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Anonymous Squares Off Against a Mexican Drug Cartel

edited October 2011 in Everything Else
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Online-hackers-threaten-to-expose-cartel-secrets-2242068.php
An international group of online hackers is warning a Mexican drug cartel to release one of its members, kidnapped from a street protest, or it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate's associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates' businesses.

The vow is a bizarre cyber twist to Mexico's ongoing drug war, as a group that has no guns is squaring off against the Zetas, a cartel blamed for thousands of deaths as well as introducing beheadings and other frightening brutality.

"You made a huge mistake by taking one of us. Release him," says a masked man in a video posted online on behalf of the group, Anonymous.

"We cannot defend ourselves with a weapon … but we can do this with their cars, homes, bars, brothels and everything else in their possession," says the man, who is wearing a suit and tie.

"It won't be difficult; we all know who they are and where they are located," says the man, who underlines the group's international ties by speaking Spanish with the accent of a Spaniard while using Mexican slang.

He also implies that the group will expose mainstream journalists who are somehow in cahoots with the Zetas by writing negative articles about the military, the country's biggest fist in the drug war.

"We demand his release," says the Anonymous spokesman, who is wearing a mask like the one worn by the shadowy revolutionary character in the movie V for Vendetta, which came out in 2006. "If anything happens to him, you sons of (expletive) will always remember this upcoming November 5."

The person reportedly kidnapped is not named, and the video does not share information about the kidnapping other than that it occurred in the Mexican state of Veracruz during a street protest.

Anonymous draws its roots from an online forum dedicated to bringing sensitive government documents and other material to light.

If Anonymous can make good on its threats to publish names, it will "most certainly" lead to more deaths and could leave bloggers and others open to reprisal attacks by the cartel, contends Stratfor, an Austin-based global intelligence company.

"In this viral world on the Internet, it shows how much damage could be done with just one statement on the Web," said Fred Burton of Stratfor, which published a report Friday that probes the implications of the cartel drawing the activists' ire.

Mike Vigil, the retired head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the Zetas must take Anonymous seriously.

"It is a gutsy move," Vigil said. "By publishing the names, they identify them to rivals, and trust me, they will go after them."
So yeah, this could get real serious if the Anons involved aren't just trying to psyche the cartel out.
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Comments

  • Problem is when they identify an innocent person as part of the cartel, and that person becomes a target.
  • This could be fun. It'll be interesting to see what punk kids on the Internet do to try to harass this cartel, at least until they get bored with it and go back to defacing random websites.
  • I think fun is kind of...Underestimating both sides. Anonymous can easily can information that could threaten this cartel, and this cartel can easily do bad and violent things to members of Anonymous, should they find them. Seems like a bit of a bad standoff to be having.
  • It's all fun and games until someone gets hacked into pieces and shipped to their family in a cooler.
  • I think fun is kind of...Underestimating both sides. Anonymous can easily can information that could threaten this cartel, and this cartel can easily do bad and violent things to members of Anonymous, should they find them. Seems like a bit of a bad standoff to be having.
    And there is no way of either group to back down, so I predict that this will end in someone being disgraced or dismembered.
  • edited October 2011
    I think fun is kind of...Underestimating both sides. Anonymous can easily can information that could threaten this cartel, and this cartel can easily do bad and violent things to members of Anonymous, should they find them. Seems like a bit of a bad standoff to be having.
    A.... Mexican standoff? ;)

    Post edited by jabrams007 on
  • I kind of want shit to go down. The downside, of course, is that some innocent kidnapped guy would almost certainly be killed in the process.
  • It's one of those moments where I want something to go wrong even though someone's going to get hurt, just to know who and how.
  • I mean, I don't want anyone to get hurt, but I do sorta agree that I want to see something come of this. This is the kind of thing that will prove the legitimacy of so-called "Hacktivism" as being a legitimate force in the world, and will force people to consider the real future of computing technology, for better or worse.
  • edited October 2011
    I mean, I don't want anyone to get hurt, but I do sorta agree that I want to see something come of this. This is the kind of thing that will prove the legitimacy of so-called "Hacktivism" as being a legitimate force in the world, and will force people to consider the real future of computing technology, for better or worse.
    Or, you know, when Anonymous went after sex predators a little while back and did a tremendous amount of damage to several rings. I'd like to believe that's preferable because of the fact that, with that kind of hacktivism, no one has the potential to get violently mutilated with a fire axe.
    Post edited by WindUpBird on
  • Yeah, but my point is that people still don't understand how powerful a nerd with a computer is, and something like this could help further people like the government actually trying to understand what modern computing really is.
  • Your point is well seen, but they shouldn't be attempting to prove hacktivist power with a tactic that could backfire in such a spectacular manner. Once the power of hacktivism is established, then go after hard targets.
  • Your point is well seen, but they shouldn't be attempting to prove hacktivist power with a tactic that could backfire in such a spectacular manner. Once the power of hacktivism is established, then go after hard targets.
    What can backfire? If the cartel is going to kill the hostages, they will be killed either way, this is just opposing them. I suppose there's a possibility of the cartel going after hackers, but considering they are anonymous, not really a problem. Really, isn't anonymous just voicing the anger and frustration of everyone that's against the drug wars and violence? How can you fault them? If they have info, the cartels lose, if they don't have info, nothing changes, but people are thinking about the problem that much more.
  • Deaths to make examples are a staple of the cartels. Anti-cartel parties with no direct involvement with this incident are almost certain to become collateral damage.
  • edited October 2011
    Deaths to make examples are a staple of the cartels. Anti-cartel parties with no direct involvement with this incident are almost certain to become collateral damage.
    They already are running that risk by being anti-cartel, it's not exactly collateral damage when you place yourself in harms' way.

    Post edited by Ilmarinen on
  • The trick becomes the "deaths for examples" thing is mostly to instill fear in the populace. remove the fear of death, you remove the fear of the cartel. Anonymous isn't taking that route, but instead trying to instill the same fear in the cartel: if your enemies know who and where you are, then where will you hide? And once this information goes public, especially on the internet, there's no removing it, no matter how many people you kill.

    In other words, I say to the cartel:
    Deal With It.
  • It looks like some of the Anons involved - mostly those who actually live in Mexico - are backing down. Understandable considering that reports indicate that Los Zetas are doing their absolute best to track them down. Even if they all back off, which is doubtful, it seems unlikely that Los Zetas would stop their search.
  • See, in that case I'd use my Quake TeamFortress strategy. If I'm in a situation I'm going to likely loose, I'd pull all the pins on all my grenades and run.
    In this case, I'd release all the information I had and flee the country.
  • Depending on where they go, fleeing probably wont work.
  • See, in that case I'd use my Quake TeamFortress strategy. If I'm in a situation I'm going to likely loose, I'd pull all the pins on all my grenades and run.
    In this case, I'd release all the information I had and flee the country.
    Not a bad plan - they're always going to be hunted, so they might as well just hit the big red button, and go out laughing. They win as soon as they hit that button.
  • See, in that case I'd use my Quake TeamFortress strategy. If I'm in a situation I'm going to likely loose, I'd pull all the pins on all my grenades and run.
    In this case, I'd release all the information I had and flee the country.
    Not a bad plan - they're always going to be hunted, so they might as well just hit the big red button, and go out laughing. They win as soon as they hit that button.
    Yup. If my downfall is inevitable at the hands of another and I have the ability to make sure they go down too, you better believe I'd be mashing that button as hard and as fast as I could.

  • See, in that case I'd use my Quake TeamFortress strategy. If I'm in a situation I'm going to likely loose, I'd pull all the pins on all my grenades and run.
    In this case, I'd release all the information I had and flee the country.
    Not a bad plan - they're always going to be hunted, so they might as well just hit the big red button, and go out laughing. They win as soon as they hit that button.
    They might survive if they can make it to somewhere in East Asia before they get identified. But, given the nature of crime syndicates in places like Thailand, Hong Kong, and India, I wouldn't put any money on it.

  • In addition to that I'd plan on going down shooting too. Hopefully take 2 or 3 of them with me.
  • Hell, start a new country somewhere out in the pacific on one of those giant trash piles or an old oil rig. It could be fun.
  • Yup. If my downfall is inevitable at the hands of another and I have the ability to make sure they go down too, you better believe I'd be mashing that button as hard and as fast as I could.
    Exactly. Sure, you're dicing with death, but by releasing that information, your revenge - or at least, that you'll be avenged - is assured ten times over.
    They might survive if they can make it to somewhere in East Asia before they get identified. But, given the nature of crime syndicates in places like Thailand, Hong Kong, and India, I wouldn't put any money on it.
    It's not enormously hard to vanish in those places, to be honest, if you're smart about it.

  • Yeah, but that assumes you can make it there and fade away before they finish you. Entering a different country is a pretty high-profile thing to begin with, and if the cartels have hackers of their own (they do), it would be trivial to find flight itineraries and make phonecalls or send men ahead, right?

    Yukon territory in Canada would be a safe bet, but since the cartels are in cahoots with a ton of coyotes, it's not likely that they'd make it to the US, let alone the frosty north.
  • Or the cartels would engage in open warfare against the now-outed operatives and everyone they can find attached to them, further endangering the lives of civilians.

    It's a no-win situation. The cartels are effectively an army, and they have no rules of engagement and no accountability. Unscrupulous jackholes armed to the teeth ruling a terrified populace.

    At this point, though, I think anything that makes some kind of difference is worth trying.
  • edited November 2011
    Yeah, but that assumes you can make it there and fade away before they finish you. Entering a different country is a pretty high-profile thing to begin with, and if the cartels have hackers of their own (they do), it would be trivial to find flight itineraries and make phonecalls or send men ahead, right?

    Yukon territory in Canada would be a safe bet, but since the cartels are in cahoots with a ton of coyotes, it's not likely that they'd make it to the US, let alone the frosty north.
    I suppose you have a point for that locale, but to be honest, I could make it up into Asia without so much as a blip on the radar - unless I chose to fly light, in which case, I'd make a blip on JORN, a literal radar blip, but those can be explained away.

    I suppose if you made it across the border and north before they ID'ed you, you could probably get away, if you crossed over to Russia - which you could do with a chartered light plane - and then down into china, you'd do okay. Admittedly, moving to a different continent might not be necessary, but I like the idea of having a lot of distance - if you're going to vanish and they're going to chase you, you want them to have a very, very long chase. The biggest hurdle would be that first border crossing, and being smart - because the worst thing for these guys is not that they will be running till it all blows over, they're going to be running until the day they die. They didn't know what they were getting into, and now they're about to be bent over and fucked by it.
    Post edited by Churba on
  • Or the cartels would engage in open warfare against the now-outed operatives and everyone they can find attached to them, further endangering the lives of civilians.

    It's a no-win situation. The cartels are effectively an army, and they have no rules of engagement and no accountability. Unscrupulous jackholes armed to the teeth ruling a terrified populace.

    At this point, though, I think anything that makes some kind of difference is worth trying.
    Yes but if they do that they risk the civilians around them getting fed up with their antics and actually fighting back. You can't kill everyone, there isn't enough time or bullets for that.
  • We are all also forgetting that the majority of anonymous are not in locales easily accessible by the cartels. The US may be reasonably safe if anonymous does this from public IPs and not their home wireless (which is good for a lot of things) or spoof the hell out of their IP. We can even have people all the way in China and just stay behind the Great Firewall of China, and what the hell will the cartels do about it?
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