McAfee Labs Predicts Decline of Anonymous 111
Every years, McAfee Labs produces a list of predictions relating to computer security for the next 12 months. Last year (PDF) they said Anonymous would have to reinvent itself, and that there would be an overall increase in online hacktivism. This year's report (PDF) is not as optimistic for the hacking collective. "Too many uncoordinated and unclear operations have been detrimental to its reputation. Added to this, the disinformation, false claims, and pure hacking actions will lead to the movement’s being less politically visible than in the past. Because Anonymous’ level of
technical sophistication has stagnated and its tactics are better understood by its potential victims, the group’s level of success will decline." That's not to say they think hacktivism itself is on the decline, though: "Meanwhile, patriot groups self-organized into cyberarmies and spreading their extremist views will flourish. Up to now their efforts have had little impact (generally defacement of websites or DDoS for a very short period), but their actions will improve in sophistication and aggressiveness." The report also predicts that malware kits will lead to an "explosion in malware" for OS X and mobile, but that Windows 8 will be the next big target.
WIndows 8 next big target? ahaha (Score:2, Insightful)
It will be a target, but nowhere near the biggest.
Hell, Android is a bigger target to attack.
yup... (Score:3)
And since they're always right, this is almost a certainty!
Ok now everyone post as.... (Score:4, Funny)
...Anonymous....
Yearly tradition, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
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How many of these claims Mcaffee corporation's professional prognosticators have actually been remotely true? Tabloid psychics run the same routine every year too.
McAffee is right about Anon. Anon does have major structure problems, a leadership vacuum, and a brain drain situation. It's not hard to predict that Anon is losing popularity.
Anonymous predicts drug-fueled bender for Mcafee (Score:1)
"Bath Salts are best drug ever" - John Mcafee
FTFY (Score:3)
"all your bath salts are belong to us."
I didn't know that McAfee can predict future crime (Score:1)
McAfee! haven't heard from you in so long! (Score:1)
Glad to see you escaped and all, and now also have predictions for us?
You go!
Seriously though, Windows 8 is going to be a big target? Really? Because I bet MS was sort of hoping that malware dudes skipped Windows 8 and just paid attention to Apples and Androids OS's and users.
Um, No shit Windows 8 is going to be a big target. Fucking seriously, does everyone at McAfee take bath salts?
McAfee is Malware, not just Crapware anymore! (Score:5, Informative)
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Absolutely. When I worked at a company that used McAfee, my machine would run incredibly slow at least three or four times a day. It was consistently McAfee taking up half the CPU and available RAM.
The first thing I do when any friend or family says "My computer is running so slow" is get rid of McAfee and replace it with AVG.
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Which is not the point. Even knowledgeable, careful people are occasionally going to forget or fail to opt-out, and most people are neither knowledgeable nor careful when it comes to installing software.
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Over the border and thru the woods... (Score:1)
Well, McAfee Labs oughtta know. "Anon will have problems. We know -- we're...familiar with trying to remain anonymous and hidden when governments put you on the most wanted list."
He who controls the vocabulary controls the debate (Score:5, Insightful)
Love the juxtaposition of "patriot" and "extremist".
Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
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Unfortunately "patriot" has come to be associated with the ignorant conservatives and all their destructive, delusion-based, extremism. I'm speaking of Teabaggers, Freepers, and other ignorant people who blame others for their own shortcomings. You know the type. These people are obviously not really patriots, and just people with nothing to contribute who want to be part of the conservative cult and pretend that their ignorance is better than other people's knowledge.
RTFA (Score:3)
The groups McAfee is referring to here are politically-aligned "cyberarmies" that specifically support "extremist governments", they are one of several different types of "hacktivist" groups that are referred to as growing threats that are specifically being
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The only contrast is that one is ultra left and the other is ultra right, other than that they are no different. Ultra-anything is ignorant and detrimental to the country.
Most of those patriot groups are extremist (Score:2)
Love the juxtaposition of "patriot" and "extremist".
Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
But even if that is the case, if they are more well organized and better designed than Anon was then they'll probably last a bit longer. They wont last but they'll last longer because they at least pretend to follow the Constitution while breaking the law.
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Because clearly, not wanting to live in a corporate or government dystopia is an "extremist" viewpoint.
FTFY. Don't want either dictating how I live.
Big whoop (Score:2)
Anti-virus company predicts viruses.
Not to say they're wrong, but hardly an unbiased opinion.
Comment removed (Score:3)
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It's great that McAfee Labs has published this report on Anonymous, but isn't this only a distraction from the search for better bath salts and pills to seduce young women?
That is an ad hominem attack. Shame on you.
Uncoordinated until someone sets them off at once (Score:2)
What they still really don't seem to get is that this is just a bunch of people who commit an act and claim to be Anonymous. Anyone can do anything and say they're Anonymous, therefore, Anonymous did it. The few people who may have access to the public outlets like Twitter and such will likely be contacted by someone who's interested in doing something or is in the proce
Anon can improve their design and reform itself (Score:2)
I'm not against Anon conceptually, but I do not like Anon as it is today. The solution for Anon is to get rid of all "principles" and "list" based ethics. There should be no list of right and wrong. Anon should instead decide on a case by case basis and utilize applied ethics to determine their actions based on the pros and cons.
What they should however avoid doing for the best interest of the Anon public image is avoid criminal activity, remain non-violent, avoid anything which can make Anon look like the
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Movements don't need to have leaders.
You could use this same assertion against democracy ("people MUST be lead, fascism sounds good.").
Anonomotomus (Score:2)
Flawed by design (Score:2)
Thats kinda the point of Anon. It has never been this is the leader and here is what we are gonna do. It was more of a bunch of angry people, or stupid, or bored, or someone just looking to hide behind the mask of anon, trying to do something. Good? Bad? Logical? Every time its something different. Its not a collective as much as a revolving door to a community room.
If that is the point of Anon then it's time to replace it. Autopoeitic symbiosis within and between social systems can be achieved but the main thing Anon in particularly has to do is decentralization. Also the Anon banner has been in my opinion permanently diminished as a resource as it's now associated with hackers, with thugs, with criminals.
Anon itself isn't bad conceptually but the implementation was like giving a bunch of children rocks and baseball bats and sending them to go against the mafia and ot
No mention of members arrested. (Score:3)
88+ arrested according to Wikipedia's tracking. (Score:2)
Wrong link above. (Score:2)
Criminals should not be "core members" of Anon. (Score:2)
I'm surprised McAfee's argument for its decline has no mention of five of the anonymous core group being busted by the feds after one turned informant [post-gazette.com].
And does this not display a flaw in their design? The fact that by design they allow for "Core Members" to be arrested and by design allow themselves to be treated as a criminal organization. They fucked themselves. How would an informant get you arrested if you're truly Anon? How would you get busted if you don't break the law? It seems fairly obvious that if you're a criminal then you're not really a core member of Anon.
The problem with Anon is that criminals have become the leadership. When criminals run
Agreed. (Score:2)
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Your rigth, they're speling misstakes allmost everry times, on everry articles. I volunter to give free lesons.
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As a Kentucky native, I hereby certify that "bard" is howlingly correct. :D
Not so soon.... (Score:1)
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Right now they have a huge hard on for the west baptist church hate group and rightly so. They've already doxed their senior membership as an appetizer. I'm sure we'll be hearing more and more...these people hiding behind 'god' are pure scum of the earth.
Like I said. There are no standards for what ops are permitted. West Baptist has freedom of speech, I thought Anon stood for freedom of speech? Wtf? F--- ANON.
Anon at this time needs to determine not a list of principles to fight for as I believe this is short sighted but instead list a style of decision making or ethics to use to determine it's actions. Anon are currently what? Act Utilitarians? Rule Utilitarians? Consequentialist? What ethical philosophy guides Anon? If they can't even determine this then
Good riddance (Score:3)
When your primary weapons are lame DDOS attacks and repetitive, predictable poor quality "we are anonymous" youtube videos spoken by dr sbaitso it is hard to see much of a future.
What is really sad is any agreeable lawful or vigilante activities are often trivially derailed and delegitimized by correlating "anonymous" with some asshat who once upon a time claimed to be anonymous defaced a web site dedicated to helping poor children.
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Anonymous doesn't care if it's "politically viable" or what reputation they have or any of that nonsense. It's just a bunch of people doing shit for whatever reason they want. It might happen to coincide with the feelings of other people but that's by coincidence.
What McAfee and apparently everyone else seems to mistake is that they just don't care. There might be a few "known" figures out there that either want to represent or are somewhat known to be involved in the whole Anonymous thing but all their "op
Crystal Ball (Score:2)
Anon 1.0 is finished and was flawed by design (Score:4, Insightful)
The design of the current Anon is structurally and organizationally flawed. There aren't any Anon ethics think tanks to actually guide Anon philosophically. There aren't any professionals to advise or consult Anon on the potential global consequences of their actions. As a result they are a blind politically oriented umbrella organization. This is fine if you're a teenager or young adult in the early 20s range but by the time you reach your 30s and 40s you'll see that Anon isn't the way to go and wont really lead to the results they desire due to how they go about it.
Anon has a function and a reason to exist if it were used intelligently but as it is now it's not used intelligently, it's not a self aware collective. An unaware collective is worse than no collective.
Also tonight (Score:2)
Anonymous predicts decline of McAfee Labs. News at eleven.
Challenge accepted! (Score:1)
another headline (Score:2)
Pot, meet kettle (Score:2)
I hadn't realized... (Score:1)
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Re:Ickleberry predicts decline of McAfee (Score:4, Informative)
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Which John McAfee???
Re:Ickleberry predicts decline of McAfee (Score:4, Insightful)
McAfee the person hasn't been associated with McAfee labs for a long time now.
No, but that doesn't mean that his actions can't tarnish the brand. It is, after all, named after him, even if he isn't there any more.
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His body double is also named after him as well. In itself having a body double indicates a significant level of paranoia, arguable whether or not it's justified paranoia.
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And yet, he's worried about the government of British Honduras coming after him instead. Talk about out of touch!