25 Alleged Anonymous Hackers Arrested By Interpol 256
PatPending sends this quote from an AFP report:
"Interpol has arrested 25 suspected members of the Anonymous hackers group in a swoop covering more than a dozen cities in Europe and Latin America, the global police body said Tuesday. Operation Unmask was launched in mid-February following a series of coordinated cyber-attacks originating from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain,' Interpol said. The statement cited attacks on the websites of the Colombian Ministry of Defense and the presidency, as well as on Chile's Endesa electricity company and its National Library, among others. The operation was carried out by police from Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Spain, the statement said, with 250 items of computer equipment and cell phones seized in raids on 40 premises in 15 cities. Police also seized credit cards and cash from the suspects, aged 17 to 40."
Fail (Score:5, Interesting)
What does credit cards and cash have to do with DoS and Anonymous?!
Do they really think that Anonymous pays people for performing attacks or what? - They seriously need to look up what Anonymous is.
Re:Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
- Because it's easier to take the lot at arrest and work out later what is actually relivant rather than get that done beforehand.
- Intimidation value. The most miserable the suspect, and the more their life is ruined, the more other potential offenders will fear the police.
- Profit! Much of the equipment is never returned even if the suspect is later found innocent, or even released without charge, and eventually gets sold at police auction.
Re:Fail (Score:5, Interesting)
It's standard procedure in policing to sieze anything and everything for which even the slightest excuse exists. There are three reasons:
- Because it's easier to take the lot at arrest and work out later what is actually relivant rather than get that done beforehand.
- Intimidation value. The most miserable the suspect, and the more their life is ruined, the more other potential offenders will fear the police.
- Profit! Much of the equipment is never returned even if the suspect is later found innocent, or even released without charge, and eventually gets sold at police auction.
this is especially true in countries not so well off. like all the countries mentioned.
also the intimidation value is for the suspect in the case.. so that he'll fess up and confess. because the chances are the cops questioning the suspects have no fucking idea what they're trying to get the guy to confess to!
Re:Fail (Score:4, Interesting)
Anon/lolsec made it much easier for the police to do this by bragging that they engaged in credit card fraud(used stolen card numbers for charitable donations).
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How hard would it be to hide a USB storage device in a joystick, in the hope that the police will think "This is just a joystick, we don't need to take it"?
Re:Fail (Score:5, Insightful)
If I was trying to hide a USB storage device, I wouldn't hide it in a joystick, or in anything else you could connect to a computer.
Actually, I wouldn't even hide it in a USB stick. I'd copy the data to a MicroSD card, and put it somewhere hard to find, like taped to the back of a painting, or taped to the underside of a drawer in the kitchen. Some kitchen knives have removable handles so you can clean them, and there's usually plenty of space in one of those to hide a MicroSD card.
That being said, I have no reason to bother with any of that. I'm not involved in anything criminal, and have other ways to secure stuff like my banking data. (incognito window, on a computer that doesn't have Flash installed?). I don't really care if the police find a copy of my monthly budget or my professional resume, as it's all information they could find quite easily by either googling me, or subpoenaing my bank records.
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Thanks you for bringing this to our attention. We will now make a detailed search of the cyber criminal's knives.
Further, can you expand on your feelings regarding knives and banking data? Do you feel your banking data is really a weapon? How does having your financial data inside a knife make you feel? Do you have violent feeling towards banks and people who work at banks? Perhaps you would like to chat with my coworkers about these feelings. I'll have them drop
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The problem with all of this is that it's a hassle to keep that data updated.
For most of us, the most valuable data we have - our personal records, source code, etc. - is constantly changing.
If anyone here knows of a small, battery-powered, wireless (i.e. WLAN) device that can be used as a hidden data container, please post a link and I'll very likely buy one today. My personal threat model is more burglars than police, but from a risk perspective there's little difference between the two.
Yes, I know off-si
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SAY IT WITH YOUR CHEST
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Well you'd know about being locked up being stuck down in your parents basement all day long.
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What does credit cards and cash have to do with DoS and Anonymous?!
Do they really think that Anonymous pays people for performing attacks or what? - They seriously need to look up what Anonymous is.
i know what you mean but it happens here in Scotland and, i suppose, in England,Wales and Northern Ireland and in the US too!
the credit card, bank details and,in Scotland, items of value bought within the last twelve years. If it is proven that you are guilty then the resultant items can be sold as "proceeds of crime".
i would however contest that there were no "proceeds of crime" in these cases as it wasn't some tax evasion, drug dealing, gun running or other profitable criminal activity
it may however b
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NIT GUILTY.. the fleas did it sir!"
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Because there's usually a financial angle to fraud networks. They probably suspect them of using computers for.more than vandalism.
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What does credit cards and cash have to do with DoS and Anonymous?!
I have no idea.
Also, shouldn't they be called El Anonimoto (or something), since this group only seems to be limiting itself to Spanish-speaking countries and Spanish-related current events?
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What does credit cards and cash have to do with DoS and Anonymous?!
What does DoS and Anonymous have to do with the arrests? Anonymous is not an illegal organisation.
These people were not arrested because they are allegedly members of Anonymous (membership in this case being a vague concept), but because they were allegedly involved in crime involving computers and communications. Therefore it is not unreasonable to investigate whether they were involved in computer crime involving bank account, cash and credit cards. The police would be foolish not to take what may
It won't help. (Score:3, Interesting)
Legio mihi nomen est, quia multi sumus.
Re:It won't help. (Score:5, Funny)
Those Latins, they knew a thing or two.
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Jesus is God (Score:2)
So you are
They're defeated now! (Score:5, Funny)
Surely they've been completely defeated. What a good use of time and resources.
Anonymous is a national security threat.
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Surely they've been completely defeated. What a good use of time and resources.
Anonymous is a national security threat.
Well, that really depends. Most of Anonyomous, according to your various news sources, consists of script kiddies willing to "bot" their PC out to a couple folks with actual hacking expertise. Despite the "we're all equal, there are no leaders here" mantra, it appears that these efforts are coordinated from a reasonable discrete number of sources.
If they've got those sources, then the capabilities of Anonymous will indeed go down.
As for them being a national security threat, no more so than your average van
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Obviously the coordinators need some IT security (breaching) experience. There is likely quite a few more than 25 of those however.
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As for them being a national security threat, no more so than your average vandal or thief - but we toss them in jail, too.
It all depends on how much effort and resources we're putting into it. Spending billions of taxpayer dollars to catch jaywalkers would be a complete waste of time.
Of course, I don't think this situation is as bad as it is with piracy (so much time, effort, and draconian laws over people copying data).
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Those ad-hoc leaders are transient though, so they'll have to lock up every skilled hacker in existence to take down Anonymous.
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When the risk of participating becomes too high, most members will abandon Anonymous.
Re:They're defeated now! (Score:4, Insightful)
Anonymous is more like a publishing and public rage outlet. There's hardly a member card required for it either, if I went to some random secret document repository, tossed everything in a photocopyer, escaped and then published it as "Anonymous", all on my own, it's quite unlikely that someone would pop up to claim "Oh he's not Anonymous, we are!".
The standard meaning of the word still applies even though there's a lot of internet and 4chan memes associated to it also nowdays.
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Which is why I capitalized it to mean the group and not the adjective, yet many are still keen to misunderstand it, preventing meaningful conversation.
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Seeing how both membership and identity of the group Anonymous is defined through the concept of anonymity, it is probably impossible to meaningfully separate them.
Re:They're defeated now! (Score:5, Insightful)
Anonymous is a national security threat.
They are, but not in the way you or I would think.
Are they a threat in the sense of "getting control of nuclear missiles by whistling over Skype?" Absolutely not.
Are they a threat in the sense of making our government look as corrupt and incompetent as it really is? Absolutely, and that's why Interpol and the like are so hardcore about stopping them.
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Are they a threat in the sense of "getting control of nuclear missiles by whistling over Skype?" Absolutely not.
Oh don't be so sure, mister president...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fnd0qg4I_MM#t=113s [youtube.com]
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Also, it's easier to capture a bunch of script kiddie front line 'cyber-solders' (I doubt they caught anyone of significance but maybe, who knows) than to stop the real threats like those coming from certain other countries that have organized crime funded teams or who have no boundary between commercial and government applications and thus use military tech to industrially invade the rest of the world.
The real problem, of course, being that the western agencies are neither competent enough to go after the
Sad for the naive (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Sad for the naive (Score:4)
No, it's not "slightly sad". It's seriously disgusting that anyone claiming to be technically literate at all about the internet doesn't understand how easy it is to be traced by three-letter agencies who have the connections and resources.
The people who got caught were egotistical fools, not "elite hackers."
Hell, they aren't even "hackers" or "crackers" -- the vast majority of them are uneducated script kiddies and fools turning their machines over as bots to be run by someone else.
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What's really disgusting are not the misguided kids but the core that promised them anonymity, while knowing very well that it was a lie which have landed many of their members in jail.
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It's very likely that they're introverted egotists. They feed their own ego to their own ends. They get the satisfaction from seeing what they do in the news even if their actual identity isn't attached to it.
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There was a biology professor on the radio the other day, saying that in 15-20 years time it will be possible to buy and assemble all the equimpent and knowledge necessary to build a 100% fatal, 100% transmissible pathogen. Mail-order genetic engineering is already available, all we need are the recipes, and then any whacko can end the human race. So, enjoy it while it lasts, we're in the end-game now. Maybe. Or, maybe that guy on the radio was just being a little bit melodramatic.
Missed the point (Score:2)
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They weren't anonymous any more, but they were still Anonymous. You capitalise it, it becomes a proper noun.
That explains (Score:3)
hah (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is that Anonymous is really just an idea. and as we all know, you can't just arrest an idea and throw it in jail.
Yeah. Next, let's arrest a revolution, or a book and other stuff like that. Congrats for wasting taxpayers money!
All crimes are ideas too (Score:3, Insightful)
Or perhaps you thought kidnap, extortion etc were instinctive? Perhaps in your utopia we shouldn't arrest any criminals because you can't destroy their ideas?
Grow up.
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You can't arrest the idea of driving too fast either. The arrests are for deterrence.
Hoe is it that slashdot is populated with so many people who think messing with somebody else's computer is acceptable and shouldn't be a crime?
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They're not arresting an idea. They're arresting a bunch of script-kiddies who broke the law.
Interpol never arrests anybody (Score:5, Informative)
While it would be cool if they were an international police force arresting cybercriminals, Interpol is really just an organisation for information exchange between national police forces. The arrests were made by the ordinary police in the respective countries and according to local laws.
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I just logged on to say exactly that. Claiming that Interpol arrested anyone is like claiming that the local police administrative clerk who happened to send/receive cooperation requests from/to any other police force is the one responsible for doing any of the arrests.
So, the question which must be asked is who exactly is behind these arrest warrants? And why did anyone tried to pass the idea that there is an international police body with global jurisdiction that is dedicated to attacking this elusive a
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And why did anyone tried to pass the idea that there is an international police body with global jurisdiction that is dedicated to attacking this elusive anonymous group?
Promoting the idea - or in this case fear - that there is an international anti-crime bogeyman who can come get you across borders? I guess it's the same as many other "for the good of the people" campaigns: If we help just one kid say "No" to Anonymous then it was worth it.
Fear of getting caught, and/or being punished, is a major deterrent to committing most types of crime. The more Anonymous related arrests the authorities claim to make the greater the deterrent to those who haven't decided to participa
They should have waited ..... (Score:5, Funny)
good riddance (Score:2, Insightful)
filthy nosepicking miscreants
probably just random people running HOIC (Score:2)
or compromised PCs running HOIC. I would be surprised if the bagged anyone of importance but they sure make it sound good.
kids visit prison (Score:2)
The video is in German, but one can get the sense of it. Kids visit real prison, real cells, eat with real inmates. After that the romanticism of a crime diminishes significantly.
Crime is not a game. The law is slow, sometimes very slow, but it will get one sooner or later anyway.
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What corruption could be in a library? The librarians are saint people, neither rich, nor corrupted.
If there is a corruption in the world, one still cannot attack anyone at will. Otherwise there will be a total chaos. That is why there is this mechanism in existence: the law. It is not perfect, but how otherwise to protect libraries and the likes?
So... (Score:2)
...is Interpol's website down yet?
waiting... (Score:2)
...for the next Anonymous statement.
Seriously, someone said it very well recently: He thinks Anonymous is a small group of really capable people, surrounded by lots of wanna-be-hackers and teenagers wanting to be cool, basically the script kiddies of today.
My guess is they've arrested a couple of the later. There are lots more where they came from, and we've been doing this dance with the police ever since the first (floppy-disc) copying parties.
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Seriously, someone said it very well recently: He thinks Anonymous is a small group of really capable people, surrounded by lots of wanna-be-hackers and teenagers wanting to be cool, basically the script kiddies of today.
My guess is they've arrested a couple of the later. There are lots more where they came from, and we've been doing this dance with the police ever since the first (floppy-disc) copying parties.
People on slashdot will hate me for this comparison, but in effect Anonymous' structure is exactly that of your standard terrorist organization. Now, before anyone goes off on me, hear me out. In both cases you have a small, central core of motivated (ideology, power, ego, etc), persuasive leadership surrounded by a large, willing, ideologically motivated cadre and an even larger support base from which to recruit new cadre and derive support (PR, public opinion, money, etc). The leadership may identify
No True Scotsman (Score:2)
They weren't Anonymous!
It's obvious - if they were, they wouldn't have been arrested. You can't find someone who is actually anonymous! Duh.
Just how stupid are reporters these days?
declaring war on an abstraction... (Score:3)
Re:Interpol (Score:5, Informative)
What asshole modded this down? (Score:2, Informative)
Looks like he answered the question well to me.
Re:Interpol (Score:4, Insightful)
Except, of course, the headline states: "Interpol Arrests 25 Suspected Anonymous Hackers"
I know that headlines need to be short, to the point etc, but they could have rephrased it with "Interpol has 25 Suspected Anonymous Hackers Arrested", and it would be accurate.
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"Interpol differs from most law-enforcement agencies -- agents do not make arrests themselves, and there is no single Interpol jail where criminals are taken. The agency functions as an administrative liaison between the law-enforcement agencies of the member countries, providing communications and database assistance."
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Yes, I too have RTFA, and I know they explain things in there.
The problem is that it's the headlines that get republished and read everywhere, thus reiterating the fallacy that Interpol makes arrests. /. story is just one example of how people rewrite the heading and get the wrong idea.
This
Re:Interpol (Score:5, Insightful)
Let us further put this in perspective.
Interpol finds 25 drones,who, while a microscopic part of a greater good, were too dumb to cover their tracks. Interpol pats itself on the back for generating headlines cheaply through ineffective, but showy action.
We should also consider that Anonymous exists for the purpose of Meta-vigilance in a world of unwatched watchmen and corrupt governments. Participants who stray to unofficial actions like " C.C.Fraud" have no business claiming the Anonymous banner as theirs.(obviously not too anonymous if they got caught, duh)
Let's call a spade, a spade and a club, a club.
Re:Interpol (Score:5, Insightful)
Hardly. Interpol helps arrest 25 drones who participate in semi-organized cyber-guerrilla warfare against political targets. The idea that Anonymous is serving the "greater good" is not implied by their targets or by their results. Anonymous is not _coherent_ enough to have a well defined purpose. They consistently mistake what is effectively electronic graffiti for meaningful protest, and fail to convey or enunciate what they actually want. Anonymous may well have a few technically competent core hackers, but they rely heavily on their much larger community of script kiddies and poorly skilled hangers on to form the necessary crowds.
Like the fools at political rallies who throw bottles at police and overturn cars, they actively _discredit_ the political causes they occasionally espouse. They encourage police and voters to think of the genuine political movements as similar vandals. And they're not _competent_ enough to be genuine threats to those they claim to battle: they've demonstrated that again and again. If they were competent enough to actually raid corporate email or financial records and get them to Wikileaks, then I'd take them far more seriously.
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Like the fools at political rallies who throw bottles at police and overturn cars, they actively _discredit_ the political causes they occasionally espouse.
Life rarely is that simple.
They have also given a face (literally) to the protest that could not express itself so far, because it is general unhappiness with a lot of things that are going wrong. And the only people who have been doing that kind of protest so far were the punks and anarchists that most people, even young adults, don't want to be associated with.
Anonymous gives this a much cooler and more respectable image. Yes, I said "respectable" there - look at the surface. Compare the character from V
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>If they were competent enough to actually raid corporate email or financial records and get them to Wikileaks, then I'd take them far more seriously.
You HAVE heard of Stratfor, haven't you ;P ?
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Interpol finds 25 drones,who, while a microscopic part of a greater good, were too dumb to cover their tracks. Interpol pats itself on the back for generating headlines cheaply through ineffective, but showy action.
I expect most countries have laws at this stage to cover denial of service attacks and if they were part of it they can be done for it. Whether they were ringleaders or pawns they are still alleged to have participated in organised attacks. If their machines show evidence of participation (e.g. LOIC tools or whatever), or they confess then you can bet they'll have the book thrown at them.
Perhaps it might even dissuade other people from participating in future attacks. It amazes me that anyone is stupid en
Re:Interpol (Score:5, Insightful)
Let us further put this in perspective. Interpol finds 25 drones,who, while a microscopic part of a greater good, were too dumb to cover their tracks. Interpol pats itself on the back for generating headlines cheaply through ineffective, but showy action.
Oh, of course. Kind of like
FBI arrests Homegrown Terrorist who tentatively decided to blow stuff up because the FBI contacted him, convinced him it was a good idea, provided him with fake explosives, and came up with the plan.
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Stratfor Wikileaks Hack Paybaaack (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wrong wording. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wording is what society makes it. Sorry hacking is now associated as much with the latter definition as the former and posting that is not going to change anything.
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Damn Angelina Jolie for showing her tits and making that lame movie memorable!
Re:Wrong wording. (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Wrong wording. (Score:5, Funny)
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You met Chris Rock on the subway?
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Words do this thing where they change meaning through regular use.
It's interesting, if you're a language nerd, you're obviously not one.
Re:Wrong wording. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wrong wording. (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing is, it's not your language, my language, or any other one person's language. English is constantly evolving, and insisting on using outdated definitions of words limits your potential audience. In order to efficiently convey ideas, it's important to use words that everyone understands; this is the information age, and scientific, political, and social debate isn't limited to the elite anymore.
u nggaz shd bettr be rdy4 txt msg spk in ur books
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u nggaz shd bettr be rdy4 txt msg spk in ur books
Thank you for a concise, graphic example of what awaits us at the bottom of a slippery slope. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why we need to maintain high standards.
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And a sperg (an offensive diminutive for "aspergers") is someone who cares way too much about minutiae that nobody else cares about. Hackers are people breaking into computer systems. It's what everyone calls them, it's how everyone understands the word.
Language evolves. Get over it.
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I thought a cracker is a white southern gentleman who is fond of using the whip on his African servants. Or is it a thin salted biscuit? In any case, it sure isn't a person who is trying to break into computer systems. Modifying source code to change and improve it? Isn't that just tinkering ("tinkerer"?), or more colloquially, "fucking around"? So maybe "fuckarounder" is more appropriate. On second thought, "hacker" might be a good alternative since it's not already populated with a bunch of other definiti
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Maybe they should do what the smart criminals are doing? Remember, "we hang the petty thieves, and appoint the murderers to high office" -- that's not just still true, that's even more true than ever before. So just become too big to fail or something, and instead of going to jail you'll get the big moneys.
At any rate, you simply gotta plunder from the poor and helpless and you'll be fine. And when you get "found out", you just grin and play for time.
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We are all going to a pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Why are USians so obsessed with gay rape? I never hear that kind of thing in British discourse.
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"Why are USians so obsessed with gay rape? I never hear that kind of thing in British discourse."
Because homosexual rape is routine practice in US prisons. Approximately 40% of males sent to a US prison will either rape or be raped before release. Americans who think it is a joke do so because they never think that they might one day go to prison, they don't care about what happens to prisoners, and they don't think through that allowing that culture to exist in prisons will mean the same rape culture is br
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We are all going to a pound-me-in-the-ass prison.
Why are USians so obsessed with gay rape? I never hear that kind of thing in British discourse.
It is both a reference to the movie Office Space and as slang to differentiate between county/city jail ('easy time") where you have low-level convicts such as DUI, B&E, etc and state/federal prisons where you are more likely to find gang members, murderers, rapists, etc. Time there is usually much harder, with inmate on inmate violence very likely, coupled with long-term sentences where sexual offenses against inmates become more likely, either as power plays or simply due to lack of options. There a
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I've not seen Office Space, but I've seen the other two, and they're just examples of the same thing. I don't think that Shawshank started it.
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Beause Britain has slightly more civilized prisons, and because Office Space was a popular movie in the slashdot demographic.
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Ha! I walked right into that one, didn't I?
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when it comes to this sort of thing, yet financial terrorists are allowed to roam and loot without the slightest problem.
The people you call financial terrorists are only 100x as smart and they don't make the mistake of taunting law enforcement and government.
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"Then you have the example above, where popular TV show (in Canada at least) skewers the whole movement. I dunno, maybe down the road it'll be remembered as the first internet counter-culture; something wicked cool that a bunch of kids born in the 1990s were a part of."
*facepalm*
I'm afraid generations in the decades before you beat you to it.
Whilst I'm happy to see it return to the internet, the culture of which you speak was thriving in the 80s and 90s. Look up the Chaos Computer Club, Cult of the Dead Cow