Anonymous is quite unhappy that one of their own was kidnapped in Veracruz and has issues a video threat in response:BoW updates: "OpCartel Update: Status of Anonymous Operation Against Mexican Cartels Unknown"
An international group of online hackers is warning a Mexican drug cartel to release one of its members, kidnapped from a street protest, or it will publish the identities and addresses of the syndicate’s associates, from corrupt police to taxi drivers, as well as reveal the syndicates’ businesses.So can Anonymous do this? Do the cartels even have the IT infrastructure to attack? Or does Anonymous even have to target the cartels directly?
I think this is 100% achievable for Anonymous. This intelligence could potentially be pulled from countless vulnerable law enforcement networks in Mexico, Texas, and other parts of the world. It is also possbile that elements of Anonymous already have some of this information since they’ve been raiding U.S. law enforcement systems quite regularly this year. If this is a serious threat you can expect follow-through. You can also also expect carnage.
If Anonymous can expose parts of the cartel network deaths will result. People will be killed, kidnapped, and tortured in ways you can’t imagine....MORE
From Stratfor:
Dispatch: Anonymous' Online Tactics Against Mexican Cartels
A member of the online activist group, Anonymous, released a video statement October 31 stating that it will continue to search for and publicize sensitive data about Mexican criminal organizations despite the physical threat of doing so.
Based upon past examples, the latest Anonymous campaign against Los Zetas could spill over into the real world, resulting in violence and deaths as Los Zetas target a new group.
Online media has been in conflict with Mexican criminal and drug organizations for some time now. Journalists are known to be targets of the cartels and plenty have been killed in the past.
Bloggers are also included in the online media campaign against the cartels, but they have typically not been targeted as much — likely because the information they post has not had as much of an impact on cartel operations as the journalists have.
However, that could be changing with the addition of Anonymous to the anti-cartel online media campaign in Mexico.
Throughout August and September of this year four people with connections to anti-cartel blog websites have been attacked.
· Two individuals killed and hung from a bridge in Nuevo Laredo with signs warning not to post on blogs.Anonymous has conducted successful Distributed Denial of Service Attacks on institutions such as Visa and MasterCard and has stolen sensitive information from HB Gary Federal in 2011 and subsequently publicized internal emails from that group. It brings together a group of individuals with a higher skill-set and sense of operational security than the less savvy anti-cartel bloggers already active in Mexico....MORE
· A girl found beheaded in Nuevo Laredo who had contributed to anti-cartel blogs in the past.
· Additionally, an Anonymous member claimed that a volunteer was abducted by Los Zetas while distributing pamphlets in Veracruz.
