Anonymous Hackers Threaten Mexican Drug Lords

[Ed Jewett]

Anonymous Hackers Threaten Mexican Drug Lords
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Mexico's Zetas drug cartel has a new enemy: the hacker collective known as Anonymous.

Angry over the alleged kidnapping of one of their members, Anonymous has threatened in avideo to expose the identities of Mexican police, taxi drivers and journalists cooperating with the Zetas unless the person is released.

Anonymous' strategy is a "problem," writes Robert Beckhusen at Wired's Danger Room. "At the very least, it's worth noting that taxi drivers working as lookouts or mules for the cartels does not mean the drivers do so willingly. As targets for extortion, exposing their identities could mean deadly reprisal attacks, such as what occurred during a wave of violence in the resort city of Acapulco in February that left a dozen taxi drivers and their passengers deadsome decapitated by machete-wielding assassins as their cars were set ablaze."

The video and its proposed action have split supporters of Anonymous and there are even suspicions that the video is fraudulent since no details are given about the alleged kidnapping.

Going after a drug cartel is just the latest ambitious effort by Anonymous, which previously targeted Visa and MasterCard for their anti-WikiLeaks actions.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

Anonymous Threatens Mexico's Murderous Drug Lords (by Robert Beckhusen, Wired)
Mexico's Cartels Draw Online Activists' Ire (Stratfor)
Anonymous Skeptical of Proposed Attack on Zetas Drug Cartel (by Quinn Norton, Wired)
After a Kidnapping, Hackers Take on a Ruthless Mexican Crime Syndicate (by Damien Cave, New York Times)

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[Ed's comment: I put this down here in "Other" despite the fact that it could easily go in a few threads... "Fast & Furious", "Drugs", and others. But it seems to be a blend, to cut across threads.

I think the DPF admin team should throw together their heads and consider the creation of an kind of "new world" of rapid telecommunications, cybersecurity, cyberwarfare, etc., that a small batch of related sections might be started.

I don't have any brilliant names to offer; I am now beginning to read John Robb's "Brave New War", as well as other incoming books. But, clearly, actions and strategies of this cyber-era which is maturing rapidly need to developed (and monitored) in wats we all can explore.]

[Magda Hassan]

Last I heard Anonymous had decided not to go ahead with this.

[Ed Jewett]

Ah... well.

[Magda Hassan]

It may well be revised in future and they have had some small success with their child porn operation.

[Magda Hassan]

Drug Cartel Releases 'Anonymous' Hostage, But Battle Continues

• By Chloe Albanesius
  
• November 4, 2011 08:00am EST
  

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Barrett Brown, a sometimes spokesman for the hacker collective Anonymous, said Thursday that the Zeta Mexican cartel had freed a kidnapped member of its group, but that he would continue to battle the violent gang on his own, outside of Anonymous.
The issue has [url=http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2395740,00.asp]divided the hacker community, with some Anonymous members calling for Brown to be stopped lest he get someone killed. Brown was unmoved, arguing in a Thursday Pastebin note that he will not abandon the plan "simply because there is a possibility of retaliation."
Last month, Anonymous posted a video online that pledged to release data about members of Zeta, as well as those who cooperate with the cartel, unless they released a member of Anonymous who was allegedly kidnapped during a protest in Veracruz. "Give us back our #Anonymous participant or many of you die within a week," Brown tweeted recently.
Brown said Thursday night that "the Anon who had been kidnapped last month by the Zetas has been released, although it appears that the Zetas concerned did not know that the individual was the Anon whose release had been demanded by those who instigated #OpCartel. As such, no bargain has been fulfilled."
Anonymous members in Mexico reportedly have access to documents that expose those who have worked with the cartel. Brown said in an earlier YouTube video that Anons were working dilgently to verify the authenticity in order to avoid exposing innocent people to danger. On Thursday night, Brown said "those who have been in possession of the e-mails have promised to provide them to me alone, which is to say that everything that proceeds from now on is my own work, and not that of Anonymous."
Brown pledged to "announce the next step in a few days."
Detractors criticized Brown as "foolish" for taking such a public stand (he did not cover his face on that YouTube video), but he called the opposition "among the most degenerate displays I have yet seen."
"The idea that I should refrain from assisting in the naming of probable criminals operating in a foreign country without a working judicial system lest I be murdered is a cowardly sentiment," he wrote. "No individual living in the free world should refrain from working to fight injustice simply because there is a possibility of retaliation."
Not everyone was impressed. "Sorry, gentlemen. #Anonymous majority does not support your idiotic #OpCartel, & YES our opinion matters," tweeted an Anon who goes by the name @Anachrynon on Twitter.
Brown responded that @Anachrynon has "no majority support, we don't need your help, and I left Anonymous months ago."
One Anon who is supporting the #OpCartel effort is a hacker known as Sabu. "How long are we to sit here idle while people die? Idle hands prolong this situation," he tweeted.
Sabu, howver, also said that he doesn't "speak for anonymous ... Those who want to work on the op can, and will."
"No one can take anonymous down as it is an idea. I am not starting a separate group. Accept it. You can't stop me," Sabu tweeted Thursday night.
To that point, those who follow Anonymous will know that the group does not have a central command. If you say you're a member of Anonymous, you're a member of Anonymous. Therefore, while a few members might be focused on the Occupy Wall Street effort, others might be targeting what they consider to be a corrupt government, and more still will be going after violent drug cartels.
Does Anonymous have any dirt on the cartel? Will releasing that information hurt the organization or just the low-level people associated with it? Stay tuned.


http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,239...FxVUdSMZCj