The ongoing battle between Anonymous and the security wonks who are trying to take it down has revealed a new weapon: Creating fake profiles on social networks to trace out the connections between you and your comrades.

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In what proved to be a colossally dimwitted move, HBGary Federal executive Aaron Barr about his success in infiltrating Anonymous.

Mr Barr said he had collected information on the core leaders, including many of their real names, and that they could be arrested if law enforcement had the same data... But he does not plan to give specifics to police, who would face hurdles in using some of the methods he employed, including creating false Facebook profiles.

In other words, to "catch" Anonymous, Barr had to resort to methods the police could not - violating Facebook's terms of service in the process.