| Anonymous | |
|---|---|
 A flag conveying symbolism associated with Anonymous. The imagery of the "suit without a head" represents leaderless organization and anonymity.[1] | |
 Individuals appearing in public as Anonymous, wearing the Guy Fawkes masks popularized by the comic book and film V for Vendetta. | |
| Formation | 2003–present |
| Type | Internet meme; Multiple-use name/avatar; Virtual community; Voluntary association |
| Purpose/focus | Entertainment; Internet activism; Internet trolling; Internet vigilantism |
| Region served | Global |
| Membership | Decentralized affinity group |
In its early form, the concept has been adopted by a decentralized online community acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal, and primarily focused on entertainment. Beginning with 2008, the Anonymous collective has become increasingly associated with collaborative, international hacktivism, undertaking protests and other actions, often in retaliation against anti-digital piracy campaigns by motion picture and recording industry trade associations.[4][5] Actions credited to "Anonymous" are undertaken by unidentified individuals who apply the Anonymous label to themselves as attribution.[6]
Although not necessarily tied to a single online entity, many websites are strongly associated with Anonymous. This includes notable imageboards such as 4chan, their associated wikis, Encyclopædia Dramatica, and a number of forums.[7] After a series of controversial, widely-publicized protests and distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by Anonymous in 2008, incidents linked to its cadre members have increased.[8] In consideration of its capabilities, Anonymous has been posited by CNN to be one of the three major successors to WikiLeaks.[9]
Contents[hide] |
Background
Origins as a concept and a meme
Anonymous broadly represents the concept of any and all people as an unnamed collective. As a multiple-use name, individuals who share in the "Anonymous" moniker also adopt a shared online identity, characterized as hedonistic and uninhibited. This is intended as a satirical, conscious adoption of the online disinhibition effect.[11]
| “ | We [Anonymous] just happen to be a group of people on the internet who need — just kind of an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society. ...That's more or less the point of it. Do as you wish. ... There's a common phrase: 'we are doing it for the lulz.' | ” |
—Trent Peacock. Search Engine: The face of Anonymous, February 7, 2008.[11] | ||
We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.[12]
Iconography and aesthetics
![[icon]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small} | This section requires expansion with: information on Anonymous subcultural elements; common images, themes, concepts, etc. |
Online composition
| “ | [Anonymous is] the first Internet-based superconsciousness. Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know they're a group? Because they're traveling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely. | ” |
—Chris Landers. Baltimore City Paper, April 2, 2008.[2] | ||
A "loose coalition of Internet denizens,"[15] the group is banded together by the Internet, through sites such as 4chan,[13][15] 711chan,[13] Encyclopædia Dramatica,[16] IRC channels,[13] and YouTube.[3] Social networking services, such as Facebook, are used for the creation of groups which reach out to people to mobilize in real-world protests.[17]
Anonymous has no leader or controlling party and relies on the collective power of its individual participants acting in such a way that the net effect benefits the group.[15] "Anyone who wants to can be Anonymous and work toward a set of goals..." a member of Anonymous explained to the Baltimore City Paper. "We have this agenda that we all agree on and we all coordinate and act, but all act independently toward it, without any want for recognition. We just want to get something that we feel is important done..."[2]
Membership
| This section requires expansion with: information on revealed or former members (Gregg Housh, Barrett Brown, etc). |
According to self-ascribed members of Anonymous, membership is conditional but easily achieved, being as simple as concealing oneself while performing online activities. Several members or former members have been interviewed or become noted for their own participation in certain Anonymous activities.[citation needed] Asked about the demographics of Anonymous, Commander X indicated that the common conception of Anonymous as a youth group is a misconception. "The popular impression is....skewed. There are older people, from the direction of the Chaos Computer Club – that can if needed rein in the "kids" who appear to dominate Anon Ops."[citation needed] Due to the stand-alone complex nature of the group there is no real membership or leadership. Decisions are made on a personal level, advertised through social websites, and if many people on these websites decide that the cause is righteous enough they will continue to spread the cause until the date of the event where everyone who has heard about the cause and found it worthy of their time will add to the anonymous army of sorts to accomplish their goal. Due to this the total number of "anonymous" members is a constant unknown, as anyone who visits the social websites can join in the activities of the group of their own free will thereby becoming a member of the group. Usually only a small portion of the anonymous group will act at any one time, however direct attacks on the group have been known to cause more members to join the cause and retaliate.[citation needed]
Commander X and the People's Liberation Front
A person known as Commander X provides interviews and videos about Anonymous.[18] He said that "we are not a terrorist organization".[citation needed] In 2011, he was at the center of an investigation into Anonymous by Aaron Barr, who claimed to have identified him as a San Francisco gardener. Interviewed following the attack on HBGary Federal, Commander X revealed that while Barr suspected that he was a leader of the group, he was in his own words a "peon". However, Commander X did claim to be a skilled hacker and founding member of an allied organization, the Peoples Liberation Front (PLF). According to Commander X, Peoples Liberation Front, a collective of hactivists founded in 1985, acted with AnonOps, another sub-group of Anonymous, to carry out denial-of-service attacks against government websites in Tunisia, Iran, Egypt, and Bahrain. Explaining the relationship between Anonymous and the PLF, he suggested an analogy to NATO, with the PLF being a smaller sub-group that could choose to opt in or out of a specific project. "AnonOps and the PLF are both capable of creating huge "Internet armies". The main difference is Anon Ops moves with huge force, but very slowly because of their decision making process. The PLF moves with great speed, like a scalpel."[19] On September 23, a homeless man in California named Christopher Doyon was arrested, under charges that he participated online as a part of a group called "PLF", and as "Anonymous".[20] He pleaded not guilty to charges.[21]Low Orbit Ion Cannon
Main article: LOIC
The Low Orbit Ion Cannon is a network stress testing application that has been used by Anonymous to accomplish its DDOS attacks. Individual users download the LOIC and voluntarily contribute their computer to a bot net. This bot net is then directed against the target by AnonOps.[22] Joining the bot net and volunteering one's resources for the use of the group is thus one way of being a "member," a concept that is otherwise hard to define.Activities
Main article: Timeline of events involving Anonymous
Protest actions
The Pirate Bay, Megaupload, SOPA protest
In April 2009, after The Pirate Bay co-defendants were found guilty of facilitating extensive copyright infringement "in a commercial and organized form", Anonymous launched a coordinated DDoS attack against the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an organisation responsible for safeguarding recording artists' rights.[23] When co-founders lost their appeal against convictions for encouraging piracy, Anonymous again targeted the IFPI, labelling them "parasites". A statement read: "We will continue to attack those who embrace censorship. You will not be able to hide your ludicrous ways to control us."[24][25]On January 19, 2012, Megaupload, a website providing file sharing services, was shut down by the US Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.[26] This led to what Anonymous called "the single largest Internet attack in its history".[27] Barrett Brown, described as a spokesperson for the group Anonymous by news outlet RT, said the timing of the raid "couldn’t have come at a worse time in terms of the government’s standpoint".[27] With the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) protests only a day old, it was claimed that internet users were "by-and-far ready to defend an open Internet".[27]
Brown told RT that the Department of Justice website was shut down only 70 minutes after the start of the attack. Days later many of the sites were still down or slow to load. The attack disabled a number of websites, including those belonging to the Justice Department, the FBI, Universal Music Group, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and Broadcast Music, Inc.[27] "Even without SOPA having been passed yet, the federal government always had tremendous power to do some of the things that they want to do. So if this is what can occur without SOPA being passed, imagine what can occur after SOPA is passed," Brown commented.[27] Although the actions of Anonymous received support, some commentators argued that the denial of service attack risked damaging the anti-SOPA case.[28][29][30]
The attack included a new, sophisticated method whereby internet users who clicked on links placed in chat rooms and on twitter participated, some without their knowledge, in a denial of service attack, thereby breaking existing US law. Anonymous used "Low Orbit Ion Cannon" (LOIC) to attack supporters of SOPA on January 19, 2012. Anonymous claimed this to be their largest attack with over 5,635 people participating in the DDoS attack via LOIC.[31] LOIC was utilized by many attackers, despite the fact that a network firewall could easily filter out network traffic it generates, thus rendering it only partly effective.
Operation Global Blackout
Operation Global Blackout is a threatened digital protest action by activist group Anonymous. In a Video released by the group, website Facebook was described as the target of the attack, the group stating that they may shut down Facebook's 60,000 servers.[32]In another threat under the same name, Anonymous wants to bring down the Internet by attacking its root nameservers.[33]
Reception and impact
| This section requires expansion with: reactions to Anonymous including praise and criticism. |
Media coverage
KTTV Fox 11 news report
On July 26, 2007, Fox affiliate KTTV in Los Angeles, California aired a report on Anonymous, calling them a group of "hackers on steroids," "domestic terrorists," and collectively an "Internet hate machine." The report covered an attack on a Myspace user, who claimed to have had his Myspace account "hacked" into seven times by Anonymous, and plastered with images of gay pornography. The Myspace user also claimed a virus written by Anonymous hackers was sent to him and to ninety friends on his Myspace contact list, crashing thirty-two of his friends' computers. The report featured an unnamed former "hacker" who had fallen out with Anonymous and explained his view of the Anonymous culture. In addition, the report also mentioned "raids" on Habbo, a "national campaign to spoil the new Harry Potter book ending," and threats to "bomb sports stadiums."[8][34]
The day following the KTTV report, Wired News blogger and journalist Ryan Singel derided the report, stating that Fox news service had confused the hacker group with "supremely bored 15-year olds who post obscene pictures" from the English-language imageboard website 4chan, and that the news report was "by far the funniest prank anyone on the board has ever pulled off."[35] In February 2008, an Australia-based Today Tonight broadcast included a segment of the KTTV report, preceded by the statement: "The Church of Scientology has ramped up the offensive against Anonymous, accusing the group of religious bigotry and claiming they are sick, twisted souls."[36]
Al Jazeera coverage
The English language edition of Al Jazeera published regular articles on Anonymous and its activism. The journal also ran opinion pieces on the group, sometimes laudatory, describing it as a future form of internet-based social activism:"This is the future, whether one approves or not, and the failure on the part of governments and media alike to understand, and contend with the rapid change now afoot, ought to remind everyone concerned why it is that this movement is necessary in the first place."[37]
Search Engine subject of focus
In January 2008, Search Engine, a Canadian radio show published by CBC Radio One, began reporting on Project Chanology. Host Jesse Brown called Anonymous "clowns," citing their lack of coordination, vulgar humor, and pack mentality, and invited them to confront him in person. On February 7, two members of Anonymous appeared on the show, explaining the nature of the group and the genuine criticism they held for Scientology.[11] After Anonymous held a protest in front of Scientology compounds around the world on February 10, 2008, Brown admitted that they had "proved me wrong."[38]The nature of the protest was unprecedented—picketers wore masks and refused to divulge names—and sparked a follow-up discussion on the show about journalistic standards for source protection, and the meaning of identity. Brown brought the issue to his own workplace, interviewing CBC's president Hubert Lacroix in reaction to a conflict between him and an anonymous critic who went by the handle "Ouimet."[11]
Reaction from law enforcement agencies
Arrests
| “ | First, who is this group called Anonymous? Put simply, it is an international cabal of criminal hackers dating back to 2003, who have shut down the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice and the F.B.I. They have hacked into the phone lines of Scotland Yard. They are responsible for attacks against MasterCard, Visa, Sony and the Governments of the U.S., U.K., Turkey, Australia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. | ” |
—Canadian MP Marc Garneau, 2012[39] | ||
In January 2011, the FBI issued more than 40 search warrants in a probe against the Anonymous attacks on companies that opposed Wikileaks. The FBI did not issue any arrest warrants, but issued a statement that participating in DDOS attacks is a criminal offense with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.[41][42]
In January 2011, the British police arrested five boys and men between the ages of 15 and 26 with suspicion of participating in Anonymous DDOS attacks.[43]
Matthew George, a Newcastle, New South Wales resident, concerned with forthcoming Australian internet filtration legislation, was arrested for his participation in Anonymous DDOS activities. George participated in Anonymous IRC discussions, and allowed his computer to be used in a denial of service attack associated with Operation Titstorm. Tracked down by authorities, he was fined $550, though he was not fully aware that his actions were illegal, and believed his participation in Operation Titstorm had been a legal form of civil protest. His experience left him disillusioned with the potential of online anonymity, warning others: "There is no way to hide on the internet, no matter how hard you cover your tracks you can get caught. You're not invincible."[44]
On June 10, 2011, the Spanish police captured three purported members of Anonymous in the cities of Gijon, Barcelona and Valencia. The operation deactivated the main server from which the three men coordinated DDoS attacks. This particular group had made attacks on the web servers of the Playstation store, BBVA, Bankia, and the websites of the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. The operation revealed that their structure consisted of "cells" which at any given time could coordinate attacks through the downloading of software; the decision-making process to attack occurred in chat rooms. The Spanish national police stated that this operation corresponds to the fact that the Spanish government and NATO considers this group of hackers a threat to national security.[45]
On June 13, 2011, officials in Turkey arrested 32 individuals that were allegedly involved in DDoS attacks on Turkish government websites. These members of Anonymous were captured in different cities of Turkey including Istanbul and Ankara. According to PC Magazine these individuals were arrested after they attacked these websites as a response to the Turkish government demand to ISPs to implement a system of filters that many have perceived as censorship.[46][47]
During July 19–20, 2011, as many as 20 or more arrests were made of suspected Anonymous hackers in the US, UK, and Netherlands following the 2010 Operation Avenge Assange in which the group attacked PayPal, as well as attacking MasterCard and Visa after they froze Wikileaks accounts. According to US officials statements suspects homes were raided and suspects were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio, as well as a 16 year old boy being held by the police in south London on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and four being held in the Netherlands.[48][49][50][51]
On February 28, 2012, Interpol issued warrants for the arrests of 25 people with suspected links to the loose hacking collective Anonymous, according to a statement from the international police agency. The suspects, between the ages of 17 and 40, were all arrested.[52]
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