Ohhhhh shit. If it’s one thing you don’t want on the internet it’s the scorn of internet hacker group Anonymous. Previously responsible for taking down Mastercard/Visa websites in defense of Wikileaks as well as the Church of Scientology, Anonymous is a loosely organized group of individuals dispensing online justice as they see fit.
A couple days ago they issued this video statement stating their intent to fight Sony for suing PS3 hacker, Geohot:
I particularly liked this line: “You saw the hive, and you stuck your penis in it.” As a large multinational corporation, i’m sure Sony sticks its penis in lots of hives.
But some people in Anonymous were not satisfied with merely taking down Playstation.com and the Playstation Store via DDoS attacks. They’ve decided to take vengeance to the next level by obtaining personal records of Sony employees and family members:
Sebastian Moss for PlaystationLifestyle:
For example, Robert S. Wiesenthal, Group Executive, Sony Corporation, leading Corporate Development and Mergers and Acquisitions at Sony headquarters’ family history is currently being released onto the internet. His marital status, age, place of address, education and even whether he has children has been discovered. Other main targets include Nicole Seligman and Sony boss Howard Stringer, but multiple Sony employee emails are noted as future targets. In fact, one anon complained “No one found ANY info on Stringers kids?”
Meanwhile, both OpSony and SonyRecon have targeted those involved in the actual lawsuit against Geohot, with members of OpSony singling out the judge of the case.
SonyRecon founder randomtask stated:
sony , the judge and sonys lawyers are all valid targets
I’m not so sure going after individuals and their families is the best way of advancing your agenda, but it’s certainly some frightening shit. Imagine if you were an innocent Sony employee caught in the crossfire of this “war.” The amount of harm that could befall someone by releasing their personal information online is staggering. Hopefully the damage will be limited to juvenile pizza pranks and fake craigslist ads and not something more sinister.
Kinda makes you reflect just how helpless you can be on the internet, doesn’t it?