‘Anonymous’ Respond To PSN Allegations

Plenty have suggested that the internet group ‘Anonymous’ were behind the PSN breach, whilst many security experts have claimed otherwise. Now a release from someone claiming to represent the group has responded to recent allegations published in the Financial Times claiming that the information was “incorrect”.

First, let us consider a different article by Menn published on the Financial Times website and entitled “Hackers Warned of Arrest” [2] . This poor piece of journalism has already been extensively referenced in the Sony matter and is being used by many people who oppose Anonymous as proof of guilt. The only quoted source used by Menn was the now infamous Aaron Barr, former CEO of the humiliated HBGary. Barr made the claim that a chat room called #anonymous, founded by the identity “Q”, was irrefutable proof that this “Q” began the movement known as Anonymous. Confident in his assertion, he attempted to sell this and other pieces of so-called “intelligence” about the nature of Anonymous to the U.S. FBI.

His information, however, was incorrect. It would be considered common knowledge that Anonymous began as a “meme”, or shared belief, at the turn of the century and later developed to become a “global collective conscience” in 2006. But it was not until 2008 that Anonymous became a true display of “power in numbers”. Organised protests against the “Church” of Scientology were staged in over 140 cities around the world, forever associating the Guy Fawkes mask and the right to protest with the movement.

Second, just like Anonymous, John Doe and Joe Bloggs are placeholders, rather than proper names, and are available for free use without repercussions. However because of this, there is no membership to Anonymous and anyone can claim to be a “member”. It could be said that “Anonymous is anonymous to Anonymous”.

Barr and Menn did not pause to protect the integrity of their professions, but instead made clearly misinformed assumptions, and accordingly published a factually incorrect article. The article was highly scrutinized as being blatantly biased against Anonymous and its participants, and many readers pointed out obvious inconsistencies in the technicalities, and the physical time line.

Third, in the primary article, Menn claims that a “member” of Anonymous, Kayla, made comments as an apparent admission of guilt from the “leaders”. Kayla reportedly said, “If you say you are Anonymous, and do something as Anonymous, then Anonymous did it”. This statement is inherently weak; an equivalent statement would be that “I confess to being human. Humans performed the attack”. Andy Greenburg at Forbes [3]got it right.

Finally, Menn’s reference to “technical details” [1]regarding a vulnerability in Sony’s network without revealing actual content isn’t useful. Until the forensics reports are released we don’t know which exploit was used. The forensic investigators need to conclude their work, and speculation in articles, blogs and comments brings the factual results no closer.

The statement then goes on to criticise Sony for attempting to deflect attention from their own security issues by blaming anonymous, before concluding with a thinly veiled threat.

Outraged about the blatant coverup and shameful misdeeds, other internet hacker groups will apparently proceed with attacks [9]over Sony’s mishandling of the matter. These reactions prove that requesting legislation to cover up corporate crimes and the abuse of law is frowned upon by all online communities, not just the Legion of Anonymous. Apparently Sony will have to learn the hard way that corporate malfeasance will not go unpunished. When the dust settles Sony may have more to fear from a massive class action lawsuit by their user base than the brief actions of the Global Hacker Nerd Brigade, Anonymous… Let THE GAMEs begin. :>

Most security experts we’ve spoken to believe that Anonymous were not behind the attacks.

Thanks to Ultros from Neogaf for the heads up.


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