Anonymous And The War Over The Internet

[polaris93]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/30/anonymous-internet-war_n_1233977.html

On the origins, tactics, strategies, and motivations of members of Anonymous.

Comments

[galadrion]

*Grimace* Anonymous is in a very difficult position, and I don't know how many of them even realize it. Right now, there is no "quality control" over who is a part of Anonymous or who is acting on its behalf, and that means (via Sturgeon's Law) that there is an awful lot of garbage mixed in with the more useful stuff. Unfortunately, Anonymous is between a Scylla and a Charybdis - the two mutually exclusive courses of (a) tightening up the criteria of what it "means" to be Anonymous, and (b) retaining the untraceability and, well, anonymity of being Anonymous.

Personally, I see two highly likely future courses as roughly equal in probability: either Anonymous as a "group" will tear itself apart (whether through some small subset trying to co-opt leadership and destroying the whole thing through a civil war, or through a failure of any such subset to materialize, leading to the group essentially dissipating into the broader internet "culture"), or some subset will take control of the movement and "clean it up"... and thus make it a

[polaris93]

You're quite right on all counts. Anonymous is sitting on an enormous volcano that is primed to blow, and doesn't seem to be aware of it. Among other things, they uncover great numbers of credit-card numbers and other extremely valuable commodities and expose them to the world. Not only is this an extremely nasty form of theft, but it can cause literally millions of card-users to be badly hurt financially. Then there's identity theft, especially the social security numbers of children. Once those are ripped off, the uses to which they are put will damage someone's credit for life. The public is justifiably outraged over this, equal parts anger and fear informing their attitude; and governments have every incentive to go after the bastards who do this. Anonymous plays this for laughs -- but the cops have the guns and the attorneys and their own hackers and will eventually nail the worst offenders among Anonymous. Anonymous is into frivolous cruelty against people who are, by and large, innocent of anything deserving of it.

The new Mafia

[actonrf]

I see them as not liberations bu the new face of organized crime.

Re: The new Mafia

[polaris93]

There's a litmus test for that: ask them to put their own credit-card and social security numbers -- or those of their parents and sweethearts -- where the world can see and use them. If they mean what they say, they'll do it, or already have done it. Otherwise, they're liars and criminals.

[mauser]

And yet, of all their institutional targets, have they actually harmed any agency whose site they temporarily blocked? Sure, they've ruined individual lives, but have they actually made any REAL changes?

No.

But that doesn't stop them from congratulating themselves. How very liberal of them.

[polaris93]

Most of them are young -- maybe as young as 24 or younger, some as young as 15. That's where the liberal thought-patterns come in: they haven't grown up. Which means you've got all those smart-ass, immature teenage and early-twenties jerks pulling stunts that can ruin people, at least ordinary citizens, such as by releasing tons of credit-card and social security numbers to the wild, where anyone can see and use them (though you can bet they don't do that to their own sensitive info). That's the social equivalent of handing a teenager a hydrogen bomb and telling him how to set it off. Their parents must be idiots.