Police probe British Anonymous activists

The Metropolitan Police has confirmed it is investigating the activities of Anonymous, the online activism movement recently under the spotlight for its DDoS attacks in support of WikiLeaks. The probe was launched several months ago, apparently following complaints about Anonymous' attacks on the website of ACS:Law, a London …

[Anonymous Coward]

LOIC

LOIC just about marks your location on the map, posts it to your victim, and then lets them have a photo of your house (well it would have done if Google hadn't been done for collecting this info anyways).

Given how trivial this should be it can only be hoped that the Met have the technical resource to find these folks.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you think will happen?

I mean, ACS:Law was there, operating from a big building in plan view, threatening and bullying people and the police did nothing about THEM in all that time.

The population starts to stick up for itself against a corrupt system and look what happens. I mean, the coppers are a complete joke, picking off the easy, low hanging fruit instead of going after the big baddies the likes of ACS:Law who were a major contributor to this situation in the first place. I'd be surprised if any of these kids got anything more than a slap of the wrist.

Put it this way, if any of them get jail time while the directors of ACS don't even set foot in s court room, then British justice should escort itself to the tower block, lock itself up and throw away the key.

[Anonymous Coward]

Laws and things

What Laws have ACS:Law broken, Michelle? DDOS is against the law, and as such should be prosecuted.

Answering my own question a bit, in other news many of the 'cases' that ACS:Law have brought have been thrown out of court. Are they not being investigated by the ICO? Your picture of big bad ACS:Law doing things with the wholehearted support of the Police/Judiciary/Establishment is just not true.

I would imagine that the script kiddies involved with this will indeed get a slap on the wrist etc. But they are breaking the law, and as such, are long overdue that reprimand.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but!

Yes but, I'm sad to say it, ACS law were clever - they didn't (as yet*) break any actual laws did they. They made use of flaws in the legal system - flaws that -might- allow them to get away scott free.

If Anonymous used similar methods - did things that aren't actually illegal, they would stand a chance of not being bothered with by the fuzz too. Saying that, not being a business and not greasing the palms of politic-tards probably means they would still attract attention of the police and government as we all know it's not what you know, but who you know thats important in getting justice. Oh and how much money you have too!

*Hopefully they will be found to have broken at least one law soon! Bunch of ****s.

[Anonymous Coward]

I despise the tactics el Reg has attributed to ACS:Law,

but they are working within the framework of the law. It's up to the judges (well, it would be the judges here in the US, might be another name for you Brits) to smack ACS for their abuse of the law. El Reg had an article about a good start on that front just a couple days ago. When the judges start not just slapping wrists but actually fining and imprisoning the ACS employees.

Anonymous on the other hand are engaging in directly criminal behavior. They need to be pursued and prosecuted to protect the public commons from the rampages of the mob.

[Anonymous Coward]

In Blighty Land

The judge is known as the beak!

[thecakeis(not)alie]

Oi.

Think outside the box, would you?

Wear a hoodie and some shaggy clothing. Go buy a prepaid credit card. In cash. Use said card to buy yourself some phat virtual hosting somewhere not remotely related to you. Do so from a system you don't own, and which is off the beaten path of your daily travails.

Fire up LOIC on remote system, point at people you don't like and make them go away. It’s cheap, easy, and largely untraceable. The biggest thing you have to worry about it being done for by CCTV that you didn’t take the time to pre-scout.

Kids these days. Whatever happened to the age group that was used to things like burner laptops and RRAS points from cheap motel rooms. It’s so much easier to be anonymous in today’s world…you just have to be a bit creative.

[phil mcracken]

these aren't the hackers you're looking for...

....everyone knows that ebaums is responsible.

[The Fuzzy Wotnot]

Here we go again!

Better get the vans out to round up all the kids and Grannies who had their machines hijacked as "bots" for these attacks!

[envmod]

goatscape

they want some scapegoats to arrest and send to prison i guess. i reckon this will only antagonise annoymous more....expect attacks on the Met, Dutch Police etc...

[smartpatrol]

Bugger that

And who are the first chaps you call after your flat gets knocked off?

[Anonymous Coward]

The met...

... and then you wonder why you did after giving the same statement to three different coppers who obviously didn't want to be there. After that the only time you ever hear from them again is when they send somebody round a few weeks later (despite saying they'd be round tomorrow) to confiscate some of your things as 'evidence'. Bunch of useless w*nkers.

[Anonymous Coward]

The police of course...

...but only to get a case number for the insurance. Not because you have any hope that a single finger would be lifted to help find the perps or recover your goods.

[Anonymous Coward]

yes the police are great

a couple of years ago I ran in to a police station with blood dripping from my face to report i'd just been attacked by a group of yobs, after 10 minutes someone came to tell me i can give a statement if i want but "it would just be a paper exercise"

the police serve 3 roles:

1. provide crime reference numbers for the insurance company

2. catch non-criminals (35mph on an empty dual carriageway? but the limit is 30 so that must be dangerous!)

3. hassle/beat the crap out of (depending on mood) peaceful protesters (they ignore the violent minority, good excuse if they need to justify why they started beating the crap out of the peaceful majority)

[fifi]

The true Anonymous?

The people they will pick up from using the publically available apps to assist in the DDOS are very much the "low hanging fruit" to use a bullsh*t cliche.

The people behind the act are the ones that probably didn't do that much hands-on DDOSing and will likely not be caught...

[Stone Fox]

you mean

The oldfags behind over 9000 proxies?

;D

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume

they'll also be looking for those whoe attacked the Wikileaks sites? After all if it's illegal, it's illegal. I know the suspect for that is in the US but we've seen you can still be extradited for these things.

[Anonymous Coward]

sigh

Take password off your wifi router, use LOIC, plausible deniability FTW

Behind 7 proxies :-)

[amanfromMars 1]

Good luck with that, .....

Is this the same Met who can't find any evidence to prosecute crooks in expenses and phone hacking cases, even whenever it is presented to them on a plate and silver platter? Or would turn a blind eye and take a bung if they do, and do not proceed and insist upon prosecution, for how else would one explain such odd and cowardly behaviour from the boys in blue.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah but you're forgetting

Anonymous targeted the BPI who like nothing more than being portrayed as victims. I imagine no effort will be spared to ensure the music industry doesn't go without its seasonal LearJets.

[thecybersleuth]

Interesting reads...

"Freedom of speech and transparency huh? This is what the Rogue group ‘Anonymous’ is fighting for? Well here’s some. The following files depict, outline and PORTRAY the movement (imho) and it’s inner workings. Not that this is a big secret to find or anything, but if you’re gonna be a ‘movement‘ then you might want to pass out the handbook for everyone to read."

Posted @

(http)://anonymousdown.wordpress.(com)/news/

can you say bombshell?

[mark l 2]

useless met

This is the same met who i gave the name, address, email address and phone number of a scammer who had ripped me off in an ebay sale and they told me.... there wasn't enough evidence to even go round and question him so i was one laptop and £300 out of pocket after paypal refunded him because he said his card was used without authorisation.

Unless your daft enough to still have LOIC on your computer now even if they came knocking you could just deny all knowledge and say that you did have a virus on your pc which you cleared off the other day so it must have been that.

I suspect most of the DDOS brigade will be using an open wifi connection belonging to a neighbour anyway, or if in a Virgin area a cloned modem with someone elses login details assigned to it

[amanfromMars 1]

PC Plod ........ Advanced IntelAIgents Division

"Further attacks were launched after the firm's founder, Andrew Crossley, mocked the group's initial DDoS in an interview with The Register. Disastrous efforts to restore the website then publicly exposed confidential company files, including the personal data of ACS:Law's targets. The Information Commissioner is investigating the apparent breach of the Data Protection Act by the firm.

Meanwhile, the Met's investigation of the incident – and the more recent WikiLeaks-related attacks on the websites of Visa, Mastercard and PayPal – could have serious consequences for British members of Anonymous."

Is that Met investigation, an investigation into an extortion racket being run by the firm's founder ..... who would appear to be a serial loser if one can believe the ACS:Law wiki ...... "The main partner of the company, and its only registered solicitor,[3] is Andrew Crossley. Crossley has twice been found guilty of conduct unbefitting a solicitor by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, in 2002 and again in 2006.[4] In August 2010, the Solicitors Regulation Authority confirmed that Crossley was being summoned to his third disciplinary tribunal, in response to ACS:Law's action against suspected copyright infringers." ?

[Anonymous Coward]

That would assume...

That would assume that the anonymous group is intelligent. Snicker.

[Alister]

No problem

They've traced the IP addresses of those responslble... apparently they use a big block of addresses starting 192.168.1....

Oh, wait...