UPDATE: Turns out that Global was just using the Anonymous threat as a segue into protecting your credit card data, my brain just played connect the dots. So I’ve adjusted the article accordingly.Â
Originally this was a longer piece about the whole Anonymous/Toronto thing (which I wrote while travelling to the middle of nowhere in Brazil) but the piece in it’s original form seemed a bit on the me too side of things given our glorious leaders already delicious coverage.
However, there was one item from the original article that I still want to tackle – what’s the impact on Joe Citizen/Consumer – Is Joe Citizen/Consumer a target for Anonymous?
I think the good folks at Global News took a topical but wrong approach on what Anonymous might do. While I absolutely agree you want to protect your credit card records, I don’t think they’re the natural target for Anonymous.
The piece aired by Global was focused on protecting your personal credit card data, but it made we wonder if anyone out there is concerned that there personal data is at risk? I think that the answer is in the specific case on Anonymous carrying out its threat is no.
Anonymous time and again purports themselves to be acting in the interest of social justice. They’re not in it for the laughs (as is Lulz-sec) or to prove that someone can get owned (thank you anti-sec and all defacers in the history of web site defacing). Their announcements always focus on the injustice done to some group (perceived or otherwise). The type of information they’ve released or damage they have done always directly impacts the perceived oppressor, not the citizens.
Stealing citizen credit card numbers strikes me as counter to the whole ethos Anonymous operates under. While it would certainly inconvenience the City of Toronto, it would definitely hurt citizens (potentially even those participating in Occupy). It’s possible that credit card info will be accidentally exposed, but again Anonymous has always been specific with their information release. Just look at the time they did an info dump on that child porn site, no credit card numbers disclosed there (and that’s probably one time most of us wouldn’t bat an eyelid were it to happen).
Now, that’s not to say that Bob the Hacker isn’t a member of both a nefarious cyber gang and Anonymous but that hardly proves anything. It’s more likely that the nefarious cyber gang stumbled across the same vulnerability as Anonymous or perhaps took advantage of the confusion around any Anonymous attack.
I’d also keep in mind that Anonymous stated they were going to remove Toronto from the internet (I assume they mean The City of Toronto as opposed to dozens of ISPs around the city). That sounds more like pick your flavour of Denial of Service attack more than anything else.
While I still think the average person needs to practice better security (patch, patch, anti-X, strong passwords, firewall etc…), this is one time I’d say they can just sit back and watch the fireworks of cyber stuff.
Note: This is a case of selective editing on the part of Global, I happen to know that Gattaca speaks excellently on the topic and interviews well. So I’m clearly pointing my finger at Global on this one.