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.
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Just because he was arrested doesn't mean he was actually charged with anything, or still being held. He could have been released and thus perfectly able to answer his phone. Of course, just because they didn't have enough to hold/charge him doesn't mean they didn't have enough to get an order to wire tap him in hopes that he'd say some dumb, incriminating shit to people.
Arrest isn't the worst possibility (Score:3, Interesting)
The worst possibility is to be stalked by legions of anti-wikileaks vigilantes.
This guys life may very well be ruined over this as now he's going to face the Greek version of COINTELPRO. Read about operation Gladio.
And because he's Greek the CIA, NSA and US Military can use full force on him. They don't even have to pretend to respect his human rights or civil rights like they would if he were an American. Extrajudicial justice from the vigilantes will be what he could face just by having associated himsel
That's a hell of a citation! (Score:2)
When someone is arrested, isn't there a public record of it? Why not call the local police to verify instead of calling the guy directly?
Oh, they have their sources.
A bloke named Alex Tapanaris, whose name appeared on the PDF press release circulated by online trouble-makers Anonymous has had his web site disappeared from the web and, according to a post on pastebin.com, the unfortunate chap has been arrested.
Everyone knows that pastebin is irrefutable.
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In the US yes but I don't think this was in the US. The story said was Greek but that doesn't mean that he was in Greece. Plus do we have hard date besides a link in pastebin?
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Question? (Score:2)
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If I come out with a press release saying that "Us KKK members killed hundreds of black people." I wouldn't be arrested right? I mean, I am saying I am part of a group that committed murder but that isn't enough to arrest me right?
If the regular police didn't come after you for that, the grammar police might.
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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.
Re:Focus on the Drama, not the important cables. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Focus on the Drama, not the important cables. (Score:4, Funny)
Stop mentioning these things, damnit, I'm not allowed to read about them! I'm just here for the drama.
This isn't news this is Gossip. (Score:3)
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Everyone knew it was a coup, but if the US State Department had admitted it, certain funding they were providing to Honduras would've become illegal under US law - so they avoided admitting the obvious as long as possible. The leaked cables just prove that they knew their public position was bullshit.
Whoops (Score:5, Insightful)
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Word processors that remember your name and fill in author metadata for you are sure helpful, aren't they?
That's why I always use suitably generic 'names' for those sorts of things, like:
"Windows User" or "Apple User" or "MSOffice User"
It satisfies the software (some of which absolutely insist that you give them something in order to use it) but if the 'name' ever leaks out it doesn't draw attention to itself and is yet totally generic.
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Word processors that remember your name and fill in author metadata for you are sure helpful, aren't they?
No they're not. If you doubt me, I'll forward you the memo. Check the metadata and you'll see that it's from the desk of God Almighty Himself.
What could possibly be the charge? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What could possibly be the charge? (Score:5, Funny)
He used the Comic Sans font.
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He was also guilty of facecrime [wikipedia.org]; that's what put the authorities on his trail in the first place...
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I'm really asking...
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Are denial of service "attacks" even a crime?
I hope so. If not, what would stop your competitor from simply swamping your ecommerce servers with garbage to hurt your sales and presumably improve their own? How is a DDOS any different than blocking the entrance to a brick and mortar business to prevent customers from entering? In both cases, you are simply jamming up entry to a place of commerce to prevent the company from doing regular business. Should Coca Cola Corporation be allowed to constantly atta
Conspiracy 101 (Score:3)
If I get a few thousand of my friends to drive down a road at a particular time to create a traffic jam, is that a crime? I'm really asking...
Of course it is.
You have launched a conspiracy to deny others the right to travel without interference and delay. You and your friends are obstructing the public roads with potentially life-threatening consequences.
Police. Ambulance services. Fire and rescue...
It won't matter if you are a thousand miles away when someone gets hurt.
It's your game. Your ball.
Conspirac
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Regardless, I'm not asking if denial of service attacks are malicious; clearly they are... their intent is to deny service. My question is whether or not they
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It doesn't have to be a crime to cause the chilling effects the authorities are looking for.
Smoking gun (Score:2)
So if an arrest has been made on the basis of software user registration details, surely the appropriate response is to start flooding the Internet with questionable documents (kitty porn, bomb-making instructions etc.), all in the name of a specific celebrity target?
This is how you radicalize a generation (Score:3)
That (as they say) is all.
Media Doesn't Get It (Score:5, Informative)
Here is a case-in-point (rather old) showing that mainstream US media just doesn't get it. Anonomous and Lulz [youtube.com]
U.S. Media,
Anonymous is not a secret hacker organization. It is the literal definition of the word. It is not a proper noun. It is just individuals acting without large-scale coordination, all pissed off for their own reasons, acting in semi-cohesion, and participating in groupthink. It is people either trolling for lulz [encycloped...matica.com], or lulzing for lulzing.
People downloading music are like anonymous. There is not a collective group organizing the individual downloaders. They just do it. The people "at the other end of the stick" view it as us against "them", and to have a proper OMGSCANDAL, you need a perpetrator, so they made one. And if they didn't cognitively make one for the purposes of degrading freedom on the internet, then it's more lulz for us and more idiot points for you.
Sincererely
The Lulz.
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You know too much about Anonymous and used their calling word, "lulz". Just like Tapanaris. Now you can expect the partyvan.
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Slashdotters,
Anonymous is not a secret hacker organization. It is the literal definition of the word. It is not a proper noun. It is just individuals acting without large-scale coordination, all pissed off for their own reasons, acting in semi-cohesion, and participating in groupthink. It is people either trolling for lulz [encycloped...matica.com], or lulzing for lulzing.
People downloading music are like anonymous. There is not a collective group organizing the individual downloaders. They just do it. The people "at the other end of the stick" view it as us against "them", and to have a proper OMGSCANDAL, you need a perpetrator, so they made one. And if they didn't cognitively make one for the purposes of degrading freedom on the internet, then it's more lulz for us and more idiot points for you.
I'm not so sure of this. Long-term members or not, the term "Anonymous" is being used by the media to refer to the collective group of individuals who (anonymously) participate, at any given point in time, in attacks claimed under the pseudonym. To claim that "Anonymous" is not an organization is disingenuous. They have a website, a common cause, and some degree of leadership involved in coordination. Just because leadership, members, and activities are impromptu and decentralized doesn't mean that the tag
Has the NYT bailed already? (Score:2)
Have they caved already?
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Dude, fix your font.
The true lesson (Score:2)
Just as hacking should be left to the real hackers, not the script kiddies, press releases should be written by real PR people, not word processing kiddies.
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...
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I think the Greek Authorities have their hand full (Score:3)
Check out the austerity measure riots going on.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuJZdWTiaJM [youtube.com]
I don't see them having time to mess with this kid.
Still misunderstanding the name. (Score:3)
Anonymous doesn't mean people who keep their identities secret, shadow figures nobody knows about, mysterious strangers. No.
Anonymous is synonym for "Joe Average". An anonymous person you pass by on the street. Somebody who doesn't mean a thing to you. Name not hidden, but unimportant, totally not worth writing down. Somebody who means nothing as a single person, whose loss won't be mourned by anyone significant, just a disposable person. They are aware of being meaningless people with no worth as individuals. But as a bulk, they form a formidable force. And if one or ten or a hundred is lost, this changes nothing. They were just some anonymous people, but The Anonymous lives on.
Re:Geniuses (Score:5, Funny)
Attacking financial services, banks and government websites is probably the best idea in the world.
Yes, it is when you're anonymous. Nobody can stop us, nobody can find us. We won't make the same mistake again.
__
A Tapanaris
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Mod parent LOL...
ANONYMOUS (Score:3, Funny)
"You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.."
-- Inigo Montoya
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Col: You’re so dumb you’re such an idiot you’re so...so...stupendous!
Frank: um...I don’t think you know what that word means...
Col: I do know what it means, and you’re just jealous... because im so much better, because im so great, because im so, so...superfluous!!
-- Lano & Woodley
Re:ANONYMOUS (Score:4, Funny)
Ooh! This is fun! I've got one, too
Jefe: We have many beautiful piñatas for your birthday celebration, each one filled with little surprises!
El Guapo: How many piñatas?
Jefe: Many piñatas, many!
El Guapo: Jefe, would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?
Jefe: A what?
El Guapo: A plethora.
Jefe: Oh yes, El Guapo. You have a plethora.
El Guapo: Jefe, what is a plethora?
Jefe: Why, El Guapo?
El Guapo: Well, you just told me that I had a plethora, and I would just like to know if you know what it means to have a plethora. I would not like to think that someone would tell someone else he has a plethora, and then find out that that person has no idea what it means to have a plethora.
Jefe: El Guapo, I know that I, Jefe, do not have your superior intellect and education, but could it be that once again, you are angry at something else, and are looking to take it out on me?
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Mod parent LOL...
"You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.."
What, "parent"? Sure I do. It's when a man and a woman love each other very much they kiss and cuddle in a special way and the woman tweets "oh you're so wonderful" and then when the woman finds the man loved another woman in a special way a couple of days later, the woman untweets and then together the women go to the police and the man gets locked up. That's how parents are made.
Oblig. XKCD (Score:5, Funny)
And it's even today's comic:
XKCD 834. [xkcd.com]
Re:Oblig. XKCD (Score:5, Informative)
Proof Positive (Score:5, Interesting)
Clicking on the document's properties revealed Tapanaris as its named author
Well that settles it then, because these computer people would never figure out that you could put the name of someone that you don't like in a document like this and cause them problems too while you are doing your original mischief.
Re:Proof Positive (Score:4, Funny)
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You don't have to be good.
Just better than your adversary.
And considering who they're up against ...
Re:Proof Positive (Score:5, Interesting)
Especially considering the fact that Tapanaris means more or less "Thick as a Brick" in more than one language in countries neighbouring Greece to the north.
This smacks of a rather unintentional Bulgarian or Serbian practical joke. Whoever did it did not expect that there may be a real person whose name in Bulgarian or Serbian translates more or less as "Alex The Village Idiot". The most hilarious case of mistaken identity I have heard of for a long time (for everyone but the poor greek).
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You mean it's really Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson in disguise?
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I think something like "Tapinthatass" would be more Anonymous style as a fake name.
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Without looking at the PDF, if I thought to check out the Author metadata, I would have expected to see Eric "eBaum" Bauman instead, considering it IS Anonymous, after all.
Re:Proof Positive (Score:4, Insightful)
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.
Re:Proof Positive (Score:4, Insightful)
Game over for anon. (Score:2)
Authorities know who they are and are using this guy to prove a point.
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.
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For now.
The problem of a mob is that you have to remove the reason for it. Else you can only disperse it for a while. It will reform, reassemble and then you're dealing with a pissed mob that not only had its original reason to hate you but also the fact that you tear gassed it and shot it with rubber pellets.
Essentially, all you accomplish, unless you manage to remove the mob's reason to exist, is that you turn the few more or less peaceful guys in the mob into really pissed guys.
You also do not have to "g
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You also do not have to "give in" to the mob. You just have to make sure that there ain't enough people pissed enough to reach critical mass.
This is the reason we have a middle class, rather than just serfs and masters, but the masters seem to have forgotten this fact and appear to be actively working towards the elimination of the one thing keeping the people from rising up and slaughtering them. They seem to have forgotten the real reason for noblesse oblige, which is basically that we will kill you if you push us too far.
Re:No, you've missed the point (Score:4, Interesting)
They seem to have forgotten the real reason for noblesse oblige, which is basically that we will kill you if you push us too far.
What do you mean by "we", peasant?
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And being silly enough to do it with software that attaches your credentials is an even dumber idea.
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.
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It may be proof enough for Turkey.
He will be considered a subversive. (Score:2)
Subversive revolutionaries are usually mistreated by the authorities in any country. Governments hate subversives.
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Subversive revolutionaries are usually mistreated by the authorities in any country. Governments hate subversives.
With good reason. The goal of "subversive revolutionaries" is to create chaos and destruction, in order to make the government appear weak and ineffective. To say that "governments hate subversive revolutionaries" is no more poignant than to say that teachers hate the kid at the back of the class who keeps putting tacks on their seats and shooting spitballs at them when their backs are turned.
As for the public in general, the problem with "subversive revolutionaries" is that they're usually no better - an
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the act of overthrowing an entire government often leads to far more death and misery than was present under the existing system.
Not that I disagree with your point, but I must point out a fallacy: by this logic, you'd choose life as a slave instead of fighting for your freedom.
What makes you think the revolutionaries will give you freedom when the revolution is over? It just might mean they'll be your new slave master or worse they could give you death.
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Not that I disagree with your point, but I must point out a fallacy: by this logic, you'd choose life as a slave instead of fighting for your freedom.
"elucido" provided a decent response, but it's not the one I would have gone with. You made the mistake of inferring that I was giving a reason to never overthrow any government, under any circumstances. I wasn't. I was merely pointing out the costs associated with such acts - something which must always be considered prior to deciding on a course of action.
Also, it's worth noting that I certainly would chose life as a slave if resistance was pointless and it meant my children would have a better shot at
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Re:Geniuses (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Geniuses (Score:4, Insightful)
Jealous of their cojones?
Re:Geniuses (Score:5, Funny)
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like YELLING.
That's my point -.-
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... if you're going to do something dodgy, you put fake names into your software registration fields. :p
In fact, if you do anything at all you put fake names into your software registration. This time it was only the police that got him - next time it could be telemarketers.
Re:And this is why... (Score:5, Funny)
NOBODY expects the Business Software Alliance! Our chief weapon is surprise. Surprise and fear. Fear and surprise. Our two chief weapons are fear, surprise, and unlimited duration copyrights. Our THREE weapons are fear, surprise, unlimited duration copyrights, and employees who hate their bosses. Our FOUR, no... amongst our weapons... amongst our weaponry... are such elements... as fear, surprise... can I come in again?
Re:And this is why... (Score:4, Funny)
"... and a fanatical devotion to Bill Gates?"
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Re:And this is why... (Score:5, Funny)
That's why I always register my software with an obviously fake name like "Alex Tapanaris".
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NO, I'm Alex Tapanaris...
Fellow mad scientists and evil doers, take note! Be sure and sign your manifesto ONLY if you want the credit up front, otherwise nix the author name field and take down the neon "We're Anonymous in here!" sign off the storefront. Good ideas both. Good luck, sirs!
Deep 13, out.
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You mean like "Quality Assurance" ;-)
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Or the: "lets employees use his login profile" award.
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Well, he probably used software that he used in his design business. For a designer, anonymity is normally counterproductive, and in any case, non free software encourages or even requires"registration".
He should have burned a LiveCD, and used the tools on that to maintain a semblance of anonymity.
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He may. Especially if you consider that "Tapanaris" means more or less Village Idiot in two languages spoken on the north side of the greek border.
So I strongly suspect that he has very little in common with Anonymous. A case of mixing "mistaken identity" and "cruel "Balkan neigbourly relations" joke.
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What can be done to protect innocent civilians from the fallout?
Stay anonymous.
How? Hack into someones WIFI network? (Score:2)
Because if you use your computer you wont be anonymous. If you use the library computer then you are on camera and not anonymous. If you use an internet cafe they'll ask who was on the computer at that time and so you aren't anonymous.
It's a lot harder to be anonymous than you might have thought. It's not impossible but it's not something a 16 year old hacker can do from their living room or a 40 year old hacker can do from his parents basement. It's something a sophisticated Russia or Chinese state sponsor
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
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No, it's not like that. It's not nearly like that.
The threat of Communism, as marketed in the 50s and 60s, was a threat of total war, global annihilation, prison camps, and pure evil.
In terms of public opinion and likeliness of vigilantism: Anonymous is a gnat compared to the velociraptor of Communism.
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I just want to come clean and be honest in disclosing - GLEN BECK is a member of anonymous. There I've said it. Whew - load off my mind that is.
Good thing you didn't say GLENN BECK, otherwise he might have tried suing you. Although I did hear he raped and mur....never mind.
Somewhere in the world, there is a Glen Beck, and he probably having a rough couple years.
Probably not as bad as Julian Asage, hopefully they don't accidentally pick her up by mistake identity and take her to a torture camp in Afghanistan.
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Glenn Beck may well be part of anonymous, but his best trolling is done under his own name.
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If you're going to be a grammar nazi, do it RIGHT! (Score:2)
Did some checking, both are acceptable, it all depends on what the intended pronounciation is.
I.E. if you want people to read that and say "anonymouses" then write your version.