The Case for "Anonymous" NOT fighting for you

Anonymous, to the uninformed, is basically described as a "headless hacker collective". They do not have any one leader, and any person with anti-Government or anti-corporate views can fight under their banner. Some members are more skilled than others. Some are just wannabes. Some members are shills.

In any case, the group as a whole is always in the news for one thing or another, and have recently been in the news for releasing sensitive DoJ material.

Personally, I support their goals. I do not believe they are a CIA/FBI front, despite how one could argue that their attacks are actually counter-productive (i.e. their actions create a "need" for a stronger presence of Big Brother). That does not mean that there aren't intelligence agents with some amount of control over the various projects or sub-groups within the organization.

However, when the group is mentioned on ATS or other websites, there are a few people who take the position of "if Anonymous really fought for 'the common man', they would 'wipe the slate clean'" referring to mortgages, credit reports, etc. That is a short sighted and ignorant complaint.

It is short sighted and ignorant, because to "wipe the slate clean", would be to shoot Western Civilization in the foot. It would do more harm than good.

It doesn't take a economist to understand what happens when there is "too much" spending power (via the elimination of financial obligations) in the hands of the masses. If you don't know what would happen, the resulting flood of money to the market would most likely, cause inflation, if not hyper-inflation.

They don't want to harm you. Causing [hyper] inflation would harm you. It may seem a little backward, but think about it.

Anyone care to offer a counter-point related to the effect of wiping the slate clean?

tl;dr Anonymous doesn't wipe the slate clean, because it would cause massive inflation, and thus would hurt you more than it would help you

I'm going to say this for the (not) last time.

Anonymous is a damned hat. Anyone can put it on and say "WE aRe Legi0n"

It is not a group anymore, not like back in the mid 2000s when it refered to channers on IRC causing mayhem for the hell of it.

Anonymous is anyone and everyone utilizing a throwaway name that has clout. Have a good morning.

I am anonymous, We are Legion

and I'm not wiping the slate clean... just yet.

see, easy. Now you try.

reply to post by TheOneElectric
This was addressed in the first paragraph of the opening post, but it needs to be said in clearer words, because it is more or less true.

Yes, it is true that the group as a whole has been diluted, but there are still people with actual knowledge and technical ability. Dilution does not discredit the group as a whole. That is a logical fallacy.

I think that the whole point of the person or people that created anonymous was just that...To recruit others under the name but to also go invisable to the mass as the founder/s. Makes it harder to track and to gather info...When a group, as unorganised as it can be, functions in the same direction and has the same ultimate goal, it works. Anonymous is just that, it's "untrackable" because of all that are involved, no matter the role those "members" take. In a way, we are all anonymous when we fight the system for one reason or another regardless if it is for our own personal gain or for the mass population, it is still fighting the "machine" of TPTB.

reply to post by inivux


They are not hackers they are talentless vandals. They randomly stumble around looking for a weak system which they then proceed to vandalise and then after make up some reason to justify the vandalism. Not clever not skilled and if anonymous do have a cause to speak of they are not helping it only damaging it.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing...

reply to post by CrimsonMoon
There are members of multiple skill levels.

The DDoS script kiddies are worthless.

The DoJ, et al. hackers are not.

Black and white thinking is beneath any human with an IQ over 30.

Besides, you and the others have missed the point of the thread.

The "members" (if you will) may very well fit into the description you provide, but I still fully believe that they are unwitting participants in a massive public psy-op campaign as well as a huge sting operation. They foolishly serve their hidden overlords in Washington DC by not only providing an iron clad excuse for draconian internet control and privacy rights violations, but they fall into the trap like mice to cheese. They are "anonymous" to the public, but I guarantee the feds know each of them by name, online aliases, address, and pertinent personal information. One day, after they have served their purpose and the internet is locked down by the feds in terms of both content and intent, they will be gathered up and displayed to the public as conquered enemies.

ETA: I don't believe the majority of their "members" give a flip about inflation or about whether they may take it too far. I do, however, think that they are carefully guided to "security holes" that have been intentionally left open by various agencies. This allows them to make a controlled spectacle which the agencies can point towards as excuses for more controls. I believe the only reason we've not seen Anonymous cause sincere chaos, erase debts, or do really anything else legitimately damaging is because the agencies haven't ever opened the backdoor to anything remotely important for them to walk in to. Even Wikileaks... has even one item of importance or one secret not already been widely known or openly speculated about ever come out of Wikileaks? None that I've seen... How many folks have that suicide pill Assange created downloaded on their PC? How many IP addresses do you suppose the CIA has on file after they sat back and watched the mice stampeding to that cheese scented suicide pill? How easy would it be for them to enact just a minor legal alteration making possession or dissemination of that file a felonious breech of national security? What's really in that file? It certainly isn't anything serious, or Assange wouldn't exactly be in custody anymore, would he? My money says it's Granny Assange's recipe for prune oatmeal cookies... I'm probably wrong, but I'd be amazed if it was anything more earth shaking than that.

reply to post by inivux


I see Anonymous as a loose collective of politically inspired burglars. They break into property that is not theirs and steal what is not theirs.

Burglarizing that which is not yours should be a crime and it is, in the physical world. But in the cyber realm, we've never had the courage to call it what it is.

These guys are not Robin Hood. There are many things the COULD do... like exposing the drug cartels in Mexico that murder their own people by the dozens every day. Then there are places like Tibet, where the Chinese have all but so diluted the population in the same way Hitler tried to in Poland and the Balkans, that Tibetans are now almost a minority.

Where are these heroes? Hacking banks and businesses.

About 10 years ago, I had my ID stolen, my bank account emptied... I lost my car and almost my home. Six years later, the hacker had not been identified except they lived somewhere in Eastern Europe.

You want heroes like this? You can have them. I hope they are all locked away someday.

Originally posted by inivux
reply to post by CrimsonMoon

 

There are members of multiple skill levels.

The DDoS script kiddies are worthless.

The DoJ, et al. hackers are not.

Black and white thinking is beneath any human with an IQ over 30.

Besides, you and the others have missed the point of the thread.

edit on 25-2-2013 by inivux because: (no reason given)

Yep. Maybe they have a reclusive supplier of ohday every now and then to keep them going.

Bottom line for "Anonymous" -- none of their actions have caused any meaningful change.

Their last "OpLastResort" -- a complete farce. No redacted docs, no encryption keys. Nada. Nothing. Except blah blah blah. Maybe someone can point to one instance of Anon releasing any damning docs to make any change happen? I don't know of it.

Probably a psy op. If not, then just some script kids getting lucky with some random machines after nmapping some networks.