Browser identifiers only show how the browser is configured of the user doing the surfing, and other details. I wonder how well this would hold up in court.

1) Withdraw bank balance in form of quarters.
2) Hire skilled carpenter to make iron-bound oak chest
3) Kill neighbor's cow, tan leather, make sacks.
4) Fill sacks with quarters.
5) Fill chest with sacks.
6) Bury chest in back yard.
7) Profit.
8) Optional: Cut off leg, replace with stick, march around with deceased parrot that's only sleeping drinking rum and Arrr'ing a lot.

Y'arrrggggh?!?

Also you need to put a step labelled ????? between the the 6th step and the profit step, to be 100% official.

DArrrrn, I knew I was missing something.

You assume that you get to go to court, or receive charges, or that anyone even knows you've been arrested. Ideally I'd like to agree with you, but we've been doing some bad stuff in the US for awhile now and those pesky civil liberties mean little at times.

Even so, a lot of people reported they were rather unique, like the only one out of 2 million users running their configuration. That's going to be pretty persuasive in court if the some government security guy sits on the stand and says "Out of the 10 million people running ToR that we monitor only one runs this configuration and it matches the exact configuration on the defendants seized computer."

Remember, bullet lead analysis has put people in prison and onto death row and that's demonstrably voodoo bullshit.

Cute.

One thing I like about anonymous is how unsubtle they are in their hacking sprees. By being so public about it, it helps increase people's awareness that the magic box that leads to the internet needs to be secured. The problem is most people don't understand how important cyber security is, and our data is being moved into the cloud whether we like it or not. I know a few people who were not concerned about this stuff until they started hearing about it on the news.

Anonymous is the least of my worries. What I'm really worried about are the hardcore hackers who are more subtle with their infiltration. This is big business in the black market and this is going to be the future of warfare, if this is not already the case.

Just take a look at all those horror stories about what happens when hackers manage to get a hold of someone's personal information. It can take years for someone to recover from this and its an uphill battle that may never end. Anonymous may be bad, but at least they are forcing businesses to take a good hard look at their own network security. Each success I see from them leads me to wonder how many times that particular business has been unwittingly hacked before. :(

For those that don't want to sleep at night, enjoy:
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/201153/five_data_leak_nightmares/
http://tech.gaeatimes.com/index.php/archive/now-its-dmvs-turn-to-leak-personal-information/
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/09/27/city-hospital-apologizes-for-patients-info-leak/
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-01/patient-data-breaches-surge-as-hospitals-scrimp-on-security.html
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2011/12/nexons-maple-story-security-breach-was-just-one-of-many-hack-attacks/