FBI Executes Search Warrants on 40 Anonymous Members

[Jumplion]

Why stop child molestation when they could be tracking murderers? Why track murderers when they could be tracking mass murderers? Why track mass murderers when they could be fighting Cthulhu's entrance in to our dimension? I say the full force of all goverment agencies should be tracking down the worst offenders and only those, if the local police can't do it the criminals earned their freedom.

Make the jump from using a script-kiddy utility to child molestation and it quickly becomes apparent that you're not really addressing the basic problem here.
The FBI is wasting its resources on stupid kids. Call their parents. Deal with real crimes (yeah, child molestation and Cthulhu and all that jazz) with all time time and effort left over.

Just to emphasize: I'd rather compare using LOIC with loitering around the corner store, or perhaps illegally burning a bit of trash on the sidewalk.
I'm pretty sure the FBI don't usually deal with that kind of stuff, but I could be wrong.

If these "kids" can gather together in a semi-organized cyber-"vigilantes" (really, depends on what they're doing at the time) group and are smart enough to know how to take down various, secured, government websites through DDoS attacks, hacks, among other things, I'd hardly call them "stupid" and one could easily consider them "dangerous".

Really, Anonymous is unique specimen.

 

[spartan231490]

Woot, go FBI .

Bring those bastards down.

Seconded. god every story I hear about anonymous makes me more excited to see them fail. Hope these guys get screwed.

 

[SovietSecrets]

Easier to track down the things people did that can hardly be considered a crime.

 

[Ldude893]

All the FBI is doing is cleansing the gene pool of hackers so that only the best hackers remain. They're only helping Anonymous.

Seriously, don't the FBI have anything better to do? There are child molesters, rapist and murderers out there and all you want to focus on is 40 harmless hackers. What about the people who DDOS'd Wikileaks? Why aren't you going after them?

If anyone wants to find me, I'll be in the angry dome.

 

[zHellas]

What they are basically doing is arresting a bunch of awesome dudes who came to the aid of the first proper journalist organisation ever to exist in the century,

(I don't really know the exact color that's to be used for sarcasm, so I apologize.)

Oh yeah, 'cause throwing out in the open a bunch of secret(Top Secret or not, they're still secret) documents around is totally how you do proper journalism!

/sarcasm

OT:

This could just be 40 people whose computers have been used as zombies, but whatever. Might bring them closer to other Anon members.

 

[Kakashi on crack]

Hmm, I feel sorry for the arrest anonymous members...

How do you feel sorry for them? I wouldnt be surprised if 99% of anonymous users are scumbags.

Because Anonymous is judged by the group and not what they do?

They do stupid stuff, but they also do some pretty good stuff even if for prideful reasons/if done illegally, such as the Denial of service attacks to help wikileaks.

 

[Imat]

There's no such thing as an "anonymous member". They aren't some underground organisation or anything. Someone has posted on /b/ telling everyone to download lioc and ddos those websites and they did so. The people who did that just happened to be online at that particular time and thought it would be a laugh to join in. You can't just fucking arrest people like that and expect the problem to go away. This sort of thing cannot be control and the fact that an organisation like the FBI has even bothered to do so just underlines how out of fucking touch they are. People are out there killing and raping and they want to go after 14 year olds who browse the internet?

Where's the line drawn in your argument? Are you saying that Anonymous can go right ahead and hack anybody they want, do whatever they want, as long as it is online? Basically, if the internet was completely destroyed, but there was no murder or rape, you'd be okay. I'd hate to live in your world.

Frankly, I'm happy the FBI is doing something now, rather than when Anonymous is having meetings in real life. Cyber-crime may not be as noticeable as a robber breaking into a bank vault and stealing money, but it is still a valid crime, and the more folks are discouraged from committing these crimes the better.

And, for the record, there is such thing as an Anonymous member...It would be naive to think otherwise.

EDIT: I really can't participate in Anonymous discussions...Somehow they managed to win people over to their way of thinking, and it irks me.

 

[UberNoodle]

Denial of Service Attacks are and should be illegal, yes. However, the government has said previously that such attacks are part of its OWN arsenal against their 'enemies', and Wikileaks was hit with DDoS attacks on several of its hosts when it first raised the governments ire. Should these 40 be made criminals, after the State Department and representatives of the American political and justice system acted so shamefully in response to another party's use of free speech? Sure, they 'should', because then it turns the event closer to the 'terrorism' context that these institutions wanted it to be in the first place. The public has pretty much already forgotten the death threats, libel and so on, purpetrated by elected officials. It has forgotten how the State Department abused its power to strip Wikileaks of its life support. It has forgotten these things because they only remember what is flashed before their eyes most recently, and now it is, 'terrorists/cyber criminals arrested by FBI heroes; whatsmore, those criminals were in league with Wikileaks, the terrorist organisation headed by Assange Bin Laden'.

 

[CrazyMedic]

Shouldn't the FBI be tracking down actual criminals? These are just people with too much time on their hands, with a slightly illegal way of purveying their message. I honestly see not too much wrong with that (until they start causing actual problems).

see the way I look at it is it is sending a message early "just kind of a don't fuck with us" to let them know anon is not above the law.

 

[RDubayoo]

HAHAHA, screw you, formerly Anonymous! Say hello to Bubba for me!

Shouldn't the FBI be tracking down actual criminals? These are just people with too much time on their hands, with a slightly illegal way of purveying their message. I honestly see not too much wrong with that (until they start causing actual problems).

So they shut down the websites of major credit companies and the FBI itself and that's not an "actual problem?" Baloney. They were spreading anarchism in the name of their political agenda, or just plain douchebaggery (their motive probably depended on how high those Anonymous creeps were at a particular time). And as far as "actual criminals," sorry, these script kiddies ARE actual criminals. They likely did millions of dollars of damage and, worse yet, gave the impression that if you dare voice an opinion that some internet vigilante doesn't like he'll come after you.

I fear this is the same problem people with piracy. People assume that since it's all "virtual" and "digital" that the crime, whether it be piracy or DDOS'ing, has no victims and no consequences, or even that it's not a crime at all. That's absolutely and demonstrably wrong, and it's just sad that some of the very same people who use the Internet and computers every day are also the ones who least comprehend the consequences of abusing technology.

 

[icame]

I am a happy person

 

[katsumoto03]

The anonymous members dun goofed. It looks like the FBI...backtraced it. I guess they now know not to mess with the cyber police.

Congratulations! You win the thread.

 

[Gilhelmi]

Shouldn't the FBI be tracking down actual criminals? These are just people with too much time on their hands, with a slightly illegal way of purveying their message. I honestly see not too much wrong with that (until they start causing actual problems).

Slightly illegal that cost many companies millions of real dollars.

These Terrorist (I use that meaning exactly how it sounds) are not small time criminals. They terrorize innocent companies for following the letter of the law.

Let the games of destruction of our enemies begin. Today 40, but what is tomorrow? Will the Feds do their jobs and get hundreds more? Will the terrorist cowards run and hid? (Oh nooes FBI coming to get us) hahahahahahahaahhahhahhahhhahhahha

I hate terrorist with a passion. The only time it is acceptable is if all other forms of legal recourse has failed and it is for a just purpose.

 

[Low Key]

So much inaccuracy in this article. Please stop reporting on these things without asking your IT department. And a bunch of teenage script kiddies aren't "freedom fighters". Most probably couldn't care less about Wikileaks and did it because they were bored.

 

[Gilhelmi]

The problem I see is that with every one of the senseless attacks, anonymous are actually giving the government(s) more power. The more people hear about what anonymous do, the more they get scared. The more leeway governments have to police and censor the web.

With what they think is anarchy and discord. They're actually just opening the floodgates for what will eventually be their downfall and probably the beginning of some ACTA like regime.

To be honest. I'm pretty worried of how this is all going to end.

I hate too say it, but you are probably right.

I do not always like the government but I like to be protected. The more scared I get the more tolerant of the government going crazy, the closer to dictatorship.