Check out this News-Sentinel article about some hackers from the group Anonymous getting arrested after one of their leaders turned informant. It's considered the first significant prosecution of Internet hackers. I think it's interesting to note the language employed in the article. Authorities accuse them of a "deliberate campaign of online destruction, intimidation and criminality." Remember the Nissembaum article talked about this kind of ontological shift.
One of their alleged "exploits" was hacking into the PBS Web site and planting a fake story that Tupac Shakur was really alive in New Zealand, which they did in retaliation for what they perceived to be "unfavorable news coverage of Wikileaks on the PBS news program Frontline." Hardly what you would consider terrorist activity. And kind of funny actually. One might say more of an act of insurrection than mere sabotage.
....Some people even wondered if the whole story of the arrest of the 5 hackers wasn't a fraud as well.
People need to get their priorities in order, instead of persecuting these “terrorists” maybe they should just brush up on their security? Just a thought….
ReplyDeleteThat is pretty funny. Maybe they will hack into news sentinal and plant a fake article in retaliation of the language that puts them in a negative light. I also think it is interesting whenever I hear of an article talking about the "leaders" or "ring-leaders" of a leaderless movements such as anonymous.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note did you know that Anonymous was actually started as an internet meme?! On hacker forums such as 4chan users started responding as Anonymous and over time they jokingly personified Anonymous as a real person. Talk about the power of memes! Even a meme can become a full scale movement.
That is really interesting about Anonymous! I did not know that!
ReplyDelete