Arrests Not Likely To Slow Hacker Group Anonymous, Experts Say

The arrests of 14 suspected members of the hacker group Anonymous on Tuesday could help authorities make inroads in the shadowy hacker collective,Levis 501 Jeans but don't expect the group's high-profile cyber attacks to end anytime soon, experts say.

The arrests of the suspected male and female hackers, ranging from 20 to 42 years old, could ratchet up pressure against Anonymous, causing divergent reactions from its remaining members, Levis 501 Jeanssaid Gabriella Coleman, an assistant professor at New York University who studies Anonymous and other hacker groups.

"Some people surely will get scared off," Coleman said. "Others will feel more emboldened to fight the fight."

"But I don't think at the moment it's going to slow things down," she added.

The charges announced Tuesday of conspiracy and intentional damage to a protected computer date back to December, NFL jerseys whole salerwhen Anonymous members brought down PayPal's website for four days in retaliation for the company suspending payments to the whistle-blower site Wikileaks. The group called the attack "Operation Avenge Assange," in reference to the Wikileaks founder, authorities said.

The arrests took place in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington D.C., Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio, according to the U.S.mbt clearance Department of Justice. Two other arrests were made unrelated to the PayPal attack, authorities said.

The arrests were part of a widening probe of cyber attacks aimed at major corporations and government agencies. The coordinated sting included another arrest in Britain, four arrests by the Dutch National Police Agency and more than 35 search warrants executed by the FBI in the United States, authorities said.