Subject: Re: Leaving Anonymous?
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 9/8/11, 17:57
To: Nate Anderson <nate@arstechnica.com>

Hi, Nate-

I first saw the link floating around a few weeks back, when it was posted on an allegedly Anon-oriented Twitter account and retweeted by another whom I don't consider particularly on the ball. What struck me first was the grammatical errors and general lack of quality in the writing as compared to other documents that are known to come from FBI analysts of the sort that would produce this. Secondly, some of the psychological traits asserted - such as that Kayla shows indications of having been molested as a child - could not possibly have derived from this sort of analysis (there are other reasons why the Kayla entry is unlikely to have derived from any real law enforcement source as of August, but that's not something I can discuss). Third, trait entries that read like, "Perceives himself as a martyr for the cause (his own cause)" would seem to have been produced by a moderately competent person with the goal of making Sabu and other figures look bad - although not so competent as to do so in a less ham-fisted way that might have actually been produced as a result of an actual psychological report by the FBI; the thing about Sabu being a "nihilist" is not only untrue, but also a conclusion that would not be likely to come from the alleged source. Now that I take another look at it, the majority of the entries and the summaries afterwards tend to fit that pattern. There are other things that strike me as off due to my own associations with these figures (except for Kayla, whom I've only interacted with very rarely); JoePie91 has been on my ProjectPM server for a couple of months and Sabu hung around there until going dark a few weeks back, and Topiary in particular is someone I dealt with regularly via Skype and other means; some of the conclusions drawn here - even the less obviously negative ones - simply couldn't be drawn by any serious observer who had monitored the IRC use of these people.

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Nate Anderson <nate@arstechnica.com> wrote:
Hey Barrett--

Just curious on your take re: the new Anon FBI "leak"? You sound skeptical (we are too), but just trying to nail it down. Can you offer me any more info on it?


Nate Anderson
Senior Editor, Ars Technica
nate@arstechnica.com
+1 (630) 315 7133





--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302