14 ms·

Anonymous & Lulz Security Statement to the FBI

459 points by p4bl0 15y ago

pxlpshr 15y ago
Reminds me of the hacker's manifesto, but a lot less eloquent.
- kahawe 15y ago
  I find the idea of a bunch of 4chan, excuse me, "newfags" and "oldfags" frakking around the internet "for the lulz" and/or "shits and giggles" a lot more friendly and support-worthy than the same people rolling out a huge Robin-Hood/"the abused Davids striking back against Goliath Corps" banner and all in the name of "true justice" and "freedom". I miss the "wild wild west" internet a lot but the last thing we need is yet another entity pushing its interests onto the web. Hack and deface and publish, by all means, for great lulz! You are a lot more unique, random, loveable and (actually) useful that way.
  - badclient 15y ago
    Not to mention it is hard to make a personal fortune doing it. Many Robin Hood-type figures around the world continue to rake in millions at the expense of the poor people they claim to rep. And yet, as a member of Lulz or Anon, the most you may gain is appreciation for your skill IF you put it on your resume. It would also get you arrested, effectively striking out one of the few ways to make a personal gain from this.
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- deleted 15y ago
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rheide 15y ago
Fairly well phrased, although the arguments against 'corporations' and 'conglomerates' are fairly unsubstantial. (in the pastebin, that is, IRL is a different matter)
madmaze 15y ago
I certainly agree with their Goals and I see very similar flaws in many governments. I am not sure their way is the best way to make governments listen, but it certainly is one way that gets publicity. The issue with their publicity is that news networks do not broadcast their message, they broadcast their actions which in turn intimidates and scares the less tech-savvy portion of society. This does not achieve their goals, but they make a statement. A statement is better than no statement.
- ddw 15y ago
  I'm racking my brain to think of a way to make a government "listen." Nope, can't think of any.
  - smokinjoe 15y ago
    Vote intelligently.
    - trafficlight 15y ago
      Even if your state elects the smartest senator there has ever been, he still becomes part of the massive lumbering machine. And the machine is only as smart as it's dumbest person. The US Government has so much baggage now that it's nigh impossible to make anything but superficial changes.
      - 18pfsmt 15y ago
        I agree with you, and so does Lawrence Lessig[1]. If more people got behind the cause he started called Fix Congress First[2], that might be a bit more effective than the approach of 'anonymous'. Or, perhaps, the combination of the two would be best. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig#Constitutional_Convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig#Constitutional_... [2]http://fixcongressfirst.org http://fixcongressfirst.org
    - ddw 15y ago
      An uninformed electorate isn't helping, but I don't see how voting is going to fix this. I'm starting to believe that the smart people just don't want to be politicians. It's a good way to become rich and famous, though.
mike-cardwell 15y ago
Their Twitter status from about half an hour ago is far more interesting: https://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/94033541196824576 https://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/94033541196824576 "We're currently working with certain media outlets who have been granted exclusive access to some of the News of the World emails we have."
- DanielRibeiro 15y ago
  Reminded a bit of V for Vendetta's speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EORflS7uEIc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EORflS7uEIc And bit of John F. Kennedy: Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable
  - slowpoke 15y ago
    Reminded a bit of V for Vendetta's speech Well, guess where they got the masks from, amongst other things. Anonymous is pretty much V incarnate. He's their idol and inspiration. He's everything they aspire to be.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  Rest assured that it won't be the guardian. Charles Arthur, their useless tech editor, has recently been on the end of a torrent of spite from topiary, who writes the lulzsec press releases, likely including this one. http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary EDIT: apparently sabu has been joining in as well. Pretty amusing.
  - _delirium 15y ago
    Clicked expecting atopiary/sabu to be juvenile and Charles Arthur to be possibly clueless but professional, but it's actually hard to tell which side in those exchanges is more juvenile.
    - JonnieCache 15y ago
      You can read the whole thread on one page here: http://twitter.theinfo.org/93969411270123520 http://twitter.theinfo.org/93969411270123520 Considering he's technology editor, he just let himself get trolled HARD.
click170 15y ago
I read "Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher" and instantly pictured an executive somewhere rolling his eyes as he reads that. I understand the feelings disgust with the current state of the system, and I get how in leu of an actual solution one would feel frustrated enough to act out in the ways that they have, but I stand firm in my belief that there is a better way of accomplishing the changes we/they want to see, even if nobody has figured out what that is yet.
- _delirium 15y ago
  As far as some of the more "vandalism / hax0rs having fun" type things like redirecting the Sun's homepage I mostly agree, but the documents they've acquired might cause actual damage to the people they oppose, depending on what they contain. So that portion might be effective.
ibejoeb 15y ago
Who writes this stuff? It comes across as silly, hyperbolic, and even melodramatic, and detracts from the actual content. Lulz: consider this constructive criticism. Take it down a notch.
- ikrima 15y ago
  I'm (hoping) guessing a 14 year old kid with too much time on his hands
  - kahawe 15y ago
    Or a 30-40 year old trying to impress, mobilize and exploit 14 year old kids with too much time on their hands.
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  It comes across to me as a deliberate, conscious and very effective attempt at mythmaking.
  - ibejoeb 15y ago
    Sure, I don't doubt that it's deliberate. It's not the content of the message that I'm criticizing. It's precisely that, at least to me, it's being diminished by some of the silliness in the writing. "Hello thar," "Good Sir," really? That's how we speak? "The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s." This sentence hurts me.
    - crikli 15y ago
      My minds eye always sees a '90s-era Seth Green character as the man behind the keyboard of Anonymous/LulzSec.
    - JonnieCache 15y ago
      All the "good sir", "hello thar", monocle stuff dates back to the SA forums, which is where 4chan originally grew out of amongst other places. It was considered funny by some, but quickly grew out of control as people with no working sense of humour took up meme-repetition as a substitute. There was a time when you could get your account deleted for saying "good sir" on SA, it was that prevalent and annoying. A lot of the lulzsec schtick reads like classic SA banter, I wouldn't be surprised if topiary used to post there. It could just be because of the aforementioned SA-->4chan lineage.
feal 15y ago
Can someone rehost this elsewhere like pastie.org or something? Pastebin is blocked by websense. :/
- nuclear_eclipse 15y ago
  Hello thar FBI and international law authorities, We recently stumbled across the following article with amazement and a certain amount of amusement: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-anonymous-hackers http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-... The statements made by deputy assistant FBI director Steve Chabinsky in this article clearly seem to be directed at Anonymous and Lulz Security, and we are happy to provide you with a response. You state: "We want to send a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable, [even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it's entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts." Now let us be clear here, Mr. Chabinsky, while we understand that you and your colleagues may find breaking into websites unacceptable, let us tell you what WE find unacceptable: * Governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece. * Corporations aiding and conspiring with said governments while taking advantage at the same time by collecting billions of funds for federal contracts we all know they can't fulfil. * Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher, while at the same time being deeply involved in governments around the world with the only goal to infiltrate and corrupt them enough so the status quo will never change. These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies. We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir. It is our mission to help these people and there is nothing - absolutely nothing - you can possibly to do make us stop. "The Internet has become so important to so many people that we have to ensure that the World Wide Web does not become the Wild Wild West." Let me ask you, good sir, when was the Internet not the Wild Wild West? Do you really believe you were in control of it at any point? You were not. That does not mean that everyone behaves like an outlaw. You see, most people do not behave like bandits if they have no reason to. We become bandits on the Internet because you have forced our hand. The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s. We're back - and we're not going anywhere. Expect us.
peterwwillis 15y ago
What are they gonna do when every govt/corporate website starts sanitizing its webapps' input and patching its network services? All they'll be able to do is DoS. Wouldn't it be funny if the FBI & associated agencies actually worked to increase the security of the nation's networks instead of acting surprised every time they get penetrated?
- JonnieCache 15y ago
  >What are they gonna do when every govt/corporate website starts sanitizing its webapps' input and patching its network services? If that actually happens as a direct result of lulzsec, I submit that they should be given some sort of medal, and their choice of pacific islands.
- scythe 15y ago
  >What are they gonna do when every govt/corporate website starts sanitizing its webapps' input and patching its network services? That's among their stated goals.
  - peterwwillis 15y ago
    I have a bridge to sell you.
- hack_edu 15y ago
  A significant goal of the movement is to bring to light just how insecure systems can be, and to not trust those who fail to protect. And to claim all they could do then is to DoS is the same BS write-off that you hear around here everyday, which is also disproven daily. Nothing is ever that secure. But do you really think all this will cause govts/corporations the get more serious about security? Why now and not a decade, two decades ago?
  - peterwwillis 15y ago
    No, sorry, that's bullshit. AntiSec is a movement against the computer security industry. They want everything to be insecure. And it's not a write-off... they literally have no skills. Only idiots would start a campaign like the one they have and continue to shift their ideology to support whatever bullshit deface they've done now. They pick whatever low hanging fruit has a .gov, .mil or corporate presence, or take requests from twitter and hit whoever seems the funniest. It's a joke. It's Lulz. No, I don't think it'll actually cause people to secure stuff more. Maybe if enough confidential customer information leaks the govt will finally pass another bullshit SOX-like law to try and improve things, and fail horribly. But it would be nice if it did.
lhnz 15y ago
If I had the nerve I would join them. Bad-taste jokes and troublemaking. Badly written manifestos. But I think there are some in the groups who have their heart in the right place and want to do the right thing. And, illegal or not, I've yet to see any other form of western activism that is as disruptive as leaking/hacking.
- wladimir 15y ago
  I've yet to see any other form of western activism that is as disruptive as leaking/hacking I think that nails it. These days, the internet is the backbone of our world. There is no form of activism more effective than taking control of online resources, or releasing information. If a form of activism is socially acceptable it probably means it is not effective anymore. Why go on the street to just get beaten up - and ignored by the media - when hacking is so much more effective in garnering attention for your cause?
  - pasbesoin 15y ago
    And these days, if you go on the streets, biometrics will have you pegged in minutes. EDIT: Downvoters: Just what do you think police are doing with all their cameras, at recent protests? And now there is -- I'm not kidding -- an iPhone device and app that connects to a privately created database of biometric information. Pricing is, per the public radio interview I heard just the other day, currently set at circa US$3000 / device. Pricy, but affordable. FURTHER EDIT: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/07/20/biometrics http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/07/20/biometrics
- lucifer 15y ago
  > If I had the nerve I would join them. .. having convinced yourself it is not the ultimate meta-honey-pot.
DanielBMarkham 15y ago
<rant> Let's see, "Make impassioned speech then go break into the neighbor's house and scatter his secret documents all over the lawn" That makes a lot of sense now, doesn't it? Perhaps if you're seven. And drunk. Aside from the validity of the charges, this manner of social justice never ever works for the people who try it. Good grief, did we learn nothing from Ghandi or MLK Jr.? There's a perfectly legitimate and effective way to denounce injustice. I think either you understand the problems with what they are doing from looking at history or you become so enamored with their cause you allow yourself to become feeble-minded. I hate the security state that we're living in. But I hate even more people taking it on themselves to administer justice in this fashion. If you make me pick, I'm going with broken security state over anarchists every time -- and there are hundreds of millions of folks just like me. And the the thing I hate worst? Somebody taking _my_ legitimate cause and crapping all over it by doing things like this. It's an attack on freedom-loving people everywhere. If the local prosecutor lets a murderer go free? I don't go burn the prosecutor's house down. If the local sheriff is corrupt? I don't break into his house and publish his papers in the newspaper. If the guy next door is crooked and in cahoots with the mob? I don't get to break in his house and hand out his property to the poor. In short, the minute I start deciding on my own when to break the law and disrespect other people's property rights because of a cause -- even a legitimate cause -- I become an enemy of everybody. You don't get to wave your hands around angrily pointing out how worthy your cause is and get a free pass. At least not from me. </rant>
- _delirium 15y ago
  > Aside from the validity of the charges, this manner of social justice never ever works for the people who try it. I dunno, the Pentagon Papers had fairly significant political effects, I think. Stealing government documents and having them published overseas to embarrass/expose the state's actions was also one of the more effective tools used by opposition groups in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Do you really think stealing a state's documents is an attack on "freedom-loving people everywhere"? Is this always true? The Eastern-block dissents hated freedom, and damaged the cause of freedom by stealing/leaking Stasi documents? I could certainly agree that the Stasi is much worse than the UK government, so maybe you could draw a line between a certain level of viciousness of the security state, past which document-theft becomes justified. But I don't see how you could make a blanket statement that it's never justified. I would also make a distinction between breaking into a person's house and breaking into a government's office. Breaking into someone's home has a certain personal-threat aspect to it, and I'd consider homes to have a bit of a sacrosanct element that I wouldn't extend to state offices. So, probably not in favor of combatting a corrupt police force by breaking into the sheriff's home. But, combatting a corrupt police force by breaking into a police station and grabbing their files, as happened recently in Egypt, seems a bit different.
flocial 15y ago
The Lulzsec crew and Wiki Leaks strikes a nerve like modern day Robin Hoods. It makes you wonder if those of us in wealthy democracies are actually experiencing a peculiarly 21st century form of passive aggressive oppression where we may be "free" but monitored and essentially feel helpless and the fact that these unknown hackers are able to duck and evade the same forces that can hunt and kill terrorists with disregard of sovereignty makes them look like folk heroes. We'll see how this saga unfolds.
- sigzero 15y ago
  They are in no way "modern day Robin Hoods". Hoodlums maybe.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    The Sheriff of Nottingham surely thought Robin Hood was a hoodlum too.
    - gdcbyers 15y ago
      Except we aren't the sheriff in this scenario. We are the people Robin Hood is trying to help. And I say petty thuggery and vandalism aren't helping.
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome Among other things.
        gdcbyers 15y ago
        Please clarify this statement. Are you suggesting that my distain for LulzSec and its methods are some how the result of brain washing or extreme trama? And if "We the people" are the Sheriff in this little Robin Hood adventure, who are the poor villagers Robin is trying to help? What a ridiculous reply. Or are we just naming random psychological phenomenon? If thats the case, I choose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthe...
darksaga 15y ago
I wonder if they'll ever understand the people they're trying to protect are actually the victims in their actions. They hack Sony. Sony loses millions. How do you think they're going to recapture their loses? By passing the loss onto consumers. Increased prices for TV's, games, anything Sony makes is going to increase in price to recoup their loses. Clearly they haven't thought this all the way through.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  Oh come on. People said the same damn thing about every activist in history. "Don't anger Sony because they'll only make prices higher for everybody!" Yes. Their costs will be higher, so economically they'll either take less profit or have higher prices. Then they will be at a disadvantage in the marketplace. At some point the cold equations of economics will dictate that they either change their ways or die.
  - darksaga 15y ago
    It has nothing to do with activist history - this how economics works. What happened to the price of gas when there was a disaster in the gulf of Mexico? Oh yeah, gas prices went up and up and up. Who really paid for the disaster? BP or us the consumer? It's not like one day their TV's are $300, and then overnight they're $1000. All they have to do is edge the price up moderately over time to make back their losses. But in the end, the result is the same. The loss and increased cost is passed on to the consumer. Also, when you're talking two or three dollar differences in prices compared to other companies. Sony owns a large portion of the gaming industry. It's not like there's 10 console makers. Choice is limited, so your point about "cold equations of economics" unfortunately doesn't hold true in this case. My point stands - when large corporations lose money, it's normal for businesses to pass the loss of revenue onto consumers.
    - Vivtek 15y ago
      Well, and I say this in the nicest possible way, no shit. Yes. Of course they do. What else can they do? Is the answer then never to worry an executive, or should it be to speak to them in the only language that can ever reach a corporation: make it less profitable for them to act like assholes? The cost of assholery at the corporations is also passed on to the consumer - and everybody else on the planet - it may simply not be in absolute dollars and cents in purchase price. But we all end up paying. Incidentally, gas prices have nothing to do with the disaster in the Gulf, and everything to do with (1) what the market will bear, (2) increased consumption in BRIC nations, and (3) profit-taking and commodity games. The oil companies, including BP, have made more money in the past year than they ever have. So they're not passing the price of disaster on; they're simply taking whatever they can grab because they know nobody is ever going to try to worry a corporation for fear they might not hire somebody. Like they will anyway. Gah. Probably too much grar here. I'm going to go lie down.
sidcool 15y ago
How do we know this is for legit?
- y3di 15y ago
  anonymousIRC and Lulzsec both tweeted it
- lhnz 15y ago
  Linked from Lulzsec's and AnonymousIRC's twitters which are held by respective members of the groups.
  - cpeterso 15y ago
    How do we know Lulzsec's and AnonymousIRC's twitters are legit?
tannerc 15y ago
This is why we can't have nice things online.
samkiller18 15y ago
These kids have become the subject of their own joke. But it's funny watching them and reading them on twitter though
andrewcamel 15y ago
I really do not understand why they cannot find someone to write for them who understands English grammatical rules. All I can think of when I'm reading that document are some troublemakers trying to justify malicious attacks. If they could write a decent press release, it might actually convince people that they are trying to do some some good in the world.
benstella 15y ago
i dont think anonymous is bad i like them and i wonder if they would help me start a cyber war aganist jb liker
nathanb 15y ago
"it's entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts" This is quite the hypocritical statement coming from the FBI. As far as I can tell, the only difference between Anonymous, Lulzsec, and the FBI is that the FBI act by executive fiat. I don't support Internet vigilanteism, but I also don't support the concept of the FBI as an untouchable force who are no longer held accountable by the public they are theoretically serving. At this point, I'm not sure which one I find more scary.
- roc 15y ago
  > "At this point, I'm not sure which one I find more scary." There will always be scofflaws and pranksters. Indeed for our way of life to be assured, they must be able to exist. The ever-growing reach of the military-espionage-industrial complex is the only real threat.
  - jeremyarussell 15y ago
    I have to find myself agreeing with this, the fact that these individuals (FBI members, govt agencies in general.) are funded beyond the means of normal individuals and given resources that money can't buy. (well I'm sure enough of it can.) Gives them an edge that many people can't fight against. They can do whatever they want with impunity. Now I can't say that opening up a server and releasing all it's users passwords is right, or fair, but there comes a time in war where there must be casualties. In this war of Anon VS govt/corp, Anonymous must use unfair tactics, if only to level out the playing field. That all said, this all reeks of a cold civil war, maybe something will come out of it, maybe nothing will. I'll just keep doing what I do, solving issues of non-freedom the way I can, one person at a time. A lot could be done if people just acted better towards each other. But I think right now that's too much to ask of us(humans).
    - walru 15y ago
      The fact that we're even able to have these thoughtful discussions means that at least we're evolving as a species. For the sake of our survival, may we eventually get to a point where people are judged more for how they treat others, rather than what they are able to purchase.
rauljara 15y ago
I think there is room for illegal activities in the name of a free and open society. If this is truly the author's goal, however, they need to stop associating with LulzSec. There was nothing noble about 9/10's of the crap lulzsec did, and the somewhat decent stuff they did was undercut by the whole "for the lulz" philosophy. If you really are fighting for freedom, you need to be better than DDS'ing game servers, because if you aren't the people who you are opposed to will use that shit against you. Like the FBI is doing now. I won't shed a tear if the Lulzsec folk get put away. I will be quite upset if Lulzsec turns the public against those who would do the modern day equivalent of releasing the pentagon papers.
- scythe 15y ago
  >If this is truly the author's goal, however, they need to stop associating with LulzSec. In principle, I agree. The 'internet privacy' movement would be better served if the people who supported it differentiated themselves from the people who are just fucking around. I think a lot of them realize this. The question "why don't they" has its answer in the dark catacombs of the human psyche. LulzSec and Anonymous draw a lot of their support, i.e. membership, from teenagers who want to feel like the antihero of one of today's popular bildungsroman-turned-polemic, y'know, V for Vendetta, or The Matrix, Avatar, etc. Being somewhat evil is cool, and Anonymous needs to look cool for people to want to be part of it. I'm sure the aforementioned Black Panthers lived on this for a while as well. Some people did try to break the moral section of the movement away from the lunatic fringe; it was called Enturbulation and later WhyWeProtest, and they went after Scientology and later ACTA. Ultimately, though, WhyWeProtest slowly became irrelevant, because without a steady stream of angry people and plenty of press coverage their membership was decimated by the attrition of boredom and disillusionment. It's still around at http://whyweprotest.net/ http://whyweprotest.net/ but unlike Anonymous you've never heard of them. I support the EFF and Wikileaks much more readily than I support Anonymous, but at the same time I figure no social change movement has succeeded without a lunatic fringe -- there were plenty of violent people fighting for India's independence, the breakup of the Soviet Union started with a coup, there were multiple violent civil rights activists in the '60s, etc.
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Shenglong 15y ago
This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this? We leave the economics to the economists, the physics to the physicists, and the medicine to the doctors. There are people--incompetent or not--who spend their entire lives dealing with government/country related issues. Yes, some of them might be corrupt, but are we naive enough to believe that an entire country is corrupt? Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have? At one point or another, this argument for civil liberties gets repetitive and overblown. No one I know has ever felt like their freedoms were at stake, and the few government mistakes that the media captures should not be precedence to act against them. I make mistakes, you make mistakes - everyone makes mistakes. Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever. Edit: Edited out a preface - wasn't aware. Sorry.
- lhnz 15y ago
  Is this necessarily to do with giving information to the uneducated public? Most of the public will not do anything with this information, but I will tell you who will respond: their shareholders and more dangerously their competitors. That is where you should apply pressure.
- enjalot 15y ago
  You forgot to mention that we should leave voting to the politicians :P
  - Shenglong 15y ago
    I know that's meant to be satirical, but it kind of derides the examples. Economists vote mostly based on their economic views, stem-cell researchers on stem-cell related views, and low-income families on social security. I just mean, leave specialized tasks to the specialists.
tRAS 15y ago
"Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea." Jeez, I got goosebumps reading that. Straight out from V for Vendetta.
dwilson718 15y ago
I'm sure most of the people here missed the fact that this is a wake-up call. its meant to make people THINK long and hard about the real issues at hand. I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a lot of critical thinking going on. It's this reason I support these groups.
- GHFigs 15y ago
  I see the exact opposite. I see a call to stop thinking and align yourself with an ideology. e.g, "Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir." See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_true_believer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_true_believer
  - danssig 15y ago
    You have to do that in any case. Some prefer the ideology of "status quo at all costs".
    - GHFigs 15y ago
      You have to do what in any case? Stop thinking for yourself? I disagree.
jxcole 15y ago
Why does Anonymous focus so much on attacking the US government (and related rich democratic countries) when it could instead be focused on fighting the governments that are actually oppressive? Nothing the US has ever done, even at it's most oppressive, could ever compare to what North Korea does to it's own citizen's on a regular basis. I would probably be much more sympathetic towards their cause if they focused most on attacking the organizations that are the worst rather than attacking the organizations that will get them the most attention. I read somewhere that an Anonymous hacker used to fight oppressive governments in Africa. Why did he stop? Why does he all the sudden need to deface PBS because they printed negative press coverage of their favorite website, WikiLeaks? Are they really doing this for the good of mankind or are they just trying to get attention? Anonymous though they may be, they still seem to be just trying to get on the 5:00 news.
- spindritf 15y ago
  What can they attack in NK? Most governments that are truly oppressive don't have the kind of web presence and dependence on the Internet that make anonymous-style exploits viable.
- mquander 15y ago
  Does it really come as a shock that people prefer to protest the powers that are oppressing them and their friends, rather than the powers that are oppressing someone else on the other side of the planet?
  - innes 15y ago
    No, the problem of misdirected anger is unsurprising. And it's especially predictable with groups such as Anonymous who in their writings come off as pompous, childish, self-centred, and self-aggrandizing. Not the kind of traits that correlate with empathising with people on the other side of the planet. Their strategy (setting aside the more base stuff that is just bullying and focussing on their attempts to appear principled and 'crusading') seems to be to latch on to easy populist targets in order to win others approval. Their politics are those of angry teenagers who've read enough Chomsky or Klein to get all riled up.
fleitz 15y ago
The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
nextparadigms 15y ago
Anonymous and Lulzsec are more like 21st century revolutionaries, on a global scale. Revolutionaries are always seen as the enemy by the Government. So it's no surprise that the US Government wants to declare war against them and wants to catch them. If they win, then the Government changes, and the whole society changes after that. If they lose, they end up dead or in jail for whatever crimes the Government said they committed (and if there isn't a crime they can use, they'll make a new law for it like they tried with the SHIELD bill against whistleblowers) The hacktivists aren't doing any real damage to society, and in fact they may actually end up helping it a lot, in the same way Wikileaks changed some things for the better, and they were also hunted down by Governments. The real damage they are doing is to the people in power, and those people will fight to keep things the same and get away with their own crimes against the people they should represent. I think we'll experience major changes in the way our democracies work by the end of this decade. For the fast times we live in, and real time information and feedback, we can only give some feedback once every 4 years, and it's usually just 2 choices: the one that has been in power, and another one. Politicians need to become a lot more accountable, and our feedback should be a lot more direct and often than once every 4 years through the voting of a party or a president.
joelmichael 15y ago
A trite leftist screed ripped straight from the Bush years.

459 points by p4bl0 15y ago

pxlpshr 15y ago

Reminds me of the hacker's manifesto, but a lot less eloquent.

kahawe 15y ago
I find the idea of a bunch of 4chan, excuse me, "newfags" and "oldfags" frakking around the internet "for the lulz" and/or "shits and giggles" a lot more friendly and support-worthy than the same people rolling out a huge Robin-Hood/"the abused Davids striking back against Goliath Corps" banner and all in the name of "true justice" and "freedom". I miss the "wild wild west" internet a lot but the last thing we need is yet another entity pushing its interests onto the web. Hack and deface and publish, by all means, for great lulz! You are a lot more unique, random, loveable and (actually) useful that way.
- badclient 15y ago
  Not to mention it is hard to make a personal fortune doing it. Many Robin Hood-type figures around the world continue to rake in millions at the expense of the poor people they claim to rep. And yet, as a member of Lulz or Anon, the most you may gain is appreciation for your skill IF you put it on your resume. It would also get you arrested, effectively striking out one of the few ways to make a personal gain from this.

deleted 15y ago

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rheide 15y ago

Fairly well phrased, although the arguments against 'corporations' and 'conglomerates' are fairly unsubstantial. (in the pastebin, that is, IRL is a different matter)

madmaze 15y ago

I certainly agree with their Goals and I see very similar flaws in many governments. I am not sure their way is the best way to make governments listen, but it certainly is one way that gets publicity. The issue with their publicity is that news networks do not broadcast their message, they broadcast their actions which in turn intimidates and scares the less tech-savvy portion of society. This does not achieve their goals, but they make a statement. A statement is better than no statement.

ddw 15y ago
I'm racking my brain to think of a way to make a government "listen." Nope, can't think of any.
- smokinjoe 15y ago
  Vote intelligently.
  - trafficlight 15y ago
    Even if your state elects the smartest senator there has ever been, he still becomes part of the massive lumbering machine. And the machine is only as smart as it's dumbest person. The US Government has so much baggage now that it's nigh impossible to make anything but superficial changes.
    - 18pfsmt 15y ago
      I agree with you, and so does Lawrence Lessig[1]. If more people got behind the cause he started called Fix Congress First[2], that might be a bit more effective than the approach of 'anonymous'. Or, perhaps, the combination of the two would be best. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig#Constitutional_Convention http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Lessig#Constitutional_... [2]http://fixcongressfirst.org http://fixcongressfirst.org
  - ddw 15y ago
    An uninformed electorate isn't helping, but I don't see how voting is going to fix this. I'm starting to believe that the smart people just don't want to be politicians. It's a good way to become rich and famous, though.

mike-cardwell 15y ago

Their Twitter status from about half an hour ago is far more interesting: https://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/94033541196824576 https://twitter.com/#!/LulzSec/status/94033541196824576 "We're currently working with certain media outlets who have been granted exclusive access to some of the News of the World emails we have."

DanielRibeiro 15y ago
Reminded a bit of V for Vendetta's speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EORflS7uEIc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EORflS7uEIc And bit of John F. Kennedy: Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable
- slowpoke 15y ago
  Reminded a bit of V for Vendetta's speech Well, guess where they got the masks from, amongst other things. Anonymous is pretty much V incarnate. He's their idol and inspiration. He's everything they aspire to be.
JonnieCache 15y ago
Rest assured that it won't be the guardian. Charles Arthur, their useless tech editor, has recently been on the end of a torrent of spite from topiary, who writes the lulzsec press releases, likely including this one. http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary http://twitter.com/#!/atopiary EDIT: apparently sabu has been joining in as well. Pretty amusing.
- _delirium 15y ago
  Clicked expecting atopiary/sabu to be juvenile and Charles Arthur to be possibly clueless but professional, but it's actually hard to tell which side in those exchanges is more juvenile.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    You can read the whole thread on one page here: http://twitter.theinfo.org/93969411270123520 http://twitter.theinfo.org/93969411270123520 Considering he's technology editor, he just let himself get trolled HARD.

click170 15y ago

I read "Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher" and instantly pictured an executive somewhere rolling his eyes as he reads that. I understand the feelings disgust with the current state of the system, and I get how in leu of an actual solution one would feel frustrated enough to act out in the ways that they have, but I stand firm in my belief that there is a better way of accomplishing the changes we/they want to see, even if nobody has figured out what that is yet.

_delirium 15y ago
As far as some of the more "vandalism / hax0rs having fun" type things like redirecting the Sun's homepage I mostly agree, but the documents they've acquired might cause actual damage to the people they oppose, depending on what they contain. So that portion might be effective.

ibejoeb 15y ago

Who writes this stuff? It comes across as silly, hyperbolic, and even melodramatic, and detracts from the actual content. Lulz: consider this constructive criticism. Take it down a notch.

ikrima 15y ago
I'm (hoping) guessing a 14 year old kid with too much time on his hands
- kahawe 15y ago
  Or a 30-40 year old trying to impress, mobilize and exploit 14 year old kids with too much time on their hands.
JonnieCache 15y ago
It comes across to me as a deliberate, conscious and very effective attempt at mythmaking.
- ibejoeb 15y ago
  Sure, I don't doubt that it's deliberate. It's not the content of the message that I'm criticizing. It's precisely that, at least to me, it's being diminished by some of the silliness in the writing. "Hello thar," "Good Sir," really? That's how we speak? "The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s." This sentence hurts me.
  - crikli 15y ago
    My minds eye always sees a '90s-era Seth Green character as the man behind the keyboard of Anonymous/LulzSec.
  - JonnieCache 15y ago
    All the "good sir", "hello thar", monocle stuff dates back to the SA forums, which is where 4chan originally grew out of amongst other places. It was considered funny by some, but quickly grew out of control as people with no working sense of humour took up meme-repetition as a substitute. There was a time when you could get your account deleted for saying "good sir" on SA, it was that prevalent and annoying. A lot of the lulzsec schtick reads like classic SA banter, I wouldn't be surprised if topiary used to post there. It could just be because of the aforementioned SA-->4chan lineage.

feal 15y ago

Can someone rehost this elsewhere like pastie.org or something? Pastebin is blocked by websense. :/

nuclear_eclipse 15y ago
Hello thar FBI and international law authorities, We recently stumbled across the following article with amazement and a certain amount of amusement: http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-anonymous-hackers http://www.npr.org/2011/07/20/138555799/fbi-arrests-alleged-... The statements made by deputy assistant FBI director Steve Chabinsky in this article clearly seem to be directed at Anonymous and Lulz Security, and we are happy to provide you with a response. You state: "We want to send a message that chaos on the Internet is unacceptable, [even if] hackers can be believed to have social causes, it's entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts." Now let us be clear here, Mr. Chabinsky, while we understand that you and your colleagues may find breaking into websites unacceptable, let us tell you what WE find unacceptable: * Governments lying to their citizens and inducing fear and terror to keep them in control by dismantling their freedom piece by piece. * Corporations aiding and conspiring with said governments while taking advantage at the same time by collecting billions of funds for federal contracts we all know they can't fulfil. * Lobby conglomerates who only follow their agenda to push the profits higher, while at the same time being deeply involved in governments around the world with the only goal to infiltrate and corrupt them enough so the status quo will never change. These governments and corporations are our enemy. And we will continue to fight them, with all methods we have at our disposal, and that certainly includes breaking into their websites and exposing their lies. We are not scared any more. Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir. It is our mission to help these people and there is nothing - absolutely nothing - you can possibly to do make us stop. "The Internet has become so important to so many people that we have to ensure that the World Wide Web does not become the Wild Wild West." Let me ask you, good sir, when was the Internet not the Wild Wild West? Do you really believe you were in control of it at any point? You were not. That does not mean that everyone behaves like an outlaw. You see, most people do not behave like bandits if they have no reason to. We become bandits on the Internet because you have forced our hand. The Anonymous bitchslap rings through your ears like hacktivism movements of the 90s. We're back - and we're not going anywhere. Expect us.

peterwwillis 15y ago

What are they gonna do when every govt/corporate website starts sanitizing its webapps' input and patching its network services? All they'll be able to do is DoS. Wouldn't it be funny if the FBI & associated agencies actually worked to increase the security of the nation's networks instead of acting surprised every time they get penetrated?

JonnieCache 15y ago
>What are they gonna do when every govt/corporate website starts sanitizing its webapps' input and patching its network services? If that actually happens as a direct result of lulzsec, I submit that they should be given some sort of medal, and their choice of pacific islands.
scythe 15y ago
>What are they gonna do when every govt/corporate website starts sanitizing its webapps' input and patching its network services? That's among their stated goals.
- peterwwillis 15y ago
  I have a bridge to sell you.
hack_edu 15y ago
A significant goal of the movement is to bring to light just how insecure systems can be, and to not trust those who fail to protect. And to claim all they could do then is to DoS is the same BS write-off that you hear around here everyday, which is also disproven daily. Nothing is ever that secure. But do you really think all this will cause govts/corporations the get more serious about security? Why now and not a decade, two decades ago?
- peterwwillis 15y ago
  No, sorry, that's bullshit. AntiSec is a movement against the computer security industry. They want everything to be insecure. And it's not a write-off... they literally have no skills. Only idiots would start a campaign like the one they have and continue to shift their ideology to support whatever bullshit deface they've done now. They pick whatever low hanging fruit has a .gov, .mil or corporate presence, or take requests from twitter and hit whoever seems the funniest. It's a joke. It's Lulz. No, I don't think it'll actually cause people to secure stuff more. Maybe if enough confidential customer information leaks the govt will finally pass another bullshit SOX-like law to try and improve things, and fail horribly. But it would be nice if it did.

lhnz 15y ago

If I had the nerve I would join them. Bad-taste jokes and troublemaking. Badly written manifestos. But I think there are some in the groups who have their heart in the right place and want to do the right thing. And, illegal or not, I've yet to see any other form of western activism that is as disruptive as leaking/hacking.

wladimir 15y ago
I've yet to see any other form of western activism that is as disruptive as leaking/hacking I think that nails it. These days, the internet is the backbone of our world. There is no form of activism more effective than taking control of online resources, or releasing information. If a form of activism is socially acceptable it probably means it is not effective anymore. Why go on the street to just get beaten up - and ignored by the media - when hacking is so much more effective in garnering attention for your cause?
- pasbesoin 15y ago
  And these days, if you go on the streets, biometrics will have you pegged in minutes. EDIT: Downvoters: Just what do you think police are doing with all their cameras, at recent protests? And now there is -- I'm not kidding -- an iPhone device and app that connects to a privately created database of biometric information. Pricing is, per the public radio interview I heard just the other day, currently set at circa US$3000 / device. Pricy, but affordable. FURTHER EDIT: http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/07/20/biometrics http://onpoint.wbur.org/2011/07/20/biometrics
lucifer 15y ago
> If I had the nerve I would join them. .. having convinced yourself it is not the ultimate meta-honey-pot.

DanielBMarkham 15y ago

<rant> Let's see, "Make impassioned speech then go break into the neighbor's house and scatter his secret documents all over the lawn" That makes a lot of sense now, doesn't it? Perhaps if you're seven. And drunk. Aside from the validity of the charges, this manner of social justice never ever works for the people who try it. Good grief, did we learn nothing from Ghandi or MLK Jr.? There's a perfectly legitimate and effective way to denounce injustice. I think either you understand the problems with what they are doing from looking at history or you become so enamored with their cause you allow yourself to become feeble-minded. I hate the security state that we're living in. But I hate even more people taking it on themselves to administer justice in this fashion. If you make me pick, I'm going with broken security state over anarchists every time -- and there are hundreds of millions of folks just like me. And the the thing I hate worst? Somebody taking _my_ legitimate cause and crapping all over it by doing things like this. It's an attack on freedom-loving people everywhere. If the local prosecutor lets a murderer go free? I don't go burn the prosecutor's house down. If the local sheriff is corrupt? I don't break into his house and publish his papers in the newspaper. If the guy next door is crooked and in cahoots with the mob? I don't get to break in his house and hand out his property to the poor. In short, the minute I start deciding on my own when to break the law and disrespect other people's property rights because of a cause -- even a legitimate cause -- I become an enemy of everybody. You don't get to wave your hands around angrily pointing out how worthy your cause is and get a free pass. At least not from me. </rant>

_delirium 15y ago
> Aside from the validity of the charges, this manner of social justice never ever works for the people who try it. I dunno, the Pentagon Papers had fairly significant political effects, I think. Stealing government documents and having them published overseas to embarrass/expose the state's actions was also one of the more effective tools used by opposition groups in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Do you really think stealing a state's documents is an attack on "freedom-loving people everywhere"? Is this always true? The Eastern-block dissents hated freedom, and damaged the cause of freedom by stealing/leaking Stasi documents? I could certainly agree that the Stasi is much worse than the UK government, so maybe you could draw a line between a certain level of viciousness of the security state, past which document-theft becomes justified. But I don't see how you could make a blanket statement that it's never justified. I would also make a distinction between breaking into a person's house and breaking into a government's office. Breaking into someone's home has a certain personal-threat aspect to it, and I'd consider homes to have a bit of a sacrosanct element that I wouldn't extend to state offices. So, probably not in favor of combatting a corrupt police force by breaking into the sheriff's home. But, combatting a corrupt police force by breaking into a police station and grabbing their files, as happened recently in Egypt, seems a bit different.

flocial 15y ago

The Lulzsec crew and Wiki Leaks strikes a nerve like modern day Robin Hoods. It makes you wonder if those of us in wealthy democracies are actually experiencing a peculiarly 21st century form of passive aggressive oppression where we may be "free" but monitored and essentially feel helpless and the fact that these unknown hackers are able to duck and evade the same forces that can hunt and kill terrorists with disregard of sovereignty makes them look like folk heroes. We'll see how this saga unfolds.

sigzero 15y ago
They are in no way "modern day Robin Hoods". Hoodlums maybe.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  The Sheriff of Nottingham surely thought Robin Hood was a hoodlum too.
  - gdcbyers 15y ago
    Except we aren't the sheriff in this scenario. We are the people Robin Hood is trying to help. And I say petty thuggery and vandalism aren't helping.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome Among other things.
      - gdcbyers 15y ago
        Please clarify this statement. Are you suggesting that my distain for LulzSec and its methods are some how the result of brain washing or extreme trama? And if "We the people" are the Sheriff in this little Robin Hood adventure, who are the poor villagers Robin is trying to help? What a ridiculous reply. Or are we just naming random psychological phenomenon? If thats the case, I choose http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthesia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grapheme%E2%80%93color_synesthe...

darksaga 15y ago

I wonder if they'll ever understand the people they're trying to protect are actually the victims in their actions. They hack Sony. Sony loses millions. How do you think they're going to recapture their loses? By passing the loss onto consumers. Increased prices for TV's, games, anything Sony makes is going to increase in price to recoup their loses. Clearly they haven't thought this all the way through.

Vivtek 15y ago
Oh come on. People said the same damn thing about every activist in history. "Don't anger Sony because they'll only make prices higher for everybody!" Yes. Their costs will be higher, so economically they'll either take less profit or have higher prices. Then they will be at a disadvantage in the marketplace. At some point the cold equations of economics will dictate that they either change their ways or die.
- darksaga 15y ago
  It has nothing to do with activist history - this how economics works. What happened to the price of gas when there was a disaster in the gulf of Mexico? Oh yeah, gas prices went up and up and up. Who really paid for the disaster? BP or us the consumer? It's not like one day their TV's are $300, and then overnight they're $1000. All they have to do is edge the price up moderately over time to make back their losses. But in the end, the result is the same. The loss and increased cost is passed on to the consumer. Also, when you're talking two or three dollar differences in prices compared to other companies. Sony owns a large portion of the gaming industry. It's not like there's 10 console makers. Choice is limited, so your point about "cold equations of economics" unfortunately doesn't hold true in this case. My point stands - when large corporations lose money, it's normal for businesses to pass the loss of revenue onto consumers.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    Well, and I say this in the nicest possible way, no shit. Yes. Of course they do. What else can they do? Is the answer then never to worry an executive, or should it be to speak to them in the only language that can ever reach a corporation: make it less profitable for them to act like assholes? The cost of assholery at the corporations is also passed on to the consumer - and everybody else on the planet - it may simply not be in absolute dollars and cents in purchase price. But we all end up paying. Incidentally, gas prices have nothing to do with the disaster in the Gulf, and everything to do with (1) what the market will bear, (2) increased consumption in BRIC nations, and (3) profit-taking and commodity games. The oil companies, including BP, have made more money in the past year than they ever have. So they're not passing the price of disaster on; they're simply taking whatever they can grab because they know nobody is ever going to try to worry a corporation for fear they might not hire somebody. Like they will anyway. Gah. Probably too much grar here. I'm going to go lie down.

sidcool 15y ago

How do we know this is for legit?

y3di 15y ago
anonymousIRC and Lulzsec both tweeted it
lhnz 15y ago
Linked from Lulzsec's and AnonymousIRC's twitters which are held by respective members of the groups.
- cpeterso 15y ago
  How do we know Lulzsec's and AnonymousIRC's twitters are legit?

tannerc 15y ago

This is why we can't have nice things online.

samkiller18 15y ago

These kids have become the subject of their own joke. But it's funny watching them and reading them on twitter though

andrewcamel 15y ago

I really do not understand why they cannot find someone to write for them who understands English grammatical rules. All I can think of when I'm reading that document are some troublemakers trying to justify malicious attacks. If they could write a decent press release, it might actually convince people that they are trying to do some some good in the world.

benstella 15y ago

i dont think anonymous is bad i like them and i wonder if they would help me start a cyber war aganist jb liker

nathanb 15y ago

"it's entirely unacceptable to break into websites and commit unlawful acts" This is quite the hypocritical statement coming from the FBI. As far as I can tell, the only difference between Anonymous, Lulzsec, and the FBI is that the FBI act by executive fiat. I don't support Internet vigilanteism, but I also don't support the concept of the FBI as an untouchable force who are no longer held accountable by the public they are theoretically serving. At this point, I'm not sure which one I find more scary.

roc 15y ago
> "At this point, I'm not sure which one I find more scary." There will always be scofflaws and pranksters. Indeed for our way of life to be assured, they must be able to exist. The ever-growing reach of the military-espionage-industrial complex is the only real threat.
- jeremyarussell 15y ago
  I have to find myself agreeing with this, the fact that these individuals (FBI members, govt agencies in general.) are funded beyond the means of normal individuals and given resources that money can't buy. (well I'm sure enough of it can.) Gives them an edge that many people can't fight against. They can do whatever they want with impunity. Now I can't say that opening up a server and releasing all it's users passwords is right, or fair, but there comes a time in war where there must be casualties. In this war of Anon VS govt/corp, Anonymous must use unfair tactics, if only to level out the playing field. That all said, this all reeks of a cold civil war, maybe something will come out of it, maybe nothing will. I'll just keep doing what I do, solving issues of non-freedom the way I can, one person at a time. A lot could be done if people just acted better towards each other. But I think right now that's too much to ask of us(humans).
  - walru 15y ago
    The fact that we're even able to have these thoughtful discussions means that at least we're evolving as a species. For the sake of our survival, may we eventually get to a point where people are judged more for how they treat others, rather than what they are able to purchase.

rauljara 15y ago

I think there is room for illegal activities in the name of a free and open society. If this is truly the author's goal, however, they need to stop associating with LulzSec. There was nothing noble about 9/10's of the crap lulzsec did, and the somewhat decent stuff they did was undercut by the whole "for the lulz" philosophy. If you really are fighting for freedom, you need to be better than DDS'ing game servers, because if you aren't the people who you are opposed to will use that shit against you. Like the FBI is doing now. I won't shed a tear if the Lulzsec folk get put away. I will be quite upset if Lulzsec turns the public against those who would do the modern day equivalent of releasing the pentagon papers.

scythe 15y ago
>If this is truly the author's goal, however, they need to stop associating with LulzSec. In principle, I agree. The 'internet privacy' movement would be better served if the people who supported it differentiated themselves from the people who are just fucking around. I think a lot of them realize this. The question "why don't they" has its answer in the dark catacombs of the human psyche. LulzSec and Anonymous draw a lot of their support, i.e. membership, from teenagers who want to feel like the antihero of one of today's popular bildungsroman-turned-polemic, y'know, V for Vendetta, or The Matrix, Avatar, etc. Being somewhat evil is cool, and Anonymous needs to look cool for people to want to be part of it. I'm sure the aforementioned Black Panthers lived on this for a while as well. Some people did try to break the moral section of the movement away from the lunatic fringe; it was called Enturbulation and later WhyWeProtest, and they went after Scientology and later ACTA. Ultimately, though, WhyWeProtest slowly became irrelevant, because without a steady stream of angry people and plenty of press coverage their membership was decimated by the attrition of boredom and disillusionment. It's still around at http://whyweprotest.net/ http://whyweprotest.net/ but unlike Anonymous you've never heard of them. I support the EFF and Wikileaks much more readily than I support Anonymous, but at the same time I figure no social change movement has succeeded without a lunatic fringe -- there were plenty of violent people fighting for India's independence, the breakup of the Soviet Union started with a coup, there were multiple violent civil rights activists in the '60s, etc.
- 15y ago

deleted 15y ago

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Shenglong 15y ago

This is absolutely ridiculous. I don't agree with a lot of the things that various government organizations are allegedly doing either. However, I also understand that I probably don't have all the facts. I also know that even if I had all the facts, I would probably not commit much time to analyzing all of them, in order to make a sound decision on the best course of action. Why don't other people realize this? We leave the economics to the economists, the physics to the physicists, and the medicine to the doctors. There are people--incompetent or not--who spend their entire lives dealing with government/country related issues. Yes, some of them might be corrupt, but are we naive enough to believe that an entire country is corrupt? Who are we to judge corruption, and what sources of information do we really have? At one point or another, this argument for civil liberties gets repetitive and overblown. No one I know has ever felt like their freedoms were at stake, and the few government mistakes that the media captures should not be precedence to act against them. I make mistakes, you make mistakes - everyone makes mistakes. Hacking into their servers, getting people fired (and therefore replacing them with less experienced people), and leaking sensitive information so the uneducated public can get their opinions in, is -NOT- going to solve anything. At all. Ever. Edit: Edited out a preface - wasn't aware. Sorry.

lhnz 15y ago
Is this necessarily to do with giving information to the uneducated public? Most of the public will not do anything with this information, but I will tell you who will respond: their shareholders and more dangerously their competitors. That is where you should apply pressure.
enjalot 15y ago
You forgot to mention that we should leave voting to the politicians :P
- Shenglong 15y ago
  I know that's meant to be satirical, but it kind of derides the examples. Economists vote mostly based on their economic views, stem-cell researchers on stem-cell related views, and low-income families on social security. I just mean, leave specialized tasks to the specialists.

tRAS 15y ago

"Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea." Jeez, I got goosebumps reading that. Straight out from V for Vendetta.

dwilson718 15y ago

I'm sure most of the people here missed the fact that this is a wake-up call. its meant to make people THINK long and hard about the real issues at hand. I don't know about you, but I'm seeing a lot of critical thinking going on. It's this reason I support these groups.

GHFigs 15y ago
I see the exact opposite. I see a call to stop thinking and align yourself with an ideology. e.g, "Your threats to arrest us are meaningless to us as you cannot arrest an idea. Any attempt to do so will make your citizens more angry until they will roar in one gigantic choir." See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_true_believer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_true_believer
- danssig 15y ago
  You have to do that in any case. Some prefer the ideology of "status quo at all costs".
  - GHFigs 15y ago
    You have to do what in any case? Stop thinking for yourself? I disagree.

jxcole 15y ago

Why does Anonymous focus so much on attacking the US government (and related rich democratic countries) when it could instead be focused on fighting the governments that are actually oppressive? Nothing the US has ever done, even at it's most oppressive, could ever compare to what North Korea does to it's own citizen's on a regular basis. I would probably be much more sympathetic towards their cause if they focused most on attacking the organizations that are the worst rather than attacking the organizations that will get them the most attention. I read somewhere that an Anonymous hacker used to fight oppressive governments in Africa. Why did he stop? Why does he all the sudden need to deface PBS because they printed negative press coverage of their favorite website, WikiLeaks? Are they really doing this for the good of mankind or are they just trying to get attention? Anonymous though they may be, they still seem to be just trying to get on the 5:00 news.

spindritf 15y ago
What can they attack in NK? Most governments that are truly oppressive don't have the kind of web presence and dependence on the Internet that make anonymous-style exploits viable.
mquander 15y ago
Does it really come as a shock that people prefer to protest the powers that are oppressing them and their friends, rather than the powers that are oppressing someone else on the other side of the planet?
- innes 15y ago
  No, the problem of misdirected anger is unsurprising. And it's especially predictable with groups such as Anonymous who in their writings come off as pompous, childish, self-centred, and self-aggrandizing. Not the kind of traits that correlate with empathising with people on the other side of the planet. Their strategy (setting aside the more base stuff that is just bullying and focussing on their attempts to appear principled and 'crusading') seems to be to latch on to easy populist targets in order to win others approval. Their politics are those of angry teenagers who've read enough Chomsky or Klein to get all riled up.

fleitz 15y ago

The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO

nextparadigms 15y ago

Anonymous and Lulzsec are more like 21st century revolutionaries, on a global scale. Revolutionaries are always seen as the enemy by the Government. So it's no surprise that the US Government wants to declare war against them and wants to catch them. If they win, then the Government changes, and the whole society changes after that. If they lose, they end up dead or in jail for whatever crimes the Government said they committed (and if there isn't a crime they can use, they'll make a new law for it like they tried with the SHIELD bill against whistleblowers) The hacktivists aren't doing any real damage to society, and in fact they may actually end up helping it a lot, in the same way Wikileaks changed some things for the better, and they were also hunted down by Governments. The real damage they are doing is to the people in power, and those people will fight to keep things the same and get away with their own crimes against the people they should represent. I think we'll experience major changes in the way our democracies work by the end of this decade. For the fast times we live in, and real time information and feedback, we can only give some feedback once every 4 years, and it's usually just 2 choices: the one that has been in power, and another one. Politicians need to become a lot more accountable, and our feedback should be a lot more direct and often than once every 4 years through the voting of a party or a president.

joelmichael 15y ago

A trite leftist screed ripped straight from the Bush years.