
Anonymous sends a press release, but the author doesn't clear his metadata... - iuguy
http://paulrankin.tumblr.com/post/2166282743/anonymous-has-supposedly-released-a-press-release
======
carbocation
This should be retitled as "Anon successfully trolls Paul Rankin." Alex
Tapanaris assuredly is not the one who wrote that document.
<http://pastebin.com/5dBdu3qk>

If that link no longer works by the time you see this, it's one of hundreds of
links where people posting as him describe in detail the degrading sexual acts
they would like done to him.

The metadata has almost certainly been Admiral Ackbarred.

~~~
GHFigs
I don't believe you're right about that. What you're seeing is Anonymous
punishing someone for making a stupid mistake, i.e. "being a newfag". The same
kind of schadenfreude that lead Paul to post this to Tumblr tends to inspire a
markedly more severe reaction out of Anonymous itself.

~~~
vito
You seem to be right; all of the pastebins in the link below are from within
the day.

------
Swizec
What a bunch of leet haxorz.

They can track people down from a still on a youtube video.

They can validate boobs as fake or real based on meta data in jpegs.

They are legion, they do not forgive and they do not forget and they will
order pizza to your home until you stop hurting cats.

But they can't clear metadata in a word editor ...

~~~
pierrefar
Of course the counter is that the meta data is faked.

Although I think it's not faked and a silly oversight.

~~~
jacquesm
If it is then props to him but I think the chances of that are slight to non-
existent.

One of the very good reasons why you should think twice before 'anonymously'
harassing people online is that you are almost never as anonymous as you think
you are.

We had a guy harassing a woman on ww.com for months on end, all it took was
the one time he forgot to check the headers of the proxy that he used to do it
again. Being anonymous is hard work, the more you do it the bigger the chances
of slipping up.

Slipping up once is enough, assuming the other side is awake and watching.

~~~
fwdbureau
Non-existent, indeed, unless he also changed all the advanced metadata inside
the pdf, and give them the same fake name:
[http://img.skitch.com/20101211-rwkgk3i7e5jq477ayyxudff883.jp...](http://img.skitch.com/20101211-rwkgk3i7e5jq477ayyxudff883.jpg)

~~~
pierrefar
If you fake it in OpenOffice then the meta data is carried through to th PDF.
As far as I know, the default meta data in OO is what your operating system
username is but is changeable.

------
Clarity1992
Possibly as a result of consuming too much conspiracy/crime fiction where both
the bad guys and good guys love to put little word puzzles into their work, my
first thought as to determining if this is a fake name or not is to run "Alex
Tapanaris" through an anagram finder.

Which I _ahem_ leave as an exercise to the reader.

~~~
AlexC04
If you found something to do with the letters "Pa Rat I" that fits then I know
what the rest of them were for...

~~~
Clarity1992
I see where you're running with that, and with a slight adjustment we get
'Anal Rape Taxis'.

OMG, someone call Jack Bauer, _this goes all the way to the top_.

------
petercooper
Since Anonymous is both "everyone" and no-one in particular, couldn't _anyone_
issue releases or do things in their name and it'd be as "official" as
anything else? This strikes me as a problem and leaves them open to a
miscommunication campaign. Even Wikileaks, which used to be quite shadowy,
ended up with Assange as an identifiable and consistent spokesman.

------
trotsky
A group famous for an ongoing DDOS attack and previous hacking incidents sends
me a pdf document.

I:

a) Open it

-or-

b) wtf are you crazy?

I'm not saying there was anything in it, but I sure hope people don't open
things like that up with reader.

~~~
Estragon
I use xpdf for all PDF's, anyway. I only ever pull out reader for documents
which clearly actually use its javascript features.

~~~
lallysingh
Be careful, xpdf has a few known problems:
[http://freshmeat.net/articles/debian-new-xpdf-packages-
fix-s...](http://freshmeat.net/articles/debian-new-xpdf-packages-fix-several-
vulnerabilities)

~~~
Estragon
Thanks for the pointer.

------
ZeroMinx
This "press release" is also quite confused; "Amazon, which was until recently
WikiLeaks' DNS provider"

------
ck2
Strip any PDF of it's meta (and digital signature)

<http://www.becyhome.de/becypdfmetaedit/description_eng.htm>

------
johnnytee
Not sure if this is the same guy but here's a website by that name
<http://www.alextapanaris.com/> and there are few pastebin entries by someone
with this name <http://pastebin.com/re2DZb6m>.

~~~
JSig
Well, looks like this guy took his contact info down:

<http://www.alextapanaris.com/cms/about>

versus

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PPhOZgL...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:PPhOZgLXlo4J:www.alextapanaris.com/cms/about+http://www.alextapanaris.com/cms/about&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

~~~
w1ntermute
Screenshot of contact info: <http://i.imgur.com/khfIH.png>

Alex Tapanaris

Tel.: +30 69 72 46 49 07

E-mail: info@alextapanaris.com

MSN: t4pan@hotmail.com

Graduated from Teesside University with a degree in Computer Games Art.

Proficient in:

* Autodesk 3D Studio Max

* Autodesk Maya

* Adobe Photoshop

* Pixologic ZBrush

* Adobe Premiere

------
jacquesm
Great choice of format too for a press release.

Guess that's what you get when you want to add fancy graphics, instead of just
the text.

I hope Paul Rankin is on a flat-rate plan, the last time someone posted a
phone number of an anonymous member (even with the last digit removed) that
website was down for days.

------
lukeschlather
I can't quite tell, but it looks like anonymous might be working hard to do
some coverup.

Witness timestamps: <http://pastebin.com/re2DZb6m>

[http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/12/anonymous-
rele...](http://praetorianprefect.com/archives/2010/12/anonymous-releases-
very-unanonymous-press-release/)

[http://paulrankin.tumblr.com/post/2166282743/anonymous-
has-s...](http://paulrankin.tumblr.com/post/2166282743/anonymous-has-
supposedly-released-a-press-release)

Clearly two out of three links are trolling, but I'm not quite sure which ones
(or all of them.)

------
URSpider94
The press release claimed that Anonymous didn't try to DDoS Amazon because it
would be "in bad taste." That doesn't sound like the Anonymous that I know.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Anonymous did try to DDoS amazon, it had no effect.

------
puredemo
He is a hell of a 3d artist though.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VkB-kQ9ovVU>

------
delinquentme
um. why would you even post this to your website?

~~~
jamesaguilar
I don't understand the question. Why not post it?

~~~
catshirt
presumably he meant in fear of retaliation.

------
noglorp
!Anon != Anon.

------
borism
Anonymous can have non-anonymous members as well. Just a suggestion.

~~~
nivertech

      In Project Mayhem, we have no names.
    
      Now, you listen to me.
    
      This is a man and he has a name,
      and it's Robert Paulsen, OK?
      
      - Robert Paulsen.
      - He's a man
    
      and he's dead now because of us.
      Do you understand that?
    
      I understand.
    
      In death, a member of Project Mayhem
      has a name.
    
      [all chanting] His name is Robert Paulsen.
    
      -- Fight Club

------
gcb
It's probably someone the author doesn't like

And remember the internet it's not your personal army

------
sagarun
what is this press release is all about?

