Skip to content or view screen version

Open Letter From ANONYMOUS To The UK Government

Anonymous | 27.01.2011 19:04 | Repression | Social Struggles

Anonymous respond to arrest of 5 members in the UK...



ANONYMOUS PRESS RELEASE
January 27, 2011

OPEN LETTER FROM ANONYMOUS TO THE UK GOVERNMENT


Dear UK government,

We are Anonymous. It has come to our attention that you deemed it necessary
to arrest five of our fellow anons for their participation in the DDoS
attacks against PayPal, Mastercard, and others, that have been carried out
in our name in retaliation for those organisations’ actions against WikiLeaks.
We understand you are planning to charge these fellow anons with offences
under the 1990 Computer Misuse Act, which prohibits impairing the operation
of a computer or the readability of data. Anonymous believes, however, that
pursuing this direction is a sad mistake on your behalf. Not only does it
reveal the fact that you do not seem to understand the present-day political
and technological reality, we also take this as a serious declaration of war
from yourself, the UK government, to us, Anonymous, the people.
First and foremost, it is important to realize what a DDoS attack exactly is
and what it means in the contemporary political context. As traditional means
of protest (peaceful demonstrations, sit-ins, the blocking of a crossroads
or the picketing of a factory fence) have slowly turned into nothing but an
empty, ritualised gesture of discontent over the course of the last century,
people have been anxiously searching for new ways to pressure politicians
and give voice to public demands in a manner that might actually be able
to change things for the better. Anonymous has, for now, found this new
way of voicing civil protest in the form of the DDoS, or Distributed Denial of
Service, attack. Just as is the case with traditional forms of protest, we block
access to our opponents infrastructure to get our message across. Whether
or not this infrastructure is located in the real world or in cyberspace, seems
completely irrelevant to us.
Moreover, we would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight
on the difference between a DDoS attack and hacking, as these concepts
often seem to be confounded when media and policy-makers talk about
Anonymous. Hacking as such is defined by the law as ‘unauthorised access
to a computer or network’, whereas a DDoS attack is simply a case of
thousands of people making legitimate connections to a publicly accessible
webserver at the same time, using up the entire bandwidth or processing
power of the given server at once and thereby causing a huge ‘traffic jam’.
ANONYMOUS PRESS RELEASE
January 27, 2011
It is clear then, that arresting somebody for taking part in a DDoS attack
is exactly like arresting somebody for attending a peaceful demonstration
in their hometown. Anonymous believes this right to peacefully protest
is one of the fundamental pillars of any democracy and should not be
restricted in any way. Moreover, we have noted that similar attacks have
also been carried out against Wikileaks itself, yet so far, nobody has been
arrested in connection with these attacks, nor are there even any signs
of an investigation into this issue at all. Yet, we know exactly who was
responsible for that attack. Anonymous believes it is unfair and hypocritical
to attempt to put these 5 arrested anons to trial without even attempting to
find those who DDoS’ed a website which you oppose. We can therefore
only assume that these arrests are politically motivated, and were being
carried out under pressure from the US government. Anonymous can not,
and will not, stand idle while this injustice is being done.
Furthermore, the maximum sentence these 5 anons could be given under
the Computer Misuse Act is 10 years imprisonment and a fine of up to
£5000. We want you to realize just how ridiculous these sentences are,
especially given the exact nature of a DDoS attack and its lack of permanent
damage to the target website. To hand out these kinds of harsh sentences
(even to minors!) would effectively ruin their life, taking away their chance
at higher education or even any kind of proper future, simply because they
participated in a peaceful cyber-protest and stood up for their rights. A fine
as high as £5000 would also put an incredible strain on the minors’ families.
We hope that you consider changing the legal framework for what is, at
worst, a minor offence.
And last but not least: The fact that thousands of people from all over the
world felt the need to participate in these attacks on organisations targeting
Wikileaks and treating it as a public threat, rather than a common good,
should be something that sets you thinking. You can easily arrest individuals,
but you cannot arrest an ideology. We are united by a common objective
and we can and WILL cross any borders to achieve that. So our advice to
you, the UK government, is to take this statement as a serious warning from
the citizens of the world. We will not rest until our fellow anon protesters
have been released.
Awaiting your action,
Anonymous

 http://anonops.webs.com/ANONYMOUS-PRESS-RELEASE_27-01-2011.pdf

Anonymous

Comments

Hide 1 hidden comment or hide all comments

Sticking a knife into the sacrificial goats

27.01.2011 20:10

 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/12/470215.html
 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2010/12/470230.html?c=on#c261270

Identifying these suspects as 'members', when Anonymous seemingly doesn't have members or at least don't know who it's members are, is undermining any legal defence #they may be using.

This is on top of the previous bad advice given by Schnews (via an Indymedia UK middle column) to use the LOIC in the first place without explaining in advance that it didn't hide the IP address used, and the subsequent bad advice to use it through Tor.

Indymedia UK should have at least a few people with more technical and legal sense than this, even if anonymous and Schnews don't. Either spoof, use someone else's PC, or use an anonymising tool as previously advised here.

Unless the aim is to try to block the courts with badly advised teenagers/ 20~somethings to try to get an unjust law changed at no risk to yourself, which is frankly immoral and vaguely reminiscent of the computer game 'Lemmings'. Maybe before your time.

What this anonymous press release should have said was 'although we can't tell if these people are members or not, we will defend them as if they were members because they have been accused of being members'. You remember, the same as the initial Wikileaks statement about Bradley Manning?

Danny


@ Danny

27.01.2011 20:52

sacrificial lambs?? yes it's all a conspiracy! jog on loser! DDos is a perfect legitimate form of civil disobedience, it is not 'hacking' or 'misuse of a computer'. nor will this press release harm any defense. stop trying to cause disruption & disunity - it won't work.

PS :  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woySeSNBL3o

trollkiller


Hidden Comment

This posting has been hidden because it breaches the Indymedia UK (IMC UK) Editorial Guidelines.

IMC UK is an interactive site offering inclusive participation. All postings to the open publishing newswire are the responsibility of the individual authors and not of IMC UK. Although IMC UK volunteers attempt to ensure accuracy of the newswire, they take no responsibility legal or otherwise for the contents of the open publishing site. Mention of external web sites or services is for information purposes only and constitutes neither an endorsement nor a recommendation.

Shameful

27.01.2011 22:06

"DDos is a perfect legitimate form of civil disobedience, it is not 'hacking' or 'misuse of a computer'."
It is a perfectly moral use of a computer, but it is obviously illegal as the US spelling press release states:
"Furthermore, the maximum sentence these 5 anons could be given under
the Computer Misuse Act is 10 years imprisonment and a fine of up to
£5000."

"stop trying to cause disruption & disunity - it won't work."
Anonymous, please stop misleading innocents into taking risks that you haven't explained to them using flawed tools that predictable led the police directly to their door. Stop undermining the only legal defence that they have left open to them by falsely identifying them as 'members' of a group that has no membership lists. That is not defensible behaviour.

Schnews and Indymedia, stop stitching up innocents by recruiting them to use unanonymous software while there is genuinely anonymous software which as the same or better effect already listed here. It is becoming perfectly obvious that more than of a few of you are unexposed Mark Kennedys. Since you are refusing to learn from your own mistakes and purge your own ranks, then it is time that your victims started that job for you.

Idiotista


For your Information

27.01.2011 22:15

(FT) An online “hacktivist” group that brought down the websites of perceived opponents of WikiLeaks has itself become the target of an international police crackdown.

The London Metropolitan Police arrested five men in connection with a recent spate of attacks by Anonymous, behind last month’s revenge assault on the websites of a number of organisations that had severed links with WikiLeaks.

In the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation said it executed “more than 40” search warrants on Thursday to gather evidence likely to lead to arrests.

The FBI said it was working on the case along with the UK, “authorities in the Netherlands, Germany and France”. Spokeswoman Jenny Shearer said no US arrests had been made by late afternoon on Thursday. “Evidence is being gathered and the investigation is ongoing”, she said. “These things do take time”.

The Met’s e-Crime unit said five men aged between 15 and 26 were being held following a swoop on residential addresses in the West Midlands, Northamptonshire, Hertfordshire, Surrey and London on Thursday morning in the UK in relation to offences under the Computer Misuse Act 1990.

The maximum penalty under the UK act is 10 years imprisonment and a £5,000 fine. The FBI said those convicted in the US also could face 10-year sentences.

Anonymous, a disparate group of online activists that has previously carried out campaigns against the Church of Scientology and the record industry, claimed last month’s attacks on companies including MasterCard and PayPal were a response to attempts to hinder WikiLeaks’ freedom of speech campaign.

The internet activists used a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, overloading the targeted websites by bombarding them with requests. “Facilitating or conducting a DDoS attack is illegal”, the FBI said. “The victims included major US companies across several industries”.

An FBI spokeswoman told the FT that the US warrants were under seal. Since the attack software distributed by Anonymous members does not disguise the internet addresses of those participating in the electronic assaults, former law enforcement officers have predicted that traffic logs from the companies affected would lead to internet service providers – the likely recipients of at least some of Thursday’s search warrants – and then in short order to the attackers themselves.

In response to the UK arrests, Anonymous issued an open letter to the government via Twitter, the messaging site, explaining that it saw DDoS attacks as the modern digital equivalent of a sit-in demonstration, rather than a criminal action.

“Just as is the case with traditional forms of protest, we block access to our opponents infrastructure to get our message across,” the letter said. “It is clear then, that arresting somebody for taking part in a DDoS attack is exactly like arresting somebody for attending a peaceful demonstration in their hometown.”

The letter accused the arrests of being “politically motivated, and were being carried out under pressure from the US government”, adding that the potential punishments were disproportionate.

Activity in Anonymous chat rooms has been subdued recently. Activists have been fretting about a rumoured international “swoop” by the authorities since mid-December. Dutch police arrested two teenagers last month in connection with the DDoS attacks.

“Most of us have been laying low for a good while now. People were getting arrested and our VPN [virtual private network] got taken down by the feds [police],” one Anon told the FT on Wednesday.

He said that recent arrests had exposed a weakness in the group’s shroud of anonymity. “They logged our IRC [internet relay chat] servers … stupid people. So the feds know about every one of us.”

One of the Dutch people arrested has been released but the other remains in “deep trouble”, the Anon said.

French police launched an investigation in the immediate aftermath of the cyberattack by Anonymous. In December they detained a 15-year-old on suspicion of participating in the hacking, holding her for several hours of questioning, according to a report on the website of Le Parisien newspaper. The girl was later released, but an inquiry is underway to determine her exact involvement, the paper says.

The WikiLeaks website and its controversial founder, Julian Assange, are immersed in a political storm following the leak highly sensitive US government cables.

FT


right on dan

28.01.2011 01:50

Anonymous is a movement, not just a bunch of hackers (no disrespect guys). All action is good action. I look forward to seeing a manual on how to run effective disruption for a solo activist. Any ideas?

Anonymous the New World Organisation

Billy No Mates


@dumbass

28.01.2011 09:38

-Anonymous is a movement, not just a bunch of hackers
DoSing isn't hacking

- (no disrespect guys).
They aren't all guys judging from the US warrants

-All action is good action.
Dumb and dumber.

-I look forward to seeing a manual on how to run effective disruption for a solo activist. Any ideas?
Such a PDF has already been listed. If you failed to spot it though you are probably too stupid to use it.

The Guardian CiF has a good, if overblown article today
 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/jan/27/anonymous-internet

Trouble is, this allows the Guardian to portray itself as a friend of Wikileaks in terms that to most readers associate the paper with paragraphs like
"Those of us who are keen on liberty – particularly those of us who choose to work with Anonymous rather than the various western governments that have shown themselves to be comfortably complicit with tyranny"

Which completely ignores the fact that the Guardian, along with the NYT, backstabbed Assange after taking the extra sales that Wikileaks partnership gave them, and went straight to the US government for permission on what they could print, as proudly admitted by the NYT ed piece.

Danny


@exGCSE - litmus test

28.01.2011 10:45

Once you've earned a GSCE then you have it for life, an MCSE you have to keep paying for - good joke though.

I do think Anonymous do some good, but this press release - identifying people as anonymous who may have perfectly understandable reasons not to be so identified at this time in particular - stinks.

Anonymous have been allowed to take down Tunisian state websites, which is great, but will they face court for that now too? See, a lot of what our press label Chinese or Russian state hacking is really just unprosecuted individuals like anonymous. They are allowed to attack targets that their state doesn't like, but they are arrested if they target their own state.

A good litmus test for Anonymous, the first site I looked at this morning was the Metropolitan Police website. It was up, and wasn't defaced. I'll check again tommorow.

xMCSE


TTL of the Somme?

28.01.2011 11:50

Everyone has their pet conspiracy theories...

The question that I'm dying to know is if the invisible hierarchy within (un)Anonymous decide that they would use the greater number of people are first wave infantry (canon fodder) while they were doing the real 1337 stuff in parallel?

In terms of accountable actions, it would have been safer for people to have physically taken hammers to the BT Backbone or JANET... Or punched a copper in the face.

It's not just ISPs that have all the fight of broken clothes horse. The Home Office will gladly truss you up for the yanks for the flimsiest of "hacking" offences.

But you are right. If they really wanted to they could backtrace most LOIC users and have them. Worse still, in the UK, they could slap a RIPA warrant on them and go fishing for other stuff.

It's going to be interested to see how the West responds to the amazing events in the Middle East/North Africa. They have so much invested in suppressing regime change. Especially in regards to Egypt.

There may also be serious ICC/Geneva issues with the use of British defence companies and war crimes (Maybe Egypt, maybe Yemen...)

At any rate, we need to make sure people are aware of how unsafe Anonymous are at the moment. The concept of expendable members as consumables isn't compatible with non-hierarchy.

exGCSE


@Danny

28.01.2011 12:19

Such a PDF has already been listed. If you failed to spot it though you are probably too stupid to use it.

maybe a link for us newbies would be helpful.

may the force be with you

lukin4it


My Pet Conspiracy Theory

28.01.2011 12:45

This post has a remarkable similarity to some of the gateway 303 posts, as it seems too be mostly about the severity of the possible sentence that could be handed down, 10 years and 5 grand. It looks like a post designed to put people off participating in DDoS protest by spreading a deterrent message.

It also sends out the message that the authorities are serious about stamping this sort of thing out. So it must be hurting. Keep doing it but actually be anonymous.

Strange too that a group called 'anonymous' failed to actually be 'anonymous' when it mattered, i.e. were the 5 arrested aware that their IP info was accessible, were 'anonymous' at pains, did they go to great lengths to ensure everybody participating in the protest were anonymised?

2%Human


May the force be with me?

28.01.2011 12:50

On a thread such as this, that's really poor wording at best.

Danny
- Homepage: http://www.radarhack.com/dir/papers/hping2_v1.5.pdf


How the Guardian lied to Wikileaks to deal with the US state

28.01.2011 12:54

"Schmitt would also meet the WikiLeaks leader, who was known to a few Guardian journalists but not to us."

No staff at the NYT had even heard of Wikileaks before they were offered the war leaks! What an unwittingly embarrassing confession for a news group. More seriously though...

"This time, Assange imposed a new condition: The Guardian was not to share the material with The New York Times. ...The Guardian was uncomfortable with Assange’s condition. By now the journalists from The Times and The Guardian had a good working relationship. The Times provided a large American audience for the revelations, as well as access to the U.S. government for comment and context. ... David Leigh, The Guardian’s investigations editor, concluded that these rogue leaks released The Guardian from any pledge, and he gave us the cables."

So the only reason the NYT got the cables was because the Guardian leaked them against the express wishes of Assange and despite agreeing not to. The Guardian lie, David Leigh is a liar who valued his indirect contact with the U.S. government more than his agreement with Wikileaks. That's an important point everyone here should remember.

"Because of the range of the material and the very nature of diplomacy, the embassy cables were bound to be more explosive than the War Logs. Dean Baquet, our Washington bureau chief, gave the White House an early warning on Nov. 19. The following Tuesday, two days before Thanksgiving, Baquet and two colleagues were invited to a windowless room at the State Department, where they encountered an unsmiling crowd. Representatives from the White House, the State Department, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the C.I.A., the Defense Intelligence Agency, the F.B.I. and the Pentagon gathered around a conference table. Others, who never identified themselves, lined the walls. A solitary note-taker tapped away on a computer.

The meeting was off the record, but it is fair to say the mood was tense. Scott Shane, one reporter who participated in the meeting, described “an undertone of suppressed outrage and frustration.”

Subsequent meetings, which soon gave way to daily conference calls, were more businesslike. Before each discussion, our Washington bureau sent over a batch of specific cables that we intended to use in the coming days. They were circulated to regional specialists, who funneled their reactions to a small group at State, who came to our daily conversations with a list of priorities and arguments to back them up. We relayed the government’s concerns, and our own decisions regarding them, to the other news outlets."


There never was any Wikileaks contact with the U.S. government. There was NYT complicity with the U.S. government, arranged by the Guardian for that purpose, against the express wishes of Wikileaks. And that is openly admitted by the NYT.

Danny
- Homepage: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/magazine/30Wikileaks-t.html


Comment fags

28.01.2011 14:40

gotta laugh at a bunch of anarchofags who were so dumb their movement was infiltrated for YEARS on end trying to put shit on Anonymous, trolololol! you fags wouldn't know how to mount a defense (or start a revolution for that matter!) if your lives depended on it so kindly STFU! and stop trying to co-opt other people's struggles..the students rioted in london, not you fags! anarchocommiefagFAIL! trololololol!!!

Anonymous


re: Comment fags

29.01.2011 14:35

"...a bunch of anarchofags who were so *effective* their movement was infiltrated for YEARS on end..."

FTFY

Any you are trying too hard to use as many clichés as possible, BTW. Obvious troll.

anon


Hide 1 hidden comment or hide all comments