who is anonymous?
In January 2012, the Department of Justice and the FBI shut down the file-sharing website Megaupload for copyright infringement. In retaliation and in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act, an online group of protesters took down the websites of the DOJ and the FBI using distributed denial-of-service attacks. Members flooded the bandwidth of these sites, and as the servers overloaded, no one else could access them. The group also used this strategy to attack the websites of the Motion Picture Association of America, the Recording Industry Association of America, and Broadcast Music, Inc. The group claiming responsibility for these cyber-attacks calls itself Anonymous.
Anonymous is a loosely connected hacktivist group, meaning that the members of the organization use computers or computer networks to promote their political ends. Ideologically, Anonymous is strongly opposed to Internet censorship and surveillance as well as government corruption. The group has also targeted Scientology, groups advocating homophobia, and major security corporations such as HBGary. The group uses various methods for its attacks on the Internet, including web site defacements, distributed denial-of-service attacks, redirects, information theft, and virtual sabotage. Anonymous has been called the freedom fighters of the Internet, anarchic cyber-guerillas, and digital Robin Hoods.
The group called Anonymous began in 2003 on an English-language imageboard site called 4chan. The site is a bulletin board or forum based on pictures. Members started to use the name Anonymous in their posts and others followed, soon forming a group of hactivists. For the first few years of its existence, Anonymous members focused mainly on pulling pranks on social networking sites and trolling, posting inflammatory remarks on online message boards and chatrooms. Since 2008, however, the group has been stepping up its attacks and protests in intensity and frequency against governments and other groups.
Anonymous has no leadership and no rankings. Instead, the group relies on the collective power of individuals to benefit everyone. The group does not have a single means of communication either. It uses multiple imageboards, forums, Internet relay chats, and sites such as YouTube to organize upcoming protests and communicate with each other. Anonymous uses the symbol of a suit with a question mark for a head to represent their anonymity and lack of formal leadership.
This group is spread across many languages, and the only requirement of membership is the desire to join. Members also adopt a hedonistic and uninhibited identity online as a way to make fun of how people do things on the Internet they would not normally do in real life. When out in public protesting, members wear stylized Guy Fawkes masks. Guy Fawkes took part in the Gunpowder Plot, a scheme to blow up the British House of Lords in 1605 and made popular in the movie V for Vendetta. In a similar manner, members of Anonymous often seem anarchic in their methods and targets.
Anonymous has been involved in several recent cyber-attacks and protests. In April 2012, they claimed responsibility for taking down several government websites in the U.K. to protest policies related to extradition and surveillance. Anonymous members hacked government websites in Uganda to protest the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill in August 2012. A month later, they took down GoDaddy’s Domain Name Servers. Then, in late 2012, they attacked the government websites of Israel and Syria. In addition, Anonymous members have joined Occupy Wall Street protests, although they have been instrumental in keeping those protests from escalating into violence.
The group also calls themselves internet vigilantes. They have been successful against Internet predators and in shutting down child pornography sites. Anonymous also targets hate groups like the Westboro Baptist Church, shutting down its website and retrieving personal information of church members. Anonymous gained world recognition when it launched its Projects Chanology, a protest against the Church of Scientology. The group has claimed responsibility for attacks on the Pentagon, the News Corps, and has threatened to shut down Facebook. Anonymous has also been allied with other hacker groups, such as the People’s Liberation Front and websites like WikiLeaks, the online organization dedicated to publishing classified information.
In 2012, a poll by Time named Anonymous as one of the most influential groups in the world. Undoubtedly, the actions of Anonymous have demonstrated the power of information as well as the ability to control access to that information. One of its own members stated that Anonymous “might be the most powerful organization on earth,” because it is ushering in a new form of protest, one that exploits how heavily governments, organizations, and individuals rely on the Internet. The protests of Anonymous prove that the whole word is now run by information technology.
Questions remain about the motivations of Anonymous members and if they are do-gooders, terrorists, patriots, pranksters, cyber-bullies, or all of the above. With more and more online attacks and protests, however, the group is not likely to go away anytime soon. After all, Anonymous’ calling card is “we do not forgive…we do not forget.”
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