Anonymous Gets Michael Brown Shooter Wrong

Michael Brown

The hacktivist group Anonymous got it wrong. On Thursday a member of the group Tweeted what they thought was the name of the police officer that shot Micheal Brown. The name turned out to be wrong. According to the Daily Caller the name was actually that of a communications operator from nearby St. Ann Police Department.  At the time the name of the shooter had been a closely held secret. But it was finally announced that Officer Darren Wilson was the officer that shot Michael Brown. The St. Louis County Police Department responded to Anonymous’ outing, tweeting “Do not release more info on this random citizen.”

Twitter soon afterward suspended the account of @TheAnonMessage. When questioned as to why the account was suspended, Jim Prosser, a Twitter spokeman replied: “We don’t comment on individual accounts, but you can see the reasons why an account may be suspended in our Twitter Rules“.

The rules Prosser refers to prohibit the posting of private information, including street addresses and images or videos that are considered and treated as private under applicable laws. Twitter also prohibits posting of copyrighted images and material. Its not clear if the images that were posted were copyright protected.

The reaction of the false naming has revealed that the group does not always agree. Civil wars are not unheard of within the Anonumous community. First of all the group is very loosely affiliated and highly decentralized. Most members do not know each other. They do cooperate and have been know to help the police. In one recent case the group helped expose a pedophile ring.

 Zach Lanier, senior security researcher at Duo Security said that the problem of defending against Anonymous is that the group is more idea than organization. He characterizes Anonymous as a “decentralized massive blob of pursuit of justice.”

@TheAnonMessage  tweets revealing the name and image of the alleged police officer did not go over well with another Anonymous poster. @Crypt0nymou tweeted “What @TheAnonMessage is doing right now is playing poker with the life of people. And btw, he wasn’t sure. It doesn’t matter if he is right or wrong at the end. This is not what Anonymous is about.”

@Crypt0nymou’s tweeted that Anonymous associates had discussed the possible identities of the shooter in an IRC chat. This chat session had identified as many as four potential officers in the shooting.

Gregory Nowak, principal research analyst at the Information Security Forum said, “The most important thing to note if you follow these Anonymous Twitter accounts is that there is disagreement among people who identify themselves as Anonymous as to what to do an, some were in support of this action and some weren’t.”

Breaking It Down

AACR Internet rule #9. Everything on the Internet is real; just not always true.

False information is dangerous. Even worse; false information from an anonymous source is extremely dangerous. This mistake was extremely irresponsible and could have cost someone their life. We all saw the violent rioting that was taking place after the Michael Brown shooting. In that environment it could have made the situation even worse and potentially deadly for an innocent man. I see Anonymous as a necessary evil. I don’t condone some of the things they do but some things they do serve a purpose and law enforcement has benefited from their actions. But in this example the loose connections of the group causes problems.  For example who is this @TheAnonMessage? Could it be a malicious person who enjoys sparking the flames of racial hatred or someone with a grudge against the falsely named person. This is how dangerous this Tweet was. Twitter was right to shut this person down, I hope, permanently.

When it comes to an incidents like this, where the violence is obvious and ongoing, restraint is the best option for all parties. I am not defending black people here because I don’t see the sense of burning down your own neighborhood.  I’m not defending the police because they have reacted as if they were going to war against the people they are sworn to protect. This could have been handled differently, better. The situation has become a national disgrace with people coming from all over the country, not to protest but to wreak havoc on the community. 

Sending out false information cannot be excused in the name of justice. Black people want the truth from Anonymous, the press, the police and everybody else. But when people are in a rage and violence is happening, I urge all members of Anonymous to refrain from fueling the flames. You have no idea what the reaction might have been.

To Anonymous I ask, please react responsibly and  keep your house in order. Deal with those members that do things like this. Before they do something else even more dangerous. It’s your cause, fight for it!