25 replies to this topic

[the L]

'Hacktivist' group Anonymous has outed 190 alleged paedophiles by revealing their IP addresses - a unique internet address which can be used to trace their physical address.
The informa

http://www.dailymail...tech-sting.html

Is this right? They playing justice or are they real juistice? Maybe they will ruin some investigation?

[libstaK]

I applaud Anonymous' sentiment - but this can get problematic real fast.  Just for instance, what if they are not the only vigilantes in town and one or more of those IP addresses belong to well meaning "undercover" operatives of the layman type - or even official law enforcement depts - DO they know for sure what they are unleashing when they take these steps?

It's only going to take one mistake to turn public sentiment against them in a big way I think.

[Kasey2601]

Rocketgirl33, on 26 October 2011 - 01:43 AM, said:

I read this artical on Huffington Post a couple days ago and I thought Anonymous was asking for help on this one because they just did not have enough resources to really put a stop to the servers. They said they could shut them down but it was temporary and they needed to get more people involved to put the child porn rings out of business permenatly. I like what they are doing, for now. But who is going to stop them once they gain total control of the internet? Who is going to shut them down once they get to big for their own good? Right now everything they are doing is awesome and in most cases needed to be done a long time ago. But once they have stoped the porn and the bankers and the facebookers and ect..ect.. who knows where they will turn? Will the vigalanty become the ciminal? And who will shut them down?

I will be watching this one closely because history has proven time and again that the ones in power today are the ones being chased down the street with pitchforks tomarrow!! I admire them for putting these child porn sites out of business, law enforcement does not have the money or the means to pursue these creepers, so Anonymous is doing law enforcement from all countries a big favor for going after these pigs. I just hope they know when to stop.


Rocketgirl

libstaK, on 05 November 2011 - 11:36 AM, said:

I applaud Anonymous' sentiment - but this can get problematic real fast.  Just for instance, what if they are not the only vigilantes in town and one or more of those IP addresses belong to well meaning "undercover" operatives of the layman type - or even official law enforcement depts - DO they know for sure what they are unleashing when they take these steps?

It's only going to take one mistake to turn public sentiment against them in a big way I think.

What these two ladies have said sums up what I think. On the outside it looks like a good thing, but as libstaK has pointed out, what if some of those outed were undercover? And will Anonymous know when to stop once they've done all the damage they can all over?

Of course what is being reported by media could be quite different to the reality of how things went down.

[Mr_Snstr]

I agree with some of the sentiment shown here. We must remain weary of efforts such as these. But, as I currently see it, they're not kicking peoples doors down, smashing computers, or locking people up in cages without due process. More or less functioning as a watchdog.

Personally I think a self regulating cyberspace to be the much preferable option than it's more draconion alternatives.

[Chris Baker]

CP is a very controversial subject.

In the Czech Republic they realised that catching voyeurs and confiscating material just led them to going and getting more material when they were release and this led to more child abuse. Also they noticed that making a CP viewing a more serious crime, criminals found themsleves better off risking abusing because unlike CP viewing the police did not have a magical technology to detect their crime.

So they legalised possession of CP and it led to a reduction in child abuse.

[seeking8]

Goes to show you can do a lot to help the world by sitting at home.

[ali smack]

I think it's very good of them to shut down the child porn sites- But I hope children have been identified and rescued from images/or videos or whatever was on the horrible sites.
And the child pornographers have been arrested.
That is the most important thing. Helping the children and locking up the vermin.

[White Unicorn]

Internet vigilantes, they are both reassuring to just causes but disturbing if it's taken too far.

Edited by White Unicorn, 22 January 2013 - 03:40 AM.

[draugr]

libstaK, on 05 November 2011 - 11:36 AM, said:

I applaud Anonymous' sentiment - but this can get problematic real fast.  Just for instance, what if they are not the only vigilantes in town and one or more of those IP addresses belong to well meaning "undercover" operatives of the layman type - or even official law enforcement depts - DO they know for sure what they are unleashing when they take these steps?

It's only going to take one mistake to turn public sentiment against them in a big way I think.

That's the overall sentiment, but a lot of people don't seem to realize Anonymous isn't a group of people.  I remember when the original movement got started on 4chan, many many moons ago when 4chan had a crap server and couldn't handle the traffic it got.

There is no member list for Anonymous.  People come and go from it, and in most cases you'd never know they were part of a DDOS attack or that they hacked Westboro's page.  Not to mention there's a movement within the movement called Knight Sec, and right now they're focusing on the Stuebinville rape case, which I applaud highly.

[Ugly1]

Dude good for them!

[AsteroidX]

Anonymous posts videos regularly explaining what there agenda is. It is a fluid agenda at best. They should be commended as there focus is on abuses of power or outright acts of disgusting behavior.

There much more open about there Agenda and activities then the government of USA is.