Anonymous releases law firm's emails about Haditha killings Anonymous has leaked a trove of emails relating to the deaths of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha after hacking into a law firm's systems. The hacktivists claim to have made off with a 2.6GB email spool after breaking into the systems of Puckett Faraj, the law firm that represents Frank Wuterich, 31, the Marine staff sergeant at …
Or how about the review over at DOE(dept of energy) a punk manager refuses to accept responsibility for his actions acting like an abusive power mongering idiot and because of him the past 15 years 5 people have lept to their death at the top of the white flint north buildings.
I heard those stories and they are 100% true as I know people personally who work there.
I hope they toss him off the top.
Shouldn't client - attorney communications or anything resembling thereof be out of bounds? Doesn't matter what you think of the clients, who the clients worked for or what they did but one minute its Anonymous hacking the details, next minute it will be Governments doing it. (Yeah I know the Man is probably doing it already but at least let me pretend to have the illusion of living in a free state where habeus corpus still counts, and someone is innocent unless proven guilty) Just saying...
Hmmm. No desire to promote criminal act of hacking into a legal firm's records by skiddiots (after all, if it was someone hacking into Ryan Cleary's or Jake Davis's lawyers' records the Anonytwitz would be the first to shriek), balanced with desire to see the Haditha killers punished. I'm not sure releasing the lawyer's correspondance will help matters as it will probably just be the stuff already seen in the trial.
Yay, Anonymous - helping make reasonable points of view look extreme by association.
You're not helping, guys. Noooot. Hellllpinnnng!
Also, why attack the lawyers? It's a @#$@##$ confrontational justice system. They're defense lawyers - and they might be defending *you* next. You hate the incompetent and abusive government? Great! Then why do you support it when it happens to be going after guys you don't like? I'm sure if those same human beings were prosecuting someone you *liked* there'd be hell to pay.
So which is it? Are you rooting for one side as you see fit, purposely ignoring the hypocrisy? Or are you just swinging wildly and hoping something connects?
Anonymous is, lately (a year ago this really wasn't the case, it seems) a bit like Peta - the overall goal is good, some of the specific goals are good, and some of the people they go after are good targets. But their methods are unsuccessful, impulsive, and reek of petulance.
(continued...)
The worst bit is that they tar a whole bunch of good people with their brush - Anonymous has become the face of the 'internet should be open' crowd, and then they go around attacking random-ass people and acting like idiots. You get some traction on anti-SOPA, and before you know it, here comes Anonymous, riding to the rescue and hax0ring everybody in sight. Conclusion of average person: "Anonymous does bad things. Anonymous opposes SOPA. People who oppose SOPA do bad things." If you don't know anything else about it, how would you come to another conclusion, particularly when the media paints Anonymous as the 'leader' for these issues - much as Peta is painted as the 'leader' for animal rights.
Just because I think that torturing monkeys in little cages is fucking disgusting, doesn't mean I'm going to go piss on scientists' rose bushes, or whatever the hell. But people associate that opinion with a bunch of crazy assholes, so it becomes impossible to even express the opinion without being viewed as an extremist.
Anonymous and other vigilante organizations are fun to cheer on for specific events, but taken as a whole, all they're doing by committing revenge attacks on people they don't like, is proving that they can't take the high road; that they're no better than their enemies - and, ironically, that's precisely the kind of thing Anonymous (alleges and) hates about the US government.
With friends like these, yada yada...
"But PETA aren't painted as being the leader for animal rights. That would be the RSPCA. Are you seriously saying that anyone pays any attention to PETA anywhere?"
Well, that's precisely the thing, really. And in the US, PETA until a few years ago -was- mainly perceived as animal rights - they've only gone nuts... well, altered their nuttiness... about meat chompin' and fur-wearin' recently.
But even with that, if you say you think wearing fur is pointless and really pretty horrible, as I believe, you instantly get tarred as being a lunatic who wants to throw pig blood on rich people. And if you think that there are atrocious animal abuses occurring in research - even though to an extent it's a necessary evil; it's a tough decision etc etc - you're associated with extremists in that area, mainly because there's nobody moderate opposing lab torture or fur-wearing (which is on a different scale entirely).
Personally, I've got a probably hypocritical set of views - I hate what I know is happening with factory farming, but I eat chicken nuggets; I've seen first-hand what happens to pigs (wish I hadn't) but god damn, do I still love me some bacon.
The problems in both cases are much more complex than good/bad, which makes it even more harmful / depressing when people who are right about the ends are so damn wrong / stupid about the means.
Of all people, Reg readers should know better. Any group working on hacking can claim they are Anonymous. Anyone who can record a Youtube video can claim he's Anonymous. Anonymous can DDoS Anonymous sites even. Therefore, one should use "anonymous" when referring to them.
"anonymous vigilantes hacked this or that". Here, this is much less sensational and much more true.
If Anonymous is not an organisation, how can it put out statements that claim or deny responsibility for some action?
If they claim or deny an action, they must exist. Think about the absurdity:
This collective....which doesn't exist....claims responsibility for the following....
or even....
This collective ....which doesn't exist....did not undertake the following actions...
Why not? The whole point of Anonymous is about hidden identity. It's one of those everyone and no-one things. If it makes it easier, think of it like a representative of the country, or a religion, or anything else.
- Group A supports or performs an action X, Group B opposes or disrupts the same action X.
- Group A and B identify themselves as members of Group C.
- Someone from Group C then says they are a representative of Group C and makes a statement about the intents, workings, philosophy etc. of Group C.
So what do you know about this person from Group C? They could be part of Group A, they could be part of Group B, they could be completely unrelated, they could be doing it for the lolz. They can have it none, both, and several other ways. All entirely intentional: designed to subvert the normal categorization of people as one group or another and in doing so making life very difficult for a lazy media and public that would have to think a lot less hard if they would call themselves A or B.
Anyone can represent Anonymous, but Anonymous is represented by no-one. It's a label, and about as useful as every other sweeping generalisation: Read statements about anonymous and replace it with something equally useless like: People >6ft tall. People who's skin is lighter than Cadbury's Dairy Milk. People who watch television. Suddenly it makes more sense: People who watch television are do/say/believe/support X. Other people who watch television don't do/say/believe/support X. Someone, who claims to represent people who watch television, says that people who watch television have no connection with X, and actually people who watch television do/say/believe/support Y. It's nonsense, but that's kind of the beauty of it - you can't pin it down, you can't label it, and no-one has an identity because they are (big or little a) anonymous.
That's just an excuse to absolve oneself from accountability and responsibility - precisely what they claim to be fighting against.
If somebody claims to represent Anon, they are claiming to represent an organisation, no matter how loosely organised. The point is that with the way Anon is alleged to be organised, no statement can be trusted in either direction, because there is no accountability and no leadership....or so they would like us to think.
In reality, there are those voices that shout louder than others and people, being humans, follow charismatic leaders. The result over time is an organisation that does have leadership, no matter how much they like to think they don't.
If indeed they are not an organisation, then what is left is simply a bunch of like-minded individuals acting in isolation from each other. If that is really the case, then nobody can stand up with any credibility and say they (Anon) did or did not do something.
Given the extreme level of corruption, nastiness, greed, and dishonesty that I see in pretty much every government today, and most corporations, I've come to really like Anonymous and related actions.
Mainstream media can't or won't break these stories, and sure as hell the government won't ever tell us the whole truth. Anyone who can drag this information out and provide a public airing is all right by me.
Without Anonymous, Wikileaks et al, we'll just keep sinking further and further into the dark.
".....I've come to really like Anonymous and related actions."
What, like the publishing the names, addresses, phone numbers and credit card details of members of the public?
"Mainstream media can't or won't break these stories, and sure as hell the government won't ever tell us the whole truth. Anyone who can drag this information out and provide a public airing is all right by me."
To whom are Anonymous accountable, who decides its agenda and what who determines the "truth" that it tells?
Our governments are elected by us and accountable to us, but Anon is self appointed and accountable to nobody.
If some Anon somewhere decided they didn't like you and published your financial details online, would that be ok by you?
" Our governments are elected by us and accountable to us, but Anon is self appointed and accountable to nobody."
Its accountable to itself.
As for our governments being accountable to us. That's a laugh, they're accountable to big business and have been for at least the last 30 years.
" If some Anon somewhere decided they didn't like you and published your financial details online, would that be ok by you?"
If you're dumb enough to be posting your financial details in insecure places, sooner or later it'll get stolen anyway regardless if you managed to upset one of the more technically savi Anons.
In other news, poking bears with stick deamed hazardous and leaving credit cards laying around in public considered a security risk.
and yet you post things like "Anonymous are accountable to themselves"!
The world has laws and if you break them, you should expect to be held to account. It doesn't matter if you are an American GI killing civilians in some 3rd world shit hole or some spotty oink in his bedroom breaking into mail servers when his mum thinks he is doing his geography homework....everyone is accountable to law and nobody is above it.
That's the way the world is young man.
Er... no they're not.
They're elected by less than 50% of the population. And judging by the lies, corruption and lawlessness they're allowed to get away with year in, year out, they're certainly not accountable to the British public. (To their corporate paymasters is a different story...)
When Blair is being tried at the Hague for his crimes, then I'll believe in some accountability.
Oh dear, you weren't paying attention at school were you?
Our governments are elected by democratic processes, clearly set out and enshrined in law. They are formed (in the UK) by the party holding the largest number of MP's. The MP's are elected by the majority one-person-one-vote system.
If you want to change the the way that works, convince all your mates, get off your arses and vote for a political party offering a different system. Hang on a minute, such a vote took place on 5th May 2011 and by large majority (67.9% versus 32.1%), the public voted against it.
Not for one moment do I like the policies of the current government, but I respect and uphold their right to form a government as elected in the last election.
As for Blair and war crimes, do something about it if you feel he committed crimes: convince the ICC to investigate.
I think you are however deluding yourself with foggy mixed-up thinking coloured by paranoia and conspiracy theories. The reality is that UK government of the day acted with its coalition partners, within international law, following resolutions laid down by the United Nations Security Council and a vote in Parliament. You will probably say that the facts laid down in front of the UN and Parliament were lies: if your firmly believe that to be the case, do something about it: press for an inquiry - oh, sorry there already has been one, but perhaps you missed that while sticking your fingers in your ears and singling la-la-la.
In short: it isn't illegal, just because you don't like the system.
The lies, corruption and lawlessness they indulge appear to be all perfectly legal judging by the lack of convictions.
Just because something is legal doesn't make it right.
And as for the representative democracy - that's about as much of a joke as the Nazis being a social democrat party - they were neither socialist or democratic.
But all perfectly legal...
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Deary me, you must be the same AC as the AC @23:48....Do please try paying attention during your history lessons. To be fair, perhaps you haven't got to the part where of the syllabus you are learning about the events surrounding WWII.
So to preempt your rather unfortunate teachers' lessons and at the risk of invoking Godwin's law: many of the events in Germany between 1933 and 1945 were found to be illegal under international law at the Nuremberg trials.
"Just because something is legal doesn't make it right."
I agree....but who is to say what is right? I would rather trust due legal process than a bunch of jumped up vigilantes attempting to impose their view of what is right on the rest of us.
"...many of the events in Germany between 1933 and 1945 were found to be illegal under international law at the Nuremberg trials."
Well done, you eventually got it.
At the time, in Germany, all perfectly legal. And I'm sure, had you been there, you would have been arguing for "trusting due process", just like you are now.
Rather unfortunate for those who suffered because of "due process", though.
BTW I hope you're not as patronising in real life as you are here.
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Haditha proves that the US can not investigate it's own war crimes.
As such it has abdicated responsibility wrt this. While I accept that the ICC won't investigate because they only have jurisdiction over the poor & the weak, at least someone is doing something about it even if it is cyber-vigilantes.
So basically you don't like the verdict in the Haditha case so you want the soldiers punished according to your standards. Heck, I don't like the lack of punishments for war crimes in Iraq etc but its a short step from what you are saying to a lynch mob. You cannot apply Blackstone's formulation selectively.
As some people don't seem to get it, here it is again in simple terms.
Even if there is a fixed group of people who run and represent the Anonymous collective, given that they are anonymous if some other person who is not technically part of Anonymous claims that they are, you have no way of telling them apart. A lone hacker could unilaterally take an action then claim publicly that he represents Anonymous and is acting as part of Anonymous. He might be completely unknown to the Anonymous organisation and taking an action that they don't agree with. But due to the anonymous nature of this we cannot know if they genuinely are representing the Anonymous collective. Even if Anonymous denounced them, how would we know the denouncer is genuine?
Hence it would be more accurate to say 'An anonymous hacker who claims to represent Anonymous has leaked ...' than say 'Anonymous has leaked ...'.
Though for length the first sentence could just be 'An anonymous hacker has leaked ...' and leave out the unverifiable extra claim of a connection to Anonymous and avoid giving more publicity to the criminal vigilante organisation.
Probably similar to the logic that says 8 US troops in US uniforms with US weapons kill a bunch of civilians - but it wasn't a US military action.
Then the same US military that says it wasn't a US military action, and they don't approve, acquits most of those involved and punishes the ringleader in the same way as if he had turned up with dirty buttons on his uniform.
.....a bunch of anonymous, serial-underachievers, operating from their Mom's bedrooms, downloaded some premade tools and got a lucky hit on a known security hole. They later claimed to be part of the well-known, serial-underachiever collective Anonymous, also known for downloading scripts and tools and claiming this somehow makes them 1337 hax0rs....."
There, fixed it for you.
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