Slashdot Mirror
Angles On Anonymous
A number of readers are sending in links related to Anonymous, the Internet phenomenon — don't call them a group — behind the controversial DDoS attacks on commercial entities that fail to support WikiLeaks. The best insight into Anonymous comes from the Economist's Babbage blogger, who hung out in one of their IRC channels. Reader nk497 points out that UK users looking to join Anonymous's DDoS army should be aware they could face a jail term of up to two years; simply downloading the LOIC software used in the DDoSing could suffice to earn a conviction. One 16-year-old has been arrested in The Netherlands and is charged with participating in the DDoS. Reader ancientribe sends in coverage of a claim by one security outfit that several existing criminal botnets have joined forces with Anonymous's Operation: Payback. And reader Stoobalou notes a Thinq.co.uk story on a manifesto of sorts that purports to come from "ANON OPS," even though Anonymous disclaims any central spokesperson or entity (press release here, PDF).
The most successful part of their trolling is that major news outlets still don't understand the joke. They're anonymous. They're not a group. You could just as easily say "bunches of people who have never met"
Belief? Hope? Preference?The Existential Vortex
Now, TITS or GTFO.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Their antics just keep giving politicians reasons to clamp down on the internet. Way to go, idiots!
Politicians don't need reasons to clamp down on the internet, they are going to do it either way. Just like they have with airline security, it's gotten worse over the years despite nothing happening after 9/11.
Their antics are at least trying to bring about some change or awareness before the internet gets clamped down. Think about it, some script kiddie in junior high has contributed more to the world situation these past few months than you might ever in your life. If you think they are idiots, why don't you try and stop them for ruining things for you?
I am so sick of hearing about /b/. Its not that I'm against wikileaks or julian assange, I'm all for freedom of speech and transparent government. I'm against how everyone misuses the name Anonymous constantly. They are not the only board on 4chan for gods sake. Every time the media focuses on them it makes the rest of us look like idiots. For the record pretty much every other board on 4chan is against this nonsense. Anonymous is not a terrorist organization, its just a name nothing more. Anyone wearing a Guy Fawkes mask doesn't know the first damn thing about freedom and just follows the trend of his fellow /b/tards and its been this way since project chanology. Conformism and ignorance is the very thing were against. Theres no reason why they do it except maybe for some false sense of righteousness. They disgrace our name and our website. Call them /b/tards, terrorists, idiots, but not Anonymous. That name belongs to us and were sick of being grouped with them.
It's one thing to suspect government duplicity, it's another to see it written in black on white.
As an example, I am sickened how the German authorities caved to US pressure with regards to El-Masri's abduction by the CIA while calling for a "thorough investigation" publicly.
Source: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,733860,00.html
Free Manning, jail Obama.
This is a fair question and hard to answer in a way that is convincing. I know no one is in charge because I know who anonymous is. Explaining the back story (and thus the joke) takes a lot of ink; you kind of had to be there. All I can say, briefly, is "Trust me," which is not going to be convincing to you.
There *are* some clueless people who are trying to be "Anonymous the group", which I call captial-A Anonymous because this is what reporters have insisted on saying since the Scientology raid. That was a bad raid, because even though it was funny it brought in too much attention by supporters who were not in on the joke. Ever since then, and just before then with the Fox News piece on "Anonymous", reporters trying to cover this have been saying "Anonymous" like it's an organization or group of some kind. If you were anonymous at the time, even if not participating in the raids, it would have been obvious how silly this was. Actually, a lot of fun was had making fun of this mistake. A lot of fun is still being had.
Some anonymous are definitely out to be activists and like trying to incite the mob for their personal agendas, but mostly they are not successful. The mob will react when it is interesting to do so.
By now, thanks to reporting, there are people out there who want to "join" the "Anonymous protest group." I assure you that 99.99% of these people are ineffectual and are not involved in any actual site takedowns. Some who try are like the guy who got arrested. Arrests like that won't stop the DDoSes because they're just picking off the fringe hangers-on.
The thing to keep in mind is that anonymous is a name, not a plural, or it is a description of a characteristic. Anonymous is no more a group than "Youth" is a group; yes, it's a group in the sense that it's a classification, but in no other way. A bunch of kids in a schoolyard may represent Youth in a certain sense, but they do not speak for Youth. In a similar way many are anonymous and many groups of anonymous exist, but no one speaks for anonymous. More accurately no one speaks *directly* for anonymous; anonymous tends to make his opinions known in the form of memes--not image macros or catch phrases, but ideas that appear without apparent direction in the minds of many different people and spread through word of mouth. You can get a broad sense of what anonymous thinks and feels from the aggregation of a lot of things. These thoughts and feelings are by necessity few and/or general, and they may not be universal to every anonymous. It's just that, on the whole, anonymous tends to agree. Quintessential example: furries are bad.
I want my Cowboyneal
-USA taxpayers paid a private defense contractor to buy Afghan cops a boy sex toy. Apparently it's a pre-taliban tradition.
-Our diplomates were instructed to get the U.N. leader Ban Ki-Moons biometrics, passwords, and encryption keys.
-We've pushed our own IP laws onto Spain
But holy cow, you may just want to take your pick of anything on the wiki page. There's plenty there. Most of it is, yeah, stupid things like candid descriptions by diplomats. But some of is examples of people in power abusing said power.
"Democracy" what country are you from?
In the good `ol USofA we have:
Sham elections
Faux news
The largest prison population in the world
The highest infant mortality rate in the "developed" world (right up there near the top worldwide)
The shortest life expectancy in the "developed" world (right down there near the bottom worldwide)
The worst/most expensive educational system by far (outside of Haiti/Afghanistan)
"Democracy" Who among us voted for the patriot act? Or enhanced screening, Or Tax free billionaires? Or crumbling roads/bridges? Or the endless farce of the Washington crowd pig fucking us over and over again?
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd