A conversation with Commander X

A conversation with Commander X

www.itworld.com

I got to chat with the Commander as he was coordinating DDOS attacks on the Web sites for the Iranian government. There are many things he declined to divulge – like the PLF’s source of funding, and the true nature of Anonymous' relationship to WikiLeaks – but he was remarkably candid in other ways. Here’s an edited version of that conversation.

(visit the link for the full news article)


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Some interesting details seem to come from this conversation. Among those being that there are several groups involved in "Anonymous", with a complex but weirdly informal relationship among them. There's Anonymous, AnonOPS, The PLF, etc.

In each case, there are "leaders" in at least an informal sense. Perhaps "organizers" or people providing inspiration, define cause and provide fore-thought would be a better description.

Here are some snippets from the article, but I encourage all to read the whole thing.

How does Anonymous pick its targets?
There are some rough criteria, they are basically the same for both the PLF and Anon Ops. They are as follows:
1) Must be protesters on the ground.
2) They must be non-violent. Neither the PLF nor Anon Ops involve themselves in armed conflicts.
3) There must be some hope of victory. With all the Targets to chose from, we must try and pick fights we can win.
4) There must be some clear moral imperative.

Can you define what you mean by "victory"?
Dictators on planes to Saudi Arabia works for us. :-)

So have you considered using more advanced hacking techniques?
Considered? How do you think Tunisia started? :-)

Are you saying you hacked the government of Tunisia?
That’s confidential. But I would point out that Tunisia's "Jasmine Revolution" has been attributed to the leaking to WikiLeaks of some very embarrassing info on the Tunisian gov. Ever wonder where that leak came from ?

One of the stories floating about after the hack is that HBGary had decompiled code for Stuxnet, and now that's in the hands of the Anons. Any truth to that?
Absolutely none. Anonymous does NOT create viruses or other malicious code. Ever. It's one of the guiding principles and it is never broken.

www.itworld.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Though these guys are anonymous, though there may be there are sects and leaders, anonymous isn't a group.
Somehow the news has made it seem that anonymous is the name of a club, it's not, it's just anonymous.

He can't guarantee that members don't make viruses or malicious code, because the his fellow "members" are as anonymous and free willed as he himself.

He can hope.

Either way if there is a large portion of what was known as anon going around as a more official ANON and doing good and stirring things up, well i think it's pretty cool. If they can stick to their proposed morals that is.

But they will probably just get called moralfags.

Why read an edited conversation from anonymous people?

Anonymous is the collective. It's a hive mind. As the hive mind changes (different targets, different agendas) the individuals will disengage from the collective and new ones will connect in.

If you had to give it a different name, it would be called a flash mob protest. The reason they (the collective) name it Anonymous is because there are no leaders - just popular ideas.

And ideas are invincible.

reply to post by harrytuttle


S-and-F for the V sentiment of ideas being impossible to destroy.
I think Anon is a scary, but necessary thing to have.

I don't like it - it makes my 'spidey sense' tingle and that's never lied to me yet.
Which is a terrible shame as the idea is an admirable one, it's the human element that's always going to cause the problem.