"Perhaps they are just an intelligence arm for corps that are trying to figure out new ways to screw indigenous people out of their natural resources."

Yeah, I'm sure that's why Doctors Without Borders is a customer. They're all about screwing indigenous people out of their natural resources.

"The very idea that the same person can be a world class expert on tobacco, nuclear power, coal chemistry, global warming, social security and health insurance should ring alarm bells in the head of everyone with the minimum standard of education."

What makes you think there's only one person involved?

If I run a humanitarian project operating on the border between Thailand and Myanmar, I need current information. I don't have time to wait for "books or papers by experts". I need to know about the recent Burmese military activity likely to send a stream of new refugees in my direction. Maybe that's in the papers, maybe not, so it'd be useful to have an additional source of information like Stratfor.

Simply put, you don't seem to understand what sort of service an outfit like Stratfor provides.

Er, no. If there's anything we know about trolls and bullies, it's that they often don't give a shit about whether the victims deserve it.

"What they serve is not justice. It is retaliation. And that's mob rule."

It's not retaliation if there's nothing being retaliated against.
Apparently one of the companies mentioned in the release is Doctors without Borders. I suppose a charity that provides medical care in war-torn regions and disaster areas finds it useful to have access to information and analysis of political and military situations in the regions where they are active.
What, exactly, is Stratfor supposed to have done that merits retaliation, if their service is useful to a group that does heroic work for people in the worst possible situations?

"There are career paths I personally didn't take because I realized the particular industry was corrupt to its core and I wanted no part in that. An honest living that does not make the world a worse place is an integral part of a clear conscience"
Since when does the dissemination of information come under such categories?
Do you object to libraries? What are you doing on the internet? Isn't it objectionable to you?

"There is no innocent employee of evil organizations. If you chose to act in support of such an organization, then you deserve what you get." And if some nut job decides that posting anonymously on a forum is "evil"?

"And I still wonder what that Stratfor company is and does, for whom, and why they are considered evil by some."

You have an absurdly low standard of evidence for giving credence to allegations of evil.

"Oh, they're probably evil"
"Says who?"
"I dunno, they didn't identify themselves"
"So what did they do that is so evil?"
"I dunno, they didn't say"

That's moronic.

Stratfor isn't the kind of intelligence that involves eavesdropping and wiretaps. There's also "open source" intelligence, which is pretty much just anything that is published or broadcast in or about a country of interest. I think Stratfor deals with that, and also likely has direct contacts and sources who can provide information, like any journalistic operation.

Stratfor is an information company. They provide information. Remember the huge, violent protests in Bangkok a while back? If hard drive companies, or companies reliant on hard drives, wanted to know the possible repercussions of those protests, they would probably turn to a company like Stratfor, Jane's, or the Economist, for analysis by experts. "Would the current government fall? Would the military take over again? How likely is it that our factories and supply lines would be effected?"

That's all Stratfor does. They provide information and analysis. What their clients *do* with that information is the clients' responsibility.

Anonymous is basically trying to silence an information source.

It's not really a "think tank" in the sense of AEI or Heritage, which exist mostly to push a political agenda. It's more like Jane's (http://www.janes.com/products/janes/index.aspx) or the Economist magazine's "Economist Intelligence Unit".

You know the companies that do market studies of storage makers, or mobile operating systems? Gartner and whatnot?

Stratfor, Jane's, etc, serve a similar purpose in the area of countries and regions, instead of product areas. Companies don't want to spend a bunch of money to hire staffers whose job is keeping track of what's going on in countries around the world. Apple doesn't want to have someone working to keep track of what may happen in Brazil or Turkey or Thailand when there is a change of government, or civil unrest. So they turn to companies that specialize in that sort of research and analysis.

"Although some of the clients appearing most often seem to be financial institutions so possibly this is mainly analysis of investment data?"

Probably political information so the financial institutions can estimate the stability of the country, likelihood of disruptions, etc. Maybe stuff like the level of involvement of the military in the economy.

You realize that there are different kinds of security, don't you?

Being able to analyze the security situation of executives working in Colombia and advise on how to keep them safe from abduction doesn't mean you claim you are the NSA.

That Anonymous seems to have confused this issue is a big indicator that the hack was done by an ignorant script kiddie, not a competitor.

"It just lacks the ability to defend itself, that's the job of it's mother."

Ah. So a woman is just an incubator. I assume you would sacrifice the mother to possibly save the fetus, if complications occur?

"If Stratfor is evil enough to have an angry mob want to punish all the members on that list"

This is like the English morons who threatened a pediatrician because they didn't know the difference between "pediatrician" and "pedophile".

"I understand that Stratfor are probably 'evil' from some of their recent actions" How do you figure? They're mostly an open-source (i.e. public source) intelligence analysis shop, who produce reports about geopolitical issues for customers. Stuff like "what are the odds of Jordan's government being toppled like other Middle Eastern states have been?" It's pretty much like hacking the Economist. Or Jane's. They're not a defense contractor, they're not like some kind of intelligence version of Blackwater. The "Anonymous" people in this case are just idiots.