What makes this story interesting is the timing. Although it is possible that Jennifer Emick and Backtrace did find out who Sabu was through others in the group (from our information he was not all that popular), but some of the claims made sound off. As we have told you before The Grey Hat who calls himself The Jester had done much of this between May and June of last year including posting the information that we linked yesterday. If this was ultra-sensitive, why didn’t the FBI approach him and request the removal of that information? Why single out Jennifer and Backtrace?

Next is something of a time-line that we are not fully able to confirm. According to Emick Sabu went missing from both Twitter and IRC in June. They sepculate that he was picked up by the FBI at that time and when he came back was allowed to re-establish trust in the LulzSec group.  Fox News claims that through Sabu they were able to warn some targets of potential attacks and also to get Sabu to try and stop an attack on the CIA (we are working on confirming that).

The nasty fly in the ointment is Stratfor. If the FBI had Sabu on a leash and they were working to undermine Anonymous and others why allow them to be hacked? It makes no sense, warn the group off from taking the CIA’s public website, but allow over 800 thousand emails and 70,000 credit card numbers to be grabbed?

To round things out Emick has made the further claim that she has co-opted additional members (remember we told you that you would hear this type of claim) and they are actively informing on current members of the movement.  Gang, I would seriously recommend strapping in for a long string of news articles about how much of a blow to Anonymous this is and how they are finished. These will be littered with comments and quotes designed to keep more people from joining. We also expect to hear more from the US government comparing Anonymous and hacking to terrorism and would not be surprised to see legislation put forth to make hacking a crime on par with terrorism.

The plain truth is that the FBI, the CIA and the NSA do not know how to combat a group like Anonymous. The FBI is organized in a way to combat “Organized” Crime. This means crime with a structure and pattern. Even kidnapers and other criminals have patterns and habits. They can be tracked profiled and pounced upon. True the FBI, NSA and CIA can adapt, but it is important to remember that ANYONE can be in Anonymous, that is technically its strength. The FBI should remember those lessons from the Cocaine wars in the late 70s and early 80s while the CIA should remember the many times they have had leaks and informants right at the very top levels.

In the end an idea, concept, movement, collective, call it what you want, like Anonymous is not going to go away just because a few people attached to the organization are caught. The labeling of Sabu as a leader is something the press and the FBI have done. Anonymous has said more than once that they are leaderless and operate as a true collective (we have covered this too). Sabu might have been very vocal and others in the collective might have responded to him and even followed him, but if you follow the communication from Anonymous you can clearly see that he was not a “top” member. Claiming that implies that there is a hierarchy involved and there simply is not one.

So while it is true that being involved with Anonymous or any hacking activity for that matter is dangerous and you run the risk of getting caught you are not in any more danger now than you were before. Anonymous is not going anywhere not matter what the FBI, Fox News or other news agency might tell you. It is as simple as that; The FBI, CIA, NSA, and the news media do not even fully understand the collective’s organization or methods, how can they hope to stop them?

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