[redthrowaway]

Curious. Anonymous went after a slough of aussie government and telco sites a few years ago when the blacklist was announced, but that action was limited to DDoSes. At the time, there was only a minimal acknowledgement from Conroy et al of the downtime, and nothing from telcos. This seems to be entirely different. It seems that Telstra is conflating LulzSec with Anonymous, and presuming that the blacklist (something Anon hates) will attract the ire of LulzSec, whose attacks have been far more damaging than Anon's.

It's easy for somebody who follows the issues closely to deride this as misinformed paranoia, but I wonder what a lay person, even one who had heard of the two groups, would think about their respective motivations and capabilities. It could well be that the people who advise on these decisions simply saw the name "LulzSec" and, knowing something about Internet culture, assumed they were connected to Anonymous and shared common desires. What's scarier, that person could rightly be considered an expert on the matter in most lay groups.

[oozcitak]

Same happened in Turkey this month (#22agustos). The Anon DDoS was portayed as a failure in Turkish media, and the government took credit for successfully fighting off the "cyber-attack". I wonder what would happen if it was LulzSec instead of Anon.

[dekz]

LulzSec was actually front page of a newspaper (free) in Australia. I believe the article was about one of the irc server host owners being arrested. They've certainly been in the fear mongering propaganda.

[andyking]

The Sun in the UK (don't blame me, I work on a radio station and we get it there!) had LulzSec on the front page, I think twice this week.

Once when someone got arrested (headline "HACK THE LAD"), and once an 'exposé' about the arrested teenager sniffing gas (headed "OFF HIS INTERNUT!").

[Maxious]

When they hacked Sony, it was in the ABC radio stations' hourly news bulletins (second story I think). "Lulls Security".

[potatolicious]

I would think that LulzSec and Anon's membership have a high degree of intersection...

[redthrowaway]

Membership, sure, but motives, no. Anon goes after perceived wrongs against Freedom of Expression, and LulzSec goes after...everyone.