Anonymous is waging war against Western democracies. People need to understand this. They have very sophisticated and well-thought-out public relations strategies that unfortunately have been effective in manipulating public opinion and covering over what they are truly trying to do, which is to destabilize key Western institutions. They are also testing out cyber warfare techniques for potential use at a much more important time. They are an amorphous group, much like al-Qaeda, which makes them difficult to target. What I know about this group is that their core is a small group of 3-5 young (20's) hackers. They are likely operating out of Eastern Europe. The real question is where are they receiving their funding and organizational support from. Many people inside our government and intelligence agencies believe they are getting funding from other governments that are hostile towards the US. There is a very good chance Russia and Russia's intelligence groups are involved in supporting them. If that's the case, then we'll likely never find the core group. Anonymous represents the new age of cold war-era intelligence wars. Those in the US who sympathize with them are very misguided and uninformed.
The way the internet is designed, there's not really any good way to stop a DDOS attack - it's basically looks like the equivalent of millions of people trying to visit a website at once. It's really just easier to wait it out. And as noted by others, all this does is give politicians more political justification to put controls on the internet so they CAN stop these kinds of things in the future. When security is threatened, people tend to respond by clamping down.
You might be right in regards to the security issue and feeling "threatened" but it may take months before they catch em.
This is an interesting take. I hadn't considered that the actions of "Anonymous" might be mostly coming from an entity supported/funded by a foreign government. I would love to see more definitive proof of this, though it's likely that there wouldn't be any proof regardless if it's true or not. btw the CIA site is back up now, just loading very slowly.
LOL, are you serious? Not sure if you are trolling or not. They are not targetting CIA, they just use the CIA website attack to expose the child p*rn network underground. They hijacked those servers with child p*rn to do the attack so the police can track down the offenders.
Looks like Israel is next: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/nrJ551FFWp0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Well we can't have it both ways. If taking the site down is insignificant, then it doesn't justify SOPA in any way. If it is significant, and warrants being mentioned as one of the reasons for approving SOPA, then its very embarrassing for the CIA. Also I don't see the link between a hacker taking down a website in a seemingly routine hacking operation and the US government threatening to block the American people from unfettered internet access to fellow humans around the world. Do we think that the Arab Spring social networking phenomenon hasn't made governments think about what IS in their control and what is not? The historical equivalent to SOPA would be to go back in time and remove the right to bear arms when bearing arms was relevant. On the internet, there is a far more level playing field at the moment than there is in the weapons industry, so a ranking order must be established.
Its a matter of perception, most of the general public is not aware of the significance. As long as the media keeps it in the news and sells it as a threat, people will be more accepting of change.
Anybody with an army of botnets can take down just about any website whenever they want to through a DDoS attack. It's not that big of deal and requires no "hacking" skills. IMO the above hurts Anonymous's imagine. It makes them look like criminals instead of being hacktivist which they proclaim to be.
this! I have enough knowledge about computer security and "hacking" tools that I could take down most any normal website if I wanted. It is not impressive, nor is it a danger to anyone. and as for the FV Santiago post, I have one word.....Bulls***. its a bunch of teen and 20ish script kiddies that do it cause they can. There may be a few "hacktivists" that decide who to go after and run their mouths about it to the press, but it is hardly some big deadly hacker collective that can do enough damage to affect anything important.
How can you know that? They've admitted that they are only loosely organized, so that's no surprise. Granted they may have not done anything serious yet, but the potential is huge given the loose boundaries.
They go after what they feel is right. Its impulsive self-righteousness. I applaud their actions, although hacking or DDoSing alone will not spur a movement for change. There are a lot of good things these guys have done too. They do what Clutchfans do here (like busting Brian Chapman) but faster and more efficiently. They may not be the best hackers by definition, but they've literally got armies of people collaborating together. At least these hackers strive to do good over real hackers who strive to harm the innocent for their own self-benefit.
