!$#@ing Margins – How Do They Work?

September 27, 2011 2:43 PM

The hacker group Anonymous has ventured into new territory today with the launch of Anonymous Analytics, a site specifically targeted at corporate fraud. Their first report [PDF] is a caustic, entertaining evisceration of Chaoda, a Hong Kong agricultural company which has seen a wave of smaller scandals over the past year. Their stock is not looking good

Among the many, many gems in the report, Chaoda has setup a phony company, World Brand Lab, whose purpose is to rank Chaoda as one of China's most valuable brands. The chairman of this phony research organization is none other than Robert Mundell, the Nobel prize winning economist who "laid the groundwork for the introduction of the Euro through this work and helped to start the movement known as supply-side economics"

posted by crayz (106 comments total)

Yes please, more of this. Clearly the press, who formerly had basically the sole means to spread stuff like this far and wide, are not doing their job. So it falls to others who are willing. Good on 'em.
posted by nevercalm at 2:46 PM on September 27, 2011 [53 favorites]

What does it say that Anonymous fills me with more hope than any progressive activist group out there?
posted by meadowlark lime at 2:50 PM on September 27, 2011 [47 favorites]

This is awesome. Best of the web.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 2:51 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Anonymous are the fucking mujahideen. It's all fun and games until the rpg is pointed at you.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 2:51 PM on September 27, 2011 [14 favorites]

Now we're talking, Anonymous! This is a perfect use for your energies.
posted by Vibrissae at 2:51 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

We need more badger-y assault like this... clawing, crippling tactics that expose truth.
posted by Cerulean at 2:53 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

What does it say that Anonymous fills me with more hope than any progressive activist group out there?

Me too.

I'm not familiar with Chaoda, though I'm looking at the PDF report. They seem pretty sketchy--I see that HK's Market Misconduct Tribunal commenced proceedings against them yesterday (the date of the report). Was the Market Misconduct Tribunal action spurred by the report, or did they just coincide?
posted by Admiral Haddock at 2:54 PM on September 27, 2011

It's all fun and games until the rpg is pointed at you.

Anonymous: the Hackening.
posted by curious nu at 2:54 PM on September 27, 2011 [8 favorites]

Whoa, a Hong Kong corporation is corrupt? Shocking.

But seriously.....Power to Anonymous! This is how shit gets done.
posted by Liquidwolf at 2:56 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

This is like scripted reality television. Anonymous has nothing to do with this. As proof I cite the lack of lulz.
posted by humanfont at 2:58 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

And then you find out that all the Chaoda documentation was meticulously placed onto the web in a date-forged fashion weeks ago by ItAintMeOnymous, a strange group with fragmented ideals and a willingness to cheat to win.
posted by Slackermagee at 3:03 PM on September 27, 2011

Chaoda was under investigation for fraud before this was even released. The investigation caused the stock to tumble. But this is cool, lets see some more corporate secrets exposed.
posted by Ad hominem at 3:04 PM on September 27, 2011

I don't get this. This is all public information and it looks to me like someone has a big short position and is dumping on the stock to make a profit.

Anonymous stock analysis is massive fraud waiting to happen.
posted by empath at 3:04 PM on September 27, 2011 [18 favorites]

Holy shit this is amazing.
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:06 PM on September 27, 2011

Was the Market Misconduct Tribunal action spurred by the report, or did they just coincide?

It seems like Anonymous provided their documents and research to them, including a lot more stuff that was not made public in this report, probably because it's valuable evidence.
posted by mek at 3:07 PM on September 27, 2011

Our team includes analysts, forensic accountants, statisticians, computer experts, and lawyers from various jurisdictions and backgrounds.

Something doesn't feel right here. If a team of professionals came together to carry out this kind of initiative, I don't understand why they would use the Anonymous brand, which has lots of issues at this point, and gives them credibility problems, as well as attracting the immediate aggressive attention of law enforcement and intelligence services etc, from Day 1. Why not just start with a fresh identity and avoid these problems?? If they really have the scoop on the corruption of a major company, that should be enough to launch them and give them high profile.
posted by Bwithh at 3:11 PM on September 27, 2011 [9 favorites]

from the FT: Anonymous said it had obtained all its information about Chaoda legally but disclosed it has an “indirect interest” in a fall in the company’s share price due to short positions held by its “associates, partners, affiliates, consultants, clients, and other related parties”. (my boldings)

WTF? something really doesn't feel right. I think the Anonymous brand is being... repurposed here.
posted by Bwithh at 3:13 PM on September 27, 2011 [7 favorites]

I guess because it would be easier to shut down an actual registered company? The individuals would have to identify themselves as well. As it is, their current complete lack of credibility makes them very credible, in my mind.
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:13 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

I guess because it would be easier to shut down an actual registered company? The individuals would have to identify themselves as well.

But they could have just set up an anonymous activist group that was not branded Anonymous (using the logo and so on) but with their own fresh brand. You don't have to be Anonymous to be anonymous...

As it is, their current complete lack of credibility makes them very credible, in my mind.

huh?
posted by Bwithh at 3:17 PM on September 27, 2011

I think we been trolled. Pick a company that is already under fire, run up and take a few shots, claim victory.

Or strange new corporate PR move, "Viscious hackers are out to get us! They caused this whole mess, honest "
posted by Ad hominem at 3:19 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

The World Brand Lab site is so thin!
And misspells their own name in the footer: Powered by World Executive Group and Word Brand Lab
posted by Prince_of_Cups at 3:19 PM on September 27, 2011

I think the Anonymous brand is being... repurposed here.

By someone know has a good grasp of their style. And is openly saying that he is shorting the stock.

That is so many levels of beautiful. But he better not be based on Chinese soil, methinks.
posted by ocschwar at 3:19 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Given how eerily good certain mefites are at sniffing out self-linkers, this sort of thing seems like a great way to channel their energies.

We could have a new subsite. It could be colored noir.
posted by logicpunk at 3:21 PM on September 27, 2011 [13 favorites]

I guess because it would be easier to shut down an actual registered company?

Surely it has not escaped your attention that people dislike the concept of corporate personhood in part because it makes it so difficult to shut down a company, at least in most first world jurisdictions which are democratic and have a meaningful rule of law.

The individuals would have to identify themselves as well. As it is, their current complete lack of credibility makes them very credible, in my mind.

No offense, but you strike me as extremely gullible.
posted by anigbrowl at 3:23 PM on September 27, 2011

How many arms/goals are there that claim to be part of Anonymous? This might be shady dealings, but it's a sight more productive than the Hollywood Leaks branch, whose goal it is to leak nude celebrity photos (Wired link, SFW).
posted by filthy light thief at 3:25 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anonymous Analytics, a site specifically targeted at corporate fraud

As opposed to 4chan, which is devoted to Corporate Freud
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 3:30 PM on September 27, 2011 [9 favorites]

yeah - there are plenty of examples of firms that publish analysis like this in their own names. I don't see this sort of thing being done anonymously as anything other than rife with the risk of fraud and misrepresentation.
posted by JPD at 3:36 PM on September 27, 2011

Knowing the history of what Anonymous has targeted and how it has attacked its targets, this seems like it took (a) money, and (b) brainpower. There are also no lulz. While ordinary citizens have a vested interest in preventing massive corporate fraud, most investors do as well since corporate fraud can make the market highly unstable. Since we don't know who funded this, I think it's entirely possible that a large organization with a grudge against Chaoda could have done this work under the guise of Anonymous.
posted by thermopoetics at 3:36 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

If a large organization wanted to do this there are much better ways to attack. You can feed info to a variety of short specialists, you could tip the regulator, you could just call up your hedgie buddies with some info and let them take it from there, etc, etc.
posted by JPD at 3:41 PM on September 27, 2011

Anonymous is not a hacker group.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:43 PM on September 27, 2011

Chaoda? Seriously? I've got to go check my storage unit, because I think reality has been stealing my 8th grade dystopian sci fi evil corporation name ideas.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 3:43 PM on September 27, 2011 [11 favorites]

If corporate malfeasance and fraud allegations are true, I see no reason not to profit through their exposure.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:44 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyone notice how the Wall St. protests haven't appeared on whyweprotest.net? I'd consider that rather significant, maybe the Wall ST. protests are too self-interested, or lack lulz.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:46 PM on September 27, 2011

It's all fun and games until the rpg is pointed at you.

I rolled up a character for the Anonymous RPG, but found the actual gameplay a bit tedious. And the GM was an asshole.... non-stop faggot jokes do NOT make up for actual campaign planning.
posted by hippybear at 3:48 PM on September 27, 2011 [9 favorites]

No offense, but you strike me as extremely gullible.

There was a guy on the side of the road with no legs this morning, begging for money from a toothless mouth, and I was like "Ha, special effects, I'm not falling for that one again" and gave him a scratch card that I'd already scratched and hadn't won anything on, and he seemed quite pleased, probably because he can't read, so who's gullible now?

As it is, their current complete lack of credibility makes them very credible, in my mind.

For a hundred years now we've had big-time analysts and registered think-tanks standing up and telling us how the world works, that Bad Things are about to happen, and it's done precisely fuck all. They don't get in the news and if they do it's not for what they have said, it's for who they are. "George Monbiot says..." "Oh, George Monbiot, I'm not going to bother with him." The truth value of what they have to say is irrelevant, because we've either dismissed them as a person or we haven't.

Anonymous is nothing, it's nobody, so all that can really be talked about is what they're saying. We can't identify individual constituents so we can't dismiss them because Chomsky or Hitchens work for them, we have to dismiss them on what information they have provided. So when a police captain maces a bunch of women in captivity, and Anonymous says who he is, the only possible news is what Anonymous has said, because we can't find a scapegoat and anybody who has followed their "lulz" can see that they're not exactly partisan. What I meant to say was they aren't traditionally credible because they don't have a spokesperson or persons, or house a single specific individual we can identify and then either support or not. "Credible" these days has nothing to do with the truth value of anything, it has to do with university degrees and corporate or political backing and sheer monetary influence. That is not my definition of "credible", however.

Perhaps I'm being ungenerous in assuming that other people's definition of "credible" is different to mine. I suspect that, in most cases, it is not. But again, Anonymous' lack of "credibility" in the eyes of the world merely raises their credibility in mine. Of course, this is one little infodump of apparently public information freely available to anybody, but the trick is nobody has compiled and contextualised it before. And I'd certainly never heard of Chaoda and I doubt many other people here had heard of them either. It's irrelevant that the information was already out there, because all information is "out there" and just sitting around saying that doesn't mean we know it. The information has only become relevant now that it is compiled in here. So now we assess the truth value of it and see what happens, and we can't say "Oh god, fucking John Pilger is at it again, here we go" because anybody giving Anonymous a cursory glance will see that there is no one figurehead. Look at Assange and Wikileaks - the actual content of the leaks has been rendered moot because now all people want to talk about is Assange's biography and how he didn't want it release, and oh what a hypocrite. Also blah.
posted by tumid dahlia at 3:52 PM on September 27, 2011 [55 favorites]

Could releasing this under the Anonymous brand be a good way of avoiding violent mafia-style retribution?

See the last two paragrpahs of the report:

As the cases of Sean Hoare and Li Guofu showed, this type of business can be a short one. To us, nothing is more important than protecting our sources and those who have assisted us or may do so in the future. At the beginning of this report we mentioned that we are in possession of certain information, which given its nature we have decided against publishing.
Instead, the information has been encrypted, stored online, and protected with a codeword. Consider this insurance – for us, our associates, and our consultants. If we feel the safety and anonymity of any party has been jeopardized, we will release the codeword into the public domain.

posted by memebake at 4:02 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Interview in the Financial Times:

Financial Times: Why have you decided to look to corporate activism as well as political?
Anonymous Analytics: It’s the logical next step. We think we may have something to contribute here.

posted by memebake at 4:07 PM on September 27, 2011

As Anonymous' representative to Metafilter thank you for your support tumid dahlia.

Now that I know you guys are cool I don't mind talking about it. We worked long and hard on this analysys. We have a network of over nine thousand anaylsts, accountants and lawyers, but the core group live in New York, right in the belly of hte beast.

Since we are all respectable adults we don't use IRC or i2p for our meets. We reserve a table at Harry's most tuesday nights (friday is right out, have to head out to the Hamptons) have steak and a few bottles of wine before retiring to the smoking room at the India Club upstairs for cigars and scotch. During these sessions we decide who we are going to investigate next, come up with action items and do post-mortems of older investigations. After cigars, the younger guys sometimes head to NY Dolls for lapdances and a little marching powder if you know what I mean.

The next moring at the office I have my assistant post a new batch of lolcats and yaoi references as well as distribute a fresh working copy of our current research.

This system has worked well so far. We will be disseminating fresh research soon.
posted by Ad hominem at 4:10 PM on September 27, 2011 [12 favorites]

memebake: "Could releasing this under the Anonymous brand be a good way of avoiding violent mafia-style retribution?

That's what I'm thinking - then again - it doesn't have to be mutually exclusive, it could be someone trying to short, as well as someone trying to make sure they don't get a bullet in the head. I dunno. It's crazy.
posted by symbioid at 4:12 PM on September 27, 2011

tl;nl

too long;no lulz
posted by Revvy at 4:12 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anonymous: they are, increasingly, legion. Also they deliver. That is all.
posted by jaduncan at 4:14 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Its sortof moot to ask whether this is true anonymous, or someone pretending to be them. Anyone who wants to play, can play.

This does fit in with their general 'personality', although its a lot more highbrow than the usual stuff. It makes good use of anonymous-ness, is fundamentally about information, is based on smallcrowdsourcing, and is basically corporate trolling. Note that they have a wikileaks-style Dropbox on their site for whistleblowers. If you read the FT interview I linked above, they frame it as a sort of targeted protest. I guess if they successfully target a growing number of companies, they might hope to show just how widespread fraud is.

re: shorting: they address this directly in the report:

We hold no direct position in any of the securities profiled in this report. However, you should assume that as of the publication date our associates, partners, affiliates, consultants, clients, and other related parties hold short positions in the securities or derivative of securities profiled in this report. You should further assume we have an indirect interest in these positions and stand to gain from a decline in the share price of these securities.

posted by memebake at 4:15 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

They've also started helping alcoholics, which is pretty cool of them.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 4:17 PM on September 27, 2011 [17 favorites]

Their position re: shorts is pretty much a given, since they are comprised of anonymous people involved in finance. I don't see how they could prevent people from shorting it.
posted by mek at 4:18 PM on September 27, 2011

When did this report come online? Chaoda shares were suspended on Monday when Hong Kong announced they were investigating. Do we have any link between AnonAnalytics and the investigation?
posted by memebake at 4:24 PM on September 27, 2011

Probably the first step in being anonymous is to not embed a unique identifier to another service in your website:

script type="text/javascript"

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-4791714-4']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

But maybe capital A Anonymous rolls differently.
posted by pwnguin at 4:28 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

I have absolutely no problem with the shorting, but the anonymity seems problematic given the potential for fraud and the low level of risk involved in what they are doing. I mean publishing fraud allegations like this has become increasingly common of late - there is no need to do it anonymously.

Also - as someone who looks at things like this regularly, this really isn't outstandingly superior analysis. Don't get me wrong its good work, but a guy like John Hempton posts stuff like this all the time on names he's got tiny positions in. I mean its good work, but there is a very large pool of people capable of doing the analysis. All of this stuff looks like its from the public filings as well.
posted by JPD at 4:28 PM on September 27, 2011

ah, may have found an answer in this wall street journal article:

Perhaps of more interest than the content of the Sept. 26 report is its timing. That Monday morning in Hong Kong, media reports said the company was being investigated by the government for market misconduct, sending shares tumbling 27% to HK$1.10, down 81% for the year. The company was suspended from trading at midday.

When asked about the timing, Anonymous Analytics said: “After 11 years, the government decided to announce proceedings hours before we released our report. We will let your readers do the math.”

posted by memebake at 4:28 PM on September 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

It says at the end of the PDF they were paid to make the report.
posted by stbalbach at 4:29 PM on September 27, 2011

@pwnguin: thats just a Google Analytics tracker, it probably wont trace to anything except an anonymous google account.
posted by memebake at 4:29 PM on September 27, 2011

have steak

You monsters :-|
posted by tumid dahlia at 4:31 PM on September 27, 2011

Anonymous is nothing, it's nobody, so all that can really be talked about is what they're saying. We can't identify individual constituents so we can't dismiss them because Chomsky or Hitchens work for them, we have to dismiss them on what information they have provided.

I infer from this that you've never picked up an issue of the economist. The reason I suggest you might be a gullible person is not that you are enthused about a bad corporation getting its just desserts, but that you have no way of telling whether this is the result of public-spirited activism or whether it's just a convenient cover for some underhanded stock manipulation. If your credibility can be purchased just by the addition of an anonymous logo, then that makes it easy for someone to manufacture a fake scandal for private profit, since folks like yourself will incline towards assuming the allegations to be true.

You've never heard of this company Chaoda before, so how well-qualified are you to judge whether this revelation is credible or not? And if you've never heard of them before, and never seen all this information gathered into one place before, that's probably because you don't pay any attention whatsoever to the Hong Kong stock market - which would be entirely rational, since Chaoda has about zero impact on your life if you don't work in that line of business. But if you were in business, or if you lived in Hong Kong, then you'd likely have a good idea of where to acquire this information and how much weight to accord it. It's probably not a coincidence that the first company this 'anonymous analytics' site exposes is one that will be unfamiliar to the vast bulk of the potential readers. Now if they were to do an expose on HP, say, a lot of American readers would be familiar enough with that company's ups and downs to have an informed opinion, and they might quickly say 'hey, this is nothing but a bunch of copypasta cobbled together from a Google search.' So how do you tell the difference, based on a sample of one?
posted by anigbrowl at 4:32 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

It says at the end of the PDF they were paid to make the report.

No it doesn't. Or if it does, please quote it.
Not that it would make much difference thought because they admit they might benefit from shorts.
posted by memebake at 4:32 PM on September 27, 2011

you have no way of telling whether this is the result of public-spirited activism or whether it's just a convenient cover for some underhanded stock manipulation

Why should we care? The information can still be good.
posted by LogicalDash at 4:37 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

they have a twitter feed, "Taking down corporations for the lulz" ... not much there yet.
posted by memebake at 4:39 PM on September 27, 2011

In preparing this report, we have been aided by various parties. These parties worked 
independently of each other and were unaware of the nature of the end product. This was 
both for their protection and ours. While well compensated, we would like to take this 
moment to thank those who helped us. At this point, you probably know who you are.

they paid people to research the report and were short the name into the report is how I would parse that.

Either way, not altruistic, but if the allegations are true I'm not sure that matters.
They are just doing a failed regulators job for them and making money along the way.
posted by JPD at 4:40 PM on September 27, 2011 [6 favorites]

If a company gets delisted, can you still make money by shorting it?
posted by memebake at 4:42 PM on September 27, 2011

(sorry, I mean suspended rather than delisted)
posted by memebake at 4:43 PM on September 27, 2011

Kathy Griffin got D-Listed, and she's making pretty good money. Not sure how tall she is....
posted by hippybear at 4:46 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

The thought occurs that if Anonymous did not exist we would have had to invent it.
posted by doublehappy at 4:47 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

suspended - if you were already short you can't cash out, but eventually the regulator will allow the stock to trade again, and then you can cover and realize your profit. Usually it takes a while to actually delist something, and then it would trade off the exchange, but you could still buy the shares to cover your short.
posted by JPD at 4:50 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

you have no way of telling whether this is the result of public-spirited activism or whether it's just a convenient cover for some underhanded stock manipulation
Why should we care? The information can still be good.

But you're assuming it's good. What if it were to include deliberate falsehoods? Individuals and businesses have been known to tell lies about their rivals, you know. This site certainly has potential, but it's a bit early to draw the conclusion of 'it's Anonymous, therefore it's good.'
posted by anigbrowl at 4:55 PM on September 27, 2011

The thought occurs that if Anonymous did not exist we would have had to invent it.

...that's exactly what happened...
posted by LogicalDash at 4:59 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

You've never heard of this company Chaoda before, so how well-qualified are you to judge whether this revelation is credible or not?

I'm not, and didn't say I was. And with a lot of things, my attitude is basically "Even if I could play the piano I still wouldn't". So, even if I was equipped with the tools and the intel necessary to pass judgement on this material, I wouldn't bother because it isn't important.
I'm going to read the report merely out of curiosity and because I like things that make me cranky even if they aren't accurate, because hating the world and most of the people in it is how I enjoy spending my time, because how I spend my time is the only thing I have any control over.

My point was that anybody and everybody who wants to take a stand on this Choadie issue - I don't, for the record - now needs to assess the material itself, rather than go "Oh it's from [recognised organisation/person], and therefore [this category of person] will automatically deem it [true/false]."
posted by tumid dahlia at 4:59 PM on September 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

What if it were to include deliberate falsehoods?

Just to be clear, you're worried that someone may publish false information on the internet?
posted by crayz at 5:06 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

But you're assuming it's good. What if it were to include deliberate falsehoods? Individuals and businesses have been known to tell lies about their rivals, you know. This site certainly has potential, but it's a bit early to draw the conclusion of 'it's Anonymous, therefore it's good.'

That wasn't Mr Dahlia's point at all. He was saying that Anonymous takes the personal, tribal element of the discussion out. Because it could be anyone.

Because the speaker's bad faith is assumed, discussion can proceed on the merits of what is actually being spoken.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:06 PM on September 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

The post you are quoting was not made in reply to Tumid Dahlia, but to a separate comment by LogicalDash.
posted by anigbrowl at 5:13 PM on September 27, 2011

They aren't pretending to be on the up and up. they may be wolves but they aren't trying to drape themselves in sheepskins.

Anyone know if the SEC actually reads Ks and Qs and verifies the numbers on any continuing basis? Is that even part of their job? I assume it is but what do they really do? In my experience all they do is get on my ass about theri bullshit SECHTML crap.
posted by Ad hominem at 5:15 PM on September 27, 2011

I'm intrigued by this development. I wonder who will read this. I wonder how many more reports Anonymous will issue.
posted by Sticherbeast at 5:17 PM on September 27, 2011

anigbrowl - this stuff appears to be nearly all public. If there were falsehoods involved the guys who are long it would already be screaming bloody murder. The market is pretty good in the medium term at sniffing out bogus short frauds. Too much money involved.

A H - No - the SEC relies on the auditors. The do read all of the K's and will send letters asking for clarification and what not, but they aren't equipped to go out and actually count shit. That's part of why using a minor auditing firm (as well as a certain set of PR firms and/or Investment Banks) functions as a red flag for the guys who short these things for a living.

I actually know a guy who just shorts everything audited by one firm.
posted by JPD at 5:19 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

Yes please, more of this. Clearly the press, who formerly had basically the sole means to spread stuff like this far and wide, are not doing their job. So it falls to others who are willing. Good on 'em.

This stuff has been reported for months--i dunno about this company, but Chinese companies have been short targets all summer.
posted by Ironmouth at 5:26 PM on September 27, 2011

The HK government was going to investigate them, so I wouldn't say the stock tumbled because of Anonymous.
posted by Meathamper at 5:37 PM on September 27, 2011

Here's a series of links on Chinese stocks getting shorted:

Insight: For short sellers of Chinese stocks, it's time to reap--June 16.
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE75F3HN20110616?irpc=932

15 Chinese Stocks Being Targeted by Short Sellers: http://seekingalpha.com/article/243096-15-chinese-stocks-being-targeted-by-short-sellers december, 2010.

China Is World’s ‘Most Crowded’ Short, Societe Generale Says

http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-27/china-stocks-on-verge-of-massive-short-squeeze-socgen-says.html

These stories are the tip of the iceberg. This has been out there for a long time.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:03 PM on September 27, 2011

"They've also started helping alcoholics, which is pretty cool of them."

I believe they're called drunkfags.
posted by klangklangston at 6:27 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

My point was that anybody and everybody who wants to take a stand on this Choadie issue - I don't, for the record - now needs to assess the material itself, rather than go "Oh it's from [recognised organisation/person], and therefore [this category of person] will automatically deem it [true/false]."

Isn't that what anigbrowl is saying? That releasing something anonymously doesn't remove the suspected bias -- it just replaces it with a different kind of suspected bias? I'm sure there are lost of people who would dismiss this because there's no way of knowing the credibility of the source.

I have no idea how to even start assessing this material, so I'm with you -- I have no stand on this, either.
posted by DLWM at 6:31 PM on September 27, 2011

i no no if i trust
posted by TwelveTwo at 6:58 PM on September 27, 2011

Real life imitates Steig Larsson?
posted by schmod at 7:04 PM on September 27, 2011

"They've also started helping alcoholics, which is pretty cool of them."

I believe they're called drunkfags.

WTF?
posted by hippybear at 7:05 PM on September 27, 2011

This is like scripted reality television. Anonymous has nothing to do with this. As proof I cite the lack of lulz.

DISCLAIMER: at various points over the past 5-6 years I have been involved in a few different raids.

IDK. This passes the lulz sniff test to me. Anonymous has been evolving (or metastasizing, if you're an oldf**) for an eternity in internet time. The kids who were 18 for the habbo raids are 23 now. One year into a shitty job market. I bet you that their sense of humor might reflect that.

NOTE: do not perform the lulzy sniff test from any closer than 6 in. You will catch something.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 7:07 PM on September 27, 2011 [4 favorites]

WTF?
posted by hippybear at 7:05 PM on September 27 [+] [!]'

I think that was a riff on the Anon/4Chan habit of appending "fag" to everything.

EG:
newbies become newfags
veterans become oldfags
furries become furfags

and many, many more.
posted by to sir with millipedes at 7:17 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Oh, right. Sorry. I clicked on the tab, loaded the new comments, saw that, and completely didn't grok that this was a thread involving 4chan.

I'm a bit slow. Carry on.
posted by hippybear at 7:26 PM on September 27, 2011

Anonymous Analytics uses Google Analytics? Lamers!
posted by kuatto at 7:38 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

this stuff appears to be nearly all public. If there were falsehoods involved the guys who are long it would already be screaming bloody murder. The market is pretty good in the medium term at sniffing out bogus short frauds. Too much money involved.

and

Anonymous said it had obtained all its information about Chaoda legally but disclosed it has an “indirect interest” in a fall in the company’s share price due to short positions held by its “associates, partners, affiliates, consultants, clients, and other related parties”.

are what I'm liking about this new turn of events. If corporations start getting into the game of legally obtaining publicly verifiable information on each other and broadcasting it across the internet like this, I think that contributes to transparency in the eyes of the public - they're going out of their way, with their own openly asserted self-interest at heart, to draw the general public's attention to damning and available information on corporate practices.

What follows in its wake? An increase in groups that are maybe more altruistic groups doing the same? More investigations? Legislative changes? I can only hope.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:21 PM on September 27, 2011

For the doubters, you scratch almost any company, mom-n-pop up to GS you'll find dirt. Nobody's innocent, ultimately. This I know first hand, what I do every day as a risk analyst (and earlier in competitive intelligence). Anecdotal, sure, so inherently a fallacy from authority, but I rate 200 a year for unsecured transactions up to mid eight. Very occasionally more. Take it with your salty grain of preference.

The difference is that larger corporate entities have an outsized influence on both a large number of employees (and contractors and vendors, and so forth) but more importantly an outsized influence on political outcomes, indeed the very nature of political discourse in most nations.

So Anonymous - whatever it actual is - is deliberately setting themselves up as the strange attractor or the black swan or whatever the term de jour is, and they are doing it with the express intent to Fuck Shit Up and possibly make a little bank for themselves in the process.

I see no problem with this approach. Indeed, given the rules of most parliamentary entities nowadays (including and especially those in the USA), this may be the only and last potentially viable approach to changing the underlying fundamentals of the system.

Which, IMHO, if we don't we're going to run out of easily available things soon, such as hydrogen and oxygen in the right combination...H2O2, not so good for drinking. Just one example of many.
posted by digitalprimate at 8:21 PM on September 27, 2011 [9 favorites]

Anonymous Analytics on targeting a company's share price
posted by homunculus at 8:33 PM on September 27, 2011

...and they are doing it with the express intent to Fuck Shit Up and possibly make a little bank for themselves in the process.

I see no problem with this approach.

You would be welcome with open arms. You would be a rockstar.
posted by thsmchnekllsfascists at 9:05 PM on September 27, 2011

Well, their credibility was certainly bolstered (in my vaguely credible book) through pertinently quoting The Simpsons (p.9) and Seinfeld (p.30).
posted by obscurator at 9:10 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

newbies become newfags

Straight people become straightfags.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:14 PM on September 27, 2011 [5 favorites]

It appears the pdf link has been removed.
posted by BuffaloChickenWing at 9:22 PM on September 27, 2011

I read most of this thing. I don't really "get" it. Why would "Anonymous" want to do this? How does it further the "Anon" cause unless Chaoda is somehow oppressing free speech, what's the deal? It seems that the only purpose in using the Anon branding is to increase visibility of the report, perhaps making short positions more lucrative.

What does it say that Anonymous fills me with more hope than any progressive activist group out there?

Well, lots of progressive activist groups are taking up the 'anonymous' branding these days.

are what I'm liking about this new turn of events. If corporations start getting into the game of legally obtaining publicly verifiable information on each other and broadcasting it across the internet like this, I think that contributes to transparency in the eyes of the public - they're going out of their way, with their own openly asserted self-interest at heart, to draw the general public's attention to damning and available information on corporate practices.

Shortsellers do this all the time. You wouldn't typically see stuff like this on metafilter, but it's out there. The fact that people here think there is something unusual about reports written by people with a short interest is adorable. Also, some of the stuff in the link seems somewhat underhanded, (i.e. a company buying from a supplier because the CEO owns a lot of stock in that supplier)

It appears the pdf link has been removed.

The PDF file seems to have been moved here
posted by delmoi at 9:52 PM on September 27, 2011 [3 favorites]

Chowda? What's wrong with chowda? I like a good bowl of chowda every now and then.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:55 PM on September 27, 2011 [2 favorites]

Shortsellers do this all the time. You wouldn't typically see stuff like this on metafilter, but it's out there. The fact that people here think there is something unusual about reports written by people with a short interest is adorable.

That's not really the point I was making. The information is public, and it being disseminated isn't unusual. But instead of just shooting this information about in trade circles, it's being used to network through the general public for possibly completely selfish reasons, but it is still information that benefits us to have.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 10:40 PM on September 27, 2011 [1 favorite]

Anyone notice how the Wall St. protests haven't appeared on whyweprotest.net? I'd consider that rather significant, maybe the Wall ST. protests are too self-interested, or lack lulz.

the Occupy Wall St campaign was created by Adbusters, who I suppose represent a different constituency from Anonymous
posted by Bwithh at 5:58 AM on September 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

That's not really the point I was making. The information is public, and it being disseminated isn't unusual. But instead of just shooting this information about in trade circles, it's being used to network through the general public for possibly completely selfish reasons, but it is still information that benefits us to have.


Short sellers aren't usually limiting their audience it's just that most people don't care and many who do care are actively hostile to shorting.

I suspect were I to post a Jim Chanos (the guy who called out Enron years before it blew up) piece of some sort the response from the community here would look very different. It would not be as uniformly positive as the response to this work is - and I find it hard to not see the hypocrisy in that - especially given Chanos' is even more open about who he is and his motivations than these guys are.
posted by JPD at 6:10 AM on September 28, 2011 [3 favorites]

Can Anonymous take on the cartels?

That would certainly change my opinion of them.
posted by zeikka at 3:26 PM on September 28, 2011

Activist shareholder David Webb has been following HK companies for years. Bits on Chaoda here.
posted by fatmouse at 5:09 PM on September 28, 2011

the Occupy Wall St campaign was created by Adbusters, who I suppose represent a different constituency from Anonymous

Yes. Anonymous members would have worn suits and ties. This might seem like a trivial point, but if you want to be respected, it actually helps to look respectable. ISTM the police would be a bit more cautious with the pepper spray around people who look like members of mainstream society instead of being dressed like urban campers. I used to fit right in with the rest of Adbusters' target audience, and was an enthusiastic consumer of their product. But eventually it dawned on me that it is a product, and furthermore that there's a big difference between signalling alienation and making a positive contribution.
posted by anigbrowl at 3:24 PM on September 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ruh Roh
posted by stagewhisper at 5:50 PM on October 2, 2011

God I fucking love anonymous.

How can you not love them? Seriously.
posted by empath at 6:12 PM on October 2, 2011

Nah. I think this one isn't going to fly with the rest of Anonymous. Could be wrong, but if all it is is a denial of service attack it's weak sauce and not only ineffective but damages P.R. for active causes that anonymous is throwing itself behind right now.
posted by stagewhisper at 7:00 PM on October 2, 2011

I doubt the NYSE is significantly more vulnerable than Visa or Amazon, given the strategies employed by high frequency trading shops.
posted by jeffburdges at 7:06 PM on October 2, 2011

They took down some Visa systems.

I doubt they'll do anything more than take their website down, though.
posted by empath at 7:11 PM on October 2, 2011

Starting to seem like my hunch was right: Agent Provocateurs at work?
posted by stagewhisper at 5:10 PM on October 4, 2011

Doubt it. More that anonymous is a disorganized clusterfuck.
posted by empath at 5:15 PM on October 4, 2011

Calling it "analytics" and targeting corporate fraud are new, but elaborate research projects are home territory for Anonymous.
posted by LogicalDash at 5:01 AM on October 5, 2011

another take on who might be behind #invadewallstreet . As the author points out, the main factions who will benefit from this are organizations that advocate for a governmental internet kill switch and private companies who are contracted to protect government and corporations from "terrorism by hacking".
posted by stagewhisper at 3:04 PM on October 8, 2011 [1 favorite]