This site may earn affiliate commissions from the links on this folio. Terms of employ.

While Americans gear up for nonetheless another gargantuan presidential ballot wheel, their friends to the Northward have been dealing with an odd situation involving Anonymous, erstwhile and current federal politicians, and a whole lot of wild speculation. It touches on problems in police force violence, data security, journalistic ethics, and the ability of the cyberspace to make even the tragic cease of a human life into a protracted ideological slap-fight.

It all started a few weeks ago in the North of the Western-most Canadian province, British Columbia, about the proposed site of a hydroelectric dam project referred to simply as Site C. For various reasons, this dam has become a hot-push provincial political consequence, sort of a Canadian Bridge to Nowhere, merely tied up with local environmental and Get-go Nations issues. Anonymous members eventually staged (or perhaps simply attended) a pocket-sized demonstration in that location, which led to some sort of disturbance, the specifics of which are still fuzzy. What we know for sure is this: exterior the demonstration, a man named James McIntyre, wearing an Anonymous mask and brandishing a knife, was shot to death by police force. A video released shortly after showed constabulary standing the standoff with the homo as he lay wounded on the pavement.

The post-obit was retweeted as the last message from McIntyre'southward causeless twitter account, dated the day of the shooting.

A still from a video of the aftermath of the shooting.

A all the same from a video of the aftermath of the shooting.

As you might imagine, this all didn't sit well with Bearding. There were the requisite statements of outrage and threats to not forget (e'er), and some DDoS attacks again the Dawson police and RCMP websites, merely within days the move had mutated into a project headed past the Twitter account OpAnonDown. This account claimed that Anonymous members accept perpetrated a massive hack against the Canadian government, and fabricated a wide array of remarkable claims most what it had plant in the documents it had obtained. An inquiry into the shooting is already ongoing within Canada, but this splinter of Anonymous demanded arrests of the officers involved, or it would release devastating secrets about members of the electric current government.

To prove that the infiltration really occurred, OpAnonDown released a single classified document, which the government has confirmed is 18-carat. Information technology speaks of a need for major upgrades to the computer infrastructure at CSIS (the Canadian Security Intelligence Service) stations around the earth. The certificate mentions the existence of 25 CSIS stations, a much higher number than previously confirmed, and that some of these stations are in developing countries.

This document lent some real gravity to the otherwise outrageous claims beingness made about the contents of these alleged stolen documents. Federal ministers secretly forced out of politics for attending underage strip clubs around the world? The Canadian signals intelligence agency, the CSE, caught spying on the NSA? Obama threatening to tank a major international oil pipeline in retaliation? Information technology all seemed a bit much, but the CSIS document seemed to indicate that there might be a grain of truth to such claims, even if greatly exaggerated for effect. Though major media outlets have (correctly) not reprinted whatever specific allegations without documents to support them, they take been roofing the leaked CSIS document and the threats of continuing leaks.

In all this, the inherent applesauce of the state of affairs is ofttimes lost.

Firstly, deadlines for the authorities to arrest the cops involved in the shooting have come and gone without the release of any neat dump of documents. The original borderline was supposed to be July 27, but we got only the above-mentions CSIS document, which says cypher nearly cabinet ministers, or incorrect-doing of any kind. When asked when the real stuff was going to driblet, the answer was, as always, vague.

It's important to realize that these demands are admittedly never going to be met. The regime cannot and volition not step in to interfere in an ongoing legal investigation, let lonely dictate that the officers be arrested. If the hack claims are truthful, private threats might accept quietly changed the nature of the investigation through subtle abuse — just given the scrutiny that Bearding itself has created, this shooting investigation is one of the well-nigh untouchable in the unabridged country. I don't believe that OpAnonDown has ever believed that these demands will generate whatever success at all.

Prime Minister Harper, genuinely attempting his most friendly and approachable face.

Prime number Minister Harper, genuinely attempting his most friendly and outgoing face.

The other result is that Anonymous would never sit on the sorts of secrets it claims to have. The hacktivist group is a sworn enemy of the current Conservative government — if it really has these docs and messages, then information technology could end several major political careers and possibly put quite a few people backside bars. It seems unthinkable that Bearding members wouldn't release that sort of info immediately. In particular, with a Canadian election coming up in but ii months, the passionately anti-Conservative hackers would never agree back on this sort of exposé.

Some of the claims are oddly off-base in the specifics, like that the group has "decrypted" incriminating text messages from a former cabinet minister. The OpAnonDown account has also been berating major Canadian journalists for refusing to cover the state of affairs, or roofing it without a positive enough editorial bent. If a real leak was actually coming, the group would be much more confident in its ability to generate involvement in the mainstream media, when the time comes.

It's also possible that this is all just a ploy to bring attending to the eventual release, that Anonymous simply wants to go through the motions of a dramatic game of chicken. If the documents do exist, Anonymous may never have entertained the possibility of non releasing them.

ccleaks 3My theory, though, is that we are seeing the opportunistic release of documents Anonymous has had for some time. Every bit mentioned, this isn't the commencement run-in between Guy Fawkes and the Canadian security institution, and Canada has suffered several prior information breaches of unknown size and scope. Information technology'southward bodacious that Anonymous has some documents from the past breaches that weren't deemed good enough, or perhaps too security-central, for release. It's very possible that the supposed proof-of-hack CSIS document is really a left-over from ane of these earlier infiltrations.

Apart from the mentioned CSIS document, Operation Betimes Down has thus-far consisted mostly of retweeting Anon-friendly news and going dorsum over sometime, leaked Canadian info. A big office of the campaign seems to be encouraging people with access to classified documents to ship them to Wikileaks or a major Canadian newspaper.

Real issues surrounding police procedures are getting buried beneath this entrada's inherent stupidity. Anonymous members are unremarkably savvy plenty to inquire for things like the launch of an investigation, or an increase in transparency — not the summary abort of those they accept decided are guilty. Information technology's a demand that's highly-seasoned to many political radicals; when I checked the Twitter account before long before submitting this commodity, I saw i activist literally calling the institution of due process a "club" used for oppression. Leaving aside the details of the shooting itself, which may very well plow out to have been criminal in nature, this is one of the more intellectually bankrupt initiatives in Anonymous' already checkered history.

I do, to some guilty extent, recollect of politics and world events like a trashy reality show; if zip else, the juicy Anonymous-destroys-Harper-government episode is one I would very much similar to watch someday. And certainly some of the claims, if true, demand a quick and serious legal response. Simply the reality is that this will probably come up to nada, and will achieve picayune more than drawing a bit of attention to the shooting. It may as well give a bunch of people who were already going to vote for a left-wing political party some more fuel for hating the federal Conservatives.

Truly, this is the state of the art in Canadian controversy.

[Author's note: Delight don't hurt me, oh powerful hacker gods…]