Re: Questions regarding Anonymous for upcoming article in Dutch IT magazine

On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 5:36 AM, Menno Hagens <menno@mennohagens.com> wrote:

Hi Mr. Brown,

I had decided to go with an Anonymous logo, but a picture of you would be best I think.
It doesnt have to be very high resolution, as were going to print it about the size of a passport-photo.

Theres still time to switch the images, if youd like J

Best regards,

Menno.

Van: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Verzonden: dinsdag 25 oktober 2011 2:38

Aan: Menno Hagens
Onderwerp: Re: Questions regarding Anonymous for upcoming article in Dutch IT magazine

Sorry, do you still need this?
On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 4:32 AM, Menno Hagens <menno@mennohagens.com> wrote:

Dear Mr. Brown,

Could you possibly provide a photograph of yourself for use in the article?
Normally Id just take one from our archive, or the Internet, but in this case its probably best to use a picture you provide J

Best regards,

Menno.

Van: Barrett Brown [mailto:barriticus@gmail.com]
Verzonden: woensdag 12 oktober 2011 22:15
Aan: Menno Hagens
Onderwerp: Re: Questions regarding Anonymous for upcoming article in Dutch IT magazine

Menno:

Here are the answers.

-Can you tell a bit about how long you have been active, and what your greatest successes have been so far? (Both for your person and Anonymous as a group).

I first began acting as an information activist a few years ago, and then began dedicating more of my time to such things when I founded Project PM in 2009, and then more active when getting involved with Anonymous in the beginning of this year. Anonymous' greatest successes include the North Africa campaign, which began in Tunisia; we saw the significance of that movement before the protests were even reported by international media, and were proclaiming this to be the beginning of a major regional shift before protests had begun in Egypt. The manifesto I wrote for al-Jazeera, "Anonymous and the Global Correction," under the name "Anonymous," was written in late January (although it didn't appear till two weeks later), and compared to what was being written by many alleged U.S. experts on the subject, was entirely accurate. Anonymous' other most crucial success was the HBGary hack, which has allowed me to pursue my own greatest success, which is the continued investigation and disruption of portions of the intelligence contracting industry, including my report on Romas/COIN. I'm also proud of having predicted the impact of Wikileaks and Anonymous before most publications had heard of either.

-What made you decide to become the public voice for a group of hacktivists?

It happened gradually. When I first got directly involved at the beginning of OpTunisia, I used my media contacts and my outlets at Huffington Post and elsewhere to bring attention to both the Tunisian protests and Anonymous' early moves to assist; Michael Hastings, one of America's best journalists and a friend of mine who is now an editor at Rolling Stone, was among the first to start drawing attention to it after I asked him to do so. Other journalists began coming to me with questions on the subject or to get help finding Tunisians and Anons to interview. Some of these began to quote me as well, and even though I explained repeatedly that Anonymous has no titles or official positions, I was referred to as "spokesman" on a number of occasions; the first time I can recall my name appearing in connection with Anonymous, on the front page of the NYT, I was correctly listed simply as "Barrett Brown." By that time, the raids of 40 U.S. citizens had occurred and I was working with New York activist John Penley to arrange for their defense by the National Lawyer's Guild, Stanley Cohen, and other attorneys, at which point the press started talking to me more or, having heard what I'd said somewhere, again referred to me as "spokesman." Unfortunately, when NBC aired a segment after interviewing me at home, they referred to me as "senior strategist" for Anonymous and claimed this was something I call myself; as can be seen in an article that later came out in D Magazine by that magazine's editor, who was present for the NBC interview, I told them that I have no official status.

-Some sources claim Anonymous is done for because of the wave of arrests of suspected members and/or internal discord. What are your thoughts on this?

Remember that the law enforcement response began in late January with 40 FBI raids in the U.S. and five arrests in the U.K. Less than two weeks later, Anonymous pulled off the HBGary hack, one of its most important operations. Even as more arrests came over the following months, Anonymous pulled off dozens of attacks against various state and corporate targets, more than had ever been seen before. Nothing will stop Anonymous; more importantly, nothing will stop more individuals from stepping up and continuing the fight against abuse of state power. As for discord, Anonymous has always been in a state of controlled civil war; things are much better on that front than they were a few months ago.

-What is the biggest/best channel of free speech on the current Internet? I.e. the best way to anonymously get information out? Examples could be pastebin.com, Twitter or the TOR-network.

Pastebin, Twitter, and IRC are all very important tools by which to proliferate information; there are dozens of others that are also useful. TOR is better than nothing, but in some cases can provide a false sense of security, as has been the case in Iran, where we advise revolutionaries to use other methods such as I2p.

-How is Anti-sec progressing? Are you happy with the results so far?

Antisec has done some good by bringing attention to contractors, such as Booz Allen Hamilton, which are among the most dangerous forces in the world at the moment but which nonetheless remain outside of the public consciousness. Of course, like Lulzsec, some Antisec participants have released material that not only has no investigative function, but also causes problems for random, innocent individuals. Operation Metal Gear, which I launched from Anonymous and which is now overseen by my group Project PM, draws a great deal on information that is obtained via hacking and social engineering, such as the 70,000 e-mails Anon took from HBGary and the 1,000 that Lulzsec took from Unveillance. We're very much in favor of such operations, illegal or otherwise, as these firms struck at us and Wikileaks first, and are provided with unwarranted assistance and protection by portions of the U.S. government. Any firm we identify as having engaged in disinformation or mass surveillance is a legitimate target.

-Some people oppose Anonymous, for instance by publishing information about members online. What is your attitude towards these individuals and their actions?

There's a loose network of individuals associated with th3j35t3r who do this, and they often publish the wrong names, as they did with Topiary, Sabu, and others. They also tend to engage in the same sort of tactics that they claim to oppose in Anonymous, and in several notable cases, as with the two people who run Backtrace Security, the individuals have been shown to have personal animosity towards Anonymous due to having been mocked by members earlier; Jennifer Emick, who has long been a running joke among many associated with the culture, is the best example.

-Ive read criticism from hacktivists that say They (Anonymous, red.) definitely used kiddies that had no idea what they were getting into as a front, and that is wrong as well.. Whats your response to this allegation?

It's rare that anyone knows the age of individuals who engages in DDOS attacks; one does not even need to come into an IRC channel to do so, but rather they must simply download a program. I know of one person who continually makes that assertion, Awinee of The Netherlands, and this same fellow who is allegedly so concerned about kids getting arrested has been involved with Backtrace and other individuals whose entire purpose is to get Anons arrested. Certainly there are valid criticisms to be made about individual Anons and Anonymous itself, but again, the people who have been most vocal in doing so have clearly been dishonest about their motives.

-The structure of Anonymous makes it hard to establish hacks as not the work of Anons or the exact opposite. Does this concern you?

Yes, it's a problem insomuch as that someone with poor judgement can launch an attack which is then associated with other Anons who have been doing noble work. There's also the possibility of some party doing such a thing in order to intentionally discredit Anonymous. This is one of the reasons why I've been calling for people to start working out of smaller groups with different names, so that anything they do will be judged on its own merits, rather than in association with everything that has been done in the name of Anonymous.

-Authorities worldwide claim to have arrested Anons. Can you comment on this?

Well, they've certainly arrested Anons in the U.S., the U.K., The Netherlands, and Spain. Meanwhile, Anonymous continues to recruit in every country.

Im not in a big hurry to get the answers.
If you could reply somewhere within the next fortnight that would be great.

Thanks in advance for your time and trouble!

Best regards,

Menno Hagens.

Freelance technical journalist.

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

Geen virus gevonden in dit bericht.
Gecontroleerd door AVG - www.avg.com
Versie: 10.0.1410 / Virusdatabase: 1522/3948 - datum van uitgifte: 10/12/11

--
Regards,

Barrett Brown
512-560-2302

Geen virus gevonden in dit bericht.
Gecontroleerd door AVG - www.avg.com

Versie: 10.0.1411 / Virusdatabase: 1522/3972 - datum van uitgifte: 10/24/11