Some in the Anonymous collective question whether a threat to bring down the stock exchange on Oct. 10 is for real, just hot air, or a 'false flag' lure by authorities.

Some members of the Anonymous hacktivist collective are disputing the legitimacy of by another apparent Anonymous faction to "erase" the New York Stock Exchange "from the Internet on Oct. 10 as part of the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City.

"On Oct. 10, NYSE shall be erased from the Internet. On Oct. 10, expect a day that will never, ever be forgotten," warned a video message posted on TheAnonMessage YouTube channel.

The AnonMessage channel has been used to post several Occupy Wall Street-related video messages since the protest against lax regulation of the financial sector and growing economic inequality began on Sept. 17. Those messages include an initial "official" Anonymous video regarding Occupy Wall Street and a warning sent last week to the New York Police Department that threatened retaliation if "the brutality does not stop" against Occupy Wall Street protestors.

But a separate Anonymous message published Tuesday claimed that the threat of an Oct. 10 attack on the NYSE was "a fake planted operation by law enforcement and cyber crime agencies."

The more recent message claimed that those behind a supposedly Anonymous-led operation called "Invade Wall Street"apparently believed to have originated the NYSE video threatwere in fact an attempting to undermine the Occupy Wall Street protests, now in their third week.

The video threat against the NYSE included a call for Anonymous supporters to utilize the so-called Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC) voluntary botnet tool to launch a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack against the NYSE's website on the target date.

The LOIC tool has been used to great effect by Anonymous hackers to take down websites in the past. But some prominent voices in the global hacktivist movement have called for it to be permanently retired because its reported deficiencies in masking its users' identities may have helped law enforcement around the world make of alleged Anonymous members involved in "Operation Payback" and other major DDoS attacks in the past year.

The idea that the Invade Wall Street operation was designed as a lure to identify Anonymous members and supporters appeared to have a good deal of support on Twitter and other social media outlets used by Occupy Wall Street supporters to communicate.

Whether or not that's the caseand PCMag is unable to confirm or disprove that theoryit remains true that the very nature of Anonymous makes it difficult to ever say with certainty that some faction or another is not a "legitimate" part of the "leaderless" global movement.

Technically, anyone who says they are part of Anonymous is in fact a part of Anonymous.

In August, media honed in what appeared to be an Anonymous-generated plan to on Nov. 5a date observed as Guy Fawkes Day in the U.K. Since members of Anonymous often wear Guy Fawkes masks to hide their identities at public protests, "Operation Facebook" appeared like it might be a legit, if difficult-to-accomplish plan by the collective.

But now it appears that Operation Facebook may simply have been an idea floated by some Anonymous members that just wasn't very appealing to the much wider group that would be needed to attempt it.

Similarly, Invade Wall Street and the plan to "erase" the NYSE may be "false flag" operations designed to discredit Occupy Wall Street protestors and perhaps trap would-be DDoSers, but it seems just as likely that they are the efforts of a faction of Anonymous that is tactically at odds with another faction. Or perhaps those disputing the legitimacy of the NYSE attack are the plantscircles within circles, anybody?

Here's the full text of the message disputing the legitimacy of the NYSE attack and the Invade Wall Street operation:

Citizens of the world,

We are Anonymous! Recently something very disturbing has come to our attention. You must take all notices and information claiming to be 'Anonymous' with a grain of salt. Consider EVERYTHING.

Operation Invade Wall Street is bulls***! It is a fake planted operation by law enforcement and cyber crime agencies in order to get you to undermine the Occupy Wall Street movement. It proposes you use depreciated tools that have known flaws such as LOIC.

Anonymous would never tell you to use LOICnot after the arrests and failures of Operation Payback.

Anonymous wouldn't attack NYSE on a HOLIDAYit is debatable if Anonymous would ever even attack NYSE.

Be wary friends!

We are Anonymous

We are Legion

We do not Forgive

We do not Forget

Expect Us

Be wary of imitations!