Dissension Grows Inside Anonymous Because Of Political Propaganda (softpedia.com) 132
An anonymous reader writes from a report on Softpedia: Political tensions relating to the U.S. presidential race are creating turmoil inside the Anonymous hacker collective, muddling waters even more in a group that's known for its lack of leadership and a common goal. The most recent Anonymous infighting relates to the actions of the group's most famous news portal known as AnonHQ, who's been showing downright public support for Bernie Sanders, while being extremely busy at bashing Trump, Cruz, and more recently issuing video threats against Clinton. Ever since Anonymous' official news source has started showing public support for Sanders, many of the group's divisions have publicly disavowed it and have even gone so far as launching constant waves of DDoS attacks at what once used to be the hacker's official news portal. Last month, when a former Anonymous member decided to dox himself, he said in interviews that the group had been infiltrated by government agents.
Yawn (Score:5, Interesting)
"Anonymous" is the equivalent of a preschoolers yelling and kicking your shins. Ignore them, or chuckle if you want, then move in.
These people aren't shaping anyones option on anything.
I wish Slashdot had tech/science/computing stories (Score:5, Insightful)
I was thinking, it would be pretty cool if Slashdot had submissions about technology, science, and maybe even computing. I know this is mainly a political site, but I think some people might find submissions about non-political stories interesting. Maybe there could even be some submissions about computer programming on the front page every now and then.
Re:I wish Slashdot had tech/science/computing stor (Score:5, Insightful)
I totally agree. Not only are there more political stories, they're decidedly left-leaning. It's getting even worse in the comments. I remember when government was "the man"' and hackers were mostly libertarian. Now every Slashdot issue seems to end up as a fight for who can hand government more power and control. (Don't like big corporations? Why do you think big government is better? Maybe small both is best. Bernie Sanders? Give me a break. Do you know how other countries provide college for free? They pick the people who are allowed to go.)
The more Slashdot becomes a hang out for privleged young lefties to tell everyone how to think, the more I just want to chuck the whole thing. And fwiw, I've been a daily visitor since I downloaded Debian onto floppies with my 28.8 modem.
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People using words like 'left wing' and 'right wing' and then believing they're talking about tech. Calling themselves 'libertarian' and then claiming all hackers used to be libertarian because they never met any but assume because it would make sense in their own heads.
I think they were more anarchist than libertarian. And yes, there's quite a difference between the two.
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People using words like 'left wing' and 'right wing' and then believing they're talking about tech. Calling themselves 'libertarian' and then claiming all hackers used to be libertarian because they never met any but assume because it would make sense in their own heads.
This is false.
Also, when people tell you you're fucking stupid, you assume they're 'left wing' because of your political position, when really they just want you to stop talking because you're fucking stupid.
See what you did there? That's why no competent people ascribe to your ideals and you have to go onto sites you don't belong (such as this one) and push them in the idiotic hope others will listen when in fact you are just an obnoxious loudmouthed hippy.
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Actually, I vehemently agree with you. I'd MUCH rather be talking about tech than topics which require using classifications like left or right-wing to discuss. I feel like many of the recent stories lately were picked or positioned to do just that. I'm not sure if I'm the troll here or just being trolled but there seems to me more of a political agenda in the stories themselves which just catalyzes a bunch of, "if you don't agree with me, you're not just wrong, you're evil" kinds of comment bouts. (Case
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I think the term SJW is worthless as its just a convenient way for people to label someone and group them in wit
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No, that's not what happened with the Catholic Church. What happened with the Catholic Church is that they covered up child molesters to protect their reputation at the expense of past and future victims. They
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This is the core problem. Everything comes down to ad-hominems.
What else can I say about someone who I have a low opinion of though? I suppose I could phase it less harshly and say that I don't think they are very good people, and then qualify all of that with examples, but what does that really change? You, who considers them a member of your tribe will just find a way to dismiss the evidence or rationalize the bad behavior or make other excuses for it.
Kinda like you just did to me.
I don't ever recall calling you an SJW or accusing you of something like that and if I have, it's something that I re
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What else can I say about someone who I have a low opinion of though?
You say nothing at all about the person and confine your commentary to their arguments.
they've been taken over by crazy idiots who are very counter-productive
All of the major social/political movements seem to be heading this way.
I think the loudest nutjobs are trying to be the next MLK or Gandhi, but they are not not smart or charismatic enough to pull a movement together. And some are simply self-serving and getting attention however they can.
The mudslinging is just another way to rally support and build that tribe, and extract some money from them.
It also provokes the opposition---which can be a good career move if the activism is a means to personal rather than social ends. If s
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What else can I say about someone who I have a low opinion of though?
You could address their arguments. That's generally how a high level debate works, you discuss the issues rather than the individuals involved.
Couldn't you make the same argument that calling someone an SJW simply means that they subscribe to third-wave feminist philosophy
You could, but what is the point? Address the issues directly rather than poisoning the well with name calling.
eventually she drifts off into patriarchy theory, which is utter nonsense when looking at modern western societies.
It seems to be an accurate description of western society. What specifically makes you think it is nonsense?
The rest of your post is again focused on the individuals and who their perceived groupings. Stick to the issues, I'm happy to discuss them with you.
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Anonymous is nothing more than an anonymous vehicle for political activism, it is only what particular people bring to it at a particular time. The activities of those people who operate temporarily under the name of 'Anonymous' seeking support from others, is their own as it is of those who wish to join them in that activity.
It is only what those anonymous people, operating under 'Anonymous' at any particular time, make it. There can be no dissension (as there is no organisation with which to dissent), i
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Very well said. I am regularly amazed at how few people understand the (lack of) organization of Anonymous, especially media outlets. The only thing I would sort-of disagree with is that it is for political activism. That is one thing that has arisen from Anonymous and it is probably the most visible aspect, but they do other things too that are not political in nature: they still do some things "for teh lulz" occasionally.
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Really just about anything can be for political activism, even the lulz. When dicks are taking the wrong things far to seriously because of their inflated egos, deflating those egos often has a great benefit in reducing the political harm those inflated egos cause. Politics doesn't have to be all serious, it can be quite fun and in fact making it more fun tends to get more people involved ie taking the piss out of corrupt politicians is fun and although it does not achieve much political change it certainl
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A great example would be Anita Sarkeesian.
People don't hate her because she's a self-identified SJW, they hate her for her duplicity, her scams, her dishonesty, and the outrageous baloney she claims her 'research' uncovered. She's a very successful con-artist, and that's why you'll find a fair number of people who hate her.
Re: I wish Slashdot had tech/science/computing sto (Score:1, Funny)
Reality has a well known left-wing bias. There are other sites you can go to for reading about how dinosaur-riding Jesus disproves AGW.
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Those books wont help you prove dinosaur riding jesus unless you apply them incorrectly.
They also wont help you disprove dinosaur riding jesus, though. They actually understand how epistemology works.
They *might* point out you have no chain of evidence to support dinosaur riding jesus and ask you why you keep returning to the subject and maybe if you'd like a tissue to wipe up the drool though.
Re: I wish Slashdot had tech/science/computing sto (Score:4, Insightful)
Reality has a well known left-wing bias
apparent only to those who try to ignore it.
Care to explain why the US market has recovered faster than the EU? Everyone on the left agrees we did to little stimulus and yet here we are and there they are. Greece is about to collapse again, Spain and France have deep likely unsolvable structural problems... The one nation that is doing exceptionally well Germany adopted the more conservative policies...
Lets face it, progressives are just as bone headed as their reactionary counter parts. There really is a middle right leaning road the yields the best results.
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Care to explain why the US market has recovered faster than the EU?
The US had more stimulus than the EU. Not enough perhaps, but more. The eurozone is locked into neoliberalism by treaty, its individual countries are prohibited from creating stimulus. Germany has a massive trade surplus and therefore has no need of stimulus, neoliberalism works just fine for them.
Re: I wish Slashdot had tech/science/computing sto (Score:1)
I call bullshit. Free college here is based on scores in final year exams at the end of secondary level education. No one "picks" the results.
Maybe lay off the tinfoil hat son?
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That's what I get for trying to make a point about how Slashdot seems to be pushing more political stories but then also letting my opinions in to the mix. Human nature, though... I can't help but take up your comment. (Damn it, trolled again!)
In full disclosure, I don't know where you're from or the details of your system and I admit my comment was extremely general. It may be better than ours in many ways, if not every way, but it may also not be apples to apples. You may have all the elements I desc
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Which candidate, exactly, do you think would reduce the sum of corporate + government power more than Sanders? I mean, at least he wants to break up corporate power; every other candidate wants to make it even worse.
Clinton? Nope, she likes the status quo.
Trump? Nope, jackbooted thugs and racist pogroms aren't "small government."
Cruz? Nope, dominionist theocracy isn't "small government" either.
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Beyond being a communist, Bernie is a career politician. He's a calcified part of the establishment. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just kidding themselves.
Although to anyone that actually understands civics, this is all a sideshow anyways as the President has little real power.
In that respect, a Bernie presidency might actually be a GOOD thing as all of the naieve young kids that like him will get disappointed with his socialist agenda due to his inability to force Congress to do his bidding.
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How could anyone be disappointed with Bernie's agenda if the Congress blocks said agenda from being implemented? Are you often disappointed with the quality of meals you didn't get to actually eat?
If anything, the Congress, being a notoriously corrupt organization, blocking an agenda gives t
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Don't like big corporations? Why do you think big government is better? Maybe small both is best. Bernie Sanders? Give me a break. Do you know how other countries provide college for free? .
You can't have small both, I would have thought this was obvious - governments have to be a certain size to be able to effectively keep corporations of a particular size in check. It's pretty clear that in the United States (from an outside perspective) that several of the larger business interests are pretty hell bent on getting rid on the government agencies that keep them in check, especially environmental and safety regulations.
Governments at least in democratic nations have at least some accountability
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best AC post ever.
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That's what reddit is for. /r/technology, /r/science, stuff like /r/FPGA, /r/, etc.
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Surely that'll never get old and people will love to submit more articles.
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Gosh I hope this is an ironic reference to how far things have dropped here since the excellent threads/discussions here after the Columbine School shootings.
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"Anonymous" is the equivalent of a preschoolers yelling and kicking your shins. Ignore them, or chuckle if you want, then move in.
Except they aren't preschoolers and they need a serious ass whipping instead of being able to hide behind computer courage.
Dissension in Anonymous (Score:1)
Is that possible?
Which Anon? (Score:3, Insightful)
In other news, there's also growing dissent among ACs on Slashdot
Will the ACs ever come to agree with each other, or will the AC group dissolve completely into different factions?
Tune in at 11 PM to find out more.
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If no one else will say anything, you need to shower. You smell worse than Cleveland.
Anyone can be anonymous (Score:1)
Whatever their agenda and whoever signs their paychecks it's time to stop giving attention to these bozos.
muddling waters (Score:3, Informative)
You dont "muddle" waters, you "muddy" them. The only way to "muddle waters" is to spoil water all over the place while trying to fill your glass.
Re:muddling waters (Score:4, Funny)
You don't "spoil" water, you "spill" it. The only way to "spoil water" is to have a cow drink it, then milk the cow, then let the milk sit out on the counter.
If you want to practice grammar trolling, learn to double-check your posts.
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The only way to "spoil water" is to have a cow
That's fallacious, there are many ways to spoil water. For instance: You could irradiate it. Irregardlessly, don't have a cow, man.
Morons (Score:4, Insightful)
When will the morons in the media get it? Anonymous isn't an organized group. There is no central command, no inner circle to infiltrate. There are people who publicly label themselves "Anonymous", and there are many, many more who are Anonymous that you never see. It's in the fucking tagline - "We Are Legion".
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You are missing the point entirely, which is not particularly surprising.
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So what you saying is self-identifying as this or that does not make it so?
So people can self identify as members of a political movement "anonymous" but since they don't actually share a common view it does not a movement make.
I suppose its the same way calling yourself a girl or a guy does not magically change the genitals you have or your actual sex. Interesting.
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There is no central command, no inner circle to infiltrate.
That's the theory, but in practice it's actually a small number of people directing the group. For example, most members are script kiddies who download clients like Low Orbit Ion Cannon to participate in DDoS attacks. The attacks are directed by the few anons with some actual skill - the app simply fetches a file with a URL in it and starts hammering away.
If you read the infamous IRC [archive.today] logs from Anonymous IRC channels and the archives of posts on 4chan [escapistmagazine.com], you can see [arstechnica.com] that it's actually just a handful of people
We are them... (Score:2)
https://youtu.be/gD_Y-r8gdaA?t... [youtu.be]
Elementary episode? (Score:2)
I could have sworn there was an episode exploring exactly this sort of shit. Has anyone been murdered yet?
I miss LulzSec (Score:4, Interesting)
They had some class, they had skill and most importantly they made me laugh.
Anonymous of today relies on zero effort DDOS attacks and their messaging is dominated by anger and revenge.
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Yeah. I miss l0pht heavy industries and CDC. Things were *fun* back then... now its all just commercialized and malicious
Anonymous (Score:2)
Anonymous is just an MEME (Score:3, Insightful)
What you have here are two fake PR fronts fighting it out for who can pretend to control a group of random hackers whom they neither know, nor represent.
Fake PR front #1: "Anonymous is targeting drug dealers and Trump today, here I'm genuine, see my well stitched flag and high quality video production standards"
Fake PR front #2: "No, I'm the real PR outlet for "Anonymous", don't listen him, we're totally not, we're targetting Somali pirates and Clinton, see my more believable grunge website"
You know how it works, they are hackers, they come and go, live their lives, gets jobs, or girlfriends. They get pissed at stuff sometimes and hack it if they have time and when they find a hole, and dump the result to pastebin if the hack is successful. Anonymous is just an internet MEME used by every changing random hackers.
We know they've hacked something when the hacked data appears.
So how could such random people ever have an "official news outlet" if there's no "official" in charge of them?
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I think you're right.
in fact, it was the judean people's front all along!
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What you have here are two fake PR fronts fighting it out for who can pretend to control a group of random hackers whom they neither know, nor represent.
See also: Gamergate.
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No, Anonymous was a branding attempt at running the Dread Pirate Roberts con.
What happens when a tight and talented group brags about their latest hack? They get notoriety, the unwarranted fear of the masses analogous to terrorism, and the Eye of Sauron (NSA/FBI).
If you're not in the hacking game for the psychological gratification of generating terror towards the sea of stupid, and eventual federal indictment (and unconstitutional harrassment/blackmail), what can a hacker do?
They can develop tight cells o
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Nah. Psych-ops both of them.
The real anonymous stuff appears with hacked data, is badly written, full of swears and the main thing is the hacked data. Not the PR announcement.
Since hacking doesn't require group participation, there's no reason for such a "tight" group to exist. There's no mechanism for them to communicate they could trust, or any reason why they would share common goals or targets to make them 'tight'. No mechanism to decide who is in the group and outside the group.
When I see real 'Anonymo
is there a problem? (Score:2)
who's been showing downright public support for Bernie Sanders, while being extremely busy at bashing Trump, Cruz, and more recently issuing video threats against Clinton
not sure I see a problem, here.
but, video threats; what is that? is there audio, too? in 5.1?
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They are threatening to release Hillary's emails.
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Forget that. Someone, somewhere, has some audio (and maybe video) from Hillary's transcript-less "Wall Street" speeches. It's just waiting to be used in an "October Surprise"...or quietly destroyed...for a price.
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I've seen reports that all her speeches where for companies that had business before the state department.
I imagine the speech transcript consist of much more than "thanks, as soon as the check clears, I'll start working on making whatever happen."
But then again, I'm convinced Hillary is actually more crooked than the vast right wing conspiracy wants you to think she is.
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I'm convinced that the Republicans are letting Trump lead their party's nominations because they are just as excited about Hillary becoming president as the Democrats are. She has always struck me as completely and totally for sale, way more so than most politicians even.
Yes, Infiltrated (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Yes, Infiltrated (Score:4, Interesting)
Trump could easily turn out to be the most moderate Republican president in a century. He might even be isolationist enough to disentangle us from the mideast.
Clinton, on the other hand, could even more easily be the best Republican president since Reagan.
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I know, scary isn't it? Hillary is Republican light and Trump acts all "for the common man" and both of them are opportunists and liars who aren't ever going to show their true colours until the shit hits the fan when we find out were all fucked to hell no matter which one wins.....
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The guy who claims AGW is made up by the Chinese to control the US.... Either you really don't hold the Republicans in high regard or you don't seem to fully comprehend the idiocy of Trump's positions.
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AGW is made up by the Chinese to control the US
Well of course he's wrong. AGW was made up by the United Nations to facilitate wealth transfer to third world nations. China just saw an opportunity and jumped on the bandwagon.
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Didn't Trump promise to attack ISIS? That sounds like he wants to get into another nasty and un-winnable ground war in the middle east/North Africa.
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I would bet that at the very least our government has tried to infiltrate and not just Anonymous but a lot of software companies as well.
I will state that I am certain the recent accusations that Cruze is Lucifer is a lie. Trump is Satan and Cruze and Boehner are just wannabees.
Who is "Cruze"?
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A piece of shit abortion from Chevrolet...
Over 9k (Score:3)
Citing an Anonymous source (who declined to be named), said everything started going south when over 9k people hung Guy Fawkes masks on the rear view mirrors of their cars.
"muddling waters" - American idiots... (Score:1)
It's "muddying the waters", you illiterate, ignorant American cretins...
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Saturday marks the 33rd anniversary of his death, so don't expect youngsters to have ever heard of Muddy.
RIP
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Well, c'mon. The guy totally ripped of Led Zeppelin (and Foghat) (and even Ted Nugent) (and the list goes on and on and on). Geez, I was listening to him the other day, and it was obvious he was just some guy in a classic rock cover band.
;-) <-- in case not obvious.
Semi-political (Score:2, Informative)
Supporting Sanders is political, no argument about that. Of the leading 4 candidates, he is the only one who has taken serious positions (though you might not agree with those positions).
Bashing Trump and Cruz isn't political. Neither of those are serious candidates and no matter what your political ideals, no matter how right or left you are, no matter how you would approach the country's problems and opportunities, those are totally horrible candidates and also just plain bad people who shouldn't be in A
Say it ain't so (Score:2)
A shadowy, decentralized group of anonymous activists with wildly different views of the world is experiencing internal dissension and infighting?
Wow, who coulda seen that coming?
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As can be said of the Anarchist Brigades in the Spanish Civil War: They were good fighters, but suffered from a lack of organization.