On Anonymous

[bombadilillo]

I think Anonymous is better than other types of protesters because you can't just call the police and have them driven off. If Anonymous has a problem with you, you're gunna have to listen.

And what if the message is completely wrong and spiteful? What if they have no message and instead just feel like trolling you to oblivion? What do you do than?

Stop watching Fox News, that's what I do.

To bad you can't "stop" anon when they have you in their sights. I'm sure plenty of people wished they could turn them off, eh?

Yeah, Hal Turner and Chris Forcand were harrassed.

Good deeds to not exempt someone from bad deeds. Anon engages in far more bad than good, unless you've never actually lurked on a chan and seen their completely unprovoked trolling brigades?

I like how people keep sqauking out the same 5 or 6 good things (and more ironically most of them happened over 4 years ago) they have done, the same names, the same events, and at the same time completely ignore everything else. There is a REASON they are known as the assholes of the internet, or did you forget that to?

So you painting them as all evil and you cant see why others might disagree is fine, but heaven forbid somebody likes/agrees with something they do and doesn't outright condemn them.

 

[klasbo]

I really like The Guardian's technology editor Charles Arthur's description of Anonymous:
It's the internet equivalent of weather.

I think Anonymous is better than other types of protesters because you can't just call the police and have them driven off. If Anonymous has a problem with you, you're gunna have to listen.

And what if the message is completely wrong and spiteful? What if they have no message and instead just feel like trolling you to oblivion? What do you do than?

Stop watching Fox News, that's what I do.

To bad you can't "stop" anon when they have you in their sights. I'm sure plenty of people wished they could turn them off, eh?

So, so sour about being targeted by anon.

Sure anon may be inconsistent and occasionally wrong, but it is by no stretch as bad as those who are consistently deceptive and fraudulent, like anti-vaccine protesters, homoeopaths, Oprah Winfrey, and other people who spread public misinformation that actively hurts people.
If you want to hate someone, start with Andrew Wakefield. 50+ deaths every year since 2006, and counting.

Hankman, ignore the troll and go back to making ridonkulous puns. Yes, ridonkulous; I have no better word.

 

[Starke]

Okay let's break it down.
First example: Don't recall that, could you provide link. Regardless, when anyone can claim to be a member of an organization, there are bound to be a few dicks.

Someone else may still have the link floating around, but the crux of it was that anon attacked a teenage girl because she refused to expose herself on her webcam when they demanded she do so.

The problem was, this did bring the full weight of anonymous down on her.

Second Example: It's Justin Bieber. Are you accusing Anon of having taste?

So having bad taste is enough to provoke them? Again, aside from being a shitty performer, he didn't do anything to provoke them.

Third Example: Gene Simmons didn't just speak his mind, he openly taunted hackers. I seem to remember a certain pundit making an analogy involving "sticking your dick in a hornet's nest"? Like I told Clipclop: Don't START nuthin, There won't BE nothin. And the last time I checked, Anon didn't exactly put Gene in the poor house.

No. And if you can't remember what Simmons said, please go back and refresh your memory. He didn't say shit about hackers. He was telling the industry what he thought about pirates.

Gene Simmons is in an industry that has shrunk more than 50% in the last decade. That's not random bullshit facts, that's the industry is half the size it was in 2000. You can blame piracy, a shift to a new marketing paradigm, or whatever. When presented with this, Simmons blames piracy.

And in case you've forgotten somehow, piracy is a crime. Flat out, full stop.

He told the industry what they needed to do was get serious about going after direct infringes. "...sue the shit out of them..." He did it with the kind of bravado you'd expect from a (literal) rock star. But at the end of the day he spoke his mind.

There are reasons why the industry doesn't do that right now. I'd explain, but it's not the point at hand.

Anonymous looks at that, says "we support free speech", and attacks him, because they don't support free speech, they support free speech so long as you agree with them.

He wasn't "being an asshole", he wasn't stepping on anyone's toes. He was speaking his mind. Anonymous decided they didn't like that, and stomped on him.

Now, you're right, it didn't hurt him, he came back laughing, sneering, and promising revenge, but at the end of the day, it really does take your argument out back, putting a bullet through each of it's knees before finally stabling it in the gut and leaving it to die.

Anon is nothing more than a bunch of schoolyard bullies. They have (I guess you could call it) a little self restraint in that they only go after things they don't like, but they're not predictable about what they will or won't like. And then they hide behind bullshit claims like having no leadership [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/the-hackers-hacked-main-anonymous-irc-servers-seized.ars] or a belief in freedom of speech.

First off I remember that girl she was 12 and pretending to be 16 smack talking everyone.There was a big viral video of her dad calling out the FBI to arrest the internet.Being bullied for being a bully is the new way of life on the internet.Don't start shit.

Which of course makes it all all right when they told her to take off her shirt, because it's okay if it's a 12 year old, but not if it's a 16 year old. Great, glad we cleared that one up.

Though again, this still sounds more predatory than political.

Second the industry is built around making money out of other people's talent(or marketing their lack of).I feel no pity for piracy in that industry.Most authors today have said "I'd rather you see my concert and buy some merch than buy my cds" and a lot of them are shifting to a more pirate friendly distribution.Gene Simmons should stick to licking guitars rather than voicing some of his misunderstood ideologies.He yelled out that even a person pirating 1 song should be sued till he doesn't have anything but the shirt on his back.I call that offensive and Anon took measure.

Again, the real test of freedom of speech has never been people saying shit you agree with. It's having the maturity to understand that just because someone says something you don't agree with, it doesn't mean you have any moral authority to silence them.

There are a lot of reasons why Gene Simmons was completely off base and insane, but none of them are relevant to this argument. I'd rather he have the ability to spout utterly insane shit so I have the opportunity to point and laugh or at least respond, than letting Anon, or for that matter anyone else, censor him because they don't agree with him.

Stop watching Fox News folks.

I haven't intentionally watched Fox News for more than 30 seconds since 2003. Stop making off base assumptions.

And you've decided the internet of all places to brag about your ideals.Anonymous are lolfreedomfighters and they do it for the lols.The world isn't right and it should change if you have a better idea I'm sure there's someone to listen.

Which is, quite frankly a pretty shitty ideology, especially when they start going off and attacking people for no reason beyond, "hey look it's Justin Bieber."

 

[Chatboy 91]

snip

Someone else may still have the link floating around, but the crux of it was that anon attacked a teenage girl because she refused to expose herself on her webcam when they demanded she do so.

The problem was, this did bring the full weight of anonymous down on her.

snip

So having bad taste is enough to provoke them? Again, aside from being a shitty performer, he didn't do anything to provoke them.

snip

No. And if you can't remember what Simmons said, please go back and refresh your memory. He didn't say shit about hackers. He was telling the industry what he thought about pirates.

Gene Simmons is in an industry that has shrunk more than 50% in the last decade. That's not random bullshit facts, that's the industry is half the size it was in 2000. You can blame piracy, a shift to a new marketing paradigm, or whatever. When presented with this, Simmons blames piracy.

And in case you've forgotten somehow, piracy is a crime. Flat out, full stop.

He told the industry what they needed to do was get serious about going after direct infringers. "...sue the shit out of them..." He did it with the kind of bravado you'd expect from a (literal) rock star. But at the end of the day he spoke his mind.

There are reasons why the industry doesn't do that right now. I'd explain, but it's not the point at hand.

Anonymous looks at that, says "we support free speech", and attacks him, because they don't support free speech, they support free speech so long as you agree with them.

He wasn't "being an asshole", he wasn't stepping on anyone's toes. He was speaking his mind. Anonymous decided they didn't like that, and stomped on him.

Now, you're right, it didn't hurt him, he came back laughing, sneering, and promising revenge, but at the end of the day, it really does take your argument out back, putting a bullet through each of it's knees before finally stabling it in the gut and leaving it to die.

Anon is nothing more than a bunch of schoolyard bullies. They have (I guess you could call it) a little self restraint in that they only go after things they don't like, but they're not predictable about what they will or won't like. And then they hide behind bullshit claims like having no leadership [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/the-hackers-hacked-main-anonymous-irc-servers-seized.ars] or a belief in freedom of speech.

When exactly did people decide that it was specifically Anonymous who attacked Jessi Slaughter? It's the exact same issue as with the PSN hack, if it was a small splinter group in Anonymous, you can't hold all of Anonymous responsible. In the case of Jessi Slaughter I would sooner primarily blame 4chan, and the few members of /b/ who had the means to actually retrieve information about her.

The Justin Bieber issue was more of a joke then anything, I will be the first to admit it was unnecessary, but in case you forgot most of the members like "teh lulz". I am unaware of any major negative side effects.

Gene Simmons was an idiot. Freedom of speech is one thing, threatening people with law suits and prison rape is a whole other issue.

You're also ignoring the fact that they have done numerous other positive operations and protests. Revealing corruption in the Bank of America, they properly ignored Westboro's threats, they up held their beliefs of freedom of information in the HBGary attack, they helped during the Egyptian revolution by taking down government websites and helping provide internet access, they attacked Tunisian government websites to remove censorship of Wikileaks, and the list goes on.

They absolutely believe in freedom of speech, freedom of information, and de-censorship of the internet and aside from a very select few, they are not a group of bullies.

 

[Therumancer]

Well, I think there is an important distinction that needs to be made here. Anonymous isn't quite an organization that anyone can join by claiming to be a member, or even sharing a common ideaology, as far they have one goes. Anonymous is a group one "joins" by the general consensus of the other members making up the core, effectively making them part of the core themselves. Anonymous itself has been very careful to point out that it, and the hordes of /B/ are not the same thing. You even see a divide in 4chan terms between the so called "Oldfags" and the "Newfags" with a clear differance between those who do things, and those who wear Guy Fawkes masks and spout the memes. The big differance is that Anonymous doesn't generally walk around stating who is a member, or part of the core entity, and who is not.

This latest raid on Sony, combined with the recent attention, largeely seemed to panic a bunch of the "Newfags" who are scared of getting "Vanned" because they were playing the role of big-bad hacker, without the skills or protection they professed to have, and are concerned that they were going to be targeted. The whole "Anonymous Civil War" sort of being a sign that the people involved were never part of the Anonymous core on any signifigant level, and all discussion to the contrary, very few people involved probably had anything to do with the actual attacks of did any of the heavy lifting.

One thing about Anonymous, or any hacker group, is that they generally do not DENY doing things. They either take credit, or remain silent and let people wonder. A denial from Anonymous probably means that the person speaking was in no way connected to the actual collective.

If your at all curious, do some reading about the previous generation of big, well known hackers. Groups like "Masters Of Deception" and "Legion Of Doom", along with the war that actually wound up destroying them, assuming it ever really went down like people claim since a lot of people even now say that there never was a great hacker war.

The point being that Anonymous is not really some new phenomena, it's just that with the mainstream getting online, groups like this have become more visible to the mainstream, and due to businesses like Sony being so heavily invested online, they have become increasingly vulnerable, with more people noticing the activities, and more disclosure being forced.

I guess what I'm saying is that a lot of people who think they "get" Anonymous, don't really "get" Anonymous. The excuse that it's an idealogy that can't be targeted because anyone can be a member... shades of things like the "Stand Alone Complex" from the Ghost In The Shell Series (ie an event so compelling that it inspired seperate people and groups to be working towards the same goal, to the point of them seeming connected but they actually aren't), is less terrifying than the truth that at the core there are a group of people who are actually doing this, and who society can't deal with... and yes, that pretty much is the case, Anonymous might involve Anonimity and so on, but remember in their real operations real people are actually breaking through this security, it does not occur due to some mass of willpower. The authorities have never been able to deal with hackers very well at all, and really the only reason why MoD and Legion Of Doom ever fell by all accounts was because they went to war with each other (ie it took a hacker group to stop another hacker group) with the police actually being just a tool they used. Independant police actions leading to things like the seizure of the GURPS Cyberpunk book (famously in geek circles) and lots of early "lulz" rather thsan anything tangible. The hackers of that time frame hid behind handles before anyone had each other. The joke being that if the police actually got someone or needed a name to pin responsibility on, with Legion Of Doom they would wind up blaming well known comic book super villains. To this day I don't believe anyone officially knows who Lex Luthor was, is, or if he even existed or was as some have hinted a construct, hiding that Legion Of Doom didn't have an official leader.

I guess the point of my rant is context... I think it's better to try and put Anonymous in line with history and what we know. In the end I think there is some truth to them being a non-organization, where nobody knows who anyone else is, but that does not preclude them from having a membership that actually gets things done. It's just that instead of everyone communicating by say using the names of DC super villains, they all just post anonymously. The people in the core membership probably setting up meeting times and channels, and getting into the core being a matter of simply being let in on when the real business is going down. A lot of these other Anons, well they are also part of Anonymous but largely part of it's disguise, and the fact that they coordinate raids and such as well with mixed results helps add to the whole mystique.

Such are my general thoughts on the subject, in the end we may never know if I'm right. Basically Anonymous manages to be both the collective, and also to have a solid core of membership who do the heavy lifting, and pull off the things that require coordination and detailed knowlege.

More or less what he said. Damn it Shamus, it's blatantly obvious that you go to /v/ from lines in Spoiler Warning Seasons 1 and 2, you shouldn't be playing into this "Anonymous is an actual organization, not some weird protesters borrowing phrases from an image board" thing.

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or not from how that reads.

In the end what my basic rant was about is that I think that Anonymous is both an organization and a collective. Basically it's the collective Shamus is talking about built around a core of actual members as part of the camoflauge. Largely because a simple mass idealogy couldn't perform a lot of the more impressive feats Anonymous has been involved in, at the end of the day willpower and shared opinions mean nothing, someone has to do the actual heavy lifting and make things happen.

I was also pointing out that Hackers meeting anonymously and having no idea who each other really are is no new thing, and in the end if your dealing with people you don't know to begin with, does it matter if you use a handle or not?

 

[7777777777444]

Just. Drop. It.
Seriously, If you are so right that they would attack anyone, do you think they would have attacked yo by now? You've been downing them for a whole page, bro

EDIT: This was derected to that ClipClap Guy.

 

[Therumancer]

[
wait wait wait wait WAIT.


wait.


Your telling me the guy who wrote this article frequents 4chan. the place where all this started in the first place? NOW it all makes sense. I bet the EC guys also hang there as well.

Good lord this pretty much wraps up everything. Neutrality, oh how we knew ye.

Well, to be fair, pretty much everyone with an internet capable computer has probably visited 4chan at some point, just to see it for themselves if nothing else, and the high amounts of traffic mean a lot of people are going to visit it frequently if they are interested in certain subjects, especially seeing as there is a lot more to it than just /b/ even if it's the most infamous section.

Personally though I'm wondering right now why we're seeing all this "love" being given to Anonymous anyway, as opposed to more discussion about Lulzsec... which is taking credit for the current activities. Even if that discussion is to ask the obvious question, especially given the "lulz" involved, if it's Anonymous or a spin off using a differant name.

 

[7777777777444]

Fine. Fine, Fine, FINE! Have it your way. It just seems that ALMOST everyone agrees... Except you. Perhaps, if you didn't want the so called "hate speech" you might want to consider at least trying to consider OUR side of the story before blaitantly saying "THEY'RE !"

 

[Georgie_Leech]

Just. Drop. It.
Seriously, If you are so right that they would attack anyone, do you think they would have attacked yo by now? You've been downing them for a whole page, bro

EDIT: This was derected to that ClipClap Guy.

how ironic you stated that, when I already stated above that my forum email was being completely flooded with hate speech. last of all I'm not going to drop anything. You guys have every right to present your side, and i have every right to present my own.

If you don't like the idea of free speech, you might want to join the guys slamming in inbox.

Ohhhhh the IRONY is just... thick as butter. god!

Point of Order, getting email from the forum is hardly a terrible attack. Where's the army of 21+ year olds stealing your infromation and making your life a living hell?

in general, I don't like Anonymous, but nor do I particularly dislike "them." "They" do some good, some bad, but mostly it's a shield for people who want to stir up trouble. The idea of hating all of Anonymous however seems to be equating random people loosely connected by the internet to an organization with defined ideals and goals, which it patently isn't.

 

[RA92]

I know you 3 are in the minority. everyone has pretty much completely disproved and shoved aside that whole "freedom of speech" "we do this for YOU!" bologna, perfect example is they guy flooding my e-mail box right now with racial slurs because i "dared" attack anonymous. Not sure why he's doing it either cause its just a trip to ban town.

This proves again my point that you can't say anything negative about the group unless you want to be attacked.

If you don't like the idea of free speech, you might want to join the guy who was slamming my inbox...and who knows what else as this evolves into yet another anonymous attack.

Funny how you're repeatedly citing this in your argument - something other users can't verify. Racial slurs? How does other users even know your race since you're, er, anonymous here? Who's to say you're not pulling this out of your ass?

 

[EternalFacepalm]

wait wait wait wait WAIT.
wait.

You're telling me the guy who wrote this article frequents 4chan. the place where all this started in the first place? NOW it all makes sense. I bet the EC guys also hang there as well.

Good lord this pretty much wraps up everything. Neutrality, oh how we knew ye.

This is basically to all your posts, but...
Do you know what Anonymous that is know is about? Freedom, an unregulated Internet; they're not being bullies, they're protesting. To rub them the wrong way, you have to go against what they stand for, and, to do so, you have to go against freedom. Or you have to provoke them, but that makes you even more of a prick.

 

[Nick_Snyder]

At first I kinda liked Anonymous' ideologies, free speech, free Internet access, freedom of this or that. The more and more I thought of it though. I began to realise that these are more or less children with nothing really better to do with their spare time than be glued to the Internet. They believe in freedom of speech, as mentioned previously, if it is something they agree with. In essence it would actually not be freedom of speech at all. The ugly truth is, someone is going to disagree with you and your ideologies no matter what. Shit like that happens, you have to man up to it, grow some balls, and understand this.

As far as multi-billion dollar companies are concerned, the one's they hack and obsess over, their are people at the low end of those billionm of this or that. The more and more I thought of it though. I began to realise that these are more or less children with nothing really better to do with their spare time than be glued to the Internet. They believe in freedom of speech, as mentioned previously, if it is something they agree with. In essence it would actually not be freedom of speech at all.

Then their is the matter with multi-billion dollar companies they screw around with. The exec's of the company don't really suffer much, it's the grunts of the company that have to deal with the majority of the messes. Besides, doesn't everyone want a ton of cash to do with whatever they want anyway. There are a lot of things I disagree with about multi-billion dollar companies, it has most to do with them getting tax breaks and being treated as more of an individual rather than a collective. BUT, even the slimy exec's, that the people at anonymous have ever met, we can only assume they are slimy and hate filled, had to go through tons of **** to get where they are. Out of college, or however they earned their billions, requires a ****_ton of hard work, but... whatever, these companies deserve our animosity just because they exist, and drive our economy, and provide people with jobs, and give us things that make our lives somewhat more... fulfilling.

There are a lot of bad people in some of these companies that DO deserve to be taken to prison and found guilty of embezzling, fraud, and numerous other crimes. Their actions do need to be brought to the surface into the light of day, but it needs to be done in a more responsible manner.

Finally, I DO NOT WATCH FOX NEWS!!! I am not a conservative in anyway or anything like that. Most of my viewpoints, when compared to those of our business college at my university, clash.

Oh, and finally, Justin Bieber deserves being trolled because he is Justin Bieber.