Michelle Malkin on Sarah Palin’s use of a tanning bed in Alaska hacking, identity theft, intimidation, and Gawker’s gleeful presentation of the stolen property.
I won’t link to Gawker — at least, not until they run a piece on Nick Denton being frogmarched to federal prison; but if there’s anything positive that may come out of this, it’s that we may now find out how capable the government is at finding those involved in networked groups like Anonymous who believe they have a mandate from Emma Goldman to smash the machine.
The FBI is investigating.
****
More, from Stacy McCain, who notes that the AP has a rather, uh, telling take on all this.
A quick beef: Anonymous is not, from what I can tell, necessarily “left wing” — though they most certainly are little wannabe fascists. From what I can gather, they likely think of themselves more as TRUTHTELLERS with an anarchist strain, and so may be of the left-libertarian / anarchist bent. In other words, politically confused.
Their level of involvement here, however, remains dubious.
Some of the “group’s” credo:
Failure is not an option.
Enemies of Anonymous are permanent.
Enemies are to be eliminated swiftly and without incident.
Anonymous must work as one. No single Anonymous knows everything.
Anonymous does not tolerate action against Anonymous.
Any action against Anonymous will be dealt with swiftly and thoroughly.
Nothing can harm Anonymous.
Anonymous is the will to power.
Anonymous is always in control.
Anonymous has no identity.
Anonymous worships nothing.
Anonymous has no leader, and is led by no-one.
Human weakness is the virus; Anonymous is the cure.
Anonymous is anonymous.
Anonymous stays together through common ideas.
You will never be an /i/nsurgent.
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not forgive.
We do not forget.
Barrett Brown would probably know more, so perhaps he can shed some light on the group.
****
update: More on Anonymous — and those who are reluctant to condemn the hacking of Gov Palin’s private account — here.
With any luck these mothers will be bunking with Tiny for 5-10 years. I hope it will have been worth it.
Filleting knife.
Why did that thought pop into my mind?
Derek
The first rule of Fight Club is you don’t…ah, ferget it.
Somebody’s seen “V for Vengeance” one too many times.
Many on the left are using this opportunisticly here in NY to score points against Palin. I’ve heard such utterances as:
“Well she should have expected this after accepting the nomination…”
or
“The contents of that e-mail accounts should have been made public anyway…How do we know she wasn’t trying to hide something by using her private e-mail account for state business…”
What it really should remind us all is how vulnerable any of us are who use a web-based e-mail account…
Should she have been using a secure e-mail system for official business; absolutely !
Does Alaska even have a secure e-mail on the state network; good question…
Let’s all resolve to make sure we have very arcane and twisted passwords for our accounts in the public domain. And, although inconvenient, don’t allow your wireless computer to “remember” your passwords.
My younger brother believes I’m paranoid…But, thank God, I’ve suffered no viruses and no hacking over the years…
I don’t get this Pablo.
I know, cynn. I know.
I recommend NYT’s “Mawebolence” for background if you are unfamiliar with this sort of griefing for lulz.
From Michelle’s site:
Anonymous is not a group of hackers. Anonymous is more like gremlins. They are hyperactive adolescents in search of amusement and joy, which they often get by upsetting people and making messes. That’s what was happening here. Anonymous did not hack the account. A hacker tried to throw Sarah Palin to Anonymous. Not all of Anonymous was having it. One person threw a crowbar in the works. Other /b/tards were displeased to miss a chance at the lulz. The moderators stepped in. The thread was deleted.
Later, other individuals created threads reposting screencaps of emails and the inbox, and put together a collection of these files. All mentions of these were purged by the moderators. So then some bright /b/tards decided to email what little stuff they had to the media.”
And the media showed no restraint at all.
“They are hyperactive adolescents in search of amusement and joy, which they often get by upsetting people and making messes.”
I heard a brief bit of Hannity talking to someone today about 2008 being the end of journalism, I thought it was typical Hannity hyperbole. Now I am not so sure.
Dug…Vendetta…I knew that.
“Anonymous is always in control.”
LiberalFascism” Anonymous is more like gremlins. They are hyperactive adolescents in search of amusement and joy, which they often get by upsetting people and making messes.”
niiiiissshhhhhiiiii….
Where arrrrre yoooouuuuuu……
That’s one of those cracker attacker groups. Lots of pretty smart people in those. They take on challenges!
Great guys to know if you like free software. I have one friend in CA who used to waste time in a cracker group.
They bring digital walls down. Claim to do it for the challenge of scaling, and playing with algorithms, and discovering funny exploits. Very nerdy bunch, all I’m saying.
Anonymous is the guy at the bar whose ability to socialize is tied to his belching prowess. It’s amusing at first, but quickly becomes irritating. In spite of the effect his behavior has on everyone around him, he just increases the volume, laughing hysterically after each eructation.
Please ignore the talking pile of shit.
Thank you.
The world has plenty of smart people. The world needs more good people.
Apologies, etc.
Hey Barack and Michelle how’s those CAC Challenge going?
Accessing stored electronic communications improperly is a federal crime. I’m not sure that re-publishing them is. Probably an oversight. Cf. republishing communications that were the result of illegal eavesdropping which IS a crime.
Please notice the section I quoted in 9, and read the links at MMs site. The Anonymous group tried to shut down the dissemination, and one of them even changed Palin’s password and tried to protect her.
IT WAS THE FUCKING MEDIA WHO SHOWED LESS RESTRAINT THAN A BUNCH OF ADOLESCENT COMPUTER DELINQUENTS AND PUBLISHED THE INFORMATION WITHOUT HESITATION.
Totally in the tank for Barack.
Please butter your cue finger up and poke at Satan’s little prostrate.
Thanks in advance.
Mother Jones is framing this as Palin destroying evidence.
No concern for privacy rights when it comes to the opposition.
I would guess they hate Barack, too. It’s like Mikey and that Life cereal. Oh, wait.
Well anyway, contempt and ridicule for perceived human folly seems to be the basis of lulz.
Anonymous is the group that was trying to grief the Scientologists (or, as I prefer to note gigglingly, the Council of L. Ron) back at the beginning of the year. I suppose it’s inevitable that any collective that prides itself on cleverer-than-thouness would have a nonzero Obamaton content.
Security is a process, not a state. Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you.
No way official email should have been stored on a Yahoo account. Doesn’t excuse the break-in.
“No way official email should have been stored on a Yahoo account.”
PEOPLE STOP PUTTING YOUR FAMILY PICTURES ON YAHOO!
Just official family pictures? Or unofficial ones too?
BMoe —
I linked to your comment in the piece.
Having been on 4chan for years (though I tend to stay well out of /b/; too NSFW and anarchic for my tastes), I’d say that the actual hacking is more likely the work of *a* Anonymous, not a group of ’em. One random guy hacks in, then posts his finds under cover of the posting name Anonymous (which nearly everyone on the board does). And everyone gets riled up over the publicity, considering it entertaining.
Maybe using a private e-mail account for official government business wasn’t such a bright idea, huh?
http://jackrabbitcafe.blogspot.com/2008/09/its-been-overcast-past-couple-of-days.html
Regardless of the actual amount of their initial involvement, I just think the real story here is the moderators among this anarchic group of children showed more class and responsibility than the lefty media.
Maybe using a private e-mail account for official government business wasn’t such a bright idea, huh?
Jesus Christ, where do these imbeciles come from?
I guess doing deals with Tony Rezko wasn’t such a bright idea, huh?
Maybe using a private e-mail account for official government business wasn’t such a bright idea, huh?
Who do you know that did that? I know that posting phony p-shops and stirring up the shit storm about to descend on you leftards probably ain’t a bright idea, but I guess you pretty much have to take what you can get, huh?
The public school system produces an endless supply. Get used to it.
No, look at that retards link. That boy is a very, very special case of fucktardedness. In every way.
Ted Bridis is an unmanly cooze I think. AP is fags. I don’t know how it happened but really it’s just a corrupt and fucked up organization. I have an honorable job compared to all that and I’m in marketing. This is heartening.
I guess attending a hate-whitey church for twenty years wasnt’ such a bright idea, huh?
If you want the Anonymous view of Obama check out their (very very NSFW) wiki article on him http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Obama.
It is not very kind to the messiah.
Another funny thing a lot of Anonymous are dissing the guy who did it calling him “Moveonymous”
Y’know, I kind of like the idea that she had a Yahoo account with the gov.palin handle. It’s a populist action, door’s always open got nothin’ to hide I’m in the book kind of thing. At least I can imagine that being part of her thinking when she set it up. Don’t we see ads on TV where the CEO gives his email, carrying out a we-hear-you campaign theme?
I just hope the intense vetting process all the Rep veep candidates went thru was as super-thorough as it was portayed. (I’m recalling the article responding to the she’s-not-vetted meme which quoted the guy who developed the questionnaire, McCain’s search chief, explaining he poses maybe thousands of probing and embarrassing questions the entire family must answer.) Because I can’t imagine what the horrible October surprise is supposed to be. As mavericks from the mayoral days I bet Sarah and Todd are used to being picked at and put under a microscope, so I bet they’re actually as clean and upstanding as they seem. And if anything was awaiting in the weeds for McCain it would have come out long ago.
Whereas the Rev. Wright/Ayers/Rezco/Chicago Sleaze-CAC commercials are certainties to run in the final weeks. It’s like McCain has an entire carrier battle group in the reserve. The O camp must know this, so what will they come up with? Whether the Wasilla hockey rink was really needed or not, is not going to matter to the swing voter. I predict something sexual. I mean, like a Salon article bad.
Oh joy. Hacking personal e-mails. If the privacy civil liberty folks don’t get on board against this, then they are worthless sacks of shit.
And while the overall group doesn’t think highly of the Messiah, why aren’t they hacking HIS personal e-mail?
The Democratic activist base–we take politics to the next [lower] level!! Even if you don’t think it’s possible!!
This is really a simple point of morality.
Anyone that supports, applauds or excuses the cyber-burglary of Palin’s account, with the target of publishing private cellphone/email info of Todd, Bristol and Track is a moral cretin. A lessor being incapable of table manners or being able to control oneself in the company of decent people.
If the privacy civil liberty folks don’t get on board against this, then they are worthless sacks of shit.
Sorry pal. That’s like saying NOW taking a stand against Clinton’s serial female predatory knob sucking under the desk.
Ain’t. gonna. Happen.
The left serves only leftists. They are communist. They serves to criminalize conservatives.
Remember when Obama’s passport file had been “breeched” I think was the word everyone was using. Altho there’s not much in such a file, CNN etc were livid how it was such a violation, and tho there were zero fact out yet as to who did it that it obviously had to be Bush’s doing, eventually spinning their fantasy to the point where Eric Holder as guest was demanding Congressional hearings. So I expect their denunciations of this crime to be posted here, uh, shortly. Right?
on the plus side, McCain’s too old to use email.
Johnny Russia’s one of them terribly strained Kerouac wannabes. What I like best are the self-referential winks to knowing that the “wingers” believe they’re looked down upon by people like “him” — and though it ain’t cool to be an elitist, well, that’s just the way nature shakes out, you dig? Don’t hate him because he happens to be better than you. Instead, groove on his honesty.
Because what IS cool, you see, is that self-awareness, that belonging to the cult of the metanarrative, that step beyond the familiar framing, that ironic distancing that comes from having a certain honest awareness. It’s like, poetic, etc.
Others have done it far better. In fact, that incarnation is one of the saddest I’ve ever seen. This guy needs to take lessons from thor, who pulls it off far better.
Were I JohnnyRussia, the first thing I’d do is lose the pic at top of the site. Then I’d get rid of that typewriter font that suggests an old school portable realness.
All so tired. All so bourgeois. No soul to any of it, really.
This might yield something interesting.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/18/palin_email_investigation/
maggie # 46 on the plus side, McCain’s too old to use email.
LOL! Yes, as I heard about 8 times on Larry King tonite, he’s 72 and has faced cancer 4 times.
Was it Larry that said it, Geo W? I’m just curious because of this from way back. maybe it’s one of those pots and kettles things.
Better than awful is not necessarily good. In this case, it’s not even close to good.
Maggie, thanx for the link. That’s pitiful.
In this case no it was Paul Begala Belaga whatever (The Forehead) and Stef Miller. Both said it more than once, IIRC, and both were also snarky over the “just because you can see Russia doesn’t make her a foreign policy expert” implying that was all she said on the matter, reinforcing the false impression created by the malignly edited Charlie Gibson interview, where she actually was stressing how important it was to have a good relationship with Russia because people down there don’t realize it’s our next door neighbor and by gosh you can even see Russia from Alaska. Stef even said I live near a freeway but I’m not qualified to be transportation secretary.
I wonder if Begala was the inspiration for the Wormtounge character in Lord of the Rings?
Now if Larry makes fun of Maverick for ever wearing suspenders . . .
OMIGAWD…. PALIN DIDN’T USE THE YAHOO ACCOUNT FOR OFFICIAL BUSINESS!
I read though the emails… ALL OF THEM… before I posted, and what I concluded was anticlimactic, there was nothing there, nothing incriminating, nothing that would derail her campaign as I had hoped, all I saw was personal stuff, some clerical stuff from when she was governor…. And pictures of her family
[…]
Earlier it was just some prank to me, I really wanted to get something incriminating which I was sure there would be, just like all of you anon out there that you think there was some missed opportunity of glory, well there WAS NOTHING, I read everything, every little blackberry confirmation… all the pictures, and there was nothing, and it finally set in, THIS internet was serious business, yes I was behind a proxy, only one, if this shit ever got to the FBI I was fucked, I panicked, i still wanted the stuff out there but I didn’t know how to rapidshit all that stuff, so I posted the pass on /b/, and then promptly deleted everything, and unplugged my internet and just sat there in a comatose state.
All day I’ve been reading the gleeful rantings of immoral Lefties saying Palin deserved having her account hacked because she should have known better than to mix official business with private account, or that she was hiding something, or she’s too stupid to be VP because she shouldn’t have a yahoo account ….
IE she deserved being raped for having a short skirt
…but know we know from the rapist himself, there was no short skirt…
Mr. B — great link, amazing info! That’s great journalism too, to have that info in print before the police have even contacted them. I hope they’re reading PW tonight and check the comments!
And just think, Larry King can’t even use a mouse to click that link.
4chan or more specifically /b/ is actually not that bad of place compared to other more left wing sites like Digg and Reddit. It’s good for lulz(laugh) every now and then but shouldn’t be taken seriously. They’re not organized, look at the meager Scientology protests Anonymous’ held in the past. More than likely only one anon did this, even though other idiots are taking credit.
I’m not defending the person(s) who found/hacked/whatever Palin’s email but not everyone who visits /b/ is a complete asshole.
Darleen
I’ve been in awe of their outright reversal of all they stand for, blood licking chops hopes it might bring a devastation of her candidacy. I think of Jill Greenberg’s photoshop of blood licking sharks and all I see now is a mirror into their god forsakin’ soul. Thanks Jill!
Jeff G:
There is no soul.
Dig?
Remember when Obama’s passport file had been “breeched†I think was the word everyone was using. Altho there’s not much in such a file, CNN etc were livid how it was such a violation, and tho there were zero fact out yet as to who did it that it obviously had to be Bush’s doing, eventually spinning their fantasy to the point where Eric Holder as guest was demanding Congressional hearings. So I expect their denunciations of this crime to be posted here, uh, shortly. Right?
and it turned out everyone of note was breached too?
Alas, don’t expect much from any investigation as the feds have shown who their allegiance is with. They slap democrats with slaps on the wrist for egregious public corruption and go after only republicans.
Recall Sandy Berger?
Basically the message out of Washington, no matter who is president is, the federal bureau of investigation focused on republicans and their conservative supporters – you and me – while they coddle democrat corruption.
We. Are. Fucked.
Private matter, so party ID is a “?”
On SUNDAY? And we get the late non-affiliated party report? and apparently with caught with a lot of Meth.
Ooh, TDK9, I’ll play.
“What is a Democrat?”
Sorry, TSK9 for the name typo.
It’s that blasted gammy finger, you know.
Soul is a state of mind, Johnny.
If you can see it you can be it. Peace.
[…] Darleen) Posted by Jeff G. @ 12:01 am | Trackback SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “No government business on […]
Wouldn’t this go to the Secret Service? Not only would it be a possible threat to a candidate for VP but the Secret Service has jurisdiction on Federal level wire fraud cases….or so they told me when they came to visit my NOC…
Jeff, I would be careful how you characterize “Anonymous.” Anonymous is not a group. The only reason a credo of Anonymous exists is because the very idea of a random coalescence of people sharing a philosophical credo is funny. Anonymous is not fascist, though the Anonymous individuals who act out their fascist impulses by doing underhanded things like this are.
The point being, it’s important to retain a proper perspective on culpability, responsibility, or whatever you’d like to call it. Blaming Anonymous, or characterizing Anonymous as you have is [roughly] like blaming you, Jeff, for what random commenter X posts on the My Little Pony website. You’re not in control of him, you didn’t prompt him to do it, you don’t even approve. Having some frail association with you by posting on the same website you use is not exactly valid grounds for condemning everyone who uses that website, particularly when their objectionable actions take place entirely outside of the purview of the venue you control (this site).
Warning, confusing language about chan boards and Anonymous ahead!
Back to the original thread. It is a misnomer to speak of Anonymous as a single group with a specific goal. The /b/tards–name given to people who inhabit the /b/ board on 4chan or any of the other chans–anyway, the /b/tards responsible for the dissemination of private data were stopped by the board moderator and the information was deleted. Please understand that /b/ is an absolute free for all, the last bastion of real free speech. If the /b/ board moderator thought that the information presented warranted deletion, it was probably with good reason. For instance, not wanting to appear to be partisan hacks for one party or another. People avoid that on /b/, there are other boards for that. Another is that the posters ,may have tried to pass themselves off as Anonymous potentially pissing off a lot of people. Using chan speak, Anonymous does not take action against Anonymous. It can’t since the group is nebulous to begin with. However, l33t-speak aside, there is one giant message missed here. That is that even though the /b/ moderator deleted the hacked info about Gov. Palin, the mainstream media went with it at full speed and tried to do another smear job with it. I swear, it’s like a drug to those people! Yet another attempt to hurt someone with whom they are at odds with seems to give these cretins who call themselves professional reporters pleasure. Call the hackers childish adolescents all you want, but in the end, it was CNN who acted like unrestrained and unsupervised kids. Shame on them. Anonymous did NOT do that!
You ask for an absolutist to comment on this, Jeff?
I provide.
Tell me. If a small voice cries out in the wilderness and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?
Back to the original thread. It is a misnomer to speak of Anonymous as a single group with a specific goal.
If “Anonymous” wants to distinguish themselves as individuals, then perhaps “Anonymous” shouldn’t all use the same name. Otherwise the rest of us are perfectly justified in considering you all a pack of interchangeable retards.
Tell me. If a small voice cries out in the wilderness and there is no one to hear it, does it make a sound?
Wow, this thread has really brought out the pompous linkwhores.
There is no soul.
Dig?
Says he whose second post is a tribute to Norman Whitfield.
[…] Jeff said: A quick beef: Anonymous is not, from what I can tell, necessarily “left wing† though they most certainly are little wannabe fascists. From what I can gather, they likely think of themselves more as TRUTHTELLERS with an anarchist strain, and so may be of the left-libertarian / anarchist bent. In other words, politically confused. […]
Hee Hee. Just think how much fun they had writing the manifesto. Ah to be 20 again! Rage Against the Machine dudes!
What the #$&% is going on back home? Did AQ explode an asshattery bomb over North America?
I thought things were weird over here – but I am beginning to think that Al Jazeera might be more trustworthy than ABCBSNBCNNPR…bah.
I thought things were weird over here – but I am beginning to think that Al Jazeera might be more trustworthy than ABCBSNBCNNPR…bah.
Evening, Major.
Not more trustworthy, AJ just lets you know up front they are they enemy. The other guys pretend they are your buddies.
SO, lemme get this straight. They use the Guy Fawkes mask, “V for Vendetta,” metaphorical, allegorical, ideological thingy of taking down fascist tyranny as they see it (Fawkes was fighting against an elitist tyranny, remember?) …but these kids use fascist methods and tactics to do so? …and in the process try to take down someone who is arguably the closest thing we’ve had to a classical liberal/libertarian running on a presidential ticket since…(Thos. Jefferson?)
Is that about it?
Damn. Even I’m smarter than that.
“What the #$&% is going on back home? Did AQ explode an asshattery bomb over North America?”
Hey MAJ(P) John, good to hear from you. It wasn’t an asshattery bomb, it was atoms splitting into a billion different directions when warped Leftists were confronted with the awesome force named Sarah Palin.
Sending you hugs, kisses and prayers from NYC
TomB,
But Al Jazeera reacts to it’s viewers – they got a lot less sympathetic to the AQI when they kept blowing up markets, people lined up to join the police, etc. Sure, Israel and America are to blame for everything – but they did back off froma whacked out editorial stance to a bad-but less bad one.
Can’t our alphabet soup of networks crawl back from the edge?
Anonymous is just a bunch of nasty kids. Groups like that have been around for ever, back in the bbs days, I was in one.
Email should never be thought to be secure, even if encrypted. If you want privacy, use the land line phone. From home. When no one else is around and you aren’t under surveillance by some old guy with a miracle ear. Don’t call lawyers, or any businesses. Don’t use the US mail or Fedex, UPS or anything like that. Don’t leave any paper.
Stop talking to Linda Tripp.
You may have a reasonable expectation of privacy, but if I were you, I wouldn’t consider anything discoverable, private.
Doesn’t make this any less shitty, and I think if they find this shithead they’ll be able to get him for something. I think “misuse of a computer account” or whatever.
I also think commas are freaking GREAT! Whoo! need more coffee, warm, electric coffee.
Amen, LMC. Anything that can be found out can be found out. Privacy only exists in a locked room with the shdes drawn.
After reading the list of ‘anonymous’ I think they’ve played one too many games of ‘Top Secret’.
MikeyNTH: Am I revealing how old I am if I mention having heard of that game? (The TSR one, right?)
Patrick Chester: “Am I revealing how old I am if I mention having heard of that game? (The TSR one, right?)”
Probably…but then, if you spot it, you got it. :/
Thor,
I believe the word you were seeking is prostate. Prostrate is what you do before The O!ne(tm)
Patrick – you are correct on both accounts.
#82 Patrick Chester:
You also are correct on both accounts.
Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.
Can’t our alphabet soup of networks crawl back from the edge?
How much of the networks have you been able to watch over there?
I ask because in the past few weeks AP (after Palin, blessed be Her name), the press has been in free fall.
I mean, you have Andrew Sullivan over at The Atlantic having a slow-motion mental breakdown, and there’s no one over there to talk him down.
It’s, um, interesting, to say the least.
Prayers to you and your comrades.
Is it any wonder when “The One” says this:
“I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,” he said.
Thank you, “James.” I’m sure you have a lovely directory, but I’m not going to follow your link. Especially in light of the topic of this thread.
(It’s sad when the spambots are clearer and cleverer than the trolls.)
Puppet Master finds moral equivalence with the GWOT.
All these privacy fetishists and (to use Joe Klein’s term) “civil liberties extremists” screeching today over Sarah Palin’s “privacy” need to get some sense of proportion. If Sarah Palin has nothing to hide, if she’s not a Terrorist, why would she mind anyone going through her emails?
— Glenn Greenwald
It wasn’t even a particularly elegant hack. From his posts, the schmuck just used wikipedia to look up the answers to Palin’s password reset questions. Smooth move, Ex-Lax. She’d have noticed something wrong the next time she tried to log in.
[…] you want further information on Anonymous and their credo, https://proteinwisdom.com/?p=13276 Failure is not an […]
Hey, I still have my original “Top Secret”…the box is still in OK shape too. I wonder what I could get for that in an auction at GenCon?
We have some TVs on in the DFAC – the one on the news splits amongst all the alphabet. So I see maybe 20 minutes a week. Heh.
RAIMBYNLMAO
Slart, a question:
RAIMBYNLMAO
meaning? Rolling around in my back yard naked laughing my ass off? Am I close?
And I do agree! Because of the HYPOCRACY!!1!11
It cannot be overstated that the supposed “credo” of “Anonymous” is itself just a joke, in the same vein as the 4chan “Rules of the Internet.” (Surely you’re familiar with Rule 34? If you’re not, consider yourself lucky.) I don’t doubt that there are weirdos who actually take the whole deal seriously, but that can’t be helped. Consider this: the “in real life” Scientology protests were complained about almost as much as they were heralded on 4chan, and indeed were considered by many to be one of the numerous “cancers that are killing /b/.”
It’s also important to keep in mind that over anxious media coverage is nothing more than part of the joke–I don’t doubt that a certain hilariously ill-informed local news report from several years ago that described the site as the “internet hate machine” while playing stock police footage of a van being detonated contributed greatly to the creation of the entire fearsome and monolithic “Anonymous” meme.
[…] business on private Yahoo email account?; Palin Derangement still at that crescendo. Malkin: “Where are the privacy absolutists now?†…. […]
Running, not rolling. But very close; kudos!
Do you want to play a game?
Swarm Theory is not amused.