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2. Anonymous and Social HacktivismThe popular conception of hackers is one of young men sitting in dark basement rooms for hours uponend, surrounded by empty takeout containers: alone and unaffiliated. Individual hackers rarely influence history,the actions of large corporations, or the governments of the world—unless they can somehow work together andform a collective. The hacktivist group Anonymous seems to have achieved this goal.48The group’s beginnings can be traced back to 2003, when individual hackers began posting proposals forcollective action on an Internet forum called 4-chan, a simple image-based bulletin board where anyone can postcomments and share images—and one of the least regulated parts of the Internet in the early 2000s. At first, theidea was the adoption of a decentralized online community that could act anonymously, but in a coordinatedmanner. Group actions were usually aligned toward some nebulous goal, with the primary focus being on themembers’ own entertainment. 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 copy protection and copythese products for free. As the movement grew, some members began to see the potential for greater social andpolitical activity, and social “hacktivism” was born.49Anonymous has no leader or formal decision-making mechanism. “Anyone who wants to can beAnonymous and work toward a set of goals…” a member of Anonymous explained. “We have this agenda that weall 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…”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 an attempt to remove an interviewwith Tom Cruise, a famous church member, from the Internet.51 The church felt the video injured its image. Itsucceeded in removing the video from YouTube and other Web sites, but Anonymous posted the video on theGawker Web site.52 The effort gave Anonymous a sense of the power it could harness.53As the movement grew, Anonymous expanded its targets and attracted media attention. After the Web siteWikiLeaks, which relied on donations to support its operations, released large collections of classified Americanmilitary documents and diplomatic cables, PayPal, MasterCard, and Bank of America announced that they wouldno longer process donations to WikiLeaks. 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 to a newsletter published by theinternational security think tank, Stratfor, which Anonymous viewed as a reactionary force both online and in thereal world. Stratfor customer credit cards were used to make over $500,000 in fraudulent donations to variouscharities.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 inall the major cities across Syria 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, Anonymous briefly corruptedthe Web site of the U.S. Sentencing Commission and threatened to release sensitive information concerning theU.S. Department of Justice. Anonymous blamed the justice system for Swartz’s suicide, claiming that prosecutorswere pursuing “highly disproportionate sentencing” 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 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 illegal and has exposednumerous members of the collective to police inquiry and legal problems. The Interpol international policing bodyhas been particularly active in its pursuit of Anonymous members. In early 2012, as part of Interpol’s efforts, 25Anonymous members were arrested in four different countries.57 Furthermore, an influential member of thecollective, known online as “Sabu,” was recently outed as an FBI informant. After participating in the Stratforhack, Sabu gave information to the FBI leading to the arrest of several Anonymous senior members.58 However,after the revelation that one of their own had cooperated with the FBI’s efforts against the group, one memberposted the following: “Don’t you get it by now?#Anonymous is an idea. #Anonymous is a movement. It will keepgrowing, adapting and evolving, no matter what.”59Discussion Questions1. If you had an opportunity to join Anonymous, would you? Why, or why not?2. Would you say that Anonymous’ actions in support of WikiLeaks were legal? Were these actions ethical? Whatabout their actions to set up satellite transmission stations across Syria?3. How serious of a threat does Anonymous pose to organizational and government Web sites?
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