Anonymous Denies Sony Claims of Disruption, Credit Info Theft 275
An anonymous reader writes "Yesterday, in a letter to Congress, Sony detailed the steps they were taking to resolve the issues that have been plaguing them since the PlayStation Network and SOE online components were hacked, claiming to have found evidence linking the crime to Anonymous. Now, Anonymous has responded."
But Anonymous says it isn't top-down organized (Score:4, Informative)
They're like-minded individuals who coalesce to serve a shared whim at a particular time. If so, then it is indeed difficult to pin any particular action or crime upon its body for prosecution, but at the same time it is equally difficult, if not more so, to unpin any accusations. I think we're seeing here one of the downsides to organizations whose structure of responsibility is nearly flat, where not only does the left hand not know what the right is doing, each hair on each finger doesn't know what the rest are doing. In light of their historic antics, those who align themselves with Anonymous fight an uphill battle to shed themselves of ill-repute whenever any such indictments surface. But they get no remorse from me -- it's a choice they've made and a reality they have to deal with.
Re:No Plausible Deniability (Score:5, Informative)
Some of them have communication channels that they use to co-ordinate. If there was no mention of it on those Anonymous channels, then it's not activity of that branch of Anonymous. According to the article linked, some of them invite journalists into some of their channels.
FTFY
Re:No they havent (Score:5, Informative)
Sony alleges that 'Anonymous' did it; that clearly implies the flavor of the group that has become surprisingly centralized for such a decentralized organization. That core group is presumably the one that responded. Within this context, 'Anonymous' must mean the somewhat centrally led version, otherwise the central question ('Did Anonymous do this?') isn't even well posed.
Put another way, if the allegation itself can't even be properly bounded, it doesn't really need to responded to. And if Sony can't do better than 'Anonymous did it', they certainly won't get to issuing subpoenas, asset seizures, or criminal charges anyway, making the point moot anyway.
Basically, put up or shut up, Sony. You need better evidence than 'Kilroy was here'.