Former Anonymous Spokesperson Indicted 114
A reader sends this quote from Ars:
"On Friday, a federal grand jury in Dallas indicted Barrett Brown, a former self-proclaimed Anonymous spokesperson, for trafficking 'stolen authentication features,' as well as 'access device fraud' and 'aggravated identity theft.' Brown has been detained since he was arrested in September for allegedly threatening a federal agent. 10 counts of the 12-count indictment concern the aggravated identity theft charge (the indictment references 10 people from whom Brown is alleged to have stolen information), but the most interesting charge is probably the first; a single count saying Brown, 'did knowingly traffic in more than five authentication features knowing that such features were stolen and produced without lawful authority.' But rather than a physical back-alley hand-off, this alleged trafficking happened online when Barrett transferred a hyperlink, 'from the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel called "#Anonops" to an IRC channel under Brown's control, called "#ProjectPM."' That hyperlink happened to include over 5,000 credit card numbers, associating Ids, and Card Verification Values (CVVs) from the Stratfor Global Intelligence database."
ED entry (Score:5, Interesting)
And now you know! [encyclopediadramatica.se]
It's not black and white (Score:5, Interesting)
Seeing as so many people are dumbfounded that it can be considered at all wrong and indictable for him to do such a thing lets consider the following:
A person knows of a quantity of drugs out in the open with no owner. He goes to a group of kids and says "Hey come with me I'll show you where a bunch of drugs are". Has he done anything wrong? Is he responsible in any way?
Now lets assume that he knew those kids were actively seeking drugs. Has he done anything wrong now? Is he responsible?
Now lets assume one of the kids dies from an O.D. Anything wrong now? Is he responsible now?
Finally, is it really as black and white as a lot of users here want to make it?
Re:If the feds want you they can get you. Learn th (Score:2, Interesting)
The same thing happened in the 60s-70s when the Black Panthers, Crips, Gangster Disciples and many urban gangs wanted to fight for social justice through unity. The problem with these gangs is they did not understand that the FBI wasn't going to go along with that. FBI has had a counter intelligence program since the 1940s founded after the business plot coup attempt against FDR. Originally COINTELPRO was designed to protect the USA from fascists but when World War 2 ended World War 3 began (the Cold War) and it reached it's peak in the 60s-70s.
Wait, what? The crips and gangster disciples were established to fight for social justice? I think its you that needs to go read a history book. If an idiot commits a crime and he gets arrested and indicted, thats not cointelpro, thats called the legal system.
They don't understand that many of them are being exploited by foreign intelligence agencies, basically being tooled, and in many cases are nothing more than useful idiots.
While this is partially true, its amusing that you neglect that anonymous is exactly what the USA needed in terms of cyberwarfare-- look at anonymous china, they relentlessly hacked .gov.cn sites, got real data-- not a collection of emails no one cares about, nothing but defense contractors and no real leaks came from it. They arrest a few and shrug at china and go 'i dunno our legal system isnt perfect' and smile.
I could go into some personal experiences with the unacknowledged humint sides of anon, but whatever. You just wanted to blather on about stuff you dont know anything about, not actually be informed.