NATO Considers "Persecuting" Anonymous

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

So basically, NATO wants to take on the Internet.

Wow.

Even if they somehow managed to take down the entire group, other hackers will just take their place.

 

[Entrel]

Call me an idiot, but this is how I see it:
In my opinion, time and money would be much better spent on the 'improving security' bit than the 'trying to fight an extremely impulsive and loosely-structured entity' bit. Not only would that mean that governments and the like be protecting their information from more potential attackers, it has the added advantage of not provoking a large (relatively speaking) collective of hackers known to be pretty righteous about this sort of thing. Anonymous tends to mess with things it has a problem with, so announcing that you're going to try and infiltrate it, interfere with its operations and prosecute its members isn't going to go to end well for you, especially not if you try it via the internet, which is very much their home turf.
As far as the plausibility of infiltration is concerned, I'm not sure it would be all that difficult, but I'm not sure any information you'd acquire would be very useful, and certainly nothing to compromise any sort of operation.

So, in short, trying to infiltrate Anon would probably do more harm than good and any information gleaned wouldn't really be all that useful.

 

[General Vagueness]

The report then explainis how Anonymous hacked government contractor HBGary's servers and the CEO's Twitter account after the group revealed the government's plans to take down WikiLeaks

Okey, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Anon "Hack" HBGary's by pretending to be an admin and emailing someone within the network to get a new Admin-pass?
Because if so, they "hacked" it by exploiting human stupidity, and proves once more what big-shots in government (or NATO this time) know about "hacking".

Hacking is often understood to include social engineering along with software engineering.

This combination leads the outside observer to think they are anarchic madmen. And the last time anarchic madmen went unchecked, we had World War I.

WW1 really was more of a militaristic and nationalistic madmen-thingy.

I think he's referring to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that's usually cited as the initial spark.

So, KKK (a cell of them anyway) vs. WBC and NATO vs. Anon, things are looking up for people wanting an "interesting" 2012.

 

[ParkourMcGhee]

I mean, I definitely think that it's important for governments to be aware of the dangers that hacking can pose, but I'm not sure that oppressing them in return is the right move. As Stephen Colbert said of the Anonymous attacks [http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/375428/february-24-2011/corporate-hacker-tries-to-take-down-wikileaks], you don't want to stick your penis into the hornet's nest.

Permalink

"you don't want to stick your penis into the hornet's nest."

Well how else am I supposed to get my kicks?

PHahahahahahahahaha.

Stick a hornets nest into your penis?

OT: What happened when Sony tried to pursue it's alleged hackers?

Not saying that they shouldn't do anything about it, but I don't think they should release anything publicly, or actively hurt the group as both can be seen as provocations. However be monitoring? That should be done.

Anything can go out of control. The only question is who monitors the monitors? And it has stood since the dawn of man.

 

[aashell13]

No, I think they chose 'persecute' over 'prosecute' very deliberately. NATO is a military alliance, not a law enforcement organization. They don't have jurisdiction to conduct investigations and make arrests, and I expect they don't want their hands tied by incompetent or unwilling national police services in the event of a significant action against their infrastructure.

 

[teh_Canape]

Spoiler: this immediately came to mind when I read the title of the news

 

[TheComfyChair]

They'll just find a few of the bigger members, torture them for a while, find out anything they actually know. Find a few more, torture them ect. ect.

I wouldn't like to be in anon right now though having Sony grumpy at you is one thing, having NATO saying they're going to clamp down on you? I'd run. They aren't messing with some hired analysts now, they'll be messing with intelligence agencies who WILL find them and almost certainly make them 'disappear'.

 

[aashell13]

Truth.

Anonomoyus is at least entirely transparent, and doesn't screw around and ignore illegal activity on the part of coperations, or other countires, nor do they try to limit our rights, nor do they... etc.

I really want Anon to give everybody a nice big smack in the face, reveal all the BS that goes on, and cause reform across modern goverments.

How'd they do this wihout making everything worse is beyond me.

anon is the opposite of transparent, almost by definition. no one besides themselves knows who they are or what they're doing. All we have to go on is what they tell us, which can be difficult or sometimes impossible to verify. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that as transparency goes anon is no better than any dictatorship you might care to name, insofar as outsiders have no information about them aside from what they see fit to release publicly, and no way to obtain any such information.

 

[Reed Spacer]

EDIT for ironic thought: Their structure is the internet, shut that down and Anonymous is screwed!

Which would be pretty funny; NATO wouldn't live long enough to scream.

 

[w00tage]

Wow. I am hoping with all my heart that the reason Lord Jopling mentioned Anonymous as an example, and not, say, the unidentified cyber-war organization that attacked Georgia's internet communications while Russia rolled tanks into their country, is that NATO is really readying defenses against cyber-war organizations and just used the Anon example as a smokescreen.

I hope.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Truth.

Anonomoyus is at least entirely transparent, and doesn't screw around and ignore illegal activity on the part of coperations, or other countires, nor do they try to limit our rights, nor do they... etc.

I really want Anon to give everybody a nice big smack in the face, reveal all the BS that goes on, and cause reform across modern goverments.

How'd they do this wihout making everything worse is beyond me.

anon is the opposite of transparent, almost by definition. no one besides themselves knows who they are or what they're doing. All we have to go on is what they tell us, which can be difficult or sometimes impossible to verify. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that as transparency goes anon is no better than any dictatorship you might care to name, insofar as outsiders have no information about them aside from what they see fit to release publicly, and no way to obtain any such information.

But that's the thing:

Anon is transperant because it's actions are all that we have: We'll know if anon does something because they would either say so, or we'd be able to see the result.

 

[aashell13]

But that's the thing:

Anon is transperant because it's actions are all that we have: We'll know if anon does something because they would either say so, or we'd be able to see the result.

We only know anon did something if they claim responsibility. We have neither knowledge nor means of learning what else the people who make up anonymous might be doing or have done. If they decided to do something and simply not tell anyone, then no one would know except themselves and possibly the target, and even the target would be unlikely to know anything beyond the fact that they had been attacked. this is not transparency.

 

[subtlefuge]

I think that people really need to wrap their heads around the fact that Anonymous will never stop not existing. There really is no going back to the way things were before.

 

[DVTK00p]

Can you honestly believe a multinational military organisation would announce their plans to "infiltrate" a group if they haven't done so already? Especially if you take into account infiltration can mean many things. Doesn't cost a lot in the grand scheme of things to turn someone from their ideals and morals. Everyone has their price; even those that work outside of the law to undermine corporations and other institutional entities. Not to mention that those blokes that do are already on morally shaky ground. How much would it cost for you to give up doing something you enjoyed?

 

[Golden Hawk]

Spoiler: this immediately came to mind when I read the title of the news

Me too... m00t for the win!

But seriously, this will either end society or change nothing. It basically means you'll have government members spending time on /b/, so in other words going totally insane and developing delusions of l33tness...

OR, on the even scarier side, nothing will change. This means it was the politicians who were on /b/ in the first place (and frankly, we already knew they were idiots anyway!)

 

[LCP]

And how will they accomplish this goal?

 

[Tiger Sora]

NATO's really overstepping it's bounds over the years, since it's been attacking other countries when it was built as a mutual defense pact.
How it's taking on the internet so to say..... this will just give rise to smarter, skilled, determined, and outright dangerous hackers.

Good luck trying to take down a group of bored kids and hacktivists, who if provoked will only cause more problems.

Yep, is all i can say.

 

[godofgamers]

Monitoring /b/? Their brains will melt.