Is the Anonymous Threat to 'Erase' the NYSE Legit?

I can't find the original reference(s), but not that long ago the SEC suspended trading of some company for a short period of time because the site hosting some recently released financial report was DDoSed, leading to potential information asymmetry for investors.

Not exactly a spectacular effect, but at least one way in which actions on the public web can have a (small) influence on trading operations.

cheez• 15 years ago

I like that you used !==.

thisisblurry2• 15 years ago

It's the JavaScript developer in me peeking out :x

derrida• 15 years ago

No. The main anonymous twitter accounts have denied it and they suspect it is a ploy to get people to use LOIC to arrest activists associated with #OccupyWallStreet

irrumator• 15 years ago

Ah, the real, canonical Anonymous then :)

samstave• 15 years ago

So its an agent provocateur false flag then. Got it.

kleim• 15 years ago

Ahahah! Wait, they really took this prank as serious?

cbs• 15 years ago

No. They're just a bunch of script kiddies. Ignore them.

nextparadigms• 15 years ago

I thought it didn't sound like the way Anonymous would act, from the beginning.

seclorum• 15 years ago

In this terrorism culture, what does this message sound like other than .. terrorism?

endtime• 15 years ago

Trolling?

sp3322• 15 years ago

In this terrorized culture, everything sounds terrifying.

EGreg• 15 years ago

It's tough being anonymous and set yourself apart from copycats. Actually the best attack some agency can do against anonymous is keep spamming "anonymous" videos to the point where there is so much noise that their message is tuned out.

The thing is, if there really is no leadership, how does anyone even tell if someone is "really" in Anonymous? Or if some video is "really" from them? Can even members of Anonymous tell? Otherwise it's like github and forking, except of idealistic concerns.

epenn• 15 years ago

The video threat against the NYSE included a call for Anonymous supporters to utilize the so-called Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) voluntary botnet tool to launch a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack against the NYSE's website on the target date.

Regardless of whether this is a threat from Anonymous or a fake, I really don't think DDOSing the web server(s) of the NYSE would have any affect whatsoever on their actual trading systems. I would assume (or hope) that there is no internal connection between the two.

wcchandler• 15 years ago

Last time I checked, NYSE internal trading is on a Savvis backbone while nyse.com is on an Akamai CDN. I highly doubt there's ANY connection between the two.

jrockway2• 15 years ago

I think you would need several very powerful bombs in order to erase the NYSE. Even then, pretty much every firm that trades equities has an internal database with tick-by-tick ask/bid information.

I don't understand all the hate for Wall Street. They are doing as poorly as anyone else. Compare BAC's YTD share price:

http://www.google.com//finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1...

And take a look at it 5 years ago:

http://www.google.com//finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1...

pyoung• 15 years ago

Bank of America isn't exactly part of Wall Street. When I think of Wall Street, I think of the big (and not so big) investment banks.

While their stocks are(currently)down, and most of these banks are laying off employees, I think the hatred stems from the fact that these investment banks profited from the inflation of the housing bubble, and for the most part walked away clean, despite the fact that their actions were borderline criminal.

edit: Bank of America, is technically involved with investment banking, however that is because they acquired Merrill Lynch during the collapse. Before that, i believe that they were strictly retail.

jrockway2• 15 years ago

Bank of America owns Merrill Lynch, which is a pretty big investment bank.

unkoman• 15 years ago

They just want attention. Which you just gave them.

Is the Anonymous Threat to 'Erase' the NYSE Legit?

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