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I've yet to see anyone address the behavior of anonymous, and it appears as though it's been justified by most because this dude was an asshole - but why not po

by nhangen 16y ago

I've yet to see anyone address the behavior of anonymous, and it appears as though it's been justified by most because this dude was an asshole - but why not point a finger at them both?

cookiecaper 16y ago
Well, there's no story to really address there. Barr was dangerously ignorant and naive. He had a complete misconception of how these things were organized and how they worked while claiming to know all of the identities of "the leaders" by correlating Twitter posts with what someone in IRC was talking about. If you get on the news and say, "Hello Criminal Group. We have a bunch of information on your leaders that will get them arrested, we are meeting with the FBI next week", it is only reasonable to expect some attempted retaliation. I think that no one is surprised that the targeted group compromised HBGary's servers -- there are, after all, much worse things that could happen -- except maybe the HBGary people themselves, who, as we see here, were already in way over their heads. No one addresses the behavior of Anonymous because it is completely and totally the expected reaction. The shocking thing about the story is Barr's personality and behavior, not the idea that someone will retaliate if you threaten to decapitate their organization.
- nhangen 16y ago
  So that makes attacking a company's website OK? If I did something illegal every time someone pissed me off, I'd be a lifer.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    It doesn't make it OK. You said that you were surprised no one was talking about or condemning Anonymous's behavior. No one is doing that because there's nothing interesting to talk about there. We all already know that stealing and publishing private corporate data to embarrass its authors and defacing private networks is not good. We also already know that if you threaten a group capable of retaliation, with a long history of retaliation, they'll probably retaliate. The silence is not an endorsement, it's just that it's so much more interesting to talk about Barr/HBGary's behavior than it is to waste time reiterating trite condemnations of script kiddies.

by nhangen 16y ago

I've yet to see anyone address the behavior of anonymous, and it appears as though it's been justified by most because this dude was an asshole - but why not point a finger at them both?

cookiecaper 16y ago

Well, there's no story to really address there. Barr was dangerously ignorant and naive. He had a complete misconception of how these things were organized and how they worked while claiming to know all of the identities of "the leaders" by correlating Twitter posts with what someone in IRC was talking about. If you get on the news and say, "Hello Criminal Group. We have a bunch of information on your leaders that will get them arrested, we are meeting with the FBI next week", it is only reasonable to expect some attempted retaliation. I think that no one is surprised that the targeted group compromised HBGary's servers -- there are, after all, much worse things that could happen -- except maybe the HBGary people themselves, who, as we see here, were already in way over their heads. No one addresses the behavior of Anonymous because it is completely and totally the expected reaction. The shocking thing about the story is Barr's personality and behavior, not the idea that someone will retaliate if you threaten to decapitate their organization.

nhangen 16y ago
So that makes attacking a company's website OK? If I did something illegal every time someone pissed me off, I'd be a lifer.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  It doesn't make it OK. You said that you were surprised no one was talking about or condemning Anonymous's behavior. No one is doing that because there's nothing interesting to talk about there. We all already know that stealing and publishing private corporate data to embarrass its authors and defacing private networks is not good. We also already know that if you threaten a group capable of retaliation, with a long history of retaliation, they'll probably retaliate. The silence is not an endorsement, it's just that it's so much more interesting to talk about Barr/HBGary's behavior than it is to waste time reiterating trite condemnations of script kiddies.