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Comment by jdp23 | Hacker News Reader

Good pivot.

Indeed. Seeding the data everywhere and in plain sight has been a successful tactic in the past, especially for Anon during the Scientology raids. This is similar - government employees are not allowed to view the material, so its proliferation could actually be problematic for some people and cause more of a bureaucratic nightmare than already exists. In terms of any actual usefulness to their analysis, that remains to be seen.

> during the Scientology raids

How did that end by the way?

No huge impact on Scientology as a whole, but it did raise awareness about the cult which I consider a good thing.

I would say that you characterisation of Anon as a cult is pretty accurate. A trollish, publicity-seeking cult, but a cult nonetheless.

I believe fredoliveira was calling scientology a cult, not Anonymous.

His freshly-created account in certainly not a coincidence.

I see what you did there, and wish I could down-vote you. To be clear and explicit (because my original post can indeed be interpreted wrong), when I said cult, I was referring to Scientology.

(I do find it quite ironic that you chose to troll while calling Anon "trollish" too.)

I would like to remind you of 4chan's official motto: trolls trolling trolls.

I love how the response to my ironic post is ad-hominem attacks and calls to come out with the downvote pitchforks... Are we on reddit?

I don't know, does reddit have anonymous cowards ?

nnnnnnnnnnnnever.

side note, the church did send out some aggressive DVD & pamphlet sets claiming anonymous was a terrorist organization to anyone they pegged at a protest.

This seems overly strategic for an internet group. They started gaining traction DDOSing small sites, taking them down, gaining publicity/support, and moving to a bigger target. Now they're using momentum provided by their huge publicity to do something useful. It's like a marketing strategists viral wet dream.

Collective consciousness is certainly more powerful than that of an individual in most cases, so it doesn't surprise me that they're coming up with a strategy to actually further their goals.

It is also worth noting that this is perhaps the first Anon initiative that the average joe will agree with (and maybe - just maybe - be inclined to help with).

Now seems like an ideal time if someone wanted to release a viral infographic video related to the material contained in the leaks. (a la the credit crisis explanation video)

Superb idea.

Here's the credit crisis video for those who haven't seen it:

http://www.vimeo.com/3261363

A nice, clear summary of the Wikileaks cables with some quality graphics could gain serious attention.

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