3. Anonymous and Social HacktivismT

3
. Anonymous and Social Hacktivism
The po
pular conception of hackers is one of young men sitting in dark basement rooms for
hours upon
end, surrounded by empty takeout containers: alone and unaffiliated. Individual
hackers rarely influence history,
the actions of large corporations, or the govern
ments of the
world
—
unless they can somehow work together and
form a collective. The hacktivist group
Anonymous seems to have achieved this goal.48
The group’s beginnings can be traced back to 2003, when individual hackers began posting
proposals for
collec
tive action on an Internet forum called 4
-
chan, a simple image
-
based bulletin
board where anyone can post
comments and share images
—
and one of the least regulated
parts of the Internet in the early 2000s. At first, the
idea was the adoption of a decentrali
zed
online community that could act anonymously, but in a coordinated
manner. Group actions were
usually aligned toward some nebulous goal, with the primary focus being on the
members’ own
entertainment. For example, Anonymous members hacked the copy
-
prote
ct codes of DVDs and
video games and posted them online. This action enabled other hackers to disable the copy
protection and copy
these products for free. As the movement grew, some members began to
see the potential for greater social and
political activ
ity, and social “hacktivism” was born.49
Anonymous has no leader or formal decision
-
making mechanism. “Anyone who wants to
can be
Anonymous and work toward a set of goals...” a member of Anonymous explained. “We
have this agenda that we
all agree on and we a
ll 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...”50
Anonymous’ first move toward a political action came in the form of a distributed denialof
-
servi
ce
(DDoS) attack on the Church of Scientology in 2008. The church had made an
attempt to remove an interview
with Tom Cruise, a famous church member, from the Internet.51
The church felt the video injured its image. It
succeeded in removing the video from
YouTube
and other Web sites, but Anonymous posted the video on the
Gawker Web site.52 The effort
gave Anonymous a sense of the power it could harness.53
As the movement grew, Anonymous expanded its targets and attracted media attention.
After the Web site
WikiLeaks, which relied on donations to support its operations, released
large collections of classified American
military documents and diplomatic cables, PayPal,
MasterCard, and Bank of America announced that they would
no longer process donations to
Wik
iLeaks. This action threatened to put the WikiLeaks Web site out of business.
In response,
Anonymous launched major DDoS attacks on the Web sites of these financial companies.
In 2012,
Anonymous published the names and credit card information of the subscr
ibers to
a newsletter published by the
international security think tank, Stratfor, which Anonymous
viewed as a reactionary force both online and in the
real world. Stratfor customer credit cards
were used to make over $500,000 in fraudulent donations to v
arious
charities.54 Also in 2012,
Anonymous attacked the regime of Syrian president Bashar al
-
Assad. In this instance,
Anonymous
went beyond DDoS attacks on government sites and actually set up satellite transmission
stations in
all the major cities across
Syria to serve as independent media centers in anticipation
of the Syrian government’s efforts to cut off its citizens from the Internet.55
In response to the suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz in early 2013, Anonymous
briefly corrupted
the Web sit
e of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and threatened to release
sensitive information concerning the
U.S. Department of Justice. Anonymous blamed the justice
system for Swartz’s suicide, claiming that prosecutors
were pursuing “highly disproportionate
senten
cing” in cases against some of its members and others, like Swartz,
who championed
open access to online documents. Swartz was facing federal charges that he stole millions of
online documents and could have served up to 35 years in prison.56
The group’s s
trategy of using DDoS attacks and publishing personal information is illegal
and has exposed
numerous members of the collective to police inquiry and legal problems.
The Interpol international policing body
has been particularly active in its pursuit of An
onymous
members. In early 2012, as part of Interpol’s efforts, 25
Anonymous members were
arrested in four different countries.57 Furthermore, an influential member of the
collective,
known online as “Sabu,” was recently outed as an FBI informant. After par
ticipating in the
Stratfor
ha

Hasil (Bahasa Indonesia) 1:

3. Anonymous and Social HacktivismThe popular conception of hackers is one of young men sitting in dark basement rooms forhours upon end, surrounded by empty takeout containers: alone and unaffiliated. Individualhackers rarely influence history, the actions of large corporations, or the governments of theworld—unless they can somehow work together and form a collective. The hacktivist groupAnonymous seems to have achieved this goal.48The group’s beginnings can be traced back to 2003, when individual hackers began postingproposals for collective action on an Internet forum called 4-chan, a simple image-based bulletinboard where anyone can post comments and share images—and one of the least regulatedparts of the Internet in the early 2000s. At first, the idea was the adoption of a decentralizedonline community that could act anonymously, but in a coordinated manner. Group actions wereusually aligned toward some nebulous goal, with the primary focus being on the members’ ownentertainment. For example, Anonymous members hacked the copy-protect codes of DVDs andvideo games and posted them online. This action enabled other hackers to disable the copyprotection and copy these products for free. As the movement grew, some members began tosee the potential for greater social and political activity, and social “hacktivism” was born.49Anonymous has no leader or formal decision-making mechanism. “Anyone who wants tocan be Anonymous and work toward a set of goals...” a member of Anonymous explained. “Wehave this agenda that we all agree on and we all coordinate and act, but all act independentlytoward it, without any want for recognition. We just want to get something that we feel is importantdone...”50Anonymous’ first move toward a political action came in the form of a distributed denialof-service (DDoS) attack on the Church of Scientology in 2008. The church had made anattempt to remove an interview with Tom Cruise, a famous church member, from the Internet.51The church felt the video injured its image. It succeeded in removing the video from YouTubeand other Web sites, but Anonymous posted the video on the Gawker Web site.52 The effortgave Anonymous a sense of the power it could harness.53As the movement grew, Anonymous expanded its targets and attracted media attention.After the Web site WikiLeaks, which relied on donations to support its operations, releasedlarge collections of classified American military documents and diplomatic cables, PayPal,MasterCard, and Bank of America announced that they would no longer process donations toWikiLeaks. This action threatened to put the WikiLeaks Web site out of business. In response,Anonymous launched major DDoS attacks on the Web sites of these financial companies.In 2012, Anonymous published the names and credit card information of the subscribers toa newsletter published by the international security think tank, Stratfor, which Anonymousviewed as a reactionary force both online and in the real world. Stratfor customer credit cardswere used to make over $500,000 in fraudulent donations to various charities.54 Also in 2012,Anonymous attacked the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. In this instance, Anonymouswent beyond DDoS attacks on government sites and actually set up satellite transmissionstations in all the major cities acrossSyria to serve as independent media centers in anticipationof the Syrian government’s efforts to cut off its citizens from the Internet.55In response to the suicide of Internet activist Aaron Swartz in early 2013, Anonymousbriefly corrupted the Web site of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and threatened to releasesensitive information concerning the U.S. Department of Justice. Anonymous blamed the justicesystem for Swartz’s suicide, claiming that prosecutors were pursuing “highly disproportionatesentencing” in cases against some of its members and others, like Swartz, who championedopen access to online documents. Swartz was facing federal charges that he stole millions ofonline documents and could have served up to 35 years in prison.56The group’s strategy of using DDoS attacks and publishing personal information is illegaland has exposed numerous members of the collective to police inquiry and legal problems.Interpol internasional kebijakan tubuh telah sangat aktif dalam pengejaranonymousanggota. Pada awal 2012, sebagai bagian dari upaya Interpol, 25 Anggota anonimditangkap di empat berbeda countries.57 selanjutnya, anggota berpengaruh kolektif,online yang dikenal sebagai "Sabu," adalah baru saja outed sebagai seorang informan FBI. Setelah participating diStratfor Ha