Anonymous sets sights on TrapWire

Anonymous has decided to take its campaigns offline, with a protest centred on messing up security cameras.

It's taken up arms against TrapWire, the intelligence software that takes advantage of CCTV cameras to scan for persons of interest.

In a press release, RT reported, Anonymous declared:

As we learn about TrapWire and similar systems in the surveillance industry, it becomes more apparent that we must, at all costs, shut this system down and render it useless.

And to do so, the collective — which usually conducts its attacks online via DDoS attacks — is planning to take its protest into the real world. Beginning Saturday, Anonymous is urging its members to interfere with CCTV cameras in the US — peacefully — and to disrupt the operation of TrapWire.

This Saturday, the 18th, Anonymous members will be engaging SplashCam, as a branch of Op-TrapWire. The goal is to peacefully disrupt the unnecessary and disturbing surveillance of citizens, beginning the morning of the 18, and ending when the network and infrastructure are proven to be offline and no longer functioning.

Methods it suggested include placing plastic bags or stickers over cameras, using super-soakers full of opaque liquids, smearing the cameras with grease or Vaseline, or using wax or crayons.

It is unknown whether TrapWire is in use in Australia, but articles on The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age about the system have been mysteriously removed.