Greetings from Anonymous

The Hackivist group Anonymous has been in the news lately -- accused of slowing and disabling various sites like Mastercard and Visa for their actions against WikiLeaks.

In addition, they were recently successful in attacking an Internet security firm, HBGary when one of HBGary's operatives, one Aaron Barr, decided it would be in his interest to piss Anonymous off.  That turned out to be a serious mistake.

Ars Technica has several good articles explaining how it went down -- I refer you to them:

How one man tracked down Anonymous—and paid a heavy price

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/how-one-security-firm-tracked-anonymousand-paid-a-heavy-price.ars

Anonymous speaks: the inside story of the HBGary hack

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/anonymous-speaks-the-inside-story-of-the-hbgary-hack.ars/

What really pleased me however was their most recent event, and hence the purpose of this post.

Apparently, the Westboro Baptist "church" (WBC - the God Hates Fags nutjobs) made up a story about how Anonymous had sent them a letter warning that they would be attacked.

Anonymous has denied sending any such letter.

Of course WBC then immediately came out with a press release stating "Bring it On".  I guess WBC was running low on publicity. 

Apparently Anonymous was not amused and decided to "Bring it on".

As of this date/time, their websites are down.  Before they went down, someone managed to grab a screen shot of the home page on downloads.westborobaptistchurch.com (not direct linking here because they suck and I do not want to drive traffic to hater sites).

But here is a screenshot taken before it went offline:

Click on the pic for a larger readable version

I love the delicious cake.  Priceless :)

 

The Price of Hate has it's own blog now

I've moved these stories over to a new blog, dedicated soley to the purpose of listing the dead kids the religious haters have killed.

Rather than continue to list them here, the new blog is called The Price of Hate and can be found here:  http://thepriceofhate.blogspot.com/

The Price of Hate 3

Meet Asher Brown.  Asher was 13 when he shot himself with his fathers gun in his home on September 27th, 2010. 

From the story:

He shot himself in the head after enduring what his mother and stepfather say was constant harassment from four other students at Hamilton Middle School in the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District.

Brown, his family said, was "bullied to death" — picked on for his small size, his religion and because he did not wear designer clothes and shoes. Kids also accused him of being gay, some of them performing mock gay acts on him in his physical education class, his mother and stepfather said.

The 13-year-old's parents said they had complained about the bullying to Hamilton Middle School officials during the past 18 months, but claimed their concerns fell on deaf ears. 

David and Amy Truong said they made several visits to the school to complain about the harassment, and Amy Truong said she made numerous phone calls to the school that were never returned.

...

On the morning of his death, the teen told his stepfather he was gay, but Truong said he was fine with the disclosure. "We didn't condemn," he said.

His parents said Brown had been called names and endured harassment from other students since he joined Cy-Fair ISD two years ago. As a result, he stuck with a small group of friends who suffered similar harassment from other students, his parents said.

His most recent humiliation occurred the day before his suicide, when another student tripped Brown as he walked down a flight of stairs at the school, his parents said.

When Brown hit the stairway landing and went to retrieve his book bag, the other student kicked his books everywhere and kicked Brown down the remaining flight of stairs, the Truongs said.

Durham said that incident was investigated, but turned up no witnesses or video footage to corroborate the couple's claims.

Read the story here.   

Another interesting analysis on this and on other teen suicides an be read here. 

RELATED:

The Price of Hate 1
The Price of Hate 2

Confessions of a Gay Soldier

With the DADT issue heating up both in the courts and in the senate this week, I was pointed to this article in the New Republic written by a current active duty soldier.   A quote from the article:

Right now, I feel as if I’m in a state of limbo. Normally people who are personally and professionally affected by a law have a right to stand against it publicly—to speak out, to petition government, to organize and try to influence political decision-makers. But DADT is the one policy that prevents the affected from lobbying openly against it. It mandates my silence.

That's just wrong.

Read the article.  Then call your senators and urge them to support repeal of  DADT.

You can call the US Capitol Switchboard at (202)224-3121 and they can connect you with your Senator's office.

UPDATE 9/20/2010


The New York Times has put up a series of 7 letters from current active and inactive military service members regarding DADT.  Worth the read.  
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/gay-service-members-discuss-dont-ask-dont-tell/?src=twt&twt=nytimes

The Price of Hate 2

Via Joe.My.God

Meet Billy Lucas.  Billy was 15 years old and attended Greensburg High School in Indiana, when he hung himself in his family's barn Thursday, Sept 2, 2010.

From the article:

"He was a teenager who didn't quite fit in. His classmates said Billy Lucas was bullied for being different.

The 15-year-old never told anyone he was gay but students at Greensburg High School thought he was and so they picked on him.

"People would call him 'fag' and stuff like that, just make fun of him because he's different basically," said student Dillen Swango"

 Read the story here.  A memorial facebook page can be found here.

Meet Justin Aaberg.  Justin was 15 years old when he hung himself in his bedroom last July.

From the story:

"Behind that big smile and lots of friends was a shy, loyal 15-year-old boy who loved to play the cello. Justin Aaberg came out as gay when he was 13 and, as his mom found out only after he hanged himself, suffered tremendously inside.

...

In the weeks since she found her son dead in his room on July 9, Tammy Aaberg has heard from many of her son's friends at Anoka High School. They told her Justin Aaberg had been bullied and had recently broken up with his boyfriend.

...

Those same students also opened up about their own experiences, telling her they feel harassed and unsafe as gay and lesbian students.

"These kids, they just hate themselves. They literally feel like they want to die. So many kids are telling me this," said Tammy Aaberg, fighting tears."

Read the story here.


RELATED:

The Price of Hate 1