Here’s a lesson to the Hackers for the 99%: You’re not anonymous once you get caught.
And you’ll always get caught, because, um, the internet was designed by the Department of Defense. And that’s a group that doesn’t want anyone to remain anonymous for long.
In fact, they are so good at tracking people down-with extreme prejudice- that they can make sure a very large bomb fits in a very tiny place.
But that’s not your biggest problem.
No your biggest problem is that hubris led you to a confrontation with Mexican drug lords who have all sorts of contacts in some of the smallest places in America- prisons. And that is where you are likely headed. What part of "don't steal from drug lords" don't you get? Didn't you see the movie Midnight Run?
So it goes with hacking kingpin and left-wing computer community organizer Jeremy Hammond of – surprise!- Chicago, who was arrested this week, along with 4 compatriots, after eight months of FBI surveillance into the inner workings of the internet theft group commonly known as Anonymous. As a result, Hammond and his friends now face the prospect of spending a great deal of time in a very tiny place with bars on it.
Often dressed in black and wearing the mask of Guy Fawkes as its symbol, the hacking-activist group of the Occupy Wall Street crowd broke into intelligence agencies, banks and corporate servers in search of embarrassing information, as well as digging for digital plunder in the form of credit card digits- which they promptly charged for “charities.”
But six months ago, it all started to unravel for the hackers.
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The virtual stakeout of Anonymous started in August of 2011 when the most anonymous of all hacking kingpins, “Hector Xavier Monsegur, of New York, pleaded guilty …to computer hacking charges and [started] helping law enforcement officials with their investigation [into Anonymous], authorities revealed,” reports the Chicago Tribune
Monsegur, 28, is “a welfare dad who lived in a housing project on New York’s Lower East Side,” according to FoxNews and other media sources, while he orchestrated the activities of several groups that loosely make up Anonymous.
Government Motors, Government Electric and now Government Hacking?
With public money thrown so freely to support Anonymous, one has to wonder if it’s a division of Solyndra. Quick, call Warren Buffett and find out if Anonymous qualifies under TARP or some sort of tax credit. They are, after all, looking more than a little green right now.
Imagine that: After the skull and duggery and all the populist rhetoric it turns out that Monsegur and his friends are just more entitlement-age criminals with an axe to grind over how much the world owes them
This week we reported on a murderer in California who was still cashing unemployment checks from prison.
A group of gang members in California is helping Nancy Pelosi stimulate the economy by collecting unemployment checks for one member who is in jail for murder.
“Family members of a convicted murderer in the L.A. County jail system were arrested for allegedly cashing $30,000 worth of his unemployment checks, authorities said,” according to the LA Times.
“‘Anthony Garcia had family and friends cashing his $1,600-per-month government assistance checks while he served time,’ said Capt. Mike Parker, spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. His accomplices would then deposit a portion of the money into Garcia’s jail account. They also shared the cash with Garcia’s fellow incarcerated gang members.”
Count the murderer as the much more honest criminal compared to Monsegur and his friends. At least Garcia hasn’t wrapped himself in the false humility of a community organizer.
Jeremy meet Anthony; Anthony meet Jeremy.
The same can’t be said for Monsegur’s Chicago sidekick Jeremy Hammond.
Hammond, 27, is a well-known, dreadlock-wearing, “hacktivist”- think community organizer with a computer- known for his high IQ and his low common sense.
“His mother, Rose Collins,” writes the Chicago Tribune, “offered a heavy sigh when informed that the FBI had arrested her 27-year-old son.
“‘Again?" she asked. ‘I love my son, but he is a genius with no brain. He has a 168 IQ, but he has no wisdom.’”
The Tribune goes on to paint the picture of another entitlement-age criminal, raised by a musician father, who, of course, was a leftist. By high school Hammond was breaking into mainframes just to show it could be done. By college the stunt wasn’t cute anymore, and Hammond presumably was bounced from college over another hacking incident hinted at by the Trib:
“While still a student, he hacked into the high school's mainframe computer to show administrators its weaknesses, and was thanked for calling attention to the gaps, according to his mother. She said Hammond did the same thing at the University of Illinois at Chicago and was kicked out.”
The incident apparently only served to give Hammond the very huge chip that he now wears, not very anonymously, on his shoulder.
But here’s why both Monsegur and Hammond ought to shudder.
School days have ended for both young men.
In November of 2011 Anonymous got into a confrontation with the drug trafficking cartel in Mexico called the Zetas.
Anonymous reportedly stole 25,000 emails from the Mexican government that detailed up to 75 government accomplices in the drug ring. Anonymous threatened to release the information after an Anonymous hacktivist got himself kidnapped doing some community organizing against the drug group in Veracruz. While both sides quickly backed off their public dust-up- with the Zeta’s releasing the hacktivist- Mexican drug lords aren’t really the forgiving type.
Expect the Zetas to look at the hackers with considerable more prejudice than the University of Illinois at Chicago.
Prison’s a tiny place, and there are a lot of Anthony Garcias there. Garcia by the way is part of the Rivera-13 gang. The “13” stands for letter M, a symbol for the Mexican mafia.
Perhaps in prison Hammond or Monsegur will run into an Anthony Garcia and feel some real pain in the very tiniest of places. Or it could be a much, much bigger place. But the pain they’ll feel I’m guessing is non-negotiable.
Drug lords just don’t have that much discernment, even if they have a lot more common sense than Jeremy Hammond.
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