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How Aaron Barr revealed himself to Anonymous
- fleitz 16y ago"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." - Thomas Jefferson
- jerf 16y ago“There can be no such thing, in law or in morality, as actions forbidden to an individual, but permitted to a mob” - Ayn Rand
- fleitz 16y agoDefinitely agree with you I'd hate to see Anonymous individuals restricted from actions that HBGary, its subsidiaries, its employees, and clients take.
- cagenut 16y ago"the opposite of anything ayn rand says" -me
- jerf 16y agoWhich specific thing should be permitted to only mobs that is not permitted of individuals? Or is that a vacuous snark?
- njharman 16y agoTaxing, ownership of life fundamentals (land, air, water), rearing/teaching of young, use of electromagnetic spectrum, governing. But, I'm a socialist. Would also use the terms family, tribe, society, etc. instead of the purposefully biased "mob".
- jerf 16y agoTo be honest, I'm a bit surprised at the number of people who had a difficult time identifying who I mean. I'm actually a little-l libertarian and no great lover of government, so I understand the knee-jerk inclination, but why would I be stretching for the definition of a mob when there is another thing that can be called a "mob" in the story with no stretch at all?
- cookiecaper 16y agoTaxation on things is a normal thing that is allowed to all individual entities within their sphere of control. If you own some item, you can effectively set up any taxation system on the usage of that item that you want. The governmental entity is allowed taxation powers because the people under its authority utilize its public benefits, such as police work, court systems, legislative considerations, and so on. Likewise control of commons exists on an individual level as well -- if you are near a certain amount of water, you are generally free to own and control it. To the extent that you don't secure and maintain your property, your ownership is a vain deed. Rearing and teaching of young is a really easy one, commonly given to individuals. Do you think all children should be taken out of individual households and placed in government-run child-rearing centers? That's what this one sounds like, and that is horrifically scary and ridiculous.
- Charuru 16y agoDefine mob? It's ok for the government to imprison people. But when I do it it's called kidnapping. Edit: Just to clarify, I agree if you mean mob as in an actual mob. However you're replying to a parent who's talking about government, so that led me to think you're implying government is some form of a mob. A representative government with powers endowed to them by the people and working within the limits of a codified legal system is very different from a mob.
- sgrove 16y agoI took it that the OP was referring to Anonymous as a mob... which is essentially one of the big draws of huge mobs - their anonymity. Although I'm intrigued by the whole drama unfolding, I don't know that we can say there's justice/liberty in what the mob does if when one person did the same thing we'd say otherwise.
- jerf 16y agoYes. It makes me very uncomfortable when the fact that "Anonymous" is committing some fairly serious crimes is apparently just glossed over because hey, we didn't like the target, so thumbs up! It also makes me uncomfortable that I'm a bit nervous posting this point. This is not progress. This is not good. This is mob rule. We should be fighting this, not applauding it.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sigzero 16y agoUm no. What they did was illegal. When you stoop to that level you aren't any better than the people your are trying to give the lesson to.
- sage_joch 16y agoYou shouldn't confuse legality with morality. Pointing out that something is illegal is not a very compelling argument that it's wrong. Imagine how ridiculous it would sound to chastise the Egyptians for breaking their curfew.
- heed 16y agoWhat about 'being a mob'?
- pyre 16y agoIf a mob overthrows the government that means that there were a lot of people upset with the government and it can be taken as the 'will of the people.' If a single person overthrows a government it could be seen as a dictatorship. I think that the Rand-ian sound byte fails here.
- gwern 16y ago> "What is the government? nothing, unless supported by opinion." --Napoleon Bonaparte
- Xurinos 16y ago"Don't live your life according to quotes." -- Keith Malley
- amadiver 16y agoI'm curious as to why you don't see Anon's actions as mob justice? Or if you do, why that's okay?
- fleitz 16y agoFrom where should a justice system derive its just powers? Why is mob justice any worse than a justice system that allows people to be held indefinitely with out charge? Why is mob justice any worse than a system that allows secret evidence which cannot be questioned or examined by the accused? Would altering or abolishing a system that allows people to be held indefinitely with out charge be a good thing? Either the justice system approves of this, or the rules of the system prevent it from taking action, either way it's broken.
- spxdcz 16y agoWhy have people downvoted fletiz's response to -1? I don't necessarily agree or disagree with it (I'm staying neutral in this discussion), but please - stop downvoting replies that you disagree with. This response, as far as I can see, was reasonable and considered.
- fleitz 16y agoIt's no biggie, the reaction is quite what I expected given Plato's parable of the Cave. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2afuTvUzBQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2afuTvUzBQ
- mbateman 16y agoI've never understood the idea that downvoting a comment for disagreeing with it is bad. Anyway, I also disagree that it's reasonable and considered. The comparisons are flip and cheap and build in false alternatives. Not all methods of altering or abolishing unjust systems are laudable, and finding anonymous to be reprehensible is compatible with agreeing that some of their targets are reprehensible also.
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- jdp23 16y ago"The next day, February 6, the attacks turned serious, and Barr realized the extent of what Anonymous had done to him and to his company, which was currently in negotiations to sell itself to a pair of interested buyers." Oops.
- ajays 16y agoMy guess is (and I haven't read the emails, or any non-public information), Barr was hoping for a massive amount of (positive) publicity, followed by the inevitable rich rewards of a much higher buying price. What better way to get this publicity than to take on the current Public CyberEnemy #1, aka Anonymous?
- philthy 16y agoMakes you wonder what kind of security company has such a sophomoric SQL exploit on their website + someone in a power position who claims to be able to locate and identify the actual owners of a social network profile solely by guess.
- pyre 16y agoThe only thing that irks me is: If his methods were so off, then how did he have the Facebook profile of 'CommanderX' to be able to have the conversation in the logs? Did he determine that through his methods, or was that a proxy profile that CommanderX uses that is not hidden (i.e. freely given)? Just something that doesn't seem to fit with the idea that his methods were not able to identify anyone associated w/ Anonymous.
- bmelton 16y agoFrom my reading, there were multiple efforts in play -- he was 'infiltrating' Anonymous with multiple personas, and (if my reading is correct) trying to correlate that information with Facebook data. Otherwise, none of it really makes sense. You can't investigate the friends of somebody on Facebook without knowing WHO the somebody you're investigating is. So, he had to at least have ideas for leads for people to start stalking. I think we can all agree that correlating random activities across all Facebook users (whose profiles are public, which is of course another catch) would be really close to impossible with one reluctant developer and an 'analyst'.
- bgurupra 16y agohere is a link to the actual report http://plf666.limewebs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18 http://plf666.limewebs.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=18
- stoney 16y agoWho says it really was CommanderX behind the facebook profile?
- adrianwaj 16y agoAnonymous could provide a lot of red meat for Wikileaks if they tried, I think. Or would that not be a leak anymore but a theft? Anonbreaks - Wikileaks in overdrive.
- marshray 16y agoI think Wikileaks' policy is not to accept intentionally haxored info, although it's claimed that they've let some through in the past.
- parfe 16y agoThere's a lot of misunderstanding of what Anonymous is. adrianwaj is Anonymous if you so chose. You could release a Word Document with "Aaron Barr" in the author field declaring a war on Egg McMuffins and sign it Anonymous. You probably would get no traction and be ignored... Or a week later you might read about a bunch of 16 year olds throwing Egg McMuffins to the Elephant at the Bronx Zoo wearing woody wood pecker masks while singing Christina Aguilera's version of the national anthem. There is no "Anonymous" in the sense of a coherent group. There are only specific acts that received enough interest to garner outside attention. When you say "If they tried" you are missing the point. You could try.
- adrianwaj 16y agoSort of like Jihad? Except here only for otherwise clearly unsavory responses to perceived threats against freedom vs otherwise clearly unsavory responses to perceived threats against Islam? The argument lies whether the acts are actually unsavory, otherwise unsavory, if the perception of being a threat is correct and whether that threat is valid enough to justify a response. So when if ever does Jihadism/Anonymous go to far? So Anonymous is really just a mask that can be put on. There is nothing that can keep either group in check except for how aligned each one is with the core values that it seeks to defend, and how that tension resolves. Why doesn't Anonymous rail against Jihad? Where people that might otherwise be labelled racist, however accurately or not, could then proceed with their actions without having that inhibition.
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- ddkrone 16y agoThe interesting bit is that these "security" companies actually work with various government agencies and get tons of taxpayer money. Most politicians are clueless about what computer security means and have even less of a clue about cyber terrorism so companies like HBGary continue to proliferate even though they offer absolutely nothing for public well being.
- mmaunder 16y ago[23:56:51] <n0pants> Moral of the Story: Don't drum up business by banging on a hornet's nest. ..especially if you're not above them in the food chain.
- bandushrew 16y agoI am sympathetic to the side of 'Anonymous' because the only way to stop them is to destroy the freedom of the internet. To me the statement 'Information wants to be free' isn't the statement it appears to be. It is a statement of policy and intent, not of literal fact. It is not a true statement because I actually believe that every piece of data in the world literally should be available in the public domain, it is a true statement because the only way to achieve the alternative is to lock down and destroy a world of freedom and information that I have come to love with an abiding passion. Successfully solving the problem of securing private government data from anonymous release over the internet requires that the internet as it exists now be destroyed. Stopping me from freely copying music that exists on my computer requires that full control of my computer be unavailable to me. Successfully solving the problem of ensuring centralised and secure online identification of individuals to stop online libel destroys the freedom of anonymous political dissent and organization. I am deeply sympathetic to the political ideals of 'Anonymous' not because they are always right but because the nobody else in any position of authority or power appears to even recognise the problem. Effectively, I am sympathetic to 'Anonymous' because there is no way for me not to be without also being against the freedoms that make them possible.
- DanielBMarkham 16y agoI know some commenters support Anonymous because they would rather have that kind of chaos than government clamping down even further on the internet, and I agree. But I think it's a false choice. Certainly we can acknowledge the mob that's Anonymous is a phenomenon that is not in our best interests. Surely we can acknowledge that having to choose between censorship and crime is a false choice, right? I don't have to choose between supporting the government in buying a new fire truck and letting my house burn down, do I?
- bandushrew 16y agoIm very sorry, I have no idea what you are trying to say.
- bandushrew 16y agoI may have got it. The problem is that there is no gradient with computers. I either control my computer, or I dont. There is no middle ground. I can either surf the internet and post anonymously, or I cannot. Nobody in power is fighting for my right to do those things. Everybody is more concerned about their own petty little secrets than about the freedom that I care about. 'Mob Rule' has a bad name, but the simple truth is that democracy and freedom is based around it. Warlords and Dictators, oppressive governments and totalitarian states dont exist because of 'Mob Rule', they exist because of the absence of it. Eqypt is just now fighting for 'Mob Rule', and it is doing so with a mob. 'Mob Rule' is just another name for democracy. Sometimes the mob can be ugly, when they hang witches or crucify innocent people, but it can also be awesomely constructive. Freedom is like that.
- lhnz 16y agoHe's opposing a viewpoint that assumes that you can only have extremes which strengthens the belief that there are only two choices (two-valued orientation). Perhaps take a read of http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_1.html http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_1.html ("The Edge of the Circle")? Do we really need to have complete anarchy or for the government to have complete authority? Seems like a bit of a slippery-slope fallacy to me.