Anonymous: Trump is making America weaker and we’ll exploit it. The international hacker community is preparing to strike against U.S. infrastructure and calls for public awareness against incoming fascism

  • @[email protected]
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    1233 months ago

    Can they do something useful like destroy the debt infrastructure and delete all student loans and medical bills?

      • @[email protected]
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        283 months ago

        “Anonymous” isn’t like a formal group. The entire point is that anyone can say that they are anonymous. So yeah, people talk a lot. You can do whatever you like as anonymous.

      • @[email protected]
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        83 months ago

        mostly they are spending hours scrolling through social media accounts of certain types of people looking for dox materials. that’s really about it

    • @[email protected]
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      183 months ago

      A more useful thing would be to do as much damage to Twitter as possible. In fact, why they haven’t attacked Twitter while Musk has been disarming all of its safety protocols is fucking beyond me.

      • @[email protected]
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        163 months ago

        Attacking twitter would be more useful than deleting all debt? I mean go wild, take that shit ass site down but if you had a “delete twitter” button and a “delete all debt” button, mashing the second one would make you the greatest hero who ever lived.

        • @[email protected]
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          23 months ago

          Debt is monitored/store by many different companies

          Even if you took down all data of x health insurance company it would still exist in other places

          So I would say that it poses a bigger challenge and you would have to do it at roughly the same time

          • @[email protected]
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            23 months ago

            Sure. Yeah its very hypothetical and silly. As if the Banks that manage national and international money supplies, since most of their managed assets are debt, haven’t thought of it? So no such button exists, whereas there might be a delete twitter button somewhere or one could be rigged up 👀

        • Lovable Sidekick
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          3 months ago

          You’re right, What if they publish cheat codes for all Steam games, thus freeing humanity from corporate exploitation???!!!

    • @[email protected]
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      93 months ago

      I’m sure backups and redundancies are “inefficient” since “everything is in the cloud, anyway”.

  • @[email protected]
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    523 months ago

    Exploit it you say? Please get in line behind the russians, the chinese snd pretty much all arab countries

  • @[email protected]
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    513 months ago

    Anything supposedly said by “Anonymous” as a hacker group should always be treated with immense skepticism.

    There do exist somewhat legitimate sub-factions that actually take serious actions and do serious ops, and also semi-legitimate “outlets” for their statements… but there’s also an overwhelming amount of smokescreen bullshit “anon news outlets” and little script kiddies running around. It’s important/intentional that those continue existing as smoke screen for the more “serious” factions.

    Beyond that, being an anonymous group with no real methods of confirming membership to outsiders (insiders can just check if you’re in the private IRCs and etc) it means that just about anyone and everyone can make some big declaration like this. The proof will be in the results, not some announcement that could be made by a rando.


    All that said, there’s convincing and considerable evidence (collected by Krebs) that members of Elon’s DOGE group have background in the actual hacking ops spaces.

    No matter who is really making these threats/warnings, I think things are going to get pretty dire in the US government IT space. It’s been well known for decades that most government orgs have absolutely abysmal cyber security, and now you have a bunch of young adult tech-bros with no true accountability running roughshod over all of it. Then there’s the fact that more than one of them have “serious black hat hacker” backgrounds.

    Going to be one wild ride.

    • Boomer Humor Doomergod
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      3 months ago

      little script kiddies running around

      Yeah, they’re running around the Treasury Dept right now.

      It’s been well known for decades that most government orgs have absolutely abysmal cyber security

      Having worked with government agencies and a lot of large private organizations the thing that keeps them mostly secure is the amount of red tape involved with things. Patching a production system requires a teleconference with at least five different people and no one person knows everything.

      The idiots without any security experience coming in to “streamline” things will just make the systems even more fragile and insecure.

      • @[email protected]
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        3 months ago

        Known and vetted systems are always the most secure. Until RSA is broken, and then they’ll need to update to a quantum resilient standard. Which we’ve had in the wild for 6 years already and the NIST has officially approved for 2 years.

        We’re still at least a decade away from a machine with enough qbits to do it. So i feel like we should be fine.

        It’s the fucking Credit Bureaus, Telecoms, and Energy Companies I worry about. They keep fucking up.

        https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2022/07/nist-announces-first-four-quantum-resistant-cryptographic-algorithms

        • Boomer Humor Doomergod
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          53 months ago

          Anyone who complies with the NIST standards is in a good place.

          The problem is that a lot of places are not in compliance with NIST standards.

          I know, I’ve helped patch them.

          • @[email protected]
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            3 months ago

            Yep, but we’ve got at least a decade to do it, and when new systems are stood up they “should” be in compliance.

            • Boomer Humor Doomergod
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              33 months ago

              Based on my experience if we say it needs done in a decade it will never be done.

              See also: All the unemployment systems running on FORTRAN

    • @[email protected]
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      53 months ago

      I don’t know about government overall, but the military and HHS have has some of the most stringent security stances I’ve encountered. To the point where just working for them was a massive chore. (How effective they were I guess I don’t know, but working for them sucked.)

      That said, I’ll take what you said on faith, because I think you’re spot on with everything else.

      • @[email protected]
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        93 months ago

        Often, ridiculous and onerous procedural security is hiding massively incompetent actual software security or is used to constrain people from discovering security by obscurity holes. Everything I’ve done in government interfacing as a vendor would seem to confirm this, at least back when I was doing it a few years ago. You’d be hard pressed to convince me it’s changed much since.

      • @[email protected]
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        53 months ago

        I once answered a phone call inside a com closet on base. Military IT was already escorting me. Security came because the cameras in the closet detected the camera on my phone. It’s definitely physically tight security.

      • @[email protected]
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        43 months ago

        That said, I’ll take what you said on faith, because I think you’re spot on with everything else.

        I mean, it’s not a secret that governments everywhere run really outdated software (think things like Windows 7 and older) because “it works”, so it really shouldn’t be too surprising.

      • Boomer Humor Doomergod
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        33 months ago

        I had to help the SSA implement SAML authentication once and they weren’t even allowed to share their screen so I could see what they were doing. Totally agree that it’s a massive chore.

    • @[email protected]
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      43 months ago

      Yeah. I’ve only spent a few moments skimming through the linked article but if you were part of a legitimate hacktivism group planning a significant operation why would you publish this statement ?

      It’s really just spooky hyperbole - as though written by an adolescent that want’s to sound scary and powerful.

      I would absolutely love to see hacktivists cause some chaos, and maybe even some real financial harm.

      • shastaxc
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        13 months ago

        The whole point is to being attention to the rise of fascism. Hacking without releasing a statement like this is just terrorism. Releasing a statement after hacking can make it easier for the govt to cover up, like “no we weren’t hacked, someone in our server room just accidentally tripped over a power cable”

    • comfy
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      13 months ago

      There do exist somewhat legitimate sub-factions that actually take serious actions and do serious ops

      Any examples or sources for me to learn more about these? The only Anonymous news I’ve heard of since the early days is updates on Kirtaner.

    • @[email protected]
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      13 months ago

      I guess its pointless to believe their words since there is no way to know if its them. Just look at what they actually do and judge based on that.

  • Venia Silente
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    443 months ago

    By all means do. It’s not like much of value is lost at this point.

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    This is kinda what trump wants. If the government cant handle “online stuff” they can pitch privatization. It hurts more if tech megacorps get hacked. Though at this point I wou’d laugh if a bunch of internet nerds got the nuclear codes or locked up a bunch of satellites

    • @[email protected]
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      103 months ago

      If the government cant handle “online stuff” they can pitch privatization.

      It kind of already is privatized. Most of the government’s cyber security efforts are handled by defense contractors.

      • @[email protected]
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        32 months ago

        CISA actually monitored Internet traffic and would contact government entities (local, schools, universities, etc) when they were being attacked. I went to a talk once where they said they usually had response times in minutes, and it would take longer to figure out who they needed to alert and convince them that it was real. Now that CISA is gutted I would expect more and worse breaches in the future.

      • SayCyberOnceMore
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        93 months ago

        Don’t point at the HQs, point at their mansions / golf courses / private islands

      • @[email protected]
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        33 months ago

        Ceo residences would do better. Force them all to live in the office hellscape they created.

  • @[email protected]
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    3 months ago

    Tomorrow

    Trump: By executive order, I dismantle the computer warfare and defence division

    Musk: It doesn’t exist anymore!

    The day after

    Anonymous: They turned off their service that sanitized all inputs. We just stole everything from every department, and put cats on every governments webpage.

    • @[email protected]
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      23 months ago

      “The government had both server and client side validation, which is totally wasteful and inefficient! I removed both and may the best one win!”

      Elmo, DOGE

  • @[email protected]
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    373 months ago

    Anonymous, if you are going to do it, PLEASE make sure to leave the innocent people alone and go after the rich assholes that are doing this.

    Other than that, here’s my axe, go wild

  • @[email protected]
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    323 months ago

    Ah, Anonymous—the digital equivalent of a fart in a hurricane. Trump’s America? Weakness isn’t new—it’s baked into the propaganda circus we’ve called democracy since Reagan. You think script kiddies and Elon’s crypto-bros “hacking fascism” will fix anything? Please. The real op is watching tech oligarchs and politicians collude while we argue about which flavor of dystopia we’re slurping.

    Infrastructure attacks? Bold move, Cotton. Let’s see how it works out when grandma’s dialysis machine gets bricked by some edgelord’s Python script. If you want revolution, stop fetishizing IRC nostalgia and touch grass. Until then, this is just digital graffiti on a burning trash barge.

    • @[email protected]
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      213 months ago

      I’m not going to write off hacktivism so quickly.

      Even if it’s just a few defaced websites now and then, that’s a whole lot more effective than any other sort of activism I’ve seen to date.

      • @[email protected]
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        -63 months ago

        Oh, sure, let’s romanticize hacktivism, the digital equivalent of spray-painting a slogan on a collapsing wall. A few defaced websites? That’s your bar for effectiveness? The oligarchs aren’t losing sleep over a 404 page; they’re too busy consolidating power while you cheer for digital vandalism like it’s the French Revolution.

        Real change doesn’t come from poking at the system with a keyboard and hoping it flinches. If anything, these stunts just give them more excuses to tighten the noose—more surveillance, more control.

        You want to fight the machine? Build something better. Organize. Create infrastructure that can’t be co-opted. Until then, hacktivism is just a tantrum dressed up as resistance.

        • @[email protected]
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          103 months ago

          Settle down mate.

          I didn’t say defaced websites are going to take down the government.

          My implication was that it would be more effective than ranting on social media.

          • @[email protected]
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            03 months ago

            Settle down? Sure, but let’s not settle for mediocrity. If your metric for effectiveness is being slightly better than social media rants, you’ve already lost the plot. Hacktivism that doesn’t disrupt the system in a meaningful way is just noise—an aesthetic rebellion that the system shrugs off or, worse, absorbs.

            You want to be effective? Stop playing into their hands with token gestures. Build tools, networks, and alternatives that outlast their control. Otherwise, you’re just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic while calling it progress.

            Defacing websites might feel cathartic, but it’s not revolution—it’s a distraction.

      • @[email protected]
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        43 months ago

        What a pointless thought-terminating comment.

        Do you have any actual critiques or just lame regurgitated snark to try to win imaginary points?

        • @[email protected]
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          43 months ago

          Well, meowmeowbeanz has a good point, namely, Anonymous saying anything is meaningless. Because Anonymous is a not a group, at best it could be called a movement, at worst it’s just a name. In any case, anybody can claim to speak for them. Hence their statements are meaningless.

          However, meowmeowbeanz’s post is also a barely coherent rant with overused emphasis. Which makes them seem mentally unwell. It’s like encountering somebody with a tinfoil hat ranting about how the earth is round.

  • Wren
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    263 months ago

    Aren’t they kind of notorious for empty promises?

    • Semperverus
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      323 months ago

      Its more of a chaos entity. Because anyone can be a part of it with literally no steps other than saying “I am Anonymous”, anyone can say or do anything. As a result, one person or group may claim Anonymous while doing a legitimate hack, while another person who is just a script kiddie won’t ever actually do anything and you get this hot and cold, will they won’t they effect as a result.

    • @[email protected]
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      3 months ago

      My final semester in American Sign Language was “Sex, Drugs, and Profanity,” and most of the signs are just exactly what you’d guess. (I held on to those textbooks.) Plus, facial expressions are a big part of the grammar of the language. I don’t recognize this scene, but assuming it’s from a comedy - it’s probably also not far off from accurate.

  • FlashMobOfOne
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    123 months ago

    Oh wow. They’ll shut down a website for a day.

    Whoop-tee-doo.