Building a Better 'Anonymous?'

An anonymous reader writes "A hacktivism panel at the DefCon hacker convention was conspicuously missing its star member Aaron Barr, who dropped out under legal pressure from his former company HBGary Federal, debated how Anonymous could channel its efforts for the greater good. Members of Anon attending the discussion chimed in, too."

Comments

Anonymous is too busy

[DoktorSeven]

Anonymous won't do anything productive. They're too busy trying to get doubles.

Posting anonymously for obvious reasons

[Anonymous Coward]

Will try to keep it short to please the tl;dr crowd.

Whatever they are discussing, it is not Anonymous, the good old "Internet Hating Machine". Wikipedia is defining it as "(...) a group initiating active civil disobedience and spread through the Internet while staying hidden, originating in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan" but it couldn't be farther from the truth.

Check the origins and the unofficial mottos of Anonymous. "Doing it for the lulz", "Because none of us is as cruel as all of us".

Trying to pass anonymous a dark side vigilant group, a collective of Batmans fighting for justice in the shadows is part of the mythology some of these misfit teenagers would like to believe. In reality, the only thing the so called "Anonymous" is capable to do on its own volition is to troll camwhores on Omegle and to ruin teenagers lifes.

All the rest of the stuff that is pinned on them can be divided in two opposite movements:
1. Highly capable individuals, cloaking themselves in the unwashed masses
2. Naive and idealist youngsters in need of a banner to follow.

The first group is responsible for most of the high profile hacks you see, Sony being the most visible example.

The second group is responsible for all the PR you see going around, and the most likely to go down when it finally hits the fan. They would be on Greenpeace, PETA or any other of these protesting groups but choose Anonymous because it doesn't require socialization.

tl;dr: there is such thing as Anonymous, but it is not doing what people are pinning on them. There are hackers wreaking havoc and blaming it on them, and there are naive idealists pretending to be internet superheroes. The real original Anonymous is still busy hacking facebook accounts and tracking down camwhores based on the EXIF of their pictures.

I guess I don't belong.

[BitwiseX]

"If you leave Anonymous because you don't agree with something it did, then you don't belong in Anonymous," Housch says.

The problem with Anonymous being so unstructured, (which isn't a bad idea) is that anybody can do anything under that brand. As much as I like the thought and the idea of Anonymous, when they attack innocents I can't be associated with them. That's off target. Oh, they don't attack innocents you say? Well you look at those massive password dumps and tell me that all those folks are "wrong doers". I guarantee that MOST of those users are regular Joes (possibly even members of Anon!) who are just trying to make a pay check. Guilty by association doesn't work for entire corporations from top to bottom. Hell, I saw a mySQL dump of passwords for a nudist colony tweeted by Anonymous. Really? A corrupt nudist colony? When you're THAT off target, that's the kind of BS that's going to be used against you. "Chaotic" is the perfect description of Anonymous, and I don't see how it will be anything but. It's unfortunate.

This is why I don't call myself a member of Anonymous, and don't see myself being a "member" anytime soon. Good messages, poor execution.

Anon

[mfh]

Isn't Anonymous kind of synonymous with progressive anarchy? Here are ten things Anonymous could do if they wanted to really be recognized as a positive force for all of humanity:

1. Develop a manner where a person could support themselves legitimately anywhere in the world. (ie: generate legit income from fair labour)

2. Develop a manner where a person could know what organizations to support and which to avoid.

3. Help inform people about what they do that is positive.

4. Cultivate talent.

5. Grow numbers.

6. Maintain their own security.

7. Shun asshats.

8. Give and get some lulz that are positive. Remember sometimes the lulz are funny

9. Create some technologies and give them away to the planet.

10. Develop a future for Anonymous. What is Anonymous in 20yrs? Is it still an underground group of loosely affiliated people? Is it every human being on the planet? What are the goals of this group? What should the goals be? What shouldn't the goals be?