Drug War and Social Media: Contradictions mount in Anonymous threat to Zetas

The Los Angeles Times Mexico reporting team looks at the Anonymous story.

latimes.com: " A story that at first seemed to point ominously to a dangerous new development in Mexico's drug war was spiraling into confusion Friday as social-media users claiming ties to the hackers group Anonymous announced -- and then retracted -- a threat against the Zetas cartel in Mexico.

... If #OpCartel does not materialize, the buzz over the threat would raise thorny questions about mainstream media coverage of such threats and the amplification of random or unfounded claims made on YouTube and Twitter." read more

Drug War - Social Media: Facts Blur as Anonymous and Zeta Cartel’s Feud Ends in a Draw

The latest--but is it the last--installment in the Anonymous vs. the Zetas story.

NYTimes.com: " Some bloggers and Twitter users claiming to be part of the hacker movement Anonymous now say they have abandoned plans to expose collaborators working with the Zetas crime syndicate because the friend they say the gang kidnapped has been released. Other self-identified Anonymous hackers say they will eventually undermine the country’s drug cartels by exposing corrupt officials, but that threats from the Zetas, along with the friend’s release, have pushed them to declare that the current project — OpCartel — is dead.

Some outside critics, meanwhile, wonder if the whole story was a sham. Was anyone kidnapped, they ask. Where is the evidence? Did Anonymous really have the goods on corrupt officials that it claimed to have? “We don’t have enough facts to draw any conclusion at this point,” said Fred Burton, an analyst for Stratfor, a private intelligence firm that was one of the first to scrutinize OpCartel. “It’s amazing to me, this whole set of circumstances.”" read more

Drug War and Social Media: Anonymous vs. Zetas Amid Mexico's Cartel Violence

An analytic look at the continuing discussion regarding the threat by the online hacking group, Anonymous, to expose members of the Zetas.

STRATFOR: "The online activist collective Anonymous posted a message on the Internet on Oct. 31 saying it would continue its campaign against Mexican criminal cartels and their government supporters despite the risks.

With Nov. 5 approaching, and at least some elements of Anonymous not backing down on their threats to Los Zetas, we thought it would be useful to provide some context to the present conflict between Anonymous and Los Zetas and to address some of its potential implications." read more

Anonymous retreats from Mexico drug cartel confrontation

guardian.co.uk: "Plans by the hacker collective Anonymous to expose collaborators with Mexico's bloody Zetas drug cartel – a project it dubbed "#OpCartel" – have fallen into disarray, with some retreating from the idea of confronting the killers while others say that the kidnap of an Anonymous hacker, the incident meant to have spawned the scheme, never happened.

The apparent climbdown by the group came as one security company, Stratfor, claimed that the cartel was hiring its own security experts to track the hackers down – which could have resulted in "abduction, injury and death" for anyone it traced.

Two hacker members of "Operation Cartel", which said earlier this week that it would expose members of the murderous cartel, have now indicated that they are stopping their scheme to identify collaborators and members because they don't want anyone to be killed as a result." read more

Drug War: Anonymous Hackers Challenge Mexican Crime Syndicate

More on the Anonymous announcement that it will reveal cartel members' identities

NYTimes.com: "... on Monday, in the wake of a security firm’s report highlighting the potential loss of life from naming names, there were more mixed messages (from Anonymous). A steady stream of posts on Twitter referring to OpCartel revealed an intense debate over the benefits and costs of moving forward. On Twitter and in private e-mails — members of Mexico’s underground online media said — there appeared to be a widening gap between supporters and opponents of Anonymous’s mission." read more

Drug War: Anonymous acts are a key feature of Mexico's drug wars

A thought provoking column on the two-edged use of anonymity in the digital--and the real--world in Mexico.

guardian.co.uk: "It's fitting that the threat to the Zetas cartel should come from the Anonymous hackers – but lack of accountability is a problem. Anonymity in Mexico is the only form of defence in the increasingly violent conflict involving the country's drug cartels, government, media and public. It provides defence from reprisals, but also hands impunity to those acting with no identity, creating a vicious cycle of ambiguous, unreliable information and fear. And it is pursued by many of the actors in the drug war, mostly via the use of digital social networks – the newest front for the conflict.

The ability to distribute information that is unvetted, unverified and often from unnamed sources across a plethora of platforms is both a blessing and a curse. A blessing because information is harder to suppress and control, but a curse because of the opportunity it creates for propaganda and misinformation that is then reported by the media and acted upon by the public as fact." read more