Leaked FBI Profile of Anonymous Leaders is Fake (Duh!)

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The FBI may or may not have psychological profiles of certain members of Anonymous — but they definitely won’t be found in this document, which has been making the rounds online lately.

An FBI spokesman speaking to Threat Post debunked the idea that the report originated from its training academy in Quantico, Virginia, as the fake document maintains.

The document was first “leaked” on Friday, September 8 by an Anonymous Tumblr account and Twitter. It circulated around the web, although most were quick to point out that it is replete with typos, grammar errors and other copy errors unbefitting of an actual FBI report.

The report profiles six alleged leaders of Anonymous by their online pseudonyms (including the media favorites “Sabu,” and “Topiary,”), yet the numeric sequence skips number four and goes straight from three to five.

The actual profiles of the individuals seem a bit rich on the rhetorical flourishes as well, with descriptions including “youthfully idealistic” and “has cognitive dissonance over hacktivism and activism.”

Perhaps even more telling, the document lifts and credits an entire passage on the background of Anonymous from Wikipedia.

Also, the author of the document added a blatant reference to its inauthenticity by mentioning a “cooperating individual,” e.g. mole, under the codename “Marotte,” which, as Sophos Naked Security blog points out, refers to a stick with a prop head often carried by a jester.

Still, the actual author or authors of the document remain unknown. If it is someone who identifies with Anonymous, then perhaps it was created to troll the online media or the FBI, though it seems to have been a pretty ineffective prank, all things considered.

It’s especially unproductive considering that Anonymous’ actually technically-proficient “hacktivists” are reportedly on the verge of releasing a game-changing new web attack tool, #RefRef, to replace its long-favored Low Orbit Ion Cannon DDoS tool on Saturday.

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