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Crime The Internet

Anonymous Isn't Anonymous Anymore 407

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently some small security firm has been able to determine the real identities of several key Anonymous hackers which is resulting in a ton of arrests. From the article: 'An international investigation into cyber-activists who attacked businesses hostile to WikiLeaks is likely to yield arrests of senior members of the group after they left clues to their real identities on Facebook and in other electronic communications, it is claimed.'"
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Anonymous Isn't Anonymous Anymore

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  • identity's? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 06, 2011 @01:46PM (#35119002)

    Seriously? Plurals are not denoted by apostrophes. Apostrophes are for possessives and contractions. 3rd grade stuff, that.

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      Seriously? Plurals are not denoted by apostrophes. Apostrophes are for possessives and contractions. 3rd grade stuff, that.

      Don't you mean apostrophe's? ;-)

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by b4upoo ( 166390 )

      It sounds like an intelligence posting designed to bluff people and control the postings from Anonymous and other friends of Julian. One way or another it is time to act up in regard to keeping Julian and Wikileaks free to operate and free from persecution.

    • Seriously? Plurals are not denoted by apostrophes. Apostrophes are for possessives and contractions. 3rd grade stuff, that.

      Agreed. Note however:

      its = possessive neutral 3rd-person adjective (formal or informal speech)
      it's = contraction of "it is" (informal speech)

  • by DurendalMac ( 736637 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @01:51PM (#35119038)
    Yeah, if that isn't proof that the writer of this article doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, I don't know what is. There are no "senior members" of Anonymous. Someone could claim to be an oldfag, but that's about it. And a co-founder of Anonymous? REALLY? Where are they coming up with this horseshit? They caught some guys who were running a specific group, not "senior members" or "co-founders" of Anonymous.
    • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:07PM (#35119156)

      What people who identify with Anonymous believe it is, and what it really is, are not necessarily the same thing.

      In reality, Anonymous is a movement that involves people. It did not appear out of nowhere -- someone had the idea and a small group of people liked that idea and it grew from there. We can call the person who had the idea a "founder" and the people who are deeply involved with the movement "senior members". These are words that describe real things that exist. Sorry if they offend your mystic ideas about Anonymous being a magical spirit that lives in the internets or something, but some of us are more interested in people and activities than in the propaganda they spread.

      • by Goaway ( 82658 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:21PM (#35119288) Homepage

        It did not appear out of nowhere -- someone had the idea and a small group of people liked that idea and it grew from there. We can call the person who had the idea a "founder" and the people who are deeply involved with the movement "senior members".

        No, really, you're just showing you don't know what you're talking about here. "Anonymous" isn't some "small group of people", and never was. It's a name for posters on 4chan. That's pretty much it. Some of these people do things, sometimes. They use the name "Anonymous" when doing so, sometimes. Sometimes people who don't even post on 4chan use the name. There is no organization, and there is no membership.

        Sometimes some people might organize behind the scenes to do something, while using the name "Anonymous". The next week, someone else might also organize something. It might be the same people, or it might not. This doesn't mean they are somehow more representative of "Anonymous" than anyone else on the planet, or any more than you or me.

        The name existed long before anyone was actually trying to use it for direct actions. It used to just be a name for people who looked at porn on 4chan. This group of people was not "small". There was no "founder", other than moot and his helpers, and he has absolutely nothing at all to do with what people do under the name "Anonymous" nowadays.

        • by peragrin ( 659227 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:47PM (#35119488)

          Here is the trick though. only a small percentage of any given group is actually capable of organizing even part of that group.

          After a while it will always be the same 1% of users who are organizing things and guiding the rest into doing something Those are the "founders" while for 4chan's anonymous that group might be a few hundred people over the last 15 years only a dozen or two will be current.

          What I find interesting is that idiots who attack with anonymous use facebook. Now that is a contradiction that is perfect for 4chan users.

          • by Goaway ( 82658 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:54PM (#35119538) Homepage

            1% of 4chan's userbase is a HUGE number. They could each do only one thing, ever, and there would still be many left over who haven't had a chance to do anything yet. Your numbers there are entirely made up, and likely off by orders of magnitude.

          • by gfody ( 514448 )
            still wrong. people are constantly trying to rally anon for one thing or another. so far it's pretty random what will gain momentum and what won't - maybe slightly better odds if it involves destroying somebody who is abusing cats.
    • by Penguinisto ( 415985 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:12PM (#35119196) Journal

      Even a completely headless organization does have people who direct the masses. Even the simplest and most spontaneous mobs have their provocateurs - the 'leaders', so to speak. I'm thinking the media simply got all breathless about how they were labelled.

      Also, technical skill is not uniformly high across the group (perhaps a ratio of 10k script kiddies for every 20 actual hackers, etc).

      It wouldn't be unreasonable to have major organizers being caught (CnC and direction has to come from *somewhere*, after all), or perhaps (but less likely) catching the more technically-minded members.

      Even if they didn't catch 'em all, taking out a large percentage of the technical leads* or Command/Control leads* would be sufficient to do some serious damage.

      * note that I have zero idea what to actually call them, but the terms should suffice.

      • by tmosley ( 996283 )
        Those aren't leaders, there AREN'T any leaders, and getting rid of them will have no more effect than trying to get rid of a slime mold by digging out its eruptions. They will just come back, often in the exact same way, but sometimes in a new way that makes them harder to find and arrest. It's pretty Darwinian, actually.

        Also, there seriously aren't ANY leaders. Any random person can post ideas or instructions for an attack if they want. Any random person can code and distribute a program or whatever
        • by tmosley ( 996283 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:32PM (#35119384)
          Actually, come to think of it, it's like a bunch of bees that each have their own colony. When one stings, others are likely to follow up, until the victim dies, runs away, or concedes whatever point the original attacker wanted. Or until they get bored. Also, they can sting multiple times, and often do it just for fun. Even if they could easily elucidate the identities of each and every attacker, do you really think anyone has the ability to go out and smash each individual hive? I sure don't. Instead, they try to make an example of a few, as they are doing here, and try to use fear to stop the others. Sometimes it works (more or less, don't mess with football), other times it doesn't.
    • ...arrests. From the article: 'An international investigation into cyber-activists who attacked businesses hostile to WikiLeaks is likely to yield arrests of senior members of the group'

      The senior members who were arrested were not members of anonymous, they were members of the group of cyber-activists. The ./ poster used the term 'anonymous'; the term 'senior members' was quoted from TFA.

    • anonymous is a movement. as such, it follows certain sociological rules. #1: in any movement, there is a small group of core fanatics, and a much larger group of one-offs and on-and-offs. same with wikipedia, or al qaeda, or drug gangs, or a whole set of other movements

      now you could take out a portion of the core competency, and nothing will change. but if you tracked and profiled the core competency over time, and took them all out at once, you really would cripple the movement. yes, you would really cripple anonymous. that they are everyone and no one is mythology, not sociological fact. they are not the borg from start trek

      however, since the "cause" of anonymous is so simplistic, others would quickly fill the void and anonymous would be back in action in no time. again, same with wikipedia or al qaeda or drug gangs, etc. but maybe not forever. if law enforcement keeps siphoning off the core fanatics, after 2,3,4x, anonymous will definitely be less influential. if you keep siphoning off the regular crop of persons who can do something with the idea of anonymous. law enforcement can profile, and cripple anonymous, by tracking its core competency, forever, and constantly hamstring it: the core fanatics of anonymous is a well that slowly refills over time. if law enforcement is constantly draining the well, anonymous as a potent force is permanently dimmed

      the point is, you don't understand sociology, nor anonymous, if you don't understand that what anonymous is is primarily a core group of fanatics, with a much larger ring of sort-of-interesteds. remove the core, and you at least temporarily cripple the movment. continually remove the core as it tries to grow back, and you have permanently decimated the movement and weakened it to ineffectuality

      • by DurendalMac ( 736637 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:38PM (#35119430)
        No, you do not understand Anonymous. I'm not sure if anyone really does, but you're QUITE off the mark. Anonymous has no "core group of fanatics" because at any one time, Anonymous is engaged in fifty different things on different scales, and that "core group of fanatics" is never the same across all of them. Most raids in Anonymous have no "core group". Someone makes a suggestion, gets the snowball rolling downhill, and once it accumulates enough mass, all you can do is watch. This is the case with most Anonymous raids. Sometimes a person or subgroup of Anonymous can try to lead a raid, but they can only do so much as the misanthropic bastards start running amok. In the case of the DDoS attacks here, there were likely a number of these subgroups all jockeying for a piece of the action. There are still no "senior members" of Anonymous and there are no "co-founders" of Anonymous. Moot is the closest thing to a founder, but even he knows that he's somehow created a monster that cannot be controlled.

        I think your primary mistake was calling Anonymous a "movement". That is complete crap. They're not a movement. They really have no goals or aspirations other than fucking around on the internet, maybe in IRL if they feel brave. They're a huge, unorganized mass of bored teenagers, for the most part. They don't have a cause. They're not trying to affect social change. They may hop on a cause from time to time (ie, the DDoS raids we've seen or Chanology), but it isn't long before they become bored and move on to something else or internal bickering fractures whatever they're trying to do. You cannot remove the "core fanatics" because there is no single core, assuming Anonymous really has a core to begin with.
        • it's kind of weird to say my mistake is to call them a movement, then you talk about things the movement is doing

          anonymous IS a movement. all it takes is people acting in tandem. which is what anonymous is. its about similarity of behaviors, not a social structure. you are acting like my words have no meaning because i think anonymous is a corporate entity with a physical location, board of directors and command and control apparatus. i believe none of these things

          another movement might be kids buying pokemon cards or facebook gaining members or teens going to a justin bieber concert. like facebook, or pokemon cards, or justin bieber fans, there is a large group of casual members of the movement, and there is a small core of fanatics. remove the core of fanatics AND YOU HURT THE GROWTH OF THE MOVEMENT

          that's my point, and its a valid point, even if you don't understand what a movement is, and that anonymous IS a movement

        • by Zocalo ( 252965 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @04:26PM (#35120168) Homepage
          I think you've missed a point slightly. The arrests are not in connection with some mythical "core group of Anonymous" in the general sense, but in the context of the Wikileaks DDoS specifically. In that limited case there probably was a core group of people who "got the snowball rolling", to reuse your analogy, and at least one of them alledgedy has left clues behind to the identity of both themselves and several other members.

          The Wikileaks DDoS is also something of a special case, while most of the other activities of Anonymous could be described as teenage angst blowing off some steam, the Wikileaks situation has got highly political in the last few month. It's entirely possible that Anonymous members may have been used by someone with an agenda who "suggested" that it might be a good idea to point LOIC at certain targets. If so, then that would indeed allow for the arrest of a "core group", and quite likely a few other members of Anonymous who were just along for the ride and a chance to "stick it to the man."

          But that's just a wild guess. I guess we're not going to know for sure until things finally grind through the process, make it into court and the prosecution gets to lay its cards on the table.
        • >>Anonymous has no "core group of fanatics" because at any one time, Anonymous is engaged in fifty different things on different scales, and that "core group of fanatics" is never the same across all of them.

          That's... wrong.

          Look at Wikipedia. By your argument, Wikipedia doesn't have a core group of fanatics, because at any one time, their editors are engaged in 50 different things on different scales.

          But when you look at the statistics for Wikipedia edits (even anonymous ones - http://www.flickr.com/p [flickr.com]

        • No, you do not understand Anonymous. I'm not sure if anyone really does...

          What's up with the mysticism? They're just like a large group of people masks. The only new thing about this is that they're on computers.

          Anonymous is engaged in fifty different things on different scales, and that "core group of fanatics" is never the same across all of them....They're a huge, unorganized mass of bored teenagers, for the most part. They don't have a cause... it isn't long before they become bored and move on to something else or internal bickering fractures whatever they're trying to do.

          And that is exactly what the groups GP mentioned "wikipedia, or al qaeda, or drug gangs, or a whole set of other movements" are doing. Wikipedians are not all writing the same article. Al Qaeda is not all focusing on the same target at once. Gang members are quite unruly and gangs spiral out of control of their leaders frequently. They also change their goals freque

      • by Torodung ( 31985 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @05:39PM (#35120820) Journal

        It's an interesting case you make, but I seriously doubt that experts in the field properly comprehend the sociological forces (if any) that apply to the Internet, let alone 4chan. They're working on it, and it's going to take one talented and speedy researcher to provide us with information that will remain relevant for very long.

        IMHO, 25-50 years from now, if our society isn't in ashes, someone is going to write one hell of a definitive work on how the Internet has no sociology (as we knew it), disables most sociological pressures (like shame), and allows people with truly bizarre ideas to find enough peers to reinforce their fetishes/pechants/whims etc. with lethal force, because they are so completely disconnected from the consequences, and can remain fully socialized in appearance whilst being something quite else behind a keyboard.

        I'm just glad that all they can do with the thing right now is launch DDoSes at commerce and disseminate restricted information. At the point where they can kill people, they will, and will think of it as "just for the lulz." Some people, absent significant social restriction, behave that way. They're usually loners. Those people in a group, connected by the Internet, I don't know where that leads.

        Don't underestimate this trend by claiming it to be "sociology 101." Sociology 101 doesn't inform us of anything regarding this, because basic sociological assumptions become invalid when the interactions occur on the Internet. This is new bleeding-edge ground, and will not be covered in the survey course. It is a field unto itself.

        --
        Toro

        • I'm just glad that all they can do with the thing right now is launch DDoSes at commerce and disseminate restricted information. At the point where they can kill people, they will, and will think of it as "just for the lulz." Some people, absent significant social restriction, behave that way. They're usually loners. Those people in a group, connected by the Internet, I don't know where that leads.

          You're essentially talking about a hidden, potentially multi-national subculture of sociopaths. Yeah, that does sound like it could be problematic.

    • I agree that there are certainly no "founders" of Anonymous, but Anonymous isn't a hive mind. There have to be people who get the ball rolling with the attacks.
    • There are no "senior members" of Anonymous. I'm sure there are in fact people who have been there longer and/or are more of an influence than others. That is/was no way of knowing who those people are doesn't change the fact that they have been there longer or affect the discussion more. Sounds like you're drinking the anonymous koolaid: you're still individuals who participate anonymously. Being unidentifiable does not actually make you all the same any more than a klan hood would.
    • Building a fully flat organization with no key members is a very difficult task. I'd bet that there are a few inspired individuals setting the current direction of anonymous, they know a few people and work together and really inspire the key acts of most of the people who do any form of activity under the name of "Anonymous". Arresting these key people may not completely destroy the group and definitely won't destroy the idea, but it may completely transform what is done in the name of "Anonymous" and it

  • by Mister Xiado ( 1606605 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @01:54PM (#35119052)
    "Anonymous" as a proper noun defies anonymity, so it's no real wonder that these people failed to cover their tracks.
  • According to TFA "An international investigation into cyberactivists who attacked businesses hostile to WikiLeaks is likely to yield arrests of senior members of the group", so where does the submitter (or samzenpus) get "likely to" to from that to "is resulting in a ton of arrests" ?

    Any arrests seem unlikely to me, seeing how hard it would be to prove Facebook posts were really made by the people in question, and that they were unlikely to have done more than hint at involvement. It could only be taken a

    • They did conduct some arrests ('ton' is a very subjective term in this context). The police can and does act without 'hard' proof while an investigation is conducted to either uncover hard proof, a confession, testimony, whatever or give up.

      • by brusk ( 135896 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:41PM (#35119458)

        They did conduct some arrests ('ton' is a very subjective term in this context).

        On the contrary, I thought it was quite objective: it indicates that the total mass of the individuals arrested exceeds 1,000 kg.

        • by Junta ( 36770 )

          Oh, well in that case since Anonymous consists of antisocial computer users, that shouldn't require many arrests at all to meet the criteria.

  • Just because someone boasts they are part of Anonymous or claims responsibility for some act doesn't mean they were actually involved. The investigators will need to connect the dots via IP addresses, seizing and analyzing computers, etc. They won't be able to prove their case just because someone claims they spearheaded the attack on Mastercard.

    Plus, I know they didn't get the right people because I'm the founder of Anonymous and I don't know any of those guys they mention in TFA.

    • I work for PayPal and can attest that we did track all the IPs we received attacks from. Anonymous specifically targeted api.paypal.com to block transactions from merchants, not just a website like with Mastercard.

      I won't say much beyond that.

    • by Junta ( 36770 )

      I am Spartacus, I mean Anonymous!

      More seriously, I would be surprised if most people that claim to be 'Anonymous' have the know-how to accurately cover their tracks as they do things. For example, in this last wave, I think a number of people were trivially linked as originators of traffic generated by the LOIC tool. We aren't talking about an uber-sophisticated secret organization with super powers, we are talking about a group of moderately skilled technical people that are naive in their confidence in

  • Call me sceptical but I don't believe that any senior member of any group involved in any serious campaign is stupid enough to use Facebook and the like as a communication channel for sensible information regarding their operations. If we consider that this so called anonymous organization is supposed to be proficient with computers, networking and subversive campaigns then this allegation becomes even more unbelievable.

    But hey, officials have to show that they work, and nothing like an attention-grabbing

    • by Goaway ( 82658 )

      "Anonymous" is neither particularly proficient with anything in particular, nor does it have "senior members".

      It's just people doing things, and using the name "Anonymous" while doing so. They could be anybody. There's no actual organization named "Anonymous", it's just a label anybody can use.

      • Exactly. That's why claiming that they are arresting "senior members of the group" is a pretty clueless thing to do, as it is patently absurd.

  • Whole lot of issues the law had better be careful about, starting with whether attempting a DDoS attack should be considered a criminal offense. Is it so hard to tweak the Internet to make DDoS impossible? Seems like all that's needed is a bit of caching. Would the Slashdot Effect be criminal? Is repeatedly hitting F5 a felony [slashdot.org]?

    • Re:apparently? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by dmomo ( 256005 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:16PM (#35119236)

      "Is it so hard to tweak the Internet to make DDoS impossible?"

      Yes.

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      Suppose I own a business that trades in services that the law says can legally be made available for segments of the population who desire such things. No suppose that terrorist christians, as they have been known to do, decide the democratically achieved laws of the land are not good enough for them so they engage in a denial of service attack. Technically these terrorists do nothing wrong. They have the freedom to congregate, they have the freedom to visit any business they wish, they freedom to take
    • Is it so hard to tweak the Internet to make DDoS impossible?

      For DDoS attacks at the scale Anonymous is capable of, there is no need as their attacks are pretty much ineffective. All they were able to take down were a few small sites. Against a big site, their attacks are so small as to be unlikely to even raise alarms. For instance, Twitter on average processes something like 76k requests per second. A good "Justin Bieber is dead" rumor will generate a bigger flash load on Twitter by an order of magnitude or two than even the biggest Anonymous attack can muster.

      Same

  • by dmomo ( 256005 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:13PM (#35119202)

    But maybe they take advantage of the angst and ego of those Script Kiddies, empowering them to be "real hackers" by doing the tough part and giving them the tools to carry out their operations. Who's to say there is even one "anonymous". Get a group of would be hackers together in secret, let them talk to one other member of a group claiming to be Anonymous, and BAM.. all of a sudden, they are part of Anonymous. It's just a word, a battle cry or flag at this point.

    There are people out there with deliberate intentions and incentives to execute these attacks. They are just using the 4chan type to further their goals.

    From TFA: "few hundred participants in operations, only about 30 are steadily active, with 10 people who "are the most senior and co-ordinate and manage most of the decisions"

    That just about fits this type of hierarchy.

    Outside of "terrorism" (if you can call this that), this system is employed time and time again.

    1) Person or small group has Political/Economic Agenda that would not benefit Society as a whole, but needs to engineer support.
    2) They get a few Champions that back a stance on a cause that is unrelated, but has a large number of supporters (immigration, abortion, same sex marriage, FREEDOM OF SPEECH). It's best when it's a black/white yes/no issue that has a population divided roughly 50/50. That way, the support group is large, but the opposition is as well. Without a viable opposition, you cannot rally together for a cause.
    3) Wrap your own agenda into the priorities of this "front" clause. Bam. You've created an army fighting for something they don't care about.

    Not sure what my point was here really. Just noticing a pattern. Though I would love to believe in the idea of true "freedom fighters" who genuinely feel they are protecting essential Liberties, I cannot help to think that there has to be a selfish person at the top of it all.

    • by Instine ( 963303 )
      Emergent and adaptive patterns often 'grow' a head, well after the pattern/system has developed into a self sustaining entity. I wouldn't fixate on the 'top' too much, or you'll be complicit in another pattern. Such as the scapegoating happening with Wikileaks. Wikileaks have help unearth much more important issues than the fixated concerns people now have (and have had cultivated for them) regarding Esange.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:17PM (#35119248)
    The following response was promptly issued by Anonymous, with the title "Anonymous Concedes Defeat".

    URGENT WARNING TO ALL ANONONYMOUS HACKTIVISTS:

    Mr. Barr has successfully broken through our over 9000 proxy field and into our entirely non-public and secret insurgent IRC lair, where he then smashed through our fire labyrinth with vigor, collected all the gold rings on the way, opened a 50 silver key chest to find Anon’s legendary hackers on steroids password.

    As Mr. Barr has discovered in spite of our best efforts, Anonymous was founded by Q last Thursday at the guilded Bilderberg Hotel after a tense meeting with one Morrowind mod collection, which itself includes the essential Morrowind Comes Alive 5.2 as well as several retexturing packs, all of which seem to lower one’s FPS unless one has also installed the latest Risc Architecture framework and thus obtained the killer refresh rate that is the right of all world citizens, except for noted heterosexual Tom Cruise.

    In addition to the sudden disappearance of Anonymous leader Q, Anonymous co-founder Justin Bieber also disappeared just before his top-secret mission to Eritrea to offer physical succour to the rebels, suggesting that Mubarak is in our base, eating our Cheetos, likely with military support authorized by Hill Dawg. All of this comes at a low point for the Official Anonymous Organization, Inc. and its valued shareholders; several Anons had already lost their Fallout New Vegas saved games in the unwarranted and faggy raids perpetrated by the U.S. federales.

    At this point, it is safe to assume that the underground server sites at the North Pole have been compromised as well. Back up all porn drives now, because the super secret P2P centralized distribution server of Backdoor Sluts 9 is presumed to be immediately threatened. Male Anons have been commanded to switch back to traditional tentacle porn while femanons, or “Rei Ayanami wannabes,” continue to be shared among the Echelon Nine Working Group that has since replaced Owen as sky marshall.

    However, David Davidson (who might also be the legendary Ceiling Cat, as rumors have it) so far eludes custody, so all is not lost. Mr Davidson skyped the anonymous leaders from his hideout in Philadelphia to remind them that he was “Never gonna give them up, never gonna let them down”. Meanwhile, the board of directors remains little more than a gin-addled menagerie of puppets.

    Despite these setbacks, the planned conference in Vienna is not slated for cancellation, although the buffet may be altered to include fewer Cheetos. The scheduled appearence of Boxxy is a subject of much contention within Anonymous ranks, being an event of considerably greater importance than the 4th return of Raptor Jesus, which itself is older than the internet.

    We shall note in conclusion that we like the guy and want to believe him, but we still have to ask: Did Aaron Barr shave and murder Alexander Hamilton in 1993? We’re just asking questions here, people. At any rate, the Pink Horse prophecy will soon be fulfilled.

    All Hail Xenu,

    -Anonymous

  • by thatskinnyguy ( 1129515 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @02:18PM (#35119258)

    "Apparently some small security firm has been able to determine the real identity's of several key Anonymous script kiddies which is r...

  • Protip: Leave the name field blank!

    Seriously though: How hard could it really be to track down someone on the internet?

    0. Ask those sites attacked for IP addresses of the attackers.
    1. Open the linux terminal
    2. type: "host <ip-address-here>" and press [Enter]
    3. Subpoena the ISP that the IP belongs to requesting the name & contact info of the customer who was allocated the IP at the time of the attack.
    4. ...
    5. Profit?

    Eg; Using the IP of a visitor of my site...

    host 69.150.185.133

    133.185.150.69.in-addr.arpa domain name pointer adsl-69-150-185-133.dsl.hstntx.swbell.net.

    Ah, that's a Southwestern Bell (AT&T

    • What if I say online: "Everyone Point your browsers at: www.mastercard.com" -- Am I now a DDOS perpetrator?

      Probably yes. At least for conspiracy.

      What if I write a program, say a Firefox plugin, that automatically reloads www.mastercard.com in a new tab, once a day?

      Depends on why you do it. If you do it "to help increase world support for mastercard in the light of their terrible affliction" then no. If you do it to cause overload on their servers then yes. If you do it to help them but claim to be doing it to destroy them it's quite likely you will be unfairly and incorrectly arrested for damage.

      What if that plugin updates the website to load from my website, but the USERS of the plugin opt to install the software and download the daily dot-com to reload. What if the plugin is updated so that it refreshes several times a minute instead of once a day?

      Did you tell them to do it? Then you are in trouble. Even if it was just a hint and you get caught. Did someone else tell them to

  • A little piece of me dies inside every time I read a news article that refers to Anonymous as a hacker group.

  • Don't go to bed with no price on your head
    No... don't do it
    Don't do the crime if you can't do the time
    No... don't do it!

    And keep your eye on the sparrow
    When the going gets narrow!

  • XKCD (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Scott Wood ( 1415 ) <scott.buserror@net> on Sunday February 06, 2011 @04:11PM (#35120062)
  • This guy is trying to pin Anonymous as some traditional radical group. Anyone claiming to be the co-founder of Anonymous is lying and anyone can be "senor members" by simply saying they are. No one wants to be a newfag.

    Author should actually do their research on what anonymous really is. This sounds like like that one Fox News cover story on Anonymous. Damn those pesky hackers on steroids!

  • Mindset (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RenHoek ( 101570 ) on Sunday February 06, 2011 @05:08PM (#35120516) Homepage

    The media doesn't like it when they can't put people into labeled boxes.That is why Anonymous is so often misreported on. Anonymous isn't a group, it's a mindset. It's a bunch of people who think the same about a certain issue and decide to do something about it.

    When Anonymous protested Scientology, I was a part of Anonymous. When Anonymous decided to send cards and flowers from all over the world to some veteran who was having a birthday, I was part of Anonymous. When Anonymous decided to track down a soldier that threw a puppy off a bridge, I was part of Anonymous.

    It's not like you have to register somewhere, you just have to share the same mindset. Sometimes people do things that I disagree with, then I'm not part of that.

    That said, there is no group, no leaders, no official press releases, no contribution, no clubhouse. It's a state of mind and sometimes I agree with a lot of like minded people.

    Just for completeness sake, if the press is going to read this statement out of context, then please report that I'm the Grand Czar of Anonymous. I could use some more honorifics on my resume. :)

For God's sake, stop researching for a while and begin to think!

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