Horace Boothroyd III brought it to my attention that Operation Service is Announced by the CabinCr3w affinity group within Anonymous. That diary includes the video and transcript of the announcement but the nature of the operation, but neither shed any light on what the kind of action this operation might be (also see 1 and 2).
This diary gathers information about the past actions of involved actors and their statements about #OpService.
First, we should establish that Operation is neither a hoax (like Operation Facebook) or the actions of agent provocateur (like Invade WallStreet). Operation Service is being promoted by CabinCr3w's tumbler and OpBART's twitter accounts. Both forums are have predicted, promoted and precipitated past actions under the Anonymous banner and I regard them as credible.
@CabinCr3w is the faction within Anonymous which came to public prominence for their infowar attacks on Wall Street CEOs, corrupt security consultants and "journalists", and select NYPD officers. Their MO of choice is "doxing", the practice of publishing a dossier on the target (see previous links), and they express a goal of public service.
@OpBART an account active in the Operation BART actions. The police department of the Bay Area Rapid Transit was facing protests after its officers shot and killed civilians. In order to sabotage the ability of protestor to use social media during one protest, the agency turned off mobile communications. This disruption of communications led online activists to draw comparisons to the shutdown of the Egyptian Internet ("MuBARTek"), provoked Anonymous' #OpBART against the BART police and precipitated larger protests.
This tweet suggests that @OpBART and @DiscordiAnon are both members of @CabinCr3w.
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The promotional video for "Operation Service" is pretty ambiguous, but when understood in the context of police actions against occupations nationwide (no long restricted to the NYPD vs Occupy Wall Street), the new #BrutalityEnds hashtag and the concondrance with #OpBART, I would might expect #OpService to primarily concern police brutality. Past Anonymous operations against police have included theft and publication of emails from police agencies in Texas (3GB) and Arizona (10GB). While data theft & leaking is a possibility, CabinCr3w's MO of choice to date has been legal and, while the collective swarm over BART did result in a number of data leaks, OpBART has shown a preference for "traditional" physical protests.
OpBART has a number of tweets discussing #OpService which suggests that the affinity group is going to stay with legal actions and try something new. It sounds a bit like a touring Occupy. Read the tweets from bottom to top:
In summary, Operation Service is an activist tour (possibly a caravan) addressing issues of police brutality, homelessness, banker crimes, and prison reform. It seeks to promote protests, support, relief and recovery options for victims of the identified issues. This suggests "community organizing"-like activities in working class communities and communites of color, where issues of police brutality and prison reform are most strongly felt. The operation will be based in one city (initally San Francisco) and rotate between three others, one of which "has problems but is ignored by the press". Round One, on the theme of police brutality, will be anchored in San Francisco and spend two weeks in Phoenix, six weeks in Chicago and three months in Omaha.
9:56 AM PT: Further searching suggests that "cabin mates" is a linguistic marker but that it may not be unique to CabinCr3w members. Other Anon groups have shown an affinity for nautical/pirate reference (notably @LulzSec), so the usage may be widely memetic.
@MotormouthNews was an early user of the #CabinCr3w hashtag and has conducted at least one IRC interview on behalf of the group. The former has vouched for @DiscordiAnon, who was also vouched for by @OpBART and JackalAnon*. The "cabin member" text was the same for all three vouching accounts and each have messages implying inside knowledge of Operation Service. Other CabinCr3w members may include @Ghostpickles, @NASDAQEnema and @AnonMarcus (ref), as wells as @CabinAnons, @YourAnonNews, @YourAnonMusic, @OpPhantomofVA, @OpCOPS, @_URGE and @Anonymous_Edu (ref).
10:03 AM PT: In the last hour @CabinCr3w issued a "FollowFriday" tweet for the following cabin mates: @NASDAQEnema, @JackalAnon, @MotormouthNews, @Ghostpickles, @AnonMarcus, and @DiscordiAnon. Consider them confirmed.
10:38 AM PT: Update from @CabinCr3w