Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 162 posts

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#21

Post by pessimizer »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #12
cookiecaper wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but traditional media has a hard time grasping the concept. It's just a lot of directionless guys that latch onto whatever cause seems palatable at the time and requires no more effort than running LOIC/other simple DDOS programs. Basically the definition of script kiddies, there's just a large concentration of them on one message board system.

This is true, but doesn't mean there aren't coordinators, actually skilled hackers who embrace the directionlessness even as they give it direction. It isn't _just_ foot-soldiers.

But the "coordinators" drift in and out, too.

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#22

Post by [deleted] »

colanderman wrote: post #15

I'm astounded at both the CEO's (Aaron's) lack of basic grammar skills, and predeliction for "script kiddie" talk. How do you get to be CEO of anything when you communicate (even informally) at the level of an 8th grader? (edit: I meant Aaron; Penny was decently well spoken)

[deleted]

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#23

Post by pessimizer »

jdp23 wrote: post #9

The log where the CEO of the parent company joins the IRC chat room is great reading. http://pastebin.com/x69Akp5L -- search for "HI it's me"

[04:15] Penny: What i am saying is that someone residing on your network attacked one of my boxes

[...]

[04:16] OK how do I know who is on my comcast network?

[04:16] lol

[04:16] omg that is precious

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#24

Post by pessimizer »

[deleted] wrote: post #22
colanderman wrote: post #15

I'm astounded at both the CEO's (Aaron's) lack of basic grammar skills, and predeliction for "script kiddie" talk. How do you get to be CEO of anything when you communicate (even informally) at the level of an 8th grader? (edit: I meant Aaron; Penny was decently well spoken)

[deleted]

I think colanderman is talking about the CEO of HBGary Federal, Aaron, and not Penny, the CEO of HBGary Inc.

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#26

Post by cookiecaper »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #12
cookiecaper wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but traditional media has a hard time grasping the concept. It's just a lot of directionless guys that latch onto whatever cause seems palatable at the time and requires no more effort than running LOIC/other simple DDOS programs. Basically the definition of script kiddies, there's just a large concentration of them on one message board system.

This is true, but doesn't mean there aren't coordinators, actually skilled hackers who embrace the directionlessness even as they give it direction. It isn't _just_ foot-soldiers.

There are no real leaders; they may break off into factions, like those that frequent a certain IRC room, but the group "Anonymous" is a non-entity by any meaningful definition. It's whoever happens to be on 4chan or other, mostly similar message boards, and out of those, whoever is enticed to join a chat room or download LOIC, and out of those, people that actually click the button to send a lot of requests to DDOS (or people that show up to taunt Scientologists, as the case may be).

There are lots of people that go there to marshal the forces and most fail, cf. "/b/ is not your personal army". If someone happens to generate a buzz that rings for most of the board's demographic, they can start a chain reaction where a lot of people hit MasterCard at once, and get a bunch of disciples attracted to an IRC room for who knows how long -- it may last a day or a month, there's no way to say definitively. The marshaller then becomes the leader of that group of disciples, but "Anonymous" isn't a group by itself.

The most accurate definition for Anonymous is "a subset of users of Xchan". That's not a very good definition, especially if you want to go around and pin DDOS and whatever else on individual people.

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#27

Post by DrStalker »

cookiecaper wrote: post #5
DrStalker wrote: post #4

Isn't anonymous less an organized group with leaders and more a bunch of people who hang out and occasionally someone says "hey, it would be cool if we all did " and whoever is listening joins in?

Yes, but traditional media has a hard time grasping the concept. It's just a lot of directionless guys that latch onto whatever cause seems palatable at the time and requires no more effort than running LOIC/other simple DDOS programs. Basically the definition of script kiddies, there's just a large concentration of them on one message board system.

So, a human powered botnet that follows commands at random based on how much fun they are?

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#28

Post by DrStalker »

Helianthus16 wrote: post #12
cookiecaper wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but traditional media has a hard time grasping the concept. It's just a lot of directionless guys that latch onto whatever cause seems palatable at the time and requires no more effort than running LOIC/other simple DDOS programs. Basically the definition of script kiddies, there's just a large concentration of them on one message board system.

This is true, but doesn't mean there aren't coordinators, actually skilled hackers who embrace the directionlessness even as they give it direction. It isn't _just_ foot-soldiers.

Skilled technical hackers giving the attacks technical direction, or skilled social hackers who know how to get a bunch of anonymous teenagers to do their bidding?

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#29

Post by dasil003 »

DrStalker wrote: post #28
Helianthus16 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but doesn't mean there aren't coordinators, actually skilled hackers who embrace the directionlessness even as they give it direction. It isn't _just_ foot-soldiers.

Skilled technical hackers giving the attacks technical direction, or skilled social hackers who know how to get a bunch of anonymous teenagers to do their bidding?

The combination of those skills is the secret sauce.

Re: How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

#30

Post by dekz »

pessimizer wrote: post #23
jdp23 wrote: post #9

The log where the CEO of the parent company joins the IRC chat room is great reading. http://pastebin.com/x69Akp5L -- search for "HI it's me"

[04:15] Penny: What i am saying is that someone residing on your network attacked one of my boxes [...] [04:16] OK how do I know who is on my comcast network? [04:16] lol [04:16] omg that is precious

Interesting replies

[04:37] Hey I"m not sure how this whole Torrent thing works, I'm sure I"ll find out but I can tell you that if you want freedom of press and

[04:37] documents, there is a better way than doing it this way. What you did was illegal and it will hurt you guys as wel

...

[04:41] Can you take PHil out?

...

[04:42] Perhaps I'll invest in you guys, but invest in me, please do not leak any of the emails from HBGary

...

[04:48] OK, so if we fire Aaron, you won't release?

...

[04:54] This isn't about Greg's email this is about Bradley. When you work for the military and you take an oath, shouldn't that count?

[04:55] It's not negotiation, I'm asking a question I want answered. You want me to donate to bradley's fund

[04:56] OK BUT what if it puts people in harms' way? What if it cause bad ramifications for US citizens?

...

[05:51] do you guys realize that attacking a U.S. company and stealing private data is something you have never done before?

Post reply on HN