How Anonymous Picks Targets, Launches Attacks, and Takes Powerful Organizations Down

Story From: Wired
Author: Quinn Norton
Published: July 3, 2012

How Anonymous Picks Targets, Launches Attacks, and Takes Powerful Organizations Down

No one but Hector Xavier Monsegur can know why or when he became Sabu, joining the strange and chaotic Internet collective known as Anonymous. But we know the moment he gave Sabu up. On June 7, 2011, federal agents came to his apartment on New York’s Lower East Side and threatened the 28-year-old with an array of charges that could add up to 124 years in prison. So Hector Monsegur, who as Sabu had become a mentor and icon to fellow members of Anonymous, surrendered his online identity to a new, equally faceless and secretive master: the FBI.

For the next eight months, Sabu continued to rage across the Internet as a core member of AntiSec, a blackhat hacking group within Anonymous. He helped to deface government and corporate websites and even helped bring down the private intelligence firm Stratfor—all, apparently, with the FBI’s blessing as it quietly gathered logs on Monsegur’s fellow “anons.” Law enforcement officials later told Fox News that Monsegur was working out of the FBI offices “almost daily” in the weeks after he pleaded guilty in August and then from his own home thereafter, with an agent watching his activity 24 hours a day. Sometimes agents were even posing as Sabu directly.

This article is absolutely superb. I learnt so much about the history and inner workings of Anon and what they have been doing over the course of the last few years... the article goes real deep and tells the whole story of how they first emerged and how they got where they are now. A brilliantly fascinating read. It is quite long but well worth the read.

This has the feel of a COINTELPRO piece. Wired is know for towing the establishment line so I would remain objective when reading an article. They are just trying to persist with the lie that anon is their to fight TPTB.

Anonymous is a CIA NSA created entity to track and control many well meaning hackers.

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Originally posted by coven83
This has the feel of a COINTELPRO piece. Wired is know for towing the establishment line so I would remain objective when reading an article. They are just trying to persist with the lie that anon is their to fight TPTB.

Anonymous is a CIA NSA created entity to track and control many well meaning hackers.

The article matches with all the news I have read about anonymous over the past few years. Yes, those alphabet agencies probably do what ever they can to penetrate Anonymous and blackmail their members into doing their bidding, as we can clearly see in the article they have already managed to do that, the FBI even supplied storage servers to Anon according to this article. And of course it's probably very dangerous to get involved with Anon because they are probably heavily monitored by such agencies... but Anon is simply too large in scope to claim the whole thing is a government operation, and their activities speak for themselves. They have done many good things in their time. Furthermore, it was not created by the CIA or NSA, it was spawned from the 4chan /b/ board as explained in this article.

reply to post by ChaoticOrder


The three letter agencies may have infiltrated parts of Anon via some of the small timers they tracked down, but they are by no means controlling the whole thing for their own purposes. I simply cannot believe that. Anon is too big and loose of a collective. Hackers come and go and some, but not all, are more adept with this than the best minds the Govt. can afford.

I don't just say that from a technical standpoint either. From the article: "There’s no one to grant permission, no promise of praise or credit, so every action must be its own reward." This is why they're so adept at what they do and this is why they scare people. They work outside the normal constructs of society,. the constructs that say you must take credit and money for what you do.

In this day and age, their philosophy is almost unheard of: Do the right thing for the sake of it.

What do they mean by bring down Stratfor? The company is still running isnt it?

Originally posted by PhoenixOD
What do they mean by bring down Stratfor? The company is still running isnt it?

I think they are just saying they brought down the Stratfor website for a period of time.

reply to post by Taupin Desciple

The three letter agencies may have infiltrated parts of Anon via some of the small timers they tracked down, but they are by no means controlling the whole thing for their own purposes.

Well that "Sabu" guy certainly didn't sound like a "small timer"... but clearly he's no longer involved in their projects and they all know the lengths the government will go to in order to track them down. Now that they are aware of the tactics used I think it will just make them stronger. They have been much quieter as of late but I don't think they will remain this quiet forever.

still waiting to see them actually do something worthwhile that has an effect in the real world ... rather than the fantasy land they seem to reside in ...

thus far they havent accomplished anything ...

reply to post by Expat888

thus far they havent accomplished anything

.
Why don't you try reading the article the OP posted?
Obviously you haven't.

reply to post by orbitbaby

read it ... and as I said still havent seen them do one thing that has made an actual , lasting difference in the real world ...