Heroes or Villains: An Interview with Anonymous
The Hacktivists, Anonymous, have been around since 2003. Known for prominent website hacks and street protests, are they the heroes or the villains?
In the mire of endless newspaper headlines, it is sometimes difficult to determine how I feel about Anonymous. This is the group of hacktivists who, amongst many other actions, kept the websites of the Egyptian government off-line until President Hosni Mubarak had stepped down. They also launched celebrated attacks upon MasterCard, PayPal, Visa and PostFinance, after each of these companies froze their payment of donations to WikiLeaks.
Anonymous are currently in the news for OperationBART, in the USA. After police reportedly shot dead a civilian, Bay Area Rapid Transit officials thwarted protestors by blocking telecommunications signals in their stations. Anonymous members arrived en masse, in their trademark Guy Fawkes masks, at the BART Civic Center headquarters and in the sub-stations. They objected to censorship and the obstruction of people’s right to protest; and effectively closed several underground stations down through physical occupation.
So are they modern day Wat Tyler figures? Or reckless children, who have grasped too much power too quickly, and will use it to ruin my world for laughs? On behalf of Suite101, I left messages all over the internet. Eventually AnonNietzsche agreed to answer my questions and concerns. The interview was conducted online, during August 24th-25th, 2011.
Anonymous: A Leaderless Collective,
Throughout all of the reports about Anonymous, no name has ever surfaced as their head. AnonNietzsche denied being the organisation’s leader, adding, “Anonymous has no leaders.”
“We’re a leaderless collective that bases the validity of what is said on its popularity, not by who says it. It is meme theory at its most basic. No one can speak for the whole of Anonymous, but various people represent the views of specific cells.”
But if there are no leaders, I wondered how the hacktivists decided upon and co-ordinated their actions. Were their operations democratically determined amongst the whole membership, or is there a central core leading the rest?
Anonymous confirmed the former, before clarifying the process, “The usual evolution is a mention of a target, and a justification, which then grows into an operation of some sort. Not every idea gets picked up. But there are hundreds of cells dealing with different aspects of activism, so there is usually a place for most reasonable operations.”
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How does Anonymous work?
This afforded a fascinating insight into the workings of these hacktivists, but it didn’t explain their structure. While many groups can be conquered with division, it appeared that they had emerged with their strength being in the isolation of their ‘hundreds of cells’. But perhaps we were looking at this in the wrong way.
I was further informed, “At its core, Anonymous is merely an idea; opposition to governments and institutions that are perceived to impede our rights, or act in a corrupt way. The manifestation of this idea is known as the Anonymous collective.”
An idea is all well and good, but how does someone join it? There were obviously individuals involved in the collective, so how did they get there? Anonymous replied, “As for membership, there are no lists and the concept of official membership is controversial. Anyone who acts in accordance with the general direction of Anonymous is Anonymous. Any rebel that fights a corrupt dictator is Anonymous. Any whistleblower who exposes the lies of a government is Anonymous. We are not just hackers, we are activists.
"The organisation of Anonymous on the web has moved to various IRCs across the internet. Admins and mods exist to keep order, keep the discussion on-topic and to ensure certain bots are in place; but they generally don’t command the operations. We work with a concept of horizontal rule, where no individuals directly command everyone else.”
Anonymous and 4Chan: When it’s Time for the ‘Lulz’ to get Serious
One of the most common statements that I’ve heard about Anonymous is that they are an extension of the rowdy youth forum, 4Chan. The site has drawn criticism, primarily from the Murdoch-owned Fox News, for its profusion of sometimes cruel practical joking and internal cyber-bullying. There are allegedly no sacred cows in 4Chan, as members attempt to out-do each other in shock posts and daring. It is not a great stretch of the imagination to see Anonymous as an initial 4Chan stunt, that turned out to suit the zeitgeist of the day.
I decided to be blunt in my question, ‘Is it fair to say that you are all teenagers, who tired of ‘trolling’ each other on 4Chan, so decided to target governments and corporations just for a laugh?’
Anonymous had obviously heard it all before. After all, this is how they are frequently stereotyped in the media. “All three statements are unfair generalisations. We are not all young, though there is a reason the young are so disenfranchised with their governments. Many are facing worse economic situations than their parents or grandparents did. They are entering a working world, where there are no jobs for them; and the possibility of getting qualifications, in further education, has been snatched away from them. To expect compliance from this demographic is expecting too much.”
However, the past link with 4Chan was not denied. “The origin of Anonymous does owe its existence to 4Chan. The reason many of us moved on was not to target these organisations for laughs, but because we saw corruption or behaviour that we opposed.”
Anonymous: Heroes or Villains?
It appeared that some of my preconceived notions about Anonymous were incorrect. The hacktivists were deadly serious about their operations and certainly viewed themselves closer to Wat Tyler than 4Chan jokers. There were mature voices amongst the collective, being heard in an on-going referendum system. It appeared more democratic than the process by which my country is run!
It is perhaps too soon to determine the impact of Anonymous – that will be something for the historians of the future to write. As Wat Tyler himself teaches us, a society never can identify its heroes from its villains at the time.
Sources:
4Chan.
Fox News, 4Chan: The Rude, Raunchy Underbelly of the Internet. (April 8th, 2009.)
The Guardian, WikiLeaks backlash: The first global cyber war has begun, claim hackers. (December 15, 2010.)
New York Times, Hackers Shut Down Government Sites. (February 2, 2011.)
PCMag, Anonymous BART Protest Shuts Down Several Underground Stations. (August 15, 2011.)
The hacktivists, Anonymous, have been around since 2003. Known for prominent website hacks and street protests, are they the heroes or the villains?
On August 24/25th 2011, I conducted an on-line interview with AnonNietzsche, a member of the hacktivist collective Anonymous. After learning about the structure and membership of the movement, I wanted to know more about their ideology and aims. These are people who have taken governments and banks off-line, and are gearing up for an occupation of Wall Street. With so much potential power over my world in their hands, I wanted to know if they were working in my interests or simply out to cause trouble.
Are Anonymous Cyberpunk Pirates, Criminals, Anarchists or Heroes?
The Internet Age may have begun in the 1960s, but it has only been the past twenty years where it seems to have come from nowhere to take over everything. For those grappling with all of this new technology and the whole world accessible from their living rooms, Anonymous have seemed like anarchists in their homes. The finer points of the WikiLeaks campaign are lost when individuals can’t check their MasterCard statement, because Anonymous have hacked the website. Annoyance turns to concern, when politicians line up to condemn them; and the police arrest protestors as security threats.
I wondered how they answered these charges. Are they cyber-terrorists, or criminal gangs, trying to bring down society and cause anarchy? Anonymous replied, “One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter. We are often considered terrorists by those we expose as crooks, and by those who are trying to turn us into the enemy. The US government is a fine example, blanketing the term terrorist against every Anon, independent of what they do. It is generally an approach taken to reduce the public’s need to think critically, and allows them to blindly follow.
“To say that our intentions are to bring down society is to not understand our actions. We often do attack governments, but it is to incite change. We are not trying to cause chaos (though the idea of having no leadership, as with anarchy, is not something I would oppose) or destroy society, but instead make it better.”
But I wanted this spelled out. I asked, ‘Should the general public fear you?’ Anonymous seemed to think that this was missing the point. “No. We attack corporations and governments that are trying to remove the rights of its citizens/consumers, or those that are involved in unethical practices.”
Where are the Checks and Balances in Anonymous?
The mark of any good democracy is in accountability. But anonymity thwarts external accountability, unless individuals are identified and forced to explain their actions in court. I was interested in what aspects exist to self-regulate within Anonymous. If there were no leaders, then were there, at least, people there with the vision and maturity to rein in the more excitable members?
Anonymous informed me that is precisely what happens. “There are many Anons that act as the brakes on certain actions that could get out of hand; though the brilliance of Anonymous is that we don’t know their age. My general experience is that people often want to respond emotionally rather than rationally, and some NewBloods pick up the wrong image of Anonymous (as a mindless hacking machine). Having those who have been around, in more operations, generally prevents actions that are not for the best occurring.”
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Are Anonymous Being Mentored by the Chaos Computer Club or Other Older Hackers?
I had heard that the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) is mentoring Anonymous too. If this was true, then it was very reassuring, as CCC has established their social responsibility credentials over their 26 year history.
Anonymous was circumspect in their response, “The word mentored is probably wrong, but there are many old school hackers floating around. I have heard unverified rumours that members of the Chaos Club are still popping in.”
Does Anonymous follow the six tenets of the Hacker’s Ethic?
CCC adheres to the six tenets of the Hackers’ Ethic, as outlined by Steven Levy, in his 1984 book, Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution. They are:
Access to computers - and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works - should be unlimited and total. Always yield to the Hands-On imperative!
All information should be free.
Mistrust authority - promote decentralization.
Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race, or position.
You can create art and beauty on a computer.
Computers can change your life for the better.
This code of conduct was intended to govern the cyberspace actions of people just like Anonymous.
It was gratifying to note that Anonymous needed no introduction to the Hackers’ Ethic. Without even listing them, the answer came back. “Access to knowledge, and information itself should be free, is something many of us defend passionately. There is inherent scepticism present as a part of Anonymous. A lack of trust for those in power becomes common when you expose lie after lie.
“Anonymity forces you to judge people on what they say and what they do. It is a great social leveller, where a 16 year old from the UK can stand side by side with a 35 year old from Brazil, with neither judged on more than they have done within Anonymous.
“I think Anonymous shows that you can change lives with computers.”
In short, it seems that Anonymous is well aware of and acts within the Hackers’ Ethic.
What are the aims and ideology of Anonymous?
Finally, I asked where this was all leading; what was the end game for Anonymous? The answer sounded attractive.
“Freedom of Information, Freedom of Knowledge, the removal of censorship and unrestricted access to the web. Equality, in all its forms (equal rights, equal voice, secularisation and the removal of institutionalised discrimination); and creating awareness and taking action against companies and governments that take part in unethical practices.”
Sources:
BBC News, Anonymous hacktivists say Wikileaks war to continue. (December 9th, 2010.)
Project Cyberpunk: The Hackers' Ethic. (Outlining the six tenets as laid out by Steven Levy, in 1984.)
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