down on people trying to make the world a better place I'm more tempted to join them.

If Anon's crimes were in real life and not the internet they would be smashing windows and chaining themselves to business gates in protest. The local police would give them a fine or small jail sentence, but because it's the internet and they threaten large company's finances they're called terrorists and people call for their execution, it's ridiculous hysteria.

^This.

I find myself regularly astounded by how unreasonably thick news agencies can be about Anonymous. It's not a defined group, it's a movement: and that's why I tend to rely on the Escapist for my global news requirements.

...The FBI is going after people who have been committing crimes. They just happen to associate themselves with Anonymous. So it isn't 'We're going to arrest Anonymous.' it's 'We're going to arrest people who are committing crimes.'

Wow 14 DDOS'ers who probably don't deserve it go to jail, the FBI probably has better things to do.

...The FBI has many different divisions. Including a cyber crime division. Hunting these people down is literally their ENTIRE job. They would be sitting on their asses doing nothing all day if they weren't going after these people.

 

[ZiggyE]

I think it's disgusting that "members" of Anonymous are being arrested for standing up for their beliefs in a so called, "free society".

 

[Ironic Pirate]

They don't get it. Anonymous is everyone who stands up to fight injustice, corruption and censorship.

No, it isn't. Anonymous is many things, none of them are that incredibly melodramatic. Sure, some of them have those kind of ideals, but nowhere near the majority.

If I do it and hide my name I'm Anonymous. And every time I hear about governments stomping down on people trying to make the world a better place I'm more tempted to join them.

Except that they are making it a better place by striking out semi-randomly at corporations, doing more damage to the user than the company.

If Anon's crimes were in real life and not the internet they would be smashing windows and chaining themselves to business gates in protest. The local police would give them a fine or small jail sentence, but because it's the internet and they threaten large company's finances they're called terrorists and people call for their execution, it's ridiculous hysteria.

That would be ridiculous hysteria, if anyone were doing that. They struck out of a misguided sense of standing up for freedom, and they did that in a way that affected innocent consumers and employees far more than it did "corporations".

And then, when it turns out that, shockingly, there is a repercussion for these attacks, everyone involved grows a persecution complex and starts babbling nonsense about standing up for freedom or liberty or whatever they've decided that day.

 

[AngryMongoose]

"Playing a game of Whac-A-Mole."

It's more like punching smoke. Poisonous smoke. Poisonous smoke that hates you can gets more poisonous the more you punch it.

Why do people insist on this absurd notion that Anon can't possibly be taken down because its ideals transcend physical boundaries? Anon is an organization which stands for certain ideals, it itself is NOT an ideal, and organizations CAN be shut down or at least scared into dormancy if enough of its members are caught.

It's simple psychology, really. Suppose you hear about a massive raid in which multiple members of a popular group are arrested on charges of terrorism. You may notice that the number of people jumping up to say "I'm with them too! Please arrest me!" tends to decrease. That's because most people generally don't like being arrested and having criminal marks on their records for the rest of their lives. Ideals are metaphysical and can't be "arrested", but people most certainly can.

It's what happened to LulzSec. The hacker community united to start attacking LulzSec and intended to give their information to the FBI and CIA to aid in prosecution. The result was that members of their group started to back out, unwilling to take the heat, and eventually they folded back into Anon in the hopes of being protected. LulzSec collapsed under the threat of being exposed, and if the FBI keeps this up, Anon will, too.

Except large sections of Anonymous aren't doing anything illegal or, atleast, illegal in the US (Project Chanology, Anonymous Iran), there will always script kiddies looking for havok to stir up on the internet, increasing control and censorship on the internet isn't going to reduce the numbers of people trying to fight it, and pretty much anyone can take up the banner of Anonymous and, if their ideals are similar, who's to argue? so short of removing the idea of internet freedom from the public conscious, Anonymous will survive.

'You may notice that the number of people jumping up to say "I'm with them too! Please arrest me!"'
No, but you do see people jumping up to say "I'm with them too!" quite a lot.

Also, you claim that LulsSec have backed out, but they're still going. They ended their "50 Days of Lulsec" but just yesterday they hacked the News Corp. and the sun websites.

 

[JasonBurnout16]

I really enjoy Anonymous. They stand up to fight against injustice, and just because it's on the internet and they centre on big businesses it's terrorism or something. Stupid!

Keep going Anonymous. You have my support.

 

[viranimus]

A: The FBI assumes it has the right people, Much like how there has been no further news on the people already arrested.

B: Exactly what crime has been committed here that Anon is actually guilty of, because I really am not seeing any actual laws being broken. Only crimes I am seeing is an illegal search, seizure and unlawful arrest.

But its ok, because I am completely wrong for speaking something that disparages our glorious corporate overlords that are so gracious and benevolent to all of their perceived human property.

 

[DaKiller]

I really enjoy Anonymous. They stand up to fight against injustice, and just because it's on the internet and they centre on big businesses it's terrorism or something. Stupid!

Keep going Anonymous. You have my support.

Well, it is still a crime so whether or not they are doing good it is the job of the FBI to try to stop them.

 

[Low Key]

I really enjoy Anonymous. They stand up to fight against injustice, and just because it's on the internet and they centre on big businesses it's terrorism or something. Stupid!

Keep going Anonymous. You have my support.

I don't know if I'd call what Anonymous does terrorism, but for instance, say there was a picket line outside of some random store stopping people from going inside. That's illegal in America, and DDoSing is the internet equivalent. Had the FBI arrested someone in another country, I'd understand, but they only arrested Americans.

 

[Neyon]

They don't get it. Anonymous is everyone who stands up to fight injustice, corruption and censorship.

Anonymous is a bunch of delusional 12 year old kids (or at least 12 year old minded kids) who think that by causing minor inconveniance to random organisations that they are fighting for freedom. Similar to how kids used to play with action figures pretending to save the world, now they do it with a computer and a ready-made DDOS program.

 

[hiks89]

is world war three gonna break out...like equilibrium...that would be kooowl

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

If they are guilty of the crimes they are accused of, my vote is let 'em fry.

Not a huge anon fan.

EDIT:

Anonymous is a bunch of delusional 12 year old kids (or at least 12 year old minded kids) who think that by causing minor inconveniance to random organisations that they are fighting for freedom. Similar to how kids used to play with action figures pretending to save the world, now they do it with a computer and a ready-made DDOS program.

Also, this is the best way to put it.

 

[Korolev]

They don't get it. Anonymous is everyone who stands up to fight injustice, corruption and censorship.

But how do you know that? How do you know they are "anyone" who fights against injustice, corruption and censorship? They're anonymous. Anonymous implies that we DON'T know what they are fighting for.

There are good "members" of anonymous and there are good hacktivists. But there are bad hacktivists as well. Companies have a legal right to privacy. We all have a legal right to privacy. Anonymous can't just hack into people willy-nilly because they suspect their targets "might" be doing something bad. Allowing Anonymous to Hack or infiltrate anyone it pleases is akin to saying "Okay, let this gang search your house for any evidence of wrong-doing. And trust them, they aren't gonna steal anything! You can trust em! They're good honest blokes - who happen to have no names and wear masks over their faces and will disown any one of their own caught doing anything bad!"

Anonymous's own lack of ideology and identity is it's own worst flaw - ANYONE can join anonymous, and anyone can do anything under their name. Even criminals. When you have a "group" (and I'm not even sure they're cohesive enough to be considered a group) that tells its "members" (who can be anyone) to just do whatever they want in the name of "justice", there are going to be problems.

Anonymous are the digital equivalent to vigilantes. And no sane person wants vigilantes running around. If these hacker groups have legitimate grievances or concerns about the actions of corporations, let them take those concerns to the media.

If you let anyone hack into companies, you are going to have problems. Let's say I'm some shady criminal - I "join" anonymous and I use their help to hack into banks for the purposes of "uncovering nefarious evil-doings". When we've hacked in to the bank, with their help, I promptly steal as much info as I can and say "Toodles! I'm off to buy me a ferrari!"

There is some evidence that Anonymous played a role in the PSN Network hack - they probably weren't behind the theft of data, but they probably unwittingly helped the criminals to gain access.

And remember - while I can't say for sure that Anonymous have done anything bad, you can't say they didn't. Anonymity is a double-edged sword.

 

[Vithma]

I would just like to say this as a personal opinion:
Anon hacking fed stuff to tell people as their 'right to know' seems fine, as the government in the first place should tell the public themselves about any problems.

Lulz hacking a major games developer because they want to play skyrim or just for lulz is stupid idea because: If you hack it, Bethesda have to fix it, meaning skyrim is going to set back... duh!

i don't get why people stand against Anon as they are expressing their right of free speech and believe they also have the right to know WTF is going on, in all fairness Anon seems to be trying to help people and stop injustices against their rights that the government try to take away.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

Anonymous might be "everyone who stands up to fight blah blah blah"

But they aren't unstoppable. Why? Because while anyone can join or leave anonymous (a stupid statement to begin with because it pretty much acknowledges that Anonymous' ranks could be filled with any manner of reprehensible scum that happened to wander in and I'd prefer my righteous organizations be filled with somewhat decent people with a proper moral compass), the one thing anonymous doesn't have an infinite supply of is CAPABLE cannon fodder.

Anonymous may be legion, but about 1% of that legion is brain and the rest is script kiddies and zombies following directives or just passing on what is handed to them. It's like me having an endless army of faithful loyal soldiers that I control with just four other commanding officers.. but should someone be smart enough to remove me and my four officers, the army falls apart.

The FBI isn't full of morons. I doubt the majority of us could pass the basic requirements to even get a job filing papers in the office. They know EXACTLY (probably more than us internet forum using regular folks), and they have a strategy to deal with them. And it's simple.

You do NOT have to arrest ALL of anonymous. You just have to keep hitting the right ONES. Take out the people who provide the information, the power, the tools.. etc. It's just like any enemy.. cripple their resources, take out the leadership, and you might not destroy them but you'll sure as hell render the impotent. And if you arrest enough people publicly and hit them HARD with punishments, you'll eliminate a large portion of their base that is comprised of little wannabe activists who thought it was all fun and games until shit got real and the very real threat of being dragged out of your house and into a jail cell sinks in.

Good luck with the war Anonymous. Because with the resources, power, and determination of global super powers focusing on you, you're going to need it. Even movements can be shut down with enough iron-fisted effort. You maybe can't stop it completely but you can push it to the far fringes of society to the point it might as well be gone.

 

[Weaver]

Why does it seem like this is all the FBI does now-a-days?
Guess the war on drugs didn't pan out?

 

[Fbuh]

It's similar to the War on Terror being fought in urban Middle Eastern areas. YOu can't really see who you are fighing, it could be anyone around you, and most of their tech is easy to buy at your local Wal Mart.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

It's similar to the War on Terror being fought in urban Middle Eastern areas. YOu can't really see who you are fighing, it could be anyone around you, and most of their tech is easy to buy at your local Wal Mart.

Fairly sure we don't have an Walmart in Iraq yet, and if we did, I again highly doubt they would sell the stuff to make good IEDs

Why does it seem like this is all the FBI does now-a-days?
Guess the war on drugs didn't pan out?

Because this is what gets the press on teh interwebz. Besides, if I'm not mistaken, the FBI has a cyber crimes division. If they WEREN'T going after these guys, I would be shocked.

 

[HyenaThePirate]

I think what people forget is that while we all have the freedom of speech, we do NOT have the freedom to impede others or force our speech on them. DDOS'ing corporate websites is NOT the equivalent of a non-violent peaceful sit-in across the street on public property. It is the equivalent of driving by the corporate headquarters and throwing bricks through the windows or standing at the front door and preventing customers from having the freedom to go inside and shop there without being accosted.

If Anonymous restricted it's activities to sending out informative emails and creating websites that spread information about those corporations (based on fact, not rumors and slander or libel) then nobody would have beef with them. If they provided testimony in the form of viral videos of whistleblowers showing off the corporate problems, etc, then that would be fine too.

But when you actually assault someone, be it through hacking and taking private data, or taking down their sites or ability to conduct business, you are no longer fighting for truth, justice, or freedom of speech. You're IMPOSING, FORCING, your own views onto someone else, and not just the corporation but it's employees and customers as well. In the process of fighting for the rights of people, anonymous repeatedly tramples over those very same rights, shrouding itself in rhetoric that excuses it's own hypocrisy.