As much as this story interests me on deeper levels, my brain keeps wanting to think of it as a misspelled or mispronounced "Operation Ominous" rather than subtracting the "an-" prefix to negate "anonymous" (which they undoubtedly thought was very clever).
And I do find it very ominous that apparently the only way that I can speak and act freely over the Internet is to maintain absolutely perfect operational security across an entire group of individuals that I already know enough to trust, thanks to out-of-band signaling.
While I don't really have anything to plan or discuss that would be considered threatening to any current regime, I also know that regimes change and evolve, and the Internet is rather capricious with regard to what it forgets. I have to wonder if someday even my posts on HN will be used against me at a time when prison, or execution, or even just denial of a benefit is a possibility.
Right now, they are busting folks for trading contraband and criminal services. But it somehow feels like the evidence of massive surveillance and interdiction is more threatening to me personally than the existence of the online black markets. Perhaps I'd just like to pretend that in theory, I could defy an objectionable government edict and not get squashed like a bug. I'd like to believe that the spirit of rebellion still lives among the people, and that the underdog can still put up a good fight, even if they can't actually win.
And I do find it very ominous that apparently the only way that I can speak and act freely over the Internet is to maintain absolutely perfect operational security across an entire group of individuals that I already know enough to trust, thanks to out-of-band signaling.
While I don't really have anything to plan or discuss that would be considered threatening to any current regime, I also know that regimes change and evolve, and the Internet is rather capricious with regard to what it forgets. I have to wonder if someday even my posts on HN will be used against me at a time when prison, or execution, or even just denial of a benefit is a possibility.
Right now, they are busting folks for trading contraband and criminal services. But it somehow feels like the evidence of massive surveillance and interdiction is more threatening to me personally than the existence of the online black markets. Perhaps I'd just like to pretend that in theory, I could defy an objectionable government edict and not get squashed like a bug. I'd like to believe that the spirit of rebellion still lives among the people, and that the underdog can still put up a good fight, even if they can't actually win.