Former Anonymous Spokesperson's Memoir Called 'Deranged, Hyperbolic, and True' (nytimes.com) 33
Slashdot covered Barrett Brown back in 2011 and 2012. The New York Times calls him "an activist associated with the hacker group Anonymous, and a political prisoner recently denied asylum in Britain, all of which sounds a bit dreary until we hear tell of it through Brown's unhinged self-regard."
They're reviewing Brown's "extraordinary" new memoir, My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous," a book they call "deranged, hyperbolic, and true." A "machine" that focuses attention on little-known social issues, Anonymous has gone after the Church of Scientology, Koch Industries, websites hosting child pornography and the Westboro Baptist Church. The public tends to be confused by nebulous digital activities, so it was, in the collective's heyday, helpful to have Brown act as a translator between the hackers and mainstream journalists. "The year 2011 ended as it began," he writes, "with a sophisticated hack on a state-affiliated corporation that ostensibly dealt in straightforward security and analysis while secretly engaging in black ops campaigns against activists who'd proven troublesome to powerful clients."
This particular corporation was Stratfor, a company that spied on activists for the government... Brown waited for the feds to come back and drag him to jail. He also says he tried to get off suboxone in order to avoid the painful possibility of prison withdrawal, and stopped taking Paxil, inducing a manic state, all of which is given as explanation for his regrettable next move, which was to set up a camera and start talking. The feds had threatened his mother, he told the internet, and in response he was threatening Robert Smith, the lead agent on his case. He found himself in custody the same night.
Brown was then subjected to the kind of nonsense the Department of Justice is prone to inflicting on those involved in shadowy internet activities that, in fact, almost no one in the legal process understands. He was charged with participating in the hack of Stratfor, though he was not really involved and cannot code, and although the whole thing was organized by an F.B.I. informant. Brown had also retweeted a Fox News host's call to murder Julian Assange; the prosecution presented this as if he were himself calling for the murder of Assange. But generally, Brown's primary victim is himself. "My thirst for glory and hatred for the state," he writes, "were incompatible with an orthodox criminal defense, in which the limiting of one's sentence is the sole objective."
In his cell, with an eraser-less pencil he needs a compliant guard to repeatedly sharpen, he writes "The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail." His mother types it up; The Intercept publishes. He develops the character he will play in his memoir: a self-aware narcissist and addict. He wins a National Magazine Award, and is especially pleased that his column "Please Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels," wins while Franzen is in attendance.
"The state is an afterthought here — a litany of absurdist horrors too stupid to appall..." the review concludes.
"We're left with a man who refuses to look away from the deep structure of the world, an unstable position from which there is no sanctuary. My Glorious Defeats is deranged, hyperbolic and as true a work as I have read in a very long time."
They're reviewing Brown's "extraordinary" new memoir, My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous," a book they call "deranged, hyperbolic, and true." A "machine" that focuses attention on little-known social issues, Anonymous has gone after the Church of Scientology, Koch Industries, websites hosting child pornography and the Westboro Baptist Church. The public tends to be confused by nebulous digital activities, so it was, in the collective's heyday, helpful to have Brown act as a translator between the hackers and mainstream journalists. "The year 2011 ended as it began," he writes, "with a sophisticated hack on a state-affiliated corporation that ostensibly dealt in straightforward security and analysis while secretly engaging in black ops campaigns against activists who'd proven troublesome to powerful clients."
This particular corporation was Stratfor, a company that spied on activists for the government... Brown waited for the feds to come back and drag him to jail. He also says he tried to get off suboxone in order to avoid the painful possibility of prison withdrawal, and stopped taking Paxil, inducing a manic state, all of which is given as explanation for his regrettable next move, which was to set up a camera and start talking. The feds had threatened his mother, he told the internet, and in response he was threatening Robert Smith, the lead agent on his case. He found himself in custody the same night.
Brown was then subjected to the kind of nonsense the Department of Justice is prone to inflicting on those involved in shadowy internet activities that, in fact, almost no one in the legal process understands. He was charged with participating in the hack of Stratfor, though he was not really involved and cannot code, and although the whole thing was organized by an F.B.I. informant. Brown had also retweeted a Fox News host's call to murder Julian Assange; the prosecution presented this as if he were himself calling for the murder of Assange. But generally, Brown's primary victim is himself. "My thirst for glory and hatred for the state," he writes, "were incompatible with an orthodox criminal defense, in which the limiting of one's sentence is the sole objective."
In his cell, with an eraser-less pencil he needs a compliant guard to repeatedly sharpen, he writes "The Barrett Brown Review of Arts and Letters and Jail." His mother types it up; The Intercept publishes. He develops the character he will play in his memoir: a self-aware narcissist and addict. He wins a National Magazine Award, and is especially pleased that his column "Please Stop Sending Me Jonathan Franzen Novels," wins while Franzen is in attendance.
"The state is an afterthought here — a litany of absurdist horrors too stupid to appall..." the review concludes.
"We're left with a man who refuses to look away from the deep structure of the world, an unstable position from which there is no sanctuary. My Glorious Defeats is deranged, hyperbolic and as true a work as I have read in a very long time."
Crazed drug addict writes book (Score:1)
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Shoot the messenger, indeed.
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Like Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas?
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If the GP has heard of it, he wasn't capable of digesting it.
The correct way to attack this book would have been reducing it to "Narcissist writes memoir", not "Addict writes book."
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Nope. That one would be "crazed drug addict writes literary milestone which irrevocably alters contemporary journalism". Barrett Brown's book was forgotten the day after it was published.
Re:Crazed drug addict writes book (Score:4, Funny)
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There are already two candidates for the "I'm delusional" vote.
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I reckon the media are happy if you think age is the important issue in this election.
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The important issue in this election is mental health: dementia [salon.com] in one case and impaired memory [latimes.com] in the other. Having to pick between those two choices is a frightening prospect for the future of our democracy. But at least for once the main concern isn't lies and corruption. It's nice to change every once in a while...
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But at least for once the main concern isn't lies and corruption.
It is to me. Trump lying about not knowing what Project 2025 is when it's his whole intent, claiming to be joking about wanting to be a dictator when it is clearly what he wants most, and Biden's backing of genocide and going around Congress to fund it while not keeping his student loan forgiveness promises... these are bigger issues to me than whether these guys have lapses. BOTH things are big problems, but the fact that when they are lucid they do terrible things is a bigger one.
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Just because he's kissing them doesn't mean he remembers their name. Trump has been avoiding their big dream, federal anti-abortion laws, for months. They think they've got a sock-puppet but even Trump has the brains to realize there's no benefit from these whack-jobs: Trump needs to wine and dine them until they vote.
I think his time in office has taught him, how little power the White House has. While still a narcissist and having a limited grip on political reality, I suspect Trump won't be the thug
Re:Barrett Brown For Pesident. (Score:4, Interesting)
I think his time in office has taught him, how little power the White House has. While still a narcissist and having a limited grip on political reality, I suspect Trump won't be the thug he was last time
I suggest you educate yourself on Project 2025. It lays out how to get around the barriers that were in place during 45's term: mainly by politicizing the civil service.
He has stated that he will use the justice department to go after his "enemies", and the Supreme Court just allowed him to do this.
Another Trump presidency is going to an absolute shitshow.
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Sure you will. Then, Anonymous will trip up someone you worship, and all that goes out the window. See Julian Assange.
the chances of it being true are low (Score:1)
https://arstechnica.coAnonymous never impressed me (Score:4, Interesting)
They are (or were - people grow older and wiser usually) for the most part a bunch of script kiddies with a delusion of grandeur, announcing major "operations" against whichever enemies du jour and ending up merely defacing their websites.
Case in point: in 2011, they announced Operation Cartel in which they declared their intention to "go to war" with the notoriously ultra-violent Mexican Zetas cartel.
The Zetas lost no time, and in an unprecendented act of kindness - for them anyway - reminded Anonymous that shit can get real real fast by kidapping an anonymous member and threatening to kill a lot more of them if the nonsense didn't stop. So Anonymous quickly stopped the nonsense [theatlantic.com].
Incidentally, after the kidnapped Anonymous member got released by the Zetas (truly out of character for them to let someone live, this guy was the luckiest guy in Mexico that day...), Barrett Brown doubled-down on the stupid and announced that OpCartel was still on [youtu.be].
The prompt cancellation of the "war" when stuff got a little hot wasn't a glorious moment for Anonymous, but saying "Hey wait! The war is back on!" hours after the release of the dude was even more lame. So lame in fact that the Zetas plain lost interest at that point, because they knew the Anonymous members with half a brain - not Barrett Brown obviously - got the message loud and clear.
So yeah... Crazy mofo spokesman for a bunch of lame internet SJWs...
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Re: Anonymous never impressed (Score:2)
Or, you might have wished that the pencil was all eraser and no lead.
little known social issues (Score:3)
A "machine" that focuses attention on little-known social issues, Anonymous has gone after the Church of Scientology, Koch Industries, websites hosting child pornography and the Westboro Baptist Church
Were those little known social issues?
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A "machine" that focuses attention on little-known social issues, Anonymous has gone after the Church of Scientology, Koch Industries, websites hosting child pornography and the Westboro Baptist Church
Were those little known social issues?
Yes. The vast majority of people don't have a clue what those three entities are up to. I doubt if you asked one hundred people on the street if more than five could say they've heard of the Westboro Baptist Church. Scientology will get a few more while Koch probably won't even register.
Just because you know about them doesn't mean everyone else knows about them. It would be like asking you who Leicester City FC is.
Why he is in jail (Score:2)
"My thirst for glory and hatred for the state," he writes, "were incompatible with an orthodox criminal defense, in which the limiting of one's sentence is the sole objective."
He should have done a more orthodox criminal defense.
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Wouldn't have helped much. Being a frontman for Anonymous meant he participated, coder or not. Though a real defense lawyer might have gotten him off of the threats to Smith. Then again, since he voluntarily stopped taking Paxil, maybe not.
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Re: Why he is in jail (Score:2)
Good book by Parmy Olson about those guys (Score:3, Informative)
"Anonymous Spokesperson" (Score:3)
I don't doubt that there were some crazies wrapped up in it, then or now, but it hasn't even really been relevant since the early 2010s, and that's being generous.