Re: Wikileaks

We would have preferred to have let this topic rest as we think it is distracting from more important issues. However, some allegations in Julian's statement [1] should be addressed to avoid certain misunderstandings. First off, thank you for making this statement, Julian. At least we are communicating again. Secondly, please note that this response was written collaboratively; this is not one voice but many.

Moving on to your statement:

> "Because Anonymous is anonymous, those who obtain this or other forms of
> leadership influence can be secretly decapitated and replaced by other
> interests."

We're a bit amazed how you, of all people, talk about leadership in Anonymous. We would have thought you understood us a little better. You seem to refer to Sabu, but you should realize he was never a leader of Anonymous. While he did have some influence over a handful of people who chose to work with him, he wasn't even a leader among this small and secluded group. Among those, he was one of the most vocal and thus it comes as no surprise that the media and public mistook him as a "leader" - the world is always easier to understand if you put labels on things.

We shouldn't forget though, that even during the LulzSec era there were quite a number of Anons who neither liked nor trusted Sabu, let alone accepted him as any kind of leader.

Anonymous is a very complex and versatile entity and there will never be any leader that will speak for them all. We would not want it that way. Of course, there are some channels (like the big twitter accounts) that have more reach than others and thus it can be argued that they have more influence. But that doesn't make us leaders. It does however leave us with a certain amount of responsibility, which is why we take the time to write this down. But in the end we always urged everyone to make up their own mind, to validate facts and not jump to conclusions based on assumptions.

Which brings us to the following statement:

> "According to FBI indictments the FBI has at various times
>  controlled Anonymous servers. We must assume that currently
>  a substantial number of Anonymous severs and "leadership"
>  figures are compromised."

Checking the facts, we find exactly one case where the FBI actually controlled "Anonymous' servers". This is referenced in Jeremy Hammond's complaint file, page 13, bullet point j: "...[Sabu], at the direction of the FBI, provided to HAMMOND and his co-conspirators a computer server in New York, New York, which could be used to store the data [...]."**[2]. This incident is well documented and occurred in an ongoing investigation where one of the key figures was actively working for the FBI.

We know of no other situation in which anything even remotely similar has happened. If you have evidence to show otherwise please do so,  as we would be most interested. Either way, there is nothing that allows the conclusion "a substantial number of Anonymous severs and leadership figures are compromised"; this is merely an assumption with no facts to back it.

> This doesn't mean Anonymous should be paralyzed by paranoia.
> But it must recognize the reality of infiltration. The promotion
> of "anonhosting.biz" and similar assets which are indistinguishable
> from an entrapment operations must not be tolerated.

It's quite ironic how you mention paranoia when it is you who is accusing, more or less, random people of working with law enforcement and "promoting insecure servers".

But thank you for finally letting us know what server you were referring to this whole time. It does surprise us, however, as anonhosting.biz was never considered for leaked materials or any other kind of sensitive information. It was a fun site which contained an image board and some platforms on which to share pictures and videos. It hardly matters as the site only existed for a few weeks and was never even finished, before the person running it decided to discontinue it.

@AnonymousIRC distributes a lot of links from the Anonymous community, and that is quite different from promoting "assets for entrapment operations"; this is a ridiculous notion and it makes us wonder who is becoming paralyzed by paranoia.

Finally, some words about solidarity and support. Those who have read our initial statement carefully will have seen that we are, by no means, calling for actions against Wikileaks or Julian Assange, nor do we condone such actions. We do, however, feel that Wikileaks has strayed from its original mission. While it is not our intention to throw dirt at each other we should state our reservations against Wikileaks clearly, because these are not based on assumptions but on past experiences and facts.

We should not need to remind you how closely we have cooperated with each other on occasion; nor do we need to explain what kind of personal risk many of our people took upon themselves while enabling you to make those last leaks available. But maybe we should for those who are not aware of the full history.

Two years ago Anonymous declared solidarity with you, bringing to attention that a financial boycott of Wikileaks is unrightful and unacceptable. Websites have been brought down - not really to sabotage their business but simply to bring attention to the fact of the boycott. Anons are facing criminal charges and upto 20 years in jail for that.

One year ago, in the shadow of the "Sabu incident", Stratfor was compromised, revealing their entire email spool that ultimatively ended up on Wikileaks. Where it was released as a trickle of information, much the same as it was with the diplomatic cables before the whole stash got oopsed.

In all cases, Wikleaks was handed the leaks they published because the sources trusted them to be the best possible option. But we do not think that is true anymore. To be honest, we had better reasons to cut ties with you before, especially when you blindsided us with the aforementioned statements regarding Anonymous servers and leadership being compromised, and the implication that we would promote assets to entrap fellow Anons. But we always held back because we believed in the mission.

We understand that Wikileaks is run on donations but we fail to understand where it is spending the amounts of money it receives. We fail to see how Wikileaks needs hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to operate, when we obeserve other platforms that can provide the same service for a fraction of that. Again, we remained silent, because we believed in the mission. But then you show the audacity to barricade the content with a Javascript banner, forcing the majority of visitors to either donate or spam via facebook or twitter. This is a blatant violation of what Wikileaks should stand for. We will not stand up for this anymore. Instead we will let leaks speak.

That being said, it is time that we move forward. All of us. There is far too much at stake for these folly disagreements and we do not want to see some feel torn between Wikileaks and Anonymous. That is not fair to those people. Anyone has the choice to support Anonymous, Wikileaks, neither or both. Any division is meaningless as we are divided by zero.-

~~Anonymous

[1] http://www.twitlonger.com/show/jl9vdt
[2] http://wiki.par-anoia.net/w/images/0/0f/Hammond-Jeremy-Complaint.pdf