ANONYMOUS: Behind the mask, inside the Hivemind. On a frigidly cold morning in early 2008, two dozen complete strangers arranged to meet for the first time. They had travelled from all over the metro area, some taking over two hours to reach their destination. Coffee and doughnuts were sacrificed to the ritual of placing online handles to faces. The first meeting of the Edmonton chapter of Project Chanology had officially begun. Similar meetings were taking place around the world. Thousands of individuals (known as Anons) in dozens of cities were about to do something unprecedented. Anonymous was about to manifest in the real world in order to protest the sins of Scientology. Despite this lack of hierarchy, the protests were a spectacular success. Who is Anonymous? I have had the opportunity to speak to Anonymous. But who is Anonymous? Anonymous isn't a group, or a club. Anon3 )) The Oldfags 1 are most likely the ones starting everything up, they've been doing it the longest.
Anon1 )) Depends on the mindset of the person, IMO. LulzSec Hack PBS.ORG. The Anthropology of Hackers - Gabriella Coleman - Technology. Editor's Note: Pasty kids with greasy hair typing on command lines. Dark villains of the networked world. Security magicians with odd political beliefs. We have a lot of ideas about who hackers are, but very few people have actually tried to seriously investigate the anthropology of one of the more fascinating social groups to emerge at the end of the 20th century.
NYU's Gabriella Coleman studies their culture, an odd brew of faith in freedom of information and traditional liberalism, along with a generous salt-and-peppering of nerdiness and counterculturalism. In the latest edition of our syllabus-as-essay series, Coleman guides us past the stereotypes and into the many hideouts and projects of the hacker underground. A "hacker" is a technologist with a love for computing and a "hack" is a clever technical solution arrived through a non-obvious means.
Week One: Introductions and the MIT Hackers Week Two: The Craft and Liberalism of Hacking Week Three: Phreaking Week Thirteen: Nerds A lot. Lessons from Anonymous on cyberwar. "Cyberwar" is a heavily loaded term, which conjures up Hollywood inspired images of hackers causing oil refineries to explode. Some security celebrities came out very strongly against the thought of it, claiming that cyberwar was less science, and more science fiction. Last year on May 21, the United States Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM) reported reaching initial operational capability, and news stories abound of US soldiers undergoing basic cyber training, which all point to the idea that traditional super powers are starting to explore this arena.
Recent activities with one government contractor and Anonymous, however, show clearly that cyber operations have been going on for a long while, and that the private sector has been only too ready to fill the cyber mercenary role for piles of cash. Anonymous vs. HBGary Early in 2011, Aaron Barr submitted a talk to a security conference in which he planned to "focus on outing the major players of the anonymous group".
Anonymous were quick to respond. 03-16 Bradley Manning's plight rouses interest and concern in the UK (Updated) Update: Ann Clwyd MP's question today, 17 March, in the Commons, on the turn MP Ann Clwyd (L-Cynon Valley) today raised the question of the treatment of PFC Bradley Manning at the Quantico military base in Virginia with the foreign secretary, William Hague, during his testimony before the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. (The exchange between Clwyd and Hague appears in the last several minutes here.) Although Hague stood on legal formalities in his reply -- he cannot take a position without Manning's consent; Manning has stated that he does not consider himself a UK citizen; and it is up to Manning's US lawyer to seek redress of any treatment he considers unlawful -- he made one significant concession.
At the close of his remarks he said voluntarily that the concerns of UK citizens about Manning's treatment would be brought to US diplomatic attention because they had been raised in a parliamentary committee. You can follow David House on Twitter @popularch Update: Pentagon Papers leaker: 'I was Bradley Manning' In 1960s, Daniel Ellsberg got access to top-secret documents on Vietnam WarHe leaked the information, which became known as the Pentagon Papers in 1971Ellsberg says he's very empathetic to the plight of Pfc. Bradley ManningManning is being held in military prison, accused in 2010 WikiLeaks case (CNN) -- It was sunny on Saturday in Washington, which was good news for Daniel Ellsberg. The most famous whistle-blower in American history was hoping to get arrested in the name of Bradley Manning. "Oh, it's easy. I've done it before," he explained to CNN.com last week. The spry 79-year-old got what he wanted.
The cuffs made Ellsberg feel a little better. Charged with 34 counts, including "aiding the enemy," the soldier faces life in prison and maybe execution, accused of illegally downloading hundreds of thousands of secret military and State Department documents and giving them to WikiLeaks. To many Americans, Manning is a traitor. To Ellsberg, he's something else. "18 U.S.C. 793... Let it rain. "Anonymous is not the name of an organization. In fact, "organization" is the least appropriate word to describe the phenomenon that is Anonymous. It might be better to call Anonymous a movement, or a trend, or even a philosophy. However, the best ways to describe Anonymous is as a group action, a spontaneous and unified activity performed by like-minded people with no specific starting point.
Fans of anime might call Anonymous a "stand-alone complex. " -- Will Greenwald, PC Magazine. " Following its involvement with Wikileaks and its complete devastation of HBGary Federal (It's Web site is still down and CEO Aaron Barr resigned yesterday), the anonymity of the movement known as Anonymous has taken a hit. While it is impossible to know how many are involved with Anonymous, it seems quite safe to say that its numbers - both those faithful to the core Anonymous philosophies and those with their own agendas - have swelled. “Leftist leeches, sucking the fun out of Anonymous. Convictions. Unless the sources of the DDoS attacks being carried out by Anonymous are identified and stopped, there seems to be no end in sight for their deluge of operations. These 'AnonOps' are presented as global outreach operations of sorts, aimed at assisting individuals and organizations subjected to persecution by governments and other institutions aiming to silence free expression and dissent.
The Tunisian people are perceived by Anonymous to be in need of global support and the same can be said of Wikileaks. In particular, the consensus seems to be that governments and other powerful bodies have chosen to pursue Julian Assange and his collaborators for having exposed crimes committed by those same institutions. Whether the Anonymous group can succeed in its attempts to raise awareness of these issues and to discourage censorship hangs on the question of whether its members can be stopped.
A direct analogy can be drawn with respect to the now widespread use of LOIC software. Social Dynamics of the LOIC. Yesterday’s post about group behavior when faced with changing conditions elicited some response. Despite my not having mentioned the ongoing attacks anywhere in the entire text, my comment field filled with people defending Anonymous. No, not so much defending Anonymous, actually, as… maybe feeling uneasy over my post as such. Apparently, something in the text stepped on a toe. Thankfully, a bit later, more people stepped in and understood what I was trying to say; that things aren’t always as easy as good and evil.
Let there be no mistake: I strongly criticize any and all attacks on infrastructure (like other Pirate Party leaders do internationally, as well as others). A brief bit of primer here, for people unfamiliar with the terms: “Anonymous” is a loosely-knit group of people from various communities on the net who band together equally loosely when they feel somebody is violating good manners on the net. Anyway, things are not black and white. Finally getting to the point, here. PP Statement On Arrests. Pirate Party spokespeople are always ready to give a lively, informed, and often provocative view on the issues of the day. Whether it's tech politics, civil liberties, the EU, local issues or anything else we'll have something to say. For interview requests, specific statements or quotes, or to automatically receive press releases email the Press Office at press@pirateparty.org.uk or call us on 0161 987 7880. You can find more contact details on our contact page if you would like to get in touch with a specific person or team.
If you would like further information about a specific person you can find biographies and images on their profile page by searching our staff and volunteer list and you can access some of the many appearances online, in print, on TV and radio on our press archive. Declaration of Freedom. Inside the hive-mind. “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable and is looking for ways to respond to the legitimate needs and interests of the Egyptian people.” Hillary Clinton, January 25, Washington “When asked about the revolt in Egypt, 72% of american adults agreed that they should overthrow the current Pharaoh.” Anonymous member, #opegypt IRC, January 26, Secretary Clinton received plenty of criticism for her statements about Egypt.
That was unsurprising, given they were exactly the sort of statements you’d expect from a US administration worried one of its most reliable client regimes was facing the start of the sort of rolling series of protests that brought down another faithful US ally, Tunisia’s Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Even when the State Department later offered a slightly less pro-Mubarak view — “the United States supports the fundamental right of expression and assembly for all people.
Egyptian web administrators have put up a much greater fight. AHCS - Gabriella Coleman. Operation Set-the-Record-Straight. By Proponents of Wikileaks identify Julian Assange as an international hero and liken him to the Founding Fathers of the United States. Critics cast Wikileaks as a nefarious syndicate deserving the label of foreign terrorist organization. Some go even further by demanding Julian Assange be given the death penalty or summary execution. In either case, the situation and stakes are clear. We are living in the age of the information revolution. This should not come as a surprise. The cyber security giant H.B. As soon as these claims hit the public domain, H.B. The most fascinating outcome of this exchange, however, came by way of the sequestered files from H.B. This development provides critical insight that should realign public perceptions regarding a number of issues.
Taking all of this into consideration, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said that, “[c]onfidential communication gives our government the opportunity to do work that could not be done otherwise.” Anonymous Isn't Anonymous Anymore. WLs Supporters Face Hunt for Leaders. Evidence collected by the FBI about Anonymous, which attacked websites of four companies to punish them for blocking contributions to WikiLeaks, will be considered this week by a U.S. grand jury, according to court papers and an informal spokesman for the group of activist hackers.
The federal grand jury in San Jose, California, will begin reviewing evidence tomorrow that includes computers and mobile phones seized from suspected leaders as prosecutors probe the coordinated so-called denial-of-service attacks in December, according to a federal subpoena and the spokesman, Barrett Brown. Anonymous directed activists to target payment processors MasterCard Inc., Visa Inc., EBay Inc.’s PayPal, and U.K. -based Moneybookers.com in public chat rooms. Among the evidence seized by the FBI during multistate raids on Jan. 27 was data taken from an individual who controls one of Anonymous’s primary servers, identified by the organization only by his cyber-handle ‘Owen,’ Brown said. Drawn Guns. Lessons from Anonymous on cyberwar.