Update:

Additional information was added to this article based on an email conversation with Barrett Brown, correcting the nature of his assertions about Robin Jackson and Ron Moore.

While the online activists, hackers, and others aligned with Anonymous have backed off on their threats of exposing members of the Mexican Zetas drug cartel, at least some of those involved are now taking their campaign forward against other Mexican narcotics organizations. And a North Carolina district attorney has become the first to be named in the new OpCartel "doxxing" campaign. Meanwhile, the Texas man who has become a non-anonymous face of Anonymous says he is being stalked by people hoping to aid the Zetas by exposing his location—while some contend he's staging the whole thing as a way to promote an upcoming book.

Barrett Brown, who has promoted himself as being involved in the OpCartel effort against the Zetas, is also reportedly working on a book for Amazon, mostly about Anonymous' activities during the "Arab Spring" uprising in Tunisia. Now he is attempting to coordinate additional efforts against other drug cartels. Brown has alleged that he has e-mails tying Buncombe County district attorney Ron Moore to the Houstones, an American gang. While Forbes' Sean Lawson reported that Brown originally contended that Moore was cooperating with Mexican drug cartels, Brown denied that in an email to Ars Technica. "I never said any such thing and specifically said otherwise in the very first quote that arose on that," he wrote.

Moore faxed a written statement to WLOS TV in Asheville, NC, denying the allegations on Sunday. "This allegation is not true and it is the height of negligent and irresponsible journalism to promote this untrue and unverified gossip," he wrote in the statement. "Sadly, we live in a climate where elected officials are attacked in blogs by unscrupulous individuals who do not believe they should be held accountable for their libel."

Gawker's Adrian Chen, who has received a number of "exclusives" from Anonymous over the past month (including screenshots from the hack of the Lolita City child porn site), wrote on Friday that "The whole Operation Cartel business was probably bullshit—a lot of sound and fury signifying people's lurid obsession with the boogeymen of Anonymous and the drug cartels."

In the meantime, Brown has reported via his Twitter feed that an "ex-military Russian linguist" and "fascist" named Robin Jackson, was exposing Brown's past addresses and other personal information to aid the Zetas cartel. He identified Jackson by linking to an article from a Helena, Montana newspaper about Jackson winning the International Digital Forensics Challenge last December.

While Brown, who claims to be a recovered heroin addict, continues to hold court in a web video chat session and discuss the OpCartel operation and other Anonymous-related activities, it's clear that not everyone who associates themselves with Anonymous is comfortable having him as a spokesperson. In a number of online forums, those purporting to be members of Anonymous have called him an "Anonymous wannabe" and said that he "just sat on anon IRC and clogged up our servers with his presence."