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Turkish Police Nab 32 Suspects Tied To Anonymous 153

wiredmikey writes "Following the arrest of three alleged 'Anonymous' members by Spanish authorities on Friday, Turkey's state-run news agency has reported that police have detained 32 individuals allegedly linked to the hacktivist group. The Anatolia news agency said today that the suspects were taken into custody after conducting raids in a dozen cities for suspected ties to Anonymous. The group recently targeted Web sites of the country's telecommunications watchdog, the prime minister's office and parliament as a protest to Turkey's plans to introduce Internet filters."
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Turkish Police Nab 32 Suspects Tied To Anonymous

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  • by jsepeta ( 412566 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @01:24AM (#36422704) Homepage

    it's also possible that Turkey is cracking down on dissidents, using Anonymous as a cover story.

    • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13, 2011 @01:31AM (#36422740)
      We do seem to be the new villains. And easy to villainize, I suppose. We have no one voice to decry actions of others, no standard that can be recognized, no motive that can be twisted for someone's benefit. Although some have tried. Once this kind of crackdown comes to our shores (yes I am wearing a tin-foil hat), it will we more along the lines of "Suspected pedophile and member of Anonymous..." Posted Anonymously.
      • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13, 2011 @02:16AM (#36422894)

        Well, it's not like there isn't rhyme or reason to what comes out of a 4chan mob. The members generally lash out at things -- especially things that are arbitrary and belonging to conventional power structures. Also, there's a strong bias towards things that are in that demographic's field of vision. Just like here, a holy shitstorm gets raised about Sony's transgressions because they actually play their games and use their products -- in absolute terms and with more holistic foresight, it would be something like Goldman Sachs instead.

        To piss off Anonymous the most, come in with hypocritical, fit-for-a-fifth-grader morality and attempt to define things like social norms. To please Anonymous, be an attractive young woman who periodically takes pictures of herself, has some degree of confidence and rehashes and without overt intention redefines -chan culture.

        ...Oh, you mean just anonymous like the two of us... not quite as easy to define, but very easy to disingenuously call dangerous and "linked to others."

        • by Demonoid-Penguin ( 1669014 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @04:14AM (#36423164) Homepage

          Well, it's not like there isn't rhyme or reason to what comes out of a 4chan mob. The members generally lash out at things -- especially things that are arbitrary and belonging to conventional power structures. Also, there's a strong bias towards things that are in that demographic's field of vision. Just like here, a holy shitstorm gets raised about Sony's transgressions because they actually play their games and use their products -- in absolute terms and with more holistic foresight, it would be something like Goldman Sachs instead.

          To piss off Anonymous the most, come in with hypocritical, fit-for-a-fifth-grader morality and attempt to define things like social norms. To please Anonymous, be an attractive young woman who periodically takes pictures of herself, has some degree of confidence and rehashes and without overt intention redefines -chan culture.

          ...Oh, you mean just anonymous like the two of us... not quite as easy to define, but very easy to disingenuously call dangerous and "linked to others."

          The problem with that logic is that it is based on the assumption that Anonymous == 4-chan and it doesn't allow for the sabotage factor. Bear in mind that even if only one member of 4-chan is involved they'd find it hard not to tell the world about it - and if they're not from 4-chan (cough) they'd deliberately muddy the waters to hide their identity. Anyone wanting to discredit any anonymous action (and the lower-case a is deliberate) only has to add a 4-chan element to it. Feeding stupid people fake proof of their own fears is the easiest way to manipulate them - it's not like they're ever going to check the facts - and even when presented with evidence to negate their beliefs - the massive emotional investment they've made in their (stupid) opinions is one they will never challenge.

          Sound a little tin foil hat? Then maybe a little study of history is in order.

          The world is a complex place full of people incapable of grasping even limited complexity - with a shortage of facts they jump to conclusions that compliment their own fears and failings. Teenage hackers with paedophile ascendancies and a hatred of the established order - "Yeah I can picture that"

          Be careful what you believe. What happens to you could be happening to others. eg. someone accuses you of something you. did. not. do. - then they are saying nothing of you and speaking volumes of themselves.

          ---

          Go back to bed, America, your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed America, your government is in control. Here, here's American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up, go back to bed America, here is American Gladiators, here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on the living in the land of freedom. Here you go America - you are free to do what we'll tell you! You are free to do what we tell you!

          ~ Bill Hicks

        • especially things that are arbitrary and belonging to conventional power structures

          Like what, Habbo Hotel?

      • by ToasterMonkey ( 467067 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @03:07AM (#36423026) Homepage

        We do seem to be the new villains. And easy to villainize, I suppose. We have no one voice to decry actions of others, no standard that can be recognized, no motive that can be twisted for someone's benefit. Although some have tried. Once this kind of crackdown comes to our shores (yes I am wearing a tin-foil hat), it will we more along the lines of "Suspected pedophile and member of Anonymous..." Posted Anonymously.

        I love how at the _same time_ people think "information should be free", "once something is online it will be there forever", and "the Internet routes around censorship like damage", they believe anonymity exists as if all the above doesn't apply to digital access logs, billing records, CCTV, etc.

        Your anonymity is on borrowed time, and I hope you've enjoyed squandering it on stupid shit for laughs.

        • I agree. The party line seems to be "Things like Wikileaks are good, because they deny privacy to other people. Things like car number plate recognition are bad, because they deny privacy to us." I personally hope that personal privacy is eroded at the expense of public information. I'm here to learn, not to cheat, and I'm not afraid of anyone.
          • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13, 2011 @08:34AM (#36424490)

            >"Things like Wikileaks are good, because they deny privacy to other people"

            Only if you consider governments to be people. There is a fundamental difference between privacy in official governmental capacity or (to a limited extent) by a public figure and the privacy of an individual person.

            I think you'll change your tune about privacy the first time you don't get hired because of something you posted on Slashdot, can't get a loan because you associate with the wrong people on Facebook or can't get health insurance because you visited websites on cancer. It will be too late then, of course.

            • >"Only if you consider governments to be people. There is a fundamental difference between privacy in official governmental capacity or (to a limited extent) by a public figure and the privacy of an individual person."

              But, a government, any government, is still made up of individual people.

              I also have a comment for the group Anonymous, DoS attacks are the opposite of free speech, as it denies free speech from the person/group receiving the attack. So all I am seeing with Anonymous' DoS attacks is support

              • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                by MachDelta ( 704883 )

                Free speech does not guarantee the right to be heard.
                If you showed up at a rally and tried to yell out your one little opinion at the top of your lungs, you'd probably be drowned out by the crowd. Is that stifling free speech?
                Same thing with a DDOS. Their website is temporarily drowned out by the angry masses. That's not censorship, that's just finding yourself on the side of a minority. And anyways - eventually the crowd will move on and you'll be able to hear yourself think again. Same with anon.
                IMO anywa

                • bad example, at a rally, people are there to hear those on stage, same deal with a website, being drowned out, does not stop the visibility, even for those on stage, a DoS attack stops even the visibility. But in the end that still doesn't change the fact that the DoS attack is a form of censorship.

                  FYI, a DDOS attack is just a type of DoS attack, as they are acronym's, lets break them down... DDOS - Distributed Denial of Service, DoS - Denial of Service, the word distributed is just a reference to how a DoS

          • Things like Wikileaks are good, because they deny privacy to other people.

            I think it's good because my government's decisions can affect me greatly. They're mostly revealing information about the government as a whole, or when its workers are on the job. Any other information is useless.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          They don't think "information should be free" at all. Do you think they'd apply the same standards to themselves as they do to the enemy du jour ? By far, the most used attack vector is the fact that people don't use unique passwords. Do you think they find people have the right to know their password has been downloaded (generally, no cracking tools are involved. Encryption is not the weak point of site's defenses. Idiocy is) ? Get real.

          Once you actually visit a few of these boards you have to admit the bi

        • by m50d ( 797211 )
          No freedom is real unless you squander it on stupid shit for laughs
        • While anonymity exists, that's because it is protected by law in a large number of countries, turkey not being one of those. It's not a time issue and it's not squandered, but I hope you realize that a lack of anonymity is a big deal.

        • The anonymity in the idea of "Anonymous" isn't so much in not posting with your name, it is being an individual in a large crowd. Even if they can track down some individuals they still can't track and label everyone in the crowd.

      • Anonymous goons twist their own motives! One members claimed that the Spanish DOS attacks were "civil disobedience". Ignorance of this term either this points to new heights of cynicism or new lows in public education.

        Not anonymous.

    • by Altanar ( 56809 )
      Do you know anything about Turkey? You do realize it's more like Greece than Syria, right?
      • Thanks to the legend of Ataturk, which is fading. My prediction, Erdogan will remove term limits in 3-4 years ...

      • by Anonymous Coward

        being more like greece? I think kurdis might beg to differ. syria just happens to be a fly's shit. of course they're cracking down on dissidents - that's who people labeled now under the anonymous label are. they're dissidents, they just happen to be more like gandhi dissidents instead of hauling ak's and rpg's(and anyhow, only reason greece hasn't had a military coup in a while is that they're part of the EU). the real question is do _you_ know anything about turkey besides the tourist traps on the west co

      • I.e. broke with a corrupt regime?

      • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

        It's like Greece then Turkey thanks to Ataturk, and as time passes it moves more and more in direction of Syria. The fact that they have a large majority of conservative islamist peasants backs this up.

        Remember - the party that won the current headcount known as election is the formerly forbidden hardliner islamist party. Turkish folks you see dressed in western clothes in Istanbul and tourist cities of the Western Turkey are about as against him as they can be, but there's simply not enough of them and the

    • by mjwx ( 966435 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @01:40AM (#36422760)

      it's also possible that Turkey is cracking down on dissidents, using Anonymous as a cover story.

      A fine upstanding nation like Turkey,

      Surely you jest.

      Sent from my ethnic Armenian.

      • by Anonymous Coward
        Don't be such a hater.
    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by vajorie ( 1307049 )
      Nah, it's more probable that these were regular papas and mamas with virus-infested / botnetted PCs or open / wep wireless APs. According to BTK's statements, they were gonna go after folk based on their IP addresses.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @03:56AM (#36423148) Homepage Journal

        Many anons used their own net connection after someone said that the chances of getting caught using LOIC were virtually zero. The majority of anons are clueless script kiddies and LOIC is designed to be a one-click DDOS tool for them.

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Actually a few of us are having a couple lulz at this. It was clearly a set up. LOIC? Are you fucken kidding me? You have to be the biggest id10t on the webz. There is no such thing as "zero" chance of getting caught. There is always a bigger and badder cat out there. Gov't websites are the worst traps on the face of the earth. I don't even go near those and I work in offensive security.

          What anon doesn't seem to understand is that their antics won't have any lasting effect. So what, you disrupted service

    • it's also possible that Turkey is cracking down on dissidents, using Anonymous as a cover story.

      Uh, you'd need a cover story for that kind of stuff these days? Are we living on the same planet?

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @04:21AM (#36423186)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • So you're saying Anonymous has nothing to do with the cyberterrorists, they're merely posting announcements that falsely claim to be behind the cyberterrorism?

          It seems simple to me. DDoS attacks, someone takes credit for it under the name Anonymous, police arrest some people who seem to be involved with the DDoS, therefore calling them members of Anonymous seems logical.

    • by DrXym ( 126579 )

      it's also possible that Turkey is cracking down on dissidents, using Anonymous as a cover story.

      Or more likely the dumbasses running LOIC left their IP addresses all over a crime scene making it easy for the cops to id them and haul them off.

    • Or as a threat to anonymous; ie: "ok you are random people. We will just start grabbing random people every time you attack us. We get justice you end up responsible for murder. You jelly?"

    • by Xacid ( 560407 )

      This was my first pondering as well. Did the world just adopt the "enemy combatant" strategy?

    • More likely as arresting domestic anon associates is only likely to aggravate foreign anon associates into carrying out even more attacks.
    • The generals at the supreme court would have use Erodgen as a mop before that happened.(yes I know about officers that were recently on trial, my point still stands)

    • by Nadaka ( 224565 )

      Much of anonymous ARE dissidents of one flavor or another.

    • In this case, is there a difference? In fact, I've never heard of an Anon related arrest that *wasn't* targeting dissidents.

      Now, their methods aren't exactly legal, but its worth pointing out that governments are doing jack shit to help regular people who are targeted by Anon. It's only the dissidents that they go after.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 13, 2011 @01:25AM (#36422708)

    Thirty-two? That is a suspiciously round number.

    Conspiracy theorists will be happy.

  • i have a hard time believing that they have enough people part of anon, to get 32 caught at once... cover story?

    • Re:hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Jurily ( 900488 ) <jurily AT gmail DOT com> on Monday June 13, 2011 @01:57AM (#36422816)

      i have a hard time believing that they have enough people part of anon, to get 32 caught at once... cover story?

      Is it so hard to believe 32 of them were dumb enough?

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      i have a hard time believing that they have enough people part of anon, to get 32 caught at once... cover story?

      I'm pretty sure that a simple scan for LOIC packets by an ISP on the planet would find at least a couple dozen people. They did not say they were core members, or hardcore hackers, or even members. But regardless, they said "With ties to". So... parents, siblings, children, friends, bartender, people who live within a mile, you get the idea.

    • Re:hmmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Xest ( 935314 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @02:50AM (#36422994)

      The Spanish arrests were simply of people who used LOIC, the DDOS tool directly from their home PC making them trivially traceable by their PC.

      It's possible these arrests in Turkey are precisely the same type.

      The people who have been doing the real hacks for anonymous like the HBGary hack are probably much less likely to be caught.

      • The people who have been doing the real hacks for anonymous like the HBGary hack are probably much less likely to be caught.

        Indeed. That are people that actually know what they are doing. And if it's indeed users of some simple DDOS tool, then that also explains the fairly high number of people rounded up.

        • Re:hmmmm (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Demonoid-Penguin ( 1669014 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @04:50AM (#36423326) Homepage

          The people who have been doing the real hacks for anonymous like the HBGary hack are probably much less likely to be caught.

          Indeed. They are people that actually know what they are doing. And if it's indeed users of some simple DDOS tool, then that also explains the fairly high number of people rounded up.

          And if I recall my history correctly - all revolutions required sacrifices (red herrings, expendables). That's why rallies are mass exercises - helps the long-term (committed) activists survive - so a certain amount of fools will always be tolerated and encouraged. Take a look around the world at where rebellions are daily affairs - see those kids throwing rocks and being arrested? They're part of a larger movement, they're expendable, and because they are, the authorities are tied up which makes it a lot harder to track down the real activists. Historically rebellions have deliberately sacrificed their own just to force the general population to pick a side - it's hard for Mum and Dad not to think about the issues when number one son is hooked up to the generator. Play the game long enough and sooner or later the operator of the generator will find their own family strapped to the chair.

          • by Kjella ( 173770 )

            It's not as much a requirement as it's a natural distribution, just like in a big war you'd have 1% special forces, 10% regular soldiers and the rest drafted civilians. Would it be great if everyone was seasoned marines? Yes. But you use what you have so some are effectively cannon fodder. You don't encourage them to be fools, they're just not ready to be anything more than what they are.

            Take the war on drugs for example, your average pothead isn't hard to catch. There's just so many of them that it'll neve

            • It's not as much a requirement as it's a natural distribution, just like in a big war you'd have 1% special forces, 10% regular soldiers and the rest drafted civilians. Would it be great if everyone was seasoned marines? Yes. But you use what you have so some are effectively cannon fodder. You don't encourage them to be fools, they're just not ready to be anything more than what they are.

              Take the war on drugs for example, your average pothead isn't hard to catch. There's just so many of them that it'll never end as long as the dealers and distribution continues, it's just a few random example to say "yes, we can take you too so don't feel safe" than even trying for 100%. Is that according to some big plan? Nah. It's just the way it is, it's Sturgeon's Law for people. 90% of everything is crap and 90% of everyone are idiots.

              The only places that isn't true are the places where you've went through a lot of trouble to weed out the idiots. But when you're going for a broad public movement, you haven't got an choice. There will be plenty idiots, people you can't trust to do much of anything. Cheer in a rally? Throw some rocks. Yeah, we can have you do that and that's all we'd trust you to do, too.

              Yes - though you'll probably find the amount of people committed to any side is much lower - people tend to be so damned fickle.

  • by Vandil X ( 636030 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @01:30AM (#36422736)
    As they called it in Office Space: Federal pound-you-in-the-ass prison. No conjugal visits, either. Better beat someone up on their first day.
    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @03:25AM (#36423076)

      Do you think a member of Anonymous would be getting a conjugal visit if he wasn't in prison?

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      No conjugal visits, either.

      No, they still get conjugal visits. Just not from the kind of people they would prefer.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Yeah because prison rape is such a lulz topic. jfc.

        • Destroying peoples' lives and work online isn't funny either, but Anonymous and its ilk haven't really thought that through.

          Welcome to immature pranks.

          Thought puzzle: if you want to create a future with open rational discussion about a variety of issues, is making people afraid of being hacked and 'outed' the way to get there? No, its the way to create silence and fear.

          Anonymous is counter-productive.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    The link in the article
    http://www.securityweek.com/turkish-police-detain-32-suspected-hackers-linked-anonymous [securityweek.com]
    has pictures that were obviously photoshopped with masks. WTF? Seems out of place and an odd thing to do?

  • Let x be amount of lulz to be had.
    Let y be number of arrests.
    Let z be AnonCon

    z = x/y
  • Like the cloud... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cold fjord ( 826450 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @02:09AM (#36422860)

    It seems people like to consider "Anonymous" to be like "the cloud". The cloud is everywhere and nowhere, boxes and fuzzy lines on a chart. It is a mystery what goes there. "Anonymous" is everyone and no one, no leaders, no members. But at the end of the day, "the cloud" ultimately resolves into individual servers with an IP address, and "Anonymous" resolves into individual people with a computer and an IP address who did or didn't do something as part of the group on any given day. DDOS once, and you were in on that attack, forever, even if it is only once. Now that "Anonymous" is attacking government institutions on a regular basis, I think life will be much more exciting for them, especially since they seem to be showing poor taste in targets.

    The interesting thing is, due to the nature of their collective, they can really only admit to attacks, but can't effectively deny them. I wonder how many purely criminal organizations or foreign intelligence agencies are having their members participate as cover?

    • by Xest ( 935314 )

      There generally seems to be two types of members of anonymous when it comes to this type of thing, there's those who just hope on the DDOS bandwagon from their home computer and hope the sheer number of users involved in the DDOS will protect them in an "I'm spartacus!" kind of way, then there's those who actually know how to hack.

      Those getting arrested seem to be the former type, because they're easily traced from a single IP. It's these folk I believe who attacked Visa, Mastercard and so forth.

      In contrast

    • It's far worse than that. Anyone can apply the "Anonymous" moniker to anything, and there can be no way to prove or disprove such a relationship. Because, at the end of the day, "Anonymous" resolves into exactly what it sounds like... anonymity.

      Which is not to say that there aren't individuals acting collectively under the name "Anonymous" that could be identified. Merely that you can't identify someone as solely being a member. You need to tie them back to specific actions to give them a 'real' ident

  • wat (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Lysander7 ( 2085382 ) on Monday June 13, 2011 @02:09AM (#36422862)
    I seriously doubt there are 32 members of Anonymous's inner circle tied to the hacks, much less all in Turkey. Chance are they detained /b/tards that are guilty of nothing more than posting pony threads and trolling, thinking all of Anonymous knows anything about hacking. And judging by the pics on the site, I doubt it's even legit.
  • by Anonymous Coward

    ...Have you ever been in a Turkish prison?

  • Once you identify an individual member of anonymous don't they immediately cease being a member?
    • by Nursie ( 632944 )

      Nah, that's subatomic particles. With anonymous members it's impossible to figure out where they are and how fast they're travelling at the same time.

      Or maybe I have that backwards?

    • Members of Alcoholics Anonymous do not lose membership in AA if they are identified as a member. They usually end up slipping back into their old ways but AA will keep taking them back.
  • Beyond all reason....
  • As opposed [to] cybercriminals profiting from data theft, hacktivism isn’t motivated by money. Hacktivist groups like Anonymous are motivated by revenge, politics, and a desire to humiliate victims, with profit typically not a motive.

    Sounds a lot better than "Internet terrorists".

    • So with the intent to cause confusion and panic and disrupt service with no profit motive and no real political motivation. How is this different from your average terrorist, other than that the terrorists usually have a naive political agenda?

      This isn't hacktivism. There is no higher moral calling here to try and pretend this is some sort of grass roots activism. This is merely the old style of malware mentality updated to include flash-mob DDoS attacks.

  • Joey... have you ever been in a Turkish prison?
  • Yeah. Right. And I wear a fez... Actually, I wear a cowboy hat when I play bluegrass.
  • As soon as Anonymous went after Sony and the banks, the corps got the governments to nail them. Anonymous would have been safe if they kept their activities aimed at less powerful entities. In any case, I bet most of these guys are just low level pawns for the real hackers.

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