What is Anonymous? How the infamous ‘hacktivist’ group went from 4chan trolling to launching cyberattacks on Russia
For almost two decades, one of the world’s most notorious hacker organizations has operated below the identify “Anonymous.” And the mysterious online neighborhood is making headlines as soon as again.
Who are the Anonymous hackers and why did their names appear in the protests?
Russia suffers from "cyber warfare" launched by global hacking group Anonymous
After Russia invaded Ukraine at the cease of February, a Twitter account with 7.9 million followers named “Anonymous” declared a “cyberwar” in opposition to Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin. Since then, the crew has claimed accountability for a number of cyberattacks that disabled websites and leaked facts from Russian authorities agencies, as properly as state-run information retailers and corporations.
Often referred to as “hacktivists,” Anonymous employs coordinated cyberattacks in opposition to a variety of world governments, firms, or different groups, regularly in the identification of social or political causes. In a Feb. 24 tweet, the “Anonymous” account — which says it “cannot declare to communicate for the entire of the Anonymous collective” — referred to as on hackers around the world, consisting of in Russia, to “say ‘NO’ to Vladimir Putin’s war.”
Over the years, movements linked to Anonymous have stimulated each Hollywood filmmaker and different hacker agencies around the world. Here’s a appear at the murky group’s origins, some of its most great cyberattacks, and the philosophy that allegedly steers its decisions:
Anonymous origins
Anonymous’ starting place story starts in the online message boards of 4chan, the nameless social neighborhood internet site centered in 2003. Even today, posts on 4chan from customers who don’t specify a username are labeled as written via “Anonymous.”
In the website’s early days, customers regularly prepared crew pranks known as “raids,” flooding chat rooms in video games and different online communities to motive disruptions. 4chan commenced cracking down on the raids after critics accused individuals of cyberbullying and posting offensive content.
Those raids shaped the foundation of Anonymous’ operations: a decentralized motion of like-minded online customers who would talk in encrypted chat rooms to format online disruptions. At first, these plans have been mostly about affordable entertainment. Eventually, they started to revolve around social or political aims.
The group’s most outstanding early occasion of “hacktivism” got here in 2008, when 4chan customers led with the aid of early Anonymous hacker Gregg Housh launched a coordinated effort in opposition to the Church of Scientology, the usage of methods like denial-of-service (DDoS) assaults on the church’s websites, prank telephone calls and faxing the church black pages to waste their printer ink.
The cyberattacks, which Anonymous labeled “Project Chanology,” have been retaliation for what the hackers deemed as tried censorship: The church had legally threatened Gawker after the media outlet posted a leaked video of actor Tom Cruise talking enthusiastically about Scientology.
A collection of global protests in opposition to Scientology quickly followed, with many Anonymous-supporting protesters sporting white-and-black Guy Fawkes masks, depicting the seventeenth-century British insurrectionist. Those masks have in view that emerge as carefully related with hacking group.
Philosophy and targets
Generally, Anonymous opposes governments and companies that it views as collaborating in censorship or merchandising inequality. Since the team is decentralized, it has no actual shape or hierarchy — so there’s regularly a great deal inside debate about which thoughts or reasons to support.
A pinned 2019 tweet on the @YourAnonNews Twitter account – which, again, claims no longer to communicate for the collective as a total – describes Anonymous contributors as “working category humans looking for a better future for humanity.” It lists Anonymous’ guiding concepts as “freedom of information, freedom of speech, accountability for organizations and governments, privateness and anonymity for personal citizens.”
Since “Project Chanology,” Anonymous participants have centered a lengthy listing of parties, including:
- the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), after these companies, labored to cease pirating websites from sharing copyrighted tunes and movies.
- the U.S. Department of Justice and FBI, after federal authorities shut down file-sharing internet site Megaupload.com in 2012.
- PayPal, after the online repayments platform, stopped permitting donations to WikiLeaks and its controversial founder, Julian Assange.
- government websites in Tunisia, Egypt, and different international locations in the Middle East and Africa as sections of the 2011 Arab Spring pro-democracy protests.
- ISIS, following the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks.
Authorities around the world have arrested dozens of hackers with alleged ties to Anonymous, such as at least 14 humans charged with hacking PayPal in 2011. Barrett Brown, a journalist, and self-professed Anonymous spokesperson served greater than 4 years in jail after a 2012 arrest on costs associated with cyberattacks and threatening a federal officer.
The collective’s things to do trailed off after some of these arrests, however, resurfaced final yr when Anonymous claimed duty for hacks focused on the Republican Party in Texas, in protest of the state’s controversial abortion law. Anonymous additionally claimed duty for a September hack of web-hosting agency Epik, which leaked extra than one hundred fifty gigabytes of statistics on far-right agencies like QAnon and the Proud Boys.
Supporters and critics
In 2012, Time journal named Anonymous one of the world’s one hundred Most Influential People. Today, hundreds of thousands of humans observe Anonymous-affiliated social media accounts.
Jeremiah Fowler, a co-founder of the cybersecurity employer Security Discovery, instructed CNBC final week that Anonymous supporters possibly view the crew as incredibly of a “cyber Robin Hood,” concentrated on effective governments and companies in the identification of famous causes.
“You favor action now, you desire justice now, and I suppose organizations like Anonymous and hacktivists supply humans that immediate satisfaction,” Fowler said.
But Anonymous truly has critics. Many consider the group’s vigilante approaches are excessive and doubtlessly dangerous. In 2012, the National Security Agency deemed Anonymous a risk to countrywide security.
Parmy Olson, a journalist who wrote a 415-page e-book on Anonymous in 2012, noted at the time that even the group’s supporters ought to reflect onconsideration on its legacy as a blended bag.
“Has Anonymous finished desirable for the world? In some cases, yes,” Olson advised Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, citing Anonymous’ assistance of pro-democracy demonstrators in the Middle East. “Unnecessarily harassing people? I would classify that as an awful thing. DDOSing the CIA website, stealing patron records, and posting it online simply for sh-ts and giggles is no longer a right thing.”
source CNBC
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