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How Is Anonymous Staying Anonymous?


VoodooTorture

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A lot of people have been wondering why Anonymous has not been caught yet. Sure, being a decentralized organization with no apparent leader makes it harder to track down and stop but still, that many individuals coordinating attacks and not getting caught is pretty impressive.

I've been wondering how they are managing to stay, well, anonymous. I figured it's probably a little more sophisticated than just hopping on someone's unsecured wifi, and spoofing your ip/mac. I guessing they are probably using a VPN and/or onion routing such as Tor. Anyway, I came across this link and thought it was an interesting setup on how one would stay anonymous on the internet.

What's everyone's take on this?

Do you think this is what Anonymous is doing?

Got a better or different way to stay undetected on the internet?

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A lot of people have been wondering why Anonymous has not been caught yet. Sure, being a decentralized organization with no apparent leader makes it harder to track down and stop but still, that many individuals coordinating attacks and not getting caught is pretty impressive.

I've been wondering how they are managing to stay, well, anonymous. I figured it's probably a little more sophisticated than just hopping on someone's unsecured wifi, and spoofing your ip/mac. I guessing they are probably using a VPN and/or onion routing such as Tor. Anyway, I came across this link and thought it was an interesting setup on how one would stay anonymous on the internet.

What's everyone's take on this?

Do you think this is what Anonymous is doing?

Got a better or different way to stay undetected on the internet?

Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but please elaborate on this step:

TOR —> VPN (Anon VPN so all traffic is encrypted through TOR; end node can’t even see data VPN sees TOR IP not mine) —> Connect to anonymous VPS setup to run I2P —> Proxy running SSL

I'm assuminging you're just running Tor through the VPN connection?

If so, the Tor node would start at where the VPN stops. It's not an extra layer of protection, as much as it's an extension of the connection.

So, I connect to bob's VPN, Bob then speaks to the Tor network for me. It's essentially, adding another connection in line to the three the tor program already provides you. You data will still be able to be seen by the third (forth in this case) individual who is the Tor exit none. I2P works essentially the same way. Your communication is just bounced around the network. 3 is enough. Tor doesn't keep your information, so it's safe to use. TAILS is even safer, but routing through a VPN jeperdises your security, as it leaves a trace.

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You can't remain anonymous forever, at some point in time someone will make a mistake and get caught.

Like the old saying goes, you can run but you can't hide.

I would say they must be using somebody else network, with the use of heavy VPNs, proxies and encryption. I think that's how they managed to stay low for too long.

Edited by Infiltrator
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A lot of these guys have private communication channels. Some of their stuff is public, like sites they link to, twitter profiles, etc, but for the most part, I think they communicate in private more than they do when carrying out the attacks, since some of these people have already been arrested. You would think that they would take more precautions in how they attack, given their communication channels have been more or less private and only a few people have managed to get a hold of irc chat logs, but I think thats probably more from disgruntled existing or ex members. At some point somewhere in the chain, they've slipped up, because the intelligence community has arrested some people, and others in the infosec community have also gone after them, like The Jester. If anything, the authorities might be letting them get away with some of the hacks, so they can monitor and close in on more core members.

They do the same thing with terrorist outfits, letting them get away with small things while gathering more info on whom they communicate with so they can narrow down who to go after. I'm not saying Anon are terrorists, but that the tactics used to go after them might be the same in letting them hang themselves, take credit for certain things, and have more charges that can be brought against them in the process. The more multiple counts of things they can get on them, the less likely chance of a soft sentencing. If any of the charges get dropped, they'll have more to keep throwing at them, eventually forcing them to want a plea bargain, and in exchange, they will probably snitch everyone else out.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Well, with the recent string of arrests, I would say they aren't being too anonymous at all. I don't think that law enforcement is as in the dark as anonymous and lulzsec think they are. Their websites might have been hacked into by them, but that doesn't mean they will get away with it. I would also advise anyone who is thinking of going to their irc channel, not to do it without precautions to begin with. #1, not from your home ISP's IP address, #2, not from your main desktop, use a virtual machine, or live CD in a VM, not even a live cd from the main OS, because if they did get in, they could just mount the drives and do whatever they way, #3, don't use any identifiable information(real name, nick, handle, hometown, etc, etc), and #4, don't use the web based java IRC client. Also, they have other non-public networks, and irc networks/channels which require things like i2p for access, so on the surface, what you would see in those web based IRC networks are merely recruitment and entertainment channels. Not everything they do is discussed publicly.

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