Anonymous has once again denied allegations of involvement in the attack against the PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment, saying that credit card theft runs directly against its principles and goals.
All eyes turned to Anonymous when news of the PlayStation Network “outage” first got out, a natural reaction given that the group had launched and then halted an attack against the company in early April in response to its lawsuit against PlayStation 3 hacker George Hotz. Anonymous denied the charge, saying that “for once, we didn’t do it,” but Sony raised the question of its involvement again on May 4 when it claimed that its investigation had discovered a file created in the attack titled “Anonymous” which read, “We are Legion,” a line from the group’s infamous slogan.
That allegation has led to a fresh denial of involvement from Anonymous, which said in a press release that while it has never been known to engage in credit card theft, “many of our corporate and government adversaries… have been known to have lied to the public about Anonymous and about their own activities.” It also pointed out that stealing credit cards runs contrary to the group’s “modus operandi” and desire for public support, which is what led it to end its attack on Sony in the first place. “We are trying to fight criminal activities by corporations and governments, not steal credit cards,” the group said.
“If a legitimate and honest investigation into the credit card [theft] is conducted, Anonymous will not be found liable,” it added. “While we are a distributed and decentralized group, our ‘leadership’ does not condone credit card theft.”
But the ethereal nature of the group’s “membership” is precisely what makes it so difficult to determine – or deny – its involvement. Simply put, Anonymous is open to any who claim it, which makes it difficult, if not outright impossible, for any kind of centralized leadership to claim that it wasn’t involved. Denial requires definition, which is an effectively impossible task; so while Anonymous may not have been involved, it’s still quite possible that Anonymous was, well, involved.
Source: Guardian.co.uk
