from Hacker News

Anonymous hacks FEMA

by dhruvkaran on 7/18/13, 6:04 PM with 45 comments

• by zalzane on 7/18/13, 6:48 PM

  Great, exactly what this situation needs, a bunch of self-righteous vigilantes trying to evangelize themselves with another leak.

  At least Snowden held back any state secrets that would have seriously compromised national security. I highly doubt that anonymous will be light handed in that matter. All we can do is hope they haven't found any information that may put people's lives at risk if leaked.

• by grimtrigger on 7/18/13, 8:31 PM

  Anon reminds me of the bomb-throwing-anarchists of the 20th century. Their bombings gave the government the exact reasons they needed for more government (the exact opposite of what they wanted).

  Anon wants an internet free of surveillance. But they're doing exactly what they need to in order to justify that reality.

  Idiots.

• by bdg on 7/18/13, 7:24 PM

  With the passwords on this list like "gibbs", "campbell", "Dominican2009!", and... my personal favorite... "Password12" ... I don't even have sympathy towards this situation.

  Such incompetence at security with such importance attached to it should result in prison time and a life-time banishment from office...

• by speeder on 7/18/13, 6:58 PM

  To those that detract anonymous as a sort of rabid crazy dog that charges into attack without aim...

  I think that is EXACTLY their intention, like the US government puts crazy pressure in Snowden as a "warning" to future whistle blowers, anons are using the same tactic against US government itself...

  If it works or not, I am yet to see, but I can agree with two things:

  One, it might make sense.

  Two, it is highly dangerous and might cause lots of unintended collateral damage.

• by gweinberg on 7/18/13, 11:17 PM

  I'm no fan on Anonymous, but it's worth remembering that any security hole that they can exploit can also be exploited by other, more malicious groups, and probably already has been.

• by MisterWebz on 7/18/13, 7:10 PM

  I'm wondering if highly publicized attacks by Anonymous that do not yield any useful information or something that would be embarrassing for the government are actually done by regular citizens, and not by the employees of some government agency.

• by lettergram on 7/19/13, 1:15 AM

  I pretty much see anonymous as the black panthers of this generation.

• by kunai on 7/18/13, 7:56 PM

  I tried to take them seriously until they mentioned Weev as one of their idols.