by Thomas Ryan [Editors' Note - Crowdsourcing: At the end of this post, you will find links to download the #OccupyWallStreet email archive described earlier today by Andrew Breitbart. Send your thoughts, observations, and findings to feedback@breitbart.com, or post them in the comment section.]
On August 10, 2011, the hacker group “Anonymous” announced that it would join the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations. That’s what sparked my interest in monitoring #OccupyWallStreet.
I reached out to a colleague and asked if he would be interested in studying the protest with me. At first, it seemed disorganized, and we believed it would only be a few hundred protestors.
As we engaged in monitoring its growth, we recruited other people to help us begin the collection of data available via social media. We began mapping out key players, and monitored Anonymous’s efforts to organize protests in the San Francisco Bay area public transportation system (#opBART) in order to detect patterns and key influencers.
Then, at the end of August, we were alerted by a fellow researcher that information about USDoR (U.S. Day of Rage, to which Occupy Wall Street is connected) had been posted on Shamuk and Al-Jahad, two Al-Qaeda recruitment sites. We began to take the “Occupy” protest more seriously, and dedicated more time to research and monitoring.
Days later, Anonymous announced that it would be releasing its new DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) tool. Because of the Al-Qaeda posting, we contacted the New York Field Office of the FBI so they could investigate the potential threat. From that point on, we decided we needed to include the Human Element of Intelligence (HUMINT), and to infiltrate the protestors to map their ties to Anonymous, and to the postings on Shamuk and Al-Jahad.
A few of us had attended several of the pre-protest meet-ups and training classes. The Civil Disobedience training was taught by Elliot “Smokey” Madison, a New York-based anarchist who is a member of the People’s Law Collective, a voluntary group that advises protesters on legal issues arising from their actions. The Media training was taught by Vlad Teichberg, a New York based anarchist who is a member of the Glass Bead Collective, an artistic activist group.
After attending these meetings and socializing with those present, several of our team members were added to all the mailing lists of the “Occupy” group. That is how we created the email archive that we are sharing with you (see below). In addition to the involvement of socialists, anarchists, and other radicals, the emails also reveal heavy union involvement from the beginning of the “Occupy” movement, as well as discussion about the role of the Democratic Party, and how the movement should respond to President Barack Obama.
The emails also reveal that the Occupation attempted to provoke the New York Police Department prior to some of the clashes that occurred with activists.
Additionally, the emails reveal the many failed efforts of the hacker collective Anonymous. If those efforts had succeeded, they may have damaged the global economy.
Some examples are:
- #opLightHouse (FAILED) using NYC Subways to create FlashMobs and havoc through the city on Sept 17, 2011: see http://privatepaste.com/download/267076bdbc/operationLH-updateUno
- #RefRef Denial of Service tool release (FAILED) was designed to crash banks and NYSE, but the tool was never released: see http://www.geekosystem.com/anon-to-launch-new-weapon/; http://www.iss.net/threats/434.html
- September 20th FAILED attacks against NYSE, NYPD, NYC.GOV, NYPD Retirees, Federal Reserve: see http://www.slideshare.net/robinsage/anonymous-occupy-wall-street-attacks
- #DayOfVengence (Sept 27th) (FAILED) because FBI arrested the operation leader CommanderX prior to the attack: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20110912-10391695.html
Email archive:
.pst format: primary and alternate
.csv format: primary and alternate
Big Government
