In Mexico, Zetas Vs. Hackers May Lead To More Violence

The basic story goes like this. One of the members of the hackers group Anonymous became mixed up with the Mexico’s scary drug cartel, the Zetas (although this has come into question). Anonymous responded by making the threat to release the Zetas’ information publicly, called #OpCartel. The result is that there is some sort of vague threat set to take place tomorrow.

Here’s the breakdown from The Guardian:

The apparent climbdown by the group came as one security company, Stratfor, claimed that the cartel was hiring its own security experts to track the hackers down – which could have resulted in “abduction, injury and death” for anyone it traced.

Two hacker members of “Operation Cartel”, which said earlier this week that it would expose members of the murderous cartel, have now indicated that they are stopping their scheme to identify collaborators and members because they don’t want anyone to be killed as a result.

Stratfor had warned on 28 October that there could be disastrous results from the plan: “Loss of life will be a certain consequence if Anonymous releases the identities of individuals cooperating with cartels. The validity of the information Anonymous has threatened to reveal is uncertain, as it might not have been vetted. This could pose an indiscriminate danger to individuals mentioned in whatever Anonymous decides to release.”

A Stratfor expert also commented on the affair for CNN. Had you heard this story, what do you think will happen?