The Global Intelligence Files - Re: S-weekly for Comment - Placing the Anonymous vs. Zeta conflict in context The Global Intelligence Files, files released so far... 1119 The Global Intelligence Files Index pages List of Releases by Date of Document unspecified 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 by Date of Release 2001-03-13 2010-03-10 2011-03-05 2011-03-15 2012-01-29 2012-02-27 2012-02-28 2012-02-29 2012-03-01 2012-03-02 2012-03-03 2012-03-04 2012-03-05 2012-03-06 2012-03-07 2012-03-08 2012-03-09 2012-03-10 2012-03-11 2012-03-12 2012-03-13 2012-03-14 2012-03-15 2012-03-16 2012-03-17 2012-03-19 2012-03-20 2012-03-23 2012-03-25 2012-03-26 2012-03-27 2012-04-01 2012-04-02 2012-04-24 2012-04-26 2012-04-30 2012-05-10 2012-06-18 2012-06-20 Our Partners ABC Color - Paraguay Al Akhbar - Lebanon Al Masry Al Youm - Egypt Asia Sentinel - Hong Kong Bivol - Bulgaria Carta Capital - Brazil CIPER - Chile Dawn Media - Pakistan L'Espresso - Italy La Repubblica - Italy La Jornada - Mexico La Nacion - Costa Rica Malaysia Today - Malaysia McClatchy - United States Nawaat - Tunisia NDR/ARD - Germany Owni - France Pagina 12 - Argentina Philip Dorling - Fairfax media contributor - Australia Plaza Publica - Guatemala Publica - Brazil Publico.es - Spain Rolling Stone - United States Russian Reporter - Russia Ta Nea - Greece Taraf - Turkey The Hindu - India The Yes Men - Bhopal Activists Sunday Star-Times - New Zealand Community resources Supporters Support Wikileaks Follow us on Twitter Twitter this Follow us on Facebook courage is contagious The Global Intelligence Files On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. 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Re: S-weekly for Comment - Placing the Anonymous vs. Zeta conflict in context Email-ID 167090 Date 2011-11-01 23:42:42 From [e-mail] To [e-mail] List-Name [e-mail] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: "Sean Noonan" To: "Analyst List" Sent: Tuesday, November 1, 2011 4:45:43 PM Subject: Re: S-weekly for Comment - Placing the Anonymous vs. Zeta conflict in context On 11/1/11 1:11 PM, scott stewart wrote: Placing the Anonymous vs. Zeta Conflict in Context On Oct. 31, the online activist collective Anonymous posted a message to the internet in which it stated that it was continuing with its campaign against the Mexican criminal cartels and their governmentsupporters despite the inherent danger. The messageurged inexperienced activists who might not be practicing proper online security measures to abstain from participating. It also urged individuals associated with Anonymous to not conduct physical pamphlet drops, participate in protests, wear or purchase Guy Fawkes masks, or use Guy Fawkes imagery in their internet or physical world activities.[Is this universally or just in Mexico? The former points to problems with LE cracking down on them, the latter specifically to cartel retribution] Guy Fawkes was British Catholic conspirator who was involved in a plot to bomb the British Parliament in 1605, and who has become somewhat of an Anarchist icon in the United Kingdom. The British celebrate Guy Fawkes Day each year on Nov. 5, and the day has special meaning for the anarchists. It is not coincidental then, that in their Oct. 6 video, Anonymous set Nov. 5 as the deadline for Los Zetas to release the Anonymous associate who was allegedly kidnapped in Veracruz by Los Zetas. The Anonymous associate was reportedly abducted during an Anonymous leaflet campaign called Operation Paperstorm. The Oct. 31message acknowledged that the operation against Los Zetas, dubbed a**# OpCartela** is dangerous and noted that the collective would be assembling a hand-picked group of known and trusted associates to participate in a special task force to execute the operation.[hahahaha, this says something about leadership] It asked supporters to use a software widget[WC. is this the correct term?] they had developed in order to anonymously pass information pertaining to drug trafficking to the task force, which will then distribute it. With Nov. 5, approaching, and at least some elements of Anonymous not backing down on their threats to Los Zetas, we thought it would be useful to provide some context to the present conflict between Anonymous and Los Zetas and to also address some of its potential implications. Context First it issignificant to understand that the physical? geographic? epicenter of this event is Veracruz, which has been a very busy place over the past few months in terms of Mexicoa**s cartel wars. The port city also serves as a critical transportation hub for the narcotics smuggling activities of the Los Zetas cartel. Because of this, Stratfor has identified Veracruz as [link http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20111024-mexican-drug-war-update-polarization-continues ] a bellweather city thatwill help determine the trajectory of the Los Zetas cartel in the coming months. One of the big recent developments in Veracruz was the Sinaloa cartela**s push into the Zeta stronghold using the [link http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110928-mexico-security-memo-zetas-defensive-veracruz ] Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG), which using the name Matazetas (Zeta killers) conducted some high-profile body dumps of over 50 alleged low-level Zeta operatives on Sept. 20 and 22. On Oct. 25, Mexican Marines arrested Carlos Arturo Pitalua-Carillo, a**El Bam Bam,a** who was Los Zetas plaza boss in Veracruz. This means that in Veracruz at the present time, Los Zetas are feeling pressure from both the Government of Mexico and the CJNG. Into this dynamic flow, we had the Anonymous internet collective begin to take action in Veracruz in August. In response to what Anonymous saw as the state of Veracruz supporting the Los Zetas cartel, they launched Operation Paperstorm, in which activists who associated themselves with the Anonymous collective distributed leaflets throughout Veracruz claiming the state government supports Los Zetas. They conducted major leaflet distributions on Aug. 13, 20, and 29. They also released videos to the internet on Aug. 26 and 29, condemning the State of Veracruz. (According to the Oct. 6 Anonymous video, Los Zetas allegedly kidnapped one of the activists involved in Operation Paperstorm.) Activities outside of Veracruz have also played a part in setting the stage. On Sept. 13, two people were tortured and killed and their bodies hung from a pedestrianoverpass in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas state. Signs left with the bodies signified that Los Zetas had killed the pair because they had posted information pertaining to Los Zetas on blogs that specialize in reporting on the Mexican cartels. On Sept 26, the body of Marisol Macias Casteneda was found beheaded in a park in Nuevo Laredo. Macias who worked for a local newspaper allegedly posted on cartel blogs using the nickname a**Laredo Girl.a** A message found with her body noted that she was killed by Los Zetas due to her online activities. Following the death of Laredo Girl, Anonymous claimed responsibility for a distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack conducted against the official website of the state of Veracruz. Although she was killed by Los Zetas in Nuevo Laredo Tamaulipas, Anonymous said their attack on the Veracruz state website was because of the death of Laredo Girl. [can you attempt to explain why they linked it with veracruz?] It is also important to recognize that some members of Anonymous [again I hate referring to Anonymous as one entity] was also unhappy with the State of Veracruz over the decision of the state to prosecute two individuals who had posted false kidnapping reports on Twitter on Aug. 25. The false reports alleged that a group of children had been abducted from a Veracruz school and the panic caused by the report allegedly resulted in some two dozen traffic accidents as terrified parents rushed to the school to check o n their children. The so-called a**twitter terroristsa** were initially charged with offenses that could have carried a 30-year sentence. Those involved in this campaign from Anonymous, which claims absolute freedom of speech on the internet as one of its foundational principles, took umbrage with this stiff penalty for the Twitter case a** especially because it stood in stark contrast with the impunity many cartel figures enjoy in Mexico. Following the Oct. 6 release of the video in which Anonymous threatened Los Zetas if they did not release the kidnapped anonymous activist, Stratfor began to focus on the story, and in light of the approaching Nov. 5 deadline, decided to publish an, [link http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20111028-mexicos-cartels-draw-online-activists-ire ] analysis of the topic, which was released on Oct. 28. Following the release of our analysis, the topic has received a great deal of media coverage. This publicity has generated a very interesting response from Anonymous -- one that emphasizes the fast that it is a collective of people and not an organization. As some Anonymousactivists were backing off the issue, erasing online user accounts[does this mean accounts of people in support of the attack?], suggesting that the operation against Los Zetas had been a hoax and claiming that no activist had been kidnapped, other activists suggested that the campaign should be suspended. Still other activists became more strident and determined in their posts, urging that the campaign continue. Since Anonymous is a collective, activists can pick and choose which actions they will participate in. that means in his case that those activists who want to refrain from the campaign will and those who want to participate will continue it. [i see how this paragraph fits into your analysis the way you have it written, but I think it might go better at the front. You could use the 'anonymous discussion' as a trigger, explain it's "collective" qualities and then go into the rest of the analysis. This way I feel much less bad about how we refer to 'anonymous'] This will to continue was manifested[something is off in the previous part of the sentence] on Oct. 29, the personal website of Gustavo RosarioTorres, the former attorney general of the Mexican state of Tobasco was hacked and defaced with a message from Anonymous Mexico stating that Rosario was aZeta. It was also reflected in the tone of the Oct. 31 message. Some activists associated with Anonymous clearly feel compelled to continue with the campaign due to the outpouring[WC. Did they really get an outpouring? seemed like they got a lot of criticism and also support for going against the cartels] of public support they received in the wake of the media coverage. According to the Oct 31. Video statement: (did we see specific examples of "public support" or are we just going off of the youtube statement CLAIMING that they got lots of support?) a**we received many expressions of support and solidarity as well as the voices of people crying for help. We must remember that we are on the side of the people, and we cannot let down the people, especially in critical moments like the one they currently live in.a** We therefore anticipate that some Anonymous activists will continue the campaign. We also believe that Los Zetas will respond. Revenge of the Sith (Yes Kamran, I agree with Isa that Star Wars is better than Star Trek. What's Star Trek?) The variouscartel groups in Mexico have long used the internet as a place to trumpet their triumphs on the battlefield and to taunt and even degrade their enemies. The cartels have posted videos of them torturing, executing and beheading members of opposing cartels. They also frequently monitor narco blogs and sometimeseven post on them. As demonstrated by the blogger killings in Nuevo Laredo in September, Los Zetas appear to possess at least some rudimentary capability to trace online activity to people in thephysical world. It is not known if they employ their own team of dedicated cyber experts or if they rely on sources within the Mexican government a** although the most likely answer is probably a little of both. [what about just old-fashioned human intelligence? Many people discuss blogger identities both online and offline, something they could've picked up without network-based forensics. 'My brother blogs about...' and on from there. Or by tracing the information the blogger had in the real world, and eventually getting back to the blogger] Tristan was talking about how the cartels were even kidnapping computer science students and forcing them to track anonymous down. Need to check with him on specifics though In past Anonymous actions, like the Dec. 2010 attack against Pay Pal following the Wikileaks case, governments in the U.S. and the UK have arrested numerous individuals associated with Anonymous who allegedly participated in the attack. In June 2011, Turkey arrested dozens of activists associated with Anonymousactions conducted against the Turkish government for its efforts to establish a national internet filtering system. [Need something to make a point here, maybe something like:] The reality is that there is no such thing as anonymity, on the internet or otherwise. Any action leaves some trail, whether digitial or physical. In the same way that hackers from Anonymous develop exploits to access confidential information, law enforcement agencies and even cartels could get around encryption, examine patterns of activity and investigate leads that in the end identify a real person behind a computer. Los Zetas, like the other Mexican cartels, do not take affronts lightly. Even if Anonymous is not able to provide information that will damage Los Zetas smuggling operations, the very fact that this group has decided to challenge Los Zetas publicly will result in some sort of response. The big question is: do theypossess the capability to effectively trace the organizers of the Anonymousaction against them? One problem with an entity such as Anonymous is that it is intentionally amorphous a** it is also as transnational as the internet, and it would not be surprising if many of those chosen to participate in the operation against Los Zetas are located outside of Mexico in locations such as the U.S. and Europe which are outside the immediate reach of Los Zetas.(the US is not out of reach, at least not on the border: http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20111005-mexico-security-memo-defining-cross-border-violence) But the amorphous nature of Anonymous can also cut the other way. If Los Zetas pick up and execute some random patrons from an internet cafe, behead them and place Guy Fawkesmasks on their heads, it will be very difficult to prove that they were not associated with Anonymous. As Anonymous noted in their Oct. 31 video, this is dangerous business.(it would certainly be within the cartel's capacity to kill innocents and blame anonymous in the attempt to intimidate them into stopping their activity) The Big Picture One thing to watch as the Anonymous operation continues is the way in which the Mexican public reacts. Many people in the Mexican middle and upper classes have been deeply affected by the criminal cartels and theviolence the practice. We talk to many people in Mexico who are fearful of being kidnapped. In many communities, especially places like Juarez, Torreon, Monterrey and Veracruz, businessmen are being caught in a terrible bind. On one hand, they are receiving ever-increasing extortion demands from the cartels, while at the same time their business revenues are dwindling because people are afraid to go out due to the violence associated with those same cartels. This is forcing many businessmen[enterprises?] out of business. It is also creating a great deal of frustration and resentment. At the same time, Mexico has become one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists, and many media organizations practice heavy self-censorship to protect themselves. In the wake of the September blogger killings some of the narco blogs, like Blog del Narco, have also exhibited strong signs of fear inspired self-censorship. This means that the legitimate press is not able to be of any real aid to the Mexican people. Mexican citizens are also frustrated with their government, which is well-known for corruption. This is the sentiment feeding Anonymousa** original campaign in Veracruz. This frustration has lead some people to begin to talk about vigilante groups to fight the cartels a** though that has been attempted before in Mexico and as we saw in the case of [link http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20090714_mexico_la_familia_michoacana_expands_its_attacks ] La Familia MichoacA!n, which originally began as such a vigilante group, vigilantism frequently does not end well. This is where Anonymous may fit in. With Mexican citizens unable to rely on their government, the media or even armed vigilante groups for assistance, they may embrace Anonymous and come to view its form of cyber vigilantism as an outlet for their frustration -- and a perceived safe way to pass oninformation pertaining to cartel activities. If this occurs, we may see people not just in Veracruz and other Zeta controlled areas providing information to Anonymous, but citizens from all over the country. Also, in the same way that cartels leak information togovernments in an effort to use them as weapons against their rivals, we could also very well see groups such as the Sinaloa cartel provide information on Los Zetas to Anonymous. This of course would provide even more reason for Los Zetas to strike out against the activist collective. If the Anonymous information campaign does indeed take off, and if Anonymous is attacked by Los Zetas, the activists could resort to releasing sensitive information to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in an attempt to damage Los Zetas. This would be an incredible irony in light of the way Anonymous has viewed itself as an opponent of the U.S. government in cases like Wikileaks. (Anonymous has made it clear that the value they provide is a safe and private medium through which to pass this damning information. Their stated priority is to publicize information that people send to them. But, do they have a way to protect their sources? They likely don't have much collective experience in source handling. I imagine a lot of the details they get could put their sources in serious trouble. If I were a semi-smart Mexican who knew some super detailed information on the cartels, I would think long and hard before handing it over to these guys. This may be a separate piece entirely, but I think we need a discussion on source handling and how good hackers don't necessarily make good intelligence agents.) -- Sean Noonan Tactical Analyst STRATFOR T: [phone] A| M: [phone] www.STRATFOR.com