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## Re: [CT] DISCUSSION - Anonymous vs Cartels

Released on 2012-03-02 01:00 GMT

Email-ID | 166779
Date | 2011-10-24 20:33:26
From | stewart@stratfor.com
To | analysts@stratfor.com
List-Name | analysts@stratfor.com

Good point.
In terrorist terms they are more like grassroots people than AQ core.
From: Sean Noonan <sean.noonan@stratfor.com>
Reply-To: Analyst List <analysts@stratfor.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2011 13:11:05 -0500
To: Analyst List <analysts@stratfor.com>
Subject: Re: [CT] DISCUSSION - Anonymous vs Cartels
Somehow we have to stop referring to 'anonymous' as a monolith. They are
a bunch of different people that essentially get together in an
online-form of a mob to carry out some action. I'm not sure how to do this
in writing consistently. But let's start with shit like 'people joining
Anonymous chatrooms and claiming to be part of the movement' or something
like that.
Comments in green below. This is coming together nicely.
On 10/24/11 11:19 AM, Tristan Reed wrote:
do they specify whether or not these are all in Mexico? Are some of
these in the US?
What is the significance of singling out taxi drivers?.
I will have to relisten to video to see if they specifically mention
whether all examples were in Mexico. The Taxi drivers are significant
because they were specifically mentioned as one of the targets in
revealing cartel connections. It also demonstrates a lack of
understanding of who they are attacking. A taxi driver in Acapulco is
expendable to cartels, but may also be cooperating with cartels out of
coercion.
Anonymous does not pose a direct physical security threat to Mexican
cartels. mmmm... i mean, they're not going hold a gun to the head of el
chapo, but there is something to be said for the using publication as a
tool to force government action. If you reveal actionable intelligence,
the government will use it against the cartels. That's a physical
threat, if one step removed. Agreed, but I want to specify that
Anonymous can not directly effect physical security. Any impact to the
cartel in revealing information will be from actions of rival cartels or
the GoM. They may release information on a given politician being linked
to the cartels, but it's not a guarantee that the politician will feel
an impact (Just because Anonymous says there is a link, doesn't make it
true). It would be up to others to take action. I think the way you
have it worded in the above sentence is good. Follow with a sentence
explaining the rest of it, because readers will have the same question
Karen did. Something like 'Rather, the threat to cartels would come in
what information anonymous could expose that is useful to their enemies'
Anonymous has demonstrated it's ability to reveal illicit online
activity (child pornography rings) and the cartels are known to conduct
significant logistics and business online. We don't know how much, but
we do know they will have some points of operational vulnerability I
have heard of cartels doing business online, but don't have specific
examples which could be used in assessing their vulnerability online.
by "no consequences" what exactly do you mean? They can be fired,
arrested or murdered, and that happens all the time. Point taken, I
should say, there is not a guarantee of consequences for calling out
politicians as colluding.
On 10/24/11 9:46 AM, Karen Hooper wrote:
Karen Hooper
Latin America Analyst
o: 512.744.4300 ext. 4103
c: 512.750.7234
STRATFOR
www.stratfor.com
On 10/24/11 9:32 AM, Tristan Reed wrote:
Reposting this with a new shorter focus. Instead of discussing
possible cartel responses, the focus is on what type of threat
Anonymous can pose to cartels. The video released by people using the
banner of Anonymous, threatens revealing personal information on
cartels as well as states a member had been kidnapped. I could not
find any sources outside of Anonymous' claims of the individual being
kidnapped. According to their facebook sites (Anonymous Mexico and
Anonymous Veracruz) it sounds like it may be an individual posting
flyers ['critical of cartels'?] in Veracruz as part of the Operation
Paperstorm protest, although that is speculation. [this is good and
will be enough information to go with, though you'll need a quick
explanation of what 'operation paperstorm' is. Adding something in
the explaining the flyers will work]
Link: themeData
Anonymous, a decentralized hacker collective famous for distributed
denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks on government and corporate websites,
lashed out at drug cartels via the Internet with a statements
denouncing Mexico's criminal cartels, including a video depicting a
masked individual addressing Mexican drug cartels on October 10? With
the most recent video release, Anonymous makes bold threats towards
the criminal cartels in Mexico. Threats such as releasing identities
of taxi drivers, police, politicians, and journalists who collude with
criminal cartels do they specify whether or not these are all in
Mexico? Are some of these in the US?
What is the significance of singling out taxi drivers?. The hacker
group demanded Los Zetas release a fellow kidnapped member otherwise
face consequences. In the Anonymous' video, this coming November 5th
was mentioned as a day cartels could expect Anonymous' reaction if
their demands of releasing a kidnapped member are not met. The
potential of conflict between Mexico's criminal cartels and hackers,
presents a unique threat towards TCOs [If TCO= transnational criminal
organization, it's not really unique. Many such organizations do
their crimes online, and have been hacked in response--like the
nigerian princess scams. I think you should just say it's a unique
threat to DTOs] . We know of cartels lashing out at online bloggers,
but I haven't seen any reporting on cartels dealing with any headaches
from hackers before.
What Anonymous brings to the table in a conflict
o Anonymous would not pose a direct physical security threat
to Mexican cartels. mmmm... i mean, they're not going hold a gun to
the head of el chapo, but there is something to be said for the using
publication as a tool to force government action. If you reveal
actionable intelligence, the government will use it against the
cartels. That's a physical threat, if one step removed.
o Anonymous' power base is the ability to exploit online
media
o Anonymous hackers do not have to be in Mexico to lash out
at cartels
While not certain, there is a potential for Anonymous to pose a
threat, if it had access to certain types of information:
-The threat is in the information they can expose that may be
of use to any cartel enemies. That could be to the government or other
cartels or even local citizens (the last one may be a stretch, but i could
imagine someone discrediting cartel members in the eyes of the public).
o It is unknown if Anonymous's claims tocut possess
identifiable information on cartel members
o It is unknown what information Anonymous could acquire on
cartels [cut this part here, and make the point at the end of this
section/paragraph]
o Bank accounts, any online transactions or communications,
identifiable information on cartels members have to be considered in
the realm of possibilities for
Anonymous
o Anonymous has demonstrated it's ability to reveal
illicit online activity (child pornography rings) and the cartels are
known to conduct significant logistics and business online. We don't
know how much, but we do know they will have some points of
operational vulnerability
-They claim to have information on those that collude with cartels
(use the stuff you have above]. Releasing such information could hurt
cartels' support networks, but most of these people are also easily
replaceable.
-But we don't know what information Anonymous' adherents have
access to, and doubt they have such information that provides any sort of
existential threat to the cartels as a whole or their networks.
Most Anonymous hackers are likely far removed from the ultra-violent
world of drug trafficking in Mexico, but it's quite possible that some
of its members in this campaign are in Mexico and opposed to the
violence [or something like that. my limited understanding is there
are still activist crusader-types in Mexico, yeah? it seems very
possible those with a bit of time or computer skills could have joined
up with anonymous] . As a result, their understanding of cartel
activities may be limited. Anonymous members in other countries may
act with confidence when sitting in front of a computer, but this may
blind them to any possible retribution. They may not even know the
impact of any online assault of cartels. [the part below and above is
written rather normatively. We need to take that out. just state the
facts]
o Revealing information on taxi drivers and journalists will
cost lives. Anonymous may not understand some of these individuals are
forced to collude with cartels. Taxi drivers are often
victims of extortion or coerced to act as halcones. Revealing the
identity of these individuals will not have a significant impact on
cartel operations. Politicans have been accused of
working with cartels (Guerrero & Veracruz' governor) before, however
there has yet to be any consequences from this. by "no consequences"
what exactly do you mean? They can be fired, arrested or murdered, and
that happens all the time.
o Anonymous hackers may not understand the extent cartels are
willing to go protect their operations.
o Any hackers in Mexico are at risk.
o Cartels have reached out to the computer science
community before, coercing computer science majors into working for
them.
o This provides the cartels with the possibility of
discovering hackers within Mexico.
need to mention that if Anonymous goes the route of simply publishing
tactical details of cartel activities, they'll be in the same camp as
the bloggers [yes, i think it needs to be clear that their damage
will be similar to what bloggers or wikileaks can do--limited. But
maybe more a danger to themselves, since they are no longer
challenging governments, but criminal organizations]
On 10/17/11 10:19 AM, Marc Lanthemann wrote:
Oh man we are threading new ground here - I like the idea but there
are several issues to address and fix here.
These are the bullets of my main analytical concern with the
discussion:
o we don't know who got kidnapped or why. that's fine but
we can't gloss over that fact
o "hackers" is a blanket term - there's a difference
between stealing bank records from government computers and
overloading www.loszetas.com main page.
o There's no thought out process of what sort of
information could anon have on the cartels. What kind of info is
kept online and accessible to potential attacks? You seem to be
talking about identities, whose? If anything it's dirty cops,
politicians and businessmen who need to worry about what anon is
going to be saying. Think about why the bloggers and media were
killed in previous instances. Was it because they revealed
operational details, because they acted as informants, because they
exposed links with officials or because they somehow sullied the
cartel's reputation? In short, what kind of information is damaging
to the cartels themselves?
o Once you identify this info - think about if anon can
realistically access it and disseminate it so it causes a measure of
damage. Anon doesn't have any intelligence capacity except for the
technical ability by a very small number of its members to
infiltrate certain networks and databases and steal information. Now
what kind of information would a cartel keep on a network that is
connected to the internet (aka no intranet)? Where else could
information be found? Government databases? Once we know what kind
of information is accessible, we can also know more about the
consequences of dissemination.
o What's the IT capacity of a cartel? Sufficient to trace
back attacks? If it's not, there risks to be a lot of killings done
by people who may not understand the difference between an anon
hacker and a blogger.
On 10/17/11 9:47 AM, Colby Martin wrote:
wanted to forward Karen's thoughts to analyst
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [CT] DISCUSSION - Anonymous vs Cartels
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 09:28:18 -0500
From: Karen Hooper <hooper@stratfor.com>
Reply-To: CT AOR <ct@stratfor.com>
To: CT AOR <ct@stratfor.com>
you've got some of the issues here, but this is going to need a
lot more work
You need to lay out:
a) What exactly is going on with Anonymous, your trigger section
is unclear
b) what our assessment of the online cartel presence is, and
therefore their vulnerabilities and capabilities
c) How capable is Anonymous of breaching high security anything
d) how far the cartels would be willing to travel to kill anyone
who breaches their systems or exposes their connections
I also just want to point out that we have reasonable reliable
insight that Sinaloa at the very least has some significant levels
of sophistication in their online presence, to include the use of
cyber currencies and significant IT capacity. There is no reason
to assume that Los Zetas don't also conduct business online, in a
protected fashion.
Karen Hooper
Latin America Analyst
o: 512.744.4300 ext. 4103
c: 512.750.7234
STRATFOR
www.stratfor.com
On 10/17/11 8:46 AM, Renato Whitaker wrote:
On 10/17/11 8:25 AM, Tristan Reed wrote:
Link: themeData
Trigger
Recently, Mexican cartels have faced a new enemy, hackers.
Anonymous, a well-publicized hacker group famous for...?, lashed
out at drug cartels via the Internet with a statements denouncing
Mexico's criminal cartels, including a video released
depicting...? a person talking? a voice? words on a screen?
exactly when?. With the most recent video release, Anonymous
makes bold threats towards the criminal cartels. Threats such as
releasing identities of Mexican? American? taxi drivers, police,
politicians, and journalists who collude with criminal cartels.
The hacker group demanded Los Zetas release a fellow kidnapped
member otherwise face consequences. The potential of conflict
between Mexico's criminal cartels and hackers, presents an
unprecedented war front for the cartels. The vastly different
operations of Anonymous and Los Zetas leave a conflict both
Anonymous and the cartels have little experience in handling. i
believe that Anonymous has no experience with the cartels. I do
not believe for a second that the cartels have no experience with
hackers.
In the Anonymous' video, this coming November 5th was mentioned as
a day cartels could expect Anonymous' reaction if their demands of
releasing a kidnapped member this should be mentioned right up
front. Cartels have a member, Anonymous is threatening to hit
back. Provide enough details so we understand who this guy is and
why/how he was abducted. are not met. If Anonymous' claims of
possessing revealing information on cartel members and operations
are true, cartels will likely respond with violence against
individuals revealed as opposing cartel members huh? you mean
Anonymous members?. It also is likely that public disclosure of
GOM officials who collude with DTOs will force the GOM to take
action, giving the Anonymous threat complexity i don't understand
what this means. You mean the GOM will threaten Anonymous?. How
effectively any cartel will be able to retaliate against Anonymous
remains unanswered . However, cartels will continue their threats
against any individual using online media WC.... you mean tools?
or weapons? We're not talking about bloggers here. against the
cartels.
The Battle Space
Anonymous's and the cartels activities exist in two separate
realities from each other. Anonymous operates solely in sphere of
the computer networks. Anonymous does not experience geographical
boundaries. All personalities within Anonymous, exist solely in
cyber space. (That is not entirely true. They are physical people
tho live in the real world. They have names and addresses -
although most of them are likely outside of MX.) Anonymous' power
base consists of their technical capabilities in hacking. Any
information connected to the Internet is vulnerable to exploits by
hackers. (Identifying the pc's of individual cartel members in the
midst of Mexico's population could be quite difficult. Remember
that most of what Anonymous has done are DDOS attacks. Sucks if
you are Mastercard or a big company with a website that brings in
revenue, but it does not really matter if you don't run operations
on the web. Los Z don't make much money via e-commerce. They are
also far less dependent on the web than the jihadists.)
Anonymous is known for its hacking endevours, but it's power base
consists of the perceived anonymity that its members believe
themselves to have, real or otherwise, by operating through the
internet. This gives an opening for people disgruntled by anything
and everything to practice general dickery. As the popular meme
goes, anonymity + audience = troll. Only a fraction of the large
web of people who identify themselves as "anonymous" have any sort
of serious IT capability.
The largest threat towards a hacker's existence so far has been
from targeted arrests by Law Enforcement Agencies.
The criminal cartels in Mexico operate on the streets in US and
Mexican cities. They are run as a business, always looking to
maximize profits and expand. But they are bricks and mortar
commerce. Yes..... but they use the internet to launder money and
issue commands. We know that Sinaloa does that from insight. There
is no reason to assume that Los Zetas don't have a similar
capacity. Their power base is built by large amounts of revenue
and escalating brutal violence. Cartels like Los Zetas, are
experienced in facing different types of threats. Cartels are
always suffering at the hands of cartel on cartel violence. While
battling each other, cartels still face arrests by Law Enforcement
Agencies. As cartels wish to avoid any hindrance in the flow of
drugs and money, cartels have targeted media outlets. Murdering
journalists and online bloggers in order to cover details of their
operations. ok... but that's kind of a red herrng for this
discussion. You need to focus on the possible vulnerabilities of
the cartels. Don't just assume they have no cyber presence.
Anonymous' Weapons
Whatever impact will be felt due to Anonymous' actions against
criminal cartels has yet to be seen. Anonymous' only ability to
combat cartels lay in information operations, mainly disseminating
sensitive information on cartels and propagating anti-cartel
statements via social media and defaced websites in Mexico you
mean so far and that we know of?. As Anonymous admitted in their
video to cartels, they cannot fight with guns. The significance
of a targeted information operations campaign by technically elite
individuals can not be overlooked should not be underestimated.
Cartels view main stream media outlets and social media blogs as
such a threat to their operations, that they have continued to
target journalists and bloggers. Last month, a message signed by
Los Zetas was placed with a dead female body more relevantly, on
the body of a blogger. The message threatened any users who
denounce cartels on blogging websites. getting repetitive here,
and it's not really addressing the subheading
As stated earlier, any information connected to the internet risks
disclosure by Anonymous. There is ample reason to suggest
Anonymous is capable of possessing information they threaten to
release. By releasing identities of individuals cooperating with
Mexican cartels, Anonymous threatens the life of those
individuals. Anonymous's ability to disseminate sensitive
information is limited by what is available via the Internet.
Government computers connected to the Internet should always be
considered a possibility of an attack. However, as with the
compartmentalized nature of the US governments computer networks,
information available to Mexico's intelligence collection may not
be easy to acquire. what are you trying to say here? This isn't
clear at all
Cartel's Defense
A counter response to the video? by the cartels has
yet to see fruition. However, Anonymous' claims of a kidnapped
member by Los Zetas suggest Los Zetas have begun addressing the
threat posed by hackers so... how has there not been a counter
response? also this undermines your statements above about how
Anonymous is soley internet based, and underlines the
vulnerabilities of associated members. How did they find teh
Anonymous member? The answer to that could very well give you some
indication to the technical ability of the cartels . As Anonymous
exists in abstract reality of the world wide web , the cartels
will face a number of challenges which rarely are posed for them
Again, how do you know? The USG has whole agencies dedicated to
fucking shit up in cyberspace. You can assume (and we have good
intel indicating that) they are working on disrupting the
cartels.. Hackers threatening cartels, can operate in any region
of the world. Personal information including locations is only
available if a hacker chooses to divulge it or if the subject of
the attack is savvy enough to figure it out. Hackers don't only
work for Anonymous. Cartels are only capable of dealing with their
online enemy, if they can physically reach out to them. Or start
employing hackers of their own under their payroll? Stranger
things have happened, Why not a Zetas 2.0?
Cartels have been known to coerce the services of
Mexican citizens with a technical background. Recruiting the help
of computer science majors through personal threats has been
reported in the past where? What cartels? reported where?. Since
cartels operate in the world of urban violence and drug
trafficking, they will likely need the assistance of technical
experts to help combat any threat by computer hackers. While
identifying bloggers inside of Mexico has been demonstrated, it is
unlikely cartels are capable of identifying any hackers operating
outside of Mexico. Even law enforcement agencies such as the FBi,
with far more technical experience and resources than cartels,
struggle to find hackers through investigations. A) How do you
know they are not in Mexico? (Who was the guy they kidnapped???)
B) I'm goign to assume that not all hackers are equally difficult
to track down
In order to compete with an online foe, cartels will
likely continue counter tactics they are most familiar with, brute
force. Cartels are still capable of their HUMINT operations within
Mexico "still"? why would we assume they wouldn't be?.
Individuals with alleged connections to hacker communities will
likely be targeted and interrogated by cartel members. Narco
banners and public display of violence will likely continue to be
used to scare online media into submission i'm not really seeing
the online media-international hacking group connection here. The
cruel manners in which cartels inflict harm, is something computer
hackers have unlikely encountered before in their life. Whether
the fear of cartel violence softens the confidence of Anonymous
will remain to be seen until cartels are able to seek out and
capture members of the hacker group.. Or the Narcos could call the
collective bluff and simply go on and shrug off any inconvenience
that Anon can inflict.
--
Marc Lanthemann
Watch Officer
STRATFOR
+1 609-865-5782
www.stratfor.com
--
Sean Noonan
Tactical Analyst
Office: +1 512-279-9479
Mobile: +1 512-758-5967
Strategic Forecasting, Inc.
www.stratfor.com