Designer Arrested Over Anonymous Press Release 288
An anonymous reader writes "A Greek designer named Alex Tapanaris, whose name appeared on the PDF press release circulated by online trouble-makers Anonymous has had his web site disappeared and, according to reports, the unfortunate chap has been arrested. THINQ managed to talk to Alex on the phone, and while he wouldn't confirm his arrest, he 'certainly sounded spooked,' the web site reports. 'No comment,' he said and hung up. The press release sought to explain Anonymous's aims and lack of any formal organization. It explained that the Anonymous name is applied to a shifting roster of individuals who come together on an ad hoc basis, depending on individual concerns and practical, day-to-day matter such as who happens to be online at the time. Clicking on the document's properties revealed Tapanaris as its named author."
Is this even a story? (Score:5, Insightful)
Creating a press release describing how Anonymous isn't some group with centralized leadership doesn't seem like a crime to me either.
I can't help but to think that this sounds like media whoring at its worst. Basically a big prank pulled on the public at large.
Focus on the Drama, not the important cables. (Score:5, Insightful)
The news media continues to focus on the drama surrounding Wikileaks and Anonymous instead of focusing on the cables.
How many US new organizations reported on the Cable from Tegucigalpa detailing that the Honduras Coup was illegitimate? This was a big news story, and an important situation in Honduras that has immediate impact on understanding the Obama administration.
It also shows that the Obama administration lied, and helped support the coup government by their actions.
So.. who is covering it? And compare that to another article on the drama surrounding it.
And that's just one cable. How many more will come out of great importance that everyone will ignore to instead focus on what Assange is doing.
It's not Assange or Anons fault, it's the News doing it. But this is their out.
This allows them to totally ignore the importance of the cables. And keep repeating that "nothing significant" is coming out.
Whoops (Score:5, Insightful)
Guilt by assosciation? (Score:2, Insightful)
It could very well be that he made the info site about anonymous without having participated in the attacks against banks, etc... Just because he in some way assosciates himself with the anonymous, some of whom do occasional crimes, doesn't really prove that he is a criminal... But well, I'm interested to see how this one turns out.
He better be spooked. (Score:3, Insightful)
The government vigilantes mean business and are completely ruthless. He just got outed as being a member of anonymous, this is like being outed as a communist back during the anti-communist era.
At this point counter intelligence agencies are going to run his name through their national security databases. Then they'll find out what they can use against him, or what they can use to entrap and or destroy him. Then they'll give that information to the anti-wikileaks vigilantes [nowpublic.com]
You can bet on that.
Why will they go after him? To get the names and identities of the others.
No, you've missed the point (Score:2, Insightful)
Anonymous knows that it isn't a collection of geniuses. What it does know is that it has the power of a mob. Arrest one person in a mob? You still have a mob.
They know that some of them are going to get busted. See party van [urbandictionary.com] for clarification.
script kiddies should stay away from fire (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:script kiddies should stay away from fire (Score:5, Insightful)
More mature hackers are avoiding it by getting the script kiddies to do the work for them...
Re:Geniuses (Score:4, Insightful)
Jealous of their cojones?
Re:Proof Positive (Score:4, Insightful)
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.
Re:Proof Positive (Score:4, Insightful)