sense to simply hold off on ANY opinion until the evidence came forward. One little point about competence in IT security... HB Gary were fucked by anonymous and using some pretty simple SQL injection techniques -- they were an IT security firm and regardless of their subsequently discovered stupidity had people with real IT security knowledge. John you are in charge of IT for an organisation -- care to goad Anonymous or other group of script-kiddies and see how good your security really is? When this was a vulnerability in the software they used -- it accepted authorisation tokens that had been used by a now defunct account -- I don't think incompetence is totally justified. Since when did striking back at an enemy who strikes you and states their intention to do you further harm ever been unjustified? Since when did doing what it takes to stop miscreants from doing harm to yourself and others ever been anything but honorable and courageous? Your last sentence says: Grow the fuck up. If you don't like getting (metaphorically) punched in the fucking face, stop (metaphorically) punching other people first. Right back at you. In the "grown up" world, the right thing to do isn't always nice, and sometimes you have to get your hands dirty. I figured you of all people would realize that, and I'm disappointed to see you advocating stupidity. Let's flip your scenario around. When someone seriously attacks you or someone else, you assess the threat and either