Is "Anonomous" a government operation?

[EE_]

Why do they let this get posted on Drudge and allow the youtube video to circulate, when they could easily have it removed? It this about taking complete control of the internet?

Anonymous hacks US Sentencing Commission, distributes files
Summary: Late evening Friday, January 25, U.S. Sentencing Commission website was hacked and government files distributed by Anonymous in what the group calls "Operation Last Resort."

By Violet Blue for Zero Day | January 26, 2013 -- 11:33 GMT (03:33 PST)

Anonymous took control of the U.S. Sentencing Commission website Friday, January 25 in a new campaign called "Operation Last Resort."

The first attack on the website was early Friday morning. The second - successful - attack came around 9pm PST that evening.


By 3am PST ussc.gov was down (it has since been dropped from the DNS), yet as of this writing the IP address (66.153.19.162) still returns the defaced site's contents.

It appears that via the U.S. government website, Anonymous had distributed encrypted government files and left a statement on the website that de-encryption keys would be publicly released (thus releasing the as-yet unkonwn information held on the stolen files) if the U.S. government did not comply with Anonymous' ultimatum demands for legal reform.

Anonymous explained that they used this webiste for symbolic reasons.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission sets guidelines for sentencing in United States Federal courts, and on the defaced ussc.gov website Anonymous cited the recent suicide of hacktivist Aaron Swartz as a "line that has been crossed."

The statement suggested retaliation for Swartz's tragic suicide, which many - including the family - believe was a result of overzealous prosecution by the Department of Justice and what the family deemed a "bullying" use of outdated computer crime laws.

Anonymous has not specified exactly what files they have obtained. The various files were named after Supreme Court judges.

According to the statement:

Warhead – U S – D O J – L E A – 2013 . A E E 256 is primed and armed. It has been quietly distributed to numerous mirrors over the last few days and is available for download from this website now. We encourage all Anonymous to syndicate this file as widely as possible.

This appears to be Anonymous sending a threatening message to whoever knows what might be on the encrypted files.

Anonymous has encouraged anyone and everyone to distribute the files, so it is unknown who has the files or how many have been distributed. The files are useless without the encryption keys.

The contents are various and we won’t ruin the speculation by revealing them. Suffice it to say, everyone has secrets, and some things are not meant to be public.

At a regular interval commencing today, we will choose one media outlet and supply them with heavily redacted partial contents of the file. Any media outlets wishing to be eligible for this program must include within their reporting a means of secure communications.

Currently two of the mirrors are slow, and one has gone offline completely.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WaPni5O2YyI&feature=player_embedded#!

[VirgilCain]

Anonymous was infiltrated by the FBI which resulted in at least 1 of its main personalities acting as a paid informant and plant.

[Shami-Amourae]

Anonymous isn't like a select group of people. It's a bunch of people who claim to be "Anonymous". Of course some government thugs could just claim to be "Anonymous", without being so. It can't be infiltrated, it can only be posed as.

[VirgilCain]

Anonymous isn't like a select group of people. It's a bunch of people who claim to be "Anonymous". Of course some government thugs could just claim to be "Anonymous", without being so. It can't be infiltrated, it can only be posed as.

I wish I had my copy of Wired which is floating around the work lunchroom. According to the article, which seemed well-researched, Anonymous isn't just a collection of loosely aligned hackers but is guided by a few master hackers that know each other, and one of these guys was busted and turned by the FBI.

[gunDriller]

i have wondered the same thing.

they seem very organized.

usually activists are not that well organized.

[Ponce]

The best way to control the enemy is for you to be the enemy.....think about it.

V

[keehah]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)

Anonymous originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain. Anonymous members (known as Anons) can be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks in the style portrayed in the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta. However, this may not always be the case as some of the collective prefer to instead cover their face without using the well-known mask as a disguise. Some anons also opt to mask their voices through voice changers or text-to-speech programs.

In its early form, the concept was adopted by a decentralized online community acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal and primarily focused on entertainment (or lulz). Beginning with Project Chanology in 2008—a series of protests, pranks, and hacks targeting the Church of Scientology—the Anonymous collective became increasingly associated with collaborative hacktivism on a number of issues internationally. Individuals claiming to align themselves with Anonymous undertook protests and other actions (including direct action) in retaliation against copyright-focused campaigns by motion picture and recording industry trade associations. Later targets of Anonymous hacktivism included government agencies of the United States, Israel, Tunisia, Uganda and others; the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; child pornography sites; copyright protection agencies; the Westboro Baptist Church; and corporations such as PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sony. Anons have publicly supported WikiLeaks and the Occupy movement.

Forbes: Deep Inside The World Of Anonymous
2min 47seconds Jun 12, 2012

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGnM_aSf7wc




So Qanon is/was like Anonomous was but rather than for suspicious millennial type, for 'white hat' wishing boomer type?

Or perhaps 'Anonomous' is now middle aged, less activist, more conformist and leaning on government for solutions?

Did Anonomous avoid the Zionist or Jew issues too?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanon

QAnon, or simply Q, is a disproven and discredited far-right conspiracy theory...

The wikipedia editor crowd (and the like) sure seems to hate QAnon yet they seem(ed) neutral or supportive of the more disruptive and damaging Anonomous.