The Internet police have been here all along
In a previous article (World War 3 is already happening), I mentioned how I was going to speak about the Anonymous group at some point. Well, I've built the tension enough now, so here it is, what you've all been waiting for. Currently, I am unaware of any really recent Anonymous activity, but I'm writing this as a general overview of who they are and what they do.
In the most basic form, Anonymous is a hacking group. They're in the news pretty often for hacking various websites, and usually given a bit of a bad press about everything. Formed on 4Chan (not exactly the best part of the internet, but still), Anonymous became a loosely-connected group. There is no leader, there's no ranking and there's no real membership, either. If you want to join, you've joined. In a way, Anonymous aren't really a group, they're more of a collective way of thinking. You don't need to be a hacker, just someone who wants what the group wants. 'What does the group want?' I hear you all desperately pleading. Well, glad you asked.
For a group who's Wikipedia page features a statement about how a common phrase of their's is 'for the lulz,' they're surprisingly sensible. They're not just 'bored geeks,' as some media's said, but there are very clear aims- the simplest being resist internet censorship and surveillance. For this, now and again they've been known to attack government websites. This was what happened after Pirate Bay and Megaupload were shut down. The sharing of files is part of the freedom of the internet, and to take them way is censorship. Anonymous don't really let things like this go. And so, on Thursday, 19th January 2012, they hacked the FBI. This is one of the reasons why they're not too popular amongst authority.
For supposed 'bad guys,' however, they're not... Well, bad. When they're not annoying the feds, they've also been known to attack paedophiles. In what was known as 'Operation Darknet,' Anonymous found a child porn website. They then published 1,589 members' names onto pastebin. Good guy Anonymous. Except someone still had a go at them for being vigilantes, and they should 'leave it to the authorities'. I think part of the reason I find them so cool is the fact that they're made to sound like Batman.
Unfortunately, they're not really forgiving people. After political pressure, Paypal closed an account for Wikileaks and wouldn't release the money. Wikileaks, representing free speech and online freedom, were supported by Anonymous. Thus, when Paypal caved, Anonymous went a bit psycho- and under the name 'Operation Payback,' they wrote off 3 and a half million of Paypal's virtual pounds. Nobody's perfect.
The fact is, Anonymous are basically the people who are actually protecting the internet. They've attacked Scientology as well, alongside real life protests, and fought against homophobia, but I don't want to drag this article out. I personally find Anonymous brilliant, but they do seem to be getting a bit of bad publicity, some deserved, but mostly it's not. And yet these people are actually being put in prison for trying to protect some of our freedom. I don't know, it feels wrong.
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Leo Thorncroft writing for The Idle Scribe
