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Author Topic: Anonymous playing dangerous game  (Read 5013 times)

Julianus Soter

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Anonymous playing dangerous game
« on: 28 Oct 2011, 21:45 »

Mexico's Cartels Draw Online Activists' Ire
October 28, 2011 | 1911 GMT
Mexico's Cartels Draw Online Activists' Ire

Summary

The online activist collective Anonymous released a video Oct. 6 in which a masked spokesman denounces Mexico’s criminal cartels, demands that a member of Anonymous kidnapped by Los Zetas be released, and threatens to release information about individuals cooperating with Mexico’s cartels. If Anonymous carries out its threat, it will almost certainly lead to the deaths of individuals named as cartel associates, whether or not the information released is accurate. Furthermore, as Mexican cartels have targeted online journalists and bloggers in the past, hackers could well be targeted for reprisal attacks.
Analysis

Anonymous, an online collective of activists including hackers, lashed out at Mexican cartels in a video released online Oct. 6. In the video, a masked individual claiming to speak on behalf of Anonymous denounces Mexico’s cartels and demands that Los Zetas release a member of Anonymous kidnapped during a street-level protest named Operation Paperstorm in Veracruz state. The spokesman also threatens to release revealing information about journalists, police, politicians and taxi drivers colluding with the cartels.

Simply disseminating information on cartel members will not significantly impede overall cartel operations, but if Anonymous carries out its threat, it will affect cartel associates and others the cartels could target for retaliatory attacks.

Anonymous is not an organized, monolithic group; rather, it is a collection of activists whose organizers work under the name Anonymous. Hackers have conducted several online activities using the name Anonymous, as they have had to develop code for conducting cyberattacks. The collective of hackers takes on several different causes and carries out attacks involving participation by experienced hackers and unskilled members alike. Not everyone involved in Anonymous participates in every action, and some actions are more popular than others.

The Anonymous spokesman in the video does not specify how many individuals support the threat against the cartels or how the group acquired the information it threatens to release. It would not take a group of hackers to obtain the kind of information the spokesman claims Anonymous could release; much of this kind of information could be acquired via rumors circulating through Mexico. In fact, the Anonymous spokesman does not mention anything about using hacking activities to acquire confidential information about the cartels.

However, there are many examples of hackers acting under the name Anonymous acquiring personal and sensitive information about their targets. Recently, hackers shut down child pornography website Lolita City and reportedly posted more than 1,500 usernames and activities of the website’s users. On Oct. 21, Anonymous hackers stole sensitive information — including Social Security numbers — from a series of police-affiliated targets including the International Association of Chiefs of Police website and the Boston Police Patrolmen’s Association email portal and revealed more than 1,000 usernames and passwords of Boston police officers. Although cartels’ activities are focused on the streets of the cities they control, even cartels use the Internet for communication and some business transactions. Any cartel activities occurring online could be potential vulnerabilities if individuals involved in the new Anonymous threat can identify them; though the threat from Anonymous does not necessarily mean that hackers are now targeting cartels, given the history of activities carried out in Anonymous’ name, it is certainly possible.

If Anonymous carries out its threat, members would use online media outlets to publish revealing information about the cartels and their associates. Anonymous members frequently focus on these media, which allow them to post revealing information while concealing their own identities. Any information released to the public would not pose a direct threat in itself; it would be up to others to determine the information’s validity and whether to take action. For example, if Anonymous claims that a politician is colluding with criminal cartels, the politician could be threatened by whatever actions the Mexican government decides to take or by members of rival cartels.

Loss of life will be a certain consequence if Anonymous releases the identities of individuals cooperating with cartels. Whether voluntarily or not, cooperating with criminal cartels in Mexico comes with the danger of retribution from rival cartels. Taxi drivers — typically victims of extortion or otherwise forced to act as lookouts or scouts — are particularly vulnerable. In areas such as Acapulco, in Guerrero state, reports of murdered taxi drivers occur weekly. The validity of the information Anonymous has threatened to reveal is uncertain, as it might not have been vetted. This could pose an indiscriminate danger to individuals mentioned in whatever Anonymous decides to release.

The online media frequently used to organize Anonymous-labeled activities are far removed from the violent world of Mexican criminal cartels. This distance — along with the likely physical distance of many Anonymous members from Mexico — could limit the activists’ understanding of cartel activities. Anonymous activists may act with confidence stemming from perceived anonymity when sitting in front of a computer, but this could blind them to any possible retribution. Cartels have targeted bloggers and online journalists in previous attacks, and even hackers in Mexico are not beyond the cartels’ reach. Cartels reportedly have turned to the information technology community in the past, coercing computer science majors in Mexico into working for them. Any Anonymous activists inside Mexico who are targeting or perceived as targeting the Mexican cartels will be just as vulnerable as online journalists and bloggers as the cartels seek to make them examples of what happens when someone exposes or publicizes damaging information about cartel activity.

Anonymous activists can threaten to reveal information about cartels or launch cyberattacks. But even if the cartels cannot track down the individuals directing cyberattacks or releasing information, the cartels will continue to commit acts of violence meant to warn the online community about such activities.

Read more: Mexico's Cartels Draw Online Activists' Ire | STRATFOR
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Mizhara

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #1 on: 29 Oct 2011, 02:13 »

Anything involving groups like the cartels is a very dangerous game and going toe to toe with them, anonymously or not, means you need to make sure you are capable of going a few steps further than them. Legally, you'll never be able to do that, which means you will lose. That's why any direct hits on the cartels, while slowing things down, are ultimately fruitless.

Want to kill the Cartels? Kill their support structures. Rehabilitate crack addicts across the world. Offer the poor farmers of south america more money for farming crops of (insert whatever is the latest green craze) instead of coca. It's not even all that expensive. A poor farmer who provides the cartels with cokepaste might earn less than 50 USD per delivery. Offer a hundred bucks per delivery of whatever and you're golden.

It's the profit to risk ratio that needs to be adjusted. Direct attacks on the Cartels are a stopgap measure at best when the insane profits are there to make horrific amounts of violence and terror tactics more than acceptable from their point of view.

Oh, and stop criminalizing cocaine addicts while you're at it. Research clearly shows that just throwing them in jail does nothing as huge numbers of them are back on the pipe or rolled up bill within weeks of release, while treatment which costs society less money than jailtime shows far greater numbers of successful weaning of that particular tit.
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Senn Typhos

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #2 on: 29 Oct 2011, 06:33 »

Can't wait to see Anonymous go too far with this one.
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Seriphyn

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #3 on: 29 Oct 2011, 08:49 »

Oh, hubris...
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BloodBird

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #4 on: 29 Oct 2011, 09:13 »

I don't like these morons either, but damn it I'd not want death by drug cartel operatives on anyone.
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Louella Dougans

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #5 on: 29 Oct 2011, 09:35 »

the cartels recently eviscerated then beheaded a woman they suspected of being someone that posted negative comments about them online.
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Kaleigh Doyle

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #6 on: 29 Oct 2011, 10:41 »

Drug Cartels have a PR unit now?  :eek:
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Lyn Farel

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #7 on: 29 Oct 2011, 11:48 »

There is some good things and also some bad things in the Anonymous movement. It find it pretty unfair to say that they are all morons, considering the decentralized/shattered structure of such an entity.
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Gottii

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #8 on: 29 Oct 2011, 12:24 »

its all fun and games until cartel hitmen come through the door...
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BloodBird

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #9 on: 29 Oct 2011, 12:57 »

There is some good things and also some bad things in the Anonymous movement. It find it pretty unfair to say that they are all morons, considering the decentralized/shattered structure of such an entity.

They are. There is no control over who joins/leaves, who does what, who fucks with whom. When the cartels send someone to butcher you and your family because your a member of Anonymous and 2 other guys who were/claimed to be members fucked with their mafioso boss and he ordered anon members dead, you will come to realise how utterly moronic and fucking stupid you were. Much like Gotti said, it's all fun and games... until shit hits the fan as a consequence of what your doing.

These are not some random abides-by-the-law organization they don't like that they are pissing off here, these are animals who will fuck over anyone and ruin anything to ensure their poison-peddling goes on and gets them more money. If anon messes with that, anon suffers. Humans can be very ingenious when it comes to finding ways to make others accountable, even the seemingly inn-accountable people behind anon.

This is likely to go very badly for someone, soon. If they had any interest in helping out they had snuck that list to the cartel's enemies in the authorities, silently and with no fuss, anything, other than openly challenging them.
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Julianus Soter

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #10 on: 29 Oct 2011, 17:06 »

Suddenly, this article becomes a lot more relevant. : http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/08/nation/la-na-atf-guns-20111009

Now, multiply by a few thousand.

How many guns do the anonymous people have, again?
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hellgremlin

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #11 on: 29 Oct 2011, 17:50 »

And here we enter the exciting game of escalation.

So let's say one of these cartels takes their horrible bloody revenge against an Anon member. Beheading, Colombian necktie, w/e.

What will the result be? How will Anon react? What will happen to Anon?
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Z.Sinraali

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #12 on: 29 Oct 2011, 18:11 »

1. Anonymous hijacks Predator drone fleet to fight cartels.

2. Cartels breed coca-ents to fight Predator drones.

3. ???

4. Zombie apocalypse.
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Senn Typhos

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #13 on: 29 Oct 2011, 18:30 »

1. Anonymous hijacks Predator drone fleet to fight cartels.

2. Cartels breed coca-ents to fight Predator drones.

3. ???

4. Zombie apocalypse.

I bet James Cameron would direct that.

Or maybe M. Knight Shamamanamala.
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Esna Pitoojee

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Re: Anonymous playing dangerous game
« Reply #14 on: 29 Oct 2011, 20:55 »

The question next becomes how distant any identifyable Anon members are. Even cross-border into the US would be tricky, although other latin-American countries could be easier. Europe, farther north into the US, Aisa? Unlikely.
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