

Hackers’ Efforts to Identify Officer Create Turmoil - 001sky
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/15/us/ferguson-case-roils-collective-called-anonymous.html

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meowface
Some of the statements in this article are a little bit confusing to me, and
seem to show an inaccurate and sensationalized view of hacktivism and
"Anonymous" in particular.

>Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist who studies Anonymous and teaches at
McGill University in Montreal, said she was taken aback that members of
Anonymous would be so quick to release unverified information, and would speak
so openly about their methods in online chat channels.

>“My jaw was dropping,” Ms. Coleman said, reading members’ communications. “I
was surprised because what I was seeing was suggestive but not definitive.
Anonymous tends to care about its image quite a bit, and if they were wrong,
it would be really bad.”

I've worked in the information security industry for a while, and this is the
exact kind of behavior expected all of us have seen and expected from
Anonymous since they first gained public spotlight in 2008 (mostly with
"Project Chanology"). Anyone who's spent any time in any IRC channel claiming
to be tied to Anonymous, or anyone who's seen one of the related ~5000 Twitter
feeds knows full well they are the definition of hasty, impulsive,
disorganized, unsubtle, and incompetent in general. Which is exactly what
you'd expect from a "group" (really a label) of miscellaneous teenagers. It's
always humorous to see media outlets sometimes try to glorify them.

There have been some occasional exceptions with some of the spinoff groups,
but generally speaking this is very much not unusual. They have been like that
from day 1.

I question exactly how well this individual has apparently studied Anonymous.

~~~
yarrel
Coleman's studied Anonymous at length. There's no contradiction between
Anonymous being disorganized teenagers (sic) and them caring about their
image. Quite the opposite in fact.

~~~
meowface
Of course they care about their image, as any arrogant group of individuals
would. It's just her shock and dismay at their blunders and infighting seems a
bit out of place.

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adamnemecek
> implying anonymous is a single entity

~~~
QuantumChaos
How would you characterize they way people cooperate to do the various things
that are done in the name of Anonymous?

If they tend to be the same people involved and they tend to coordinate their
actions the same way each time, then it is fair to say they are a single
entity.

~~~
adamnemecek
While it's a terrible example, as far as leadership goes, I think that it's
somewhat similar to Al-Qaeda. As in somewhat loose collection of subgroups
that might have some single, overall goal but that work kind of independently.

~~~
jmatthews
it's as simple as the game of "tag". You see something in life that requires
action(you're "it"), you have "a certain set of skills"(Taken quote), and you
act to right the perceived wrong.

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socceroos
What annoys me the most about this is that everyone is overlooking the big
picture here - Anonymous will always have subversive elements from government
agencies who's goal is to bring about the loose collective's demise or, more
importantly, to control it's direction. This was effectively promised in state
media during Anonymous' original publicity.

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danso
I was walking through Union Square (in Manhattan) just now, where a Ferguson
rally was wrapping up...An older gentleman was ranting (correctly, IMO) about
the unaccountability of the police, particularly the withholding of the
shooting cop's identity, and a young woman interrupted to correct him that we
indeed know who the cop is, thanks to Anonymous...

I'd been off the Internet for most of today but even I knew that Anonymous's
revelation was a flop this morning. I sometimes wonder if the Internet really
will bring meaningful truth to discourse, rather than just shifting the echo
chamber.

~~~
icantthinkofone
>I sometimes wonder if the Internet really will bring meaningful truth to
discourse, rather than just shifting the echo chamber.

Agree. Since the minute this happened, focus was moved away from what happened
at the scene. When people talk of this, it's never about the dead boy (much)
but all about police accountability and I'd bet, a week from now, no one
remembers the dead boy's name.

I would even bet that half of everyone reading this isn't even aware of what
happened on the street and no one here knows of the background around that.

~~~
x1798DE
Sorry to sound callous, but I think that's exactly what people should be
focused on. Most people didn't know this kid, and remembering his name isn't
going to bring him back to life. At least increasing police accountability has
the potential to prevent future similar deaths.

~~~
icantthinkofone
What's interesting is people are claiming there is little to no accountability
yet, within the hour of the initial report, local news stations reported the
whole thing had been transferred to outside agencies (county and FBI) for
investigation. So there was immediate accountability to two outside agencies.

This sounds to me like an incident of one officer going ballistic for his own
personal reason. Obviously that area has other issues but, as I said, I'd bet
no one here knows the background of the issue as to why the kid was stopped in
the first place.

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lotsofmangos
Not as much turmoil as the effort not to.

