UTMC

An international group of online hackers is warning a Mexican drug cartel to release one of its members, kidnapped from a street protest, or it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate's associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates' businesses.

The vow is a bizarre cyber twist to Mexico's ongoing drug war, as a group that has no guns is squaring off against the Zetas, a cartel blamed for thousands of deaths as well as introducing beheadings and other frightening brutality.

"You made a huge mistake by taking one of us. Release him," says a masked man in a video posted online on behalf of the group, Anonymous.

"We cannot defend ourselves with a weapon … but we can do this with their cars, homes, bars, brothels and everything else in their possession," says the man, who is wearing a suit and tie.

"It won't be difficult; we all know who they are and where they are located," says the man, who underlines the group's international ties by speaking Spanish with the accent of a Spaniard while using Mexican slang.

He also implies that the group will expose mainstream journalists who are somehow in cahoots with the Zetas by writing negative articles about the military, the country's biggest fist in the drug war.

"We demand his release," says the Anonymous spokesman, who is wearing a mask like the one worn by the shadowy revolutionary character in the movie V for Vendetta, which came out in 2006. "If anything happens to him, you sons of (expletive) will always remember this upcoming November 5."

The person reportedly kidnapped is not named, and the video does not share information about the kidnapping other than that it occurred in the Mexican state of Veracruz during a street protest.

Anonymous draws its roots from an online forum dedicated to bringing sensitive government documents and other material to light.

If Anonymous can make good on its threats to publish names, it will "most certainly" lead to more deaths and could leave bloggers and others open to reprisal attacks by the cartel, contends Stratfor, an Austin-based global intelligence company.

"In this viral world on the Internet, it shows how much damage could be done with just one statement on the Web," said Fred Burton of Stratfor, which published a report Friday that probes the implications of the cartel drawing the activists' ire.

Mike Vigil, the retired head of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration, said the Zetas must take Anonymous seriously.

"It is a gutsy move," Vigil said. "By publishing the names, they identify them to rivals, and trust me, they will go after them."

Sep 14, 2011
Perhaps taking a page from Middle Eastern despots clinging to power, Mexican drug cartels are cracking down on their critics on social networks. The bodies of a man and a woman were found hanging from a pedestrian bridge in Nuevo Laredo, a border town, and nearby signs indicated the pair had been killed for denouncing the cartels on social networks, Mariano Castillo reports for CNN. "This is going to happen to all of those posting funny things on the internet... You better (expletive) pay attention. I'm about to get you," one sign said. The victims had been tortured, Castillo writes:

A man and a woman, both in their early 20s, were left hanging like cuts of meat. The woman was hogtied and disemboweled, her intestines protruding from three deep cuts on her abdomen. She was then hung from the bridge by her feet and hands, topless. The bloodied man was suspended next to her by his hands, his right shoulder severed so deeply you can see the bone.

Last week, "Twitter terrorists" in Mexico faced 30 years in prison for falsely reporting attacks on a school. But this incident marks a different kind of Twitter terrorism. CNN reports Ricardo Mancillas Castillo, a local investigator, said he'd never seen threats against Internet users from the cartels before.
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Rev wrote:This thing seems to be falling apart, with some anons saying it was a hoax, others that it was just a bad idea.

Jaeger wrote:

Rev wrote:This thing seems to be falling apart, with some anons saying it was a hoax, others that it was just a bad idea.

That's kind've sad, really -- and it's funny that Anon. seems willing to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. Gubmint (e.g., Wikileaks) but doesn't want to piss off the cartels.

Maybe they're just afraid their sources of weed will get pissed off.

--Jaeger

Jaeger wrote: and it's funny that Anon. seems willing to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. Gubmint (e.g., Wikileaks)

Zer0 wrote: But now a serious, non-rhetorical question:

Jaeger wrote: and it's funny that Anon. seems willing to go toe-to-toe with the U.S. Gubmint (e.g., Wikileaks)

Anonymous is Wikileaks, or vice versa?

Anonymous draws its roots from an online forum dedicated to bringing sensitive government documents and other material to light.

Vitiare wrote:

Anonymous draws its roots from an online forum dedicated to bringing sensitive government documents and other material to light.

...And a way for 13 year old kids to call eachother "fag" at every opportunity.

Rabbit_Fighter wrote:Update:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news ... member.ars

Rev wrote:What little I know about the history is that /b/ was always sort of cannon fodder for invasions. They usually got planned somewhere else, like an /i/nvasion board on another chan, or an irc channel, then somebody would go to /b/ with the idea to get enough bodies for a dos attack or swastiget or whatever. Then chanology happened, and things got more organized. The iconography of anonymous comes from /b/, but the people could be from anywhere. It split off from 4chan back then, and there's probably not much relation between the two now. There was some pushback then from the /i/nvasion folks against the moralfags. I'm not sure how that all shook out.