On Anonymous

[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.

They do believe in freedom of speech even in the instances where they don't agree. In the case of the Westboro Baptist Church, Anonymous refused to attack because they specifically said, "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Also, tell Aaron Barr that he wasn't affected by the attack on HBGary. This isn't a matter of money, they don't simply attack corporations that are rich, they attack corporations that are corrupt. You cannot simply accuse these corporations or the people who work/run them, you need to bring the information to the surface in order for any accusations to stick.

A corporation is a corporation. There are quite a bit of corrupt corporations out there. But there are a lot of those "corrupt" corporations that employ hundreds of people with jobs that have nothing to do with the actions of the company as a whole.

 

[EternalFacepalm]

I'm not provoking anybody, I'm not trying to provoke anybody. I'm simply not going to role over and except that ridiculous mindset of anon. Just because i don't agree with you, doesn't mean i'm provoking you.

Second of all, there are many a chan with a /i/ board, and you and i both know what that is. I've lurked on plenty of them and know for a fact 80% of the targets on them don't deserve to have hundreds of poeple trying to screw them up. They are bullies, nothing but. Freedom of speech does not extending to dropping dox on somebody because they fucked you over in a online game.

Thats called being a prick.

I don't agree with all subsets of Anonymous, but I do agree with some.
I also never stated you provoked me, at least it was never my intention to do so. It was more of a statement of how it's organized; if someone provokes them, insulting their ideals, they attack. That's pretty normal, and human, really.
I disagree with the part of Anonymous raiding Habbo, and invading sites for no reason; yet I do agree with those that protest without harming anyone. At least not directly, anyway.
The only problem with Anonymous is how confusing the entire thing is; they have some degree of organization, yet it's ruined by the fact that there are several groups using the same name, standing for the exact opposite.

 

[Chatboy 91]

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Not all they do is evil, I will admit. But they do enough in my mind to be called bullies. A bully thinks might makes right, that if they can do it, it is somehow justified. That is the same logic train Anon uses

Also, they would have not been fine with the whole Wikileaks hyothetical, because they would not be anonymous, and would actually be forced to account for what they had done. And that is my main problem with them: they have no accountibility. "With great power comes great responsibility". They have the first, but not the second.

Also, by your logic, are the WBC just "activists"?

It's not a matter of simply they can do it. They attack when something goes against their ideals.

As I said, when they compromised HBGary, they released a document which had a large list of names, phone number, addresses, and handle names for Anonymous members. They gave up their anonymity for the freedom of information.

I don't agree with the WBC on any level, but they have the right to freedom of speech as anyone else.

 

[Starke]

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.

When it was coming from the same font of human kindness as the rest of this shit.

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.

The point is the Bieber thing was unprovoked. It was random. It was, in point of fact a result in the breakdown of their chain of command during a larger operation. But to say that it is "okay because it's a joke" kinda misses the point. These guys are playing with live ammo. There are no jokes at that point, just fuckups.

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

Of course Simmons is an idiot. He's insane. It's impossible to do what he wants for a number of reasons. But that doesn't revoke his right to say it. And it isn't a threat. Not legally, and not under any sane definition of the word that makes sense to someone with a functional understanding of the English language.

You're also ignoring the fact that they have done numerous other positive operations and protests. Revealing corruption in the Bank of America,

Hardly. When you look at BoA's trackrecord, Anonymous didn't do shit. And that huge cache of information wikileaks had on an unidentified bank remains missing in action as well. If they'd had any positive influence on this we'd still be talking about Bank of America months later, but we're not, because they had no effect, really.

they properly ignored Westboro's threats,

By hacking their website ON TV. Yeah, that worked well.

they up held their beliefs of freedom of information in the HBGary attack,

Which was, let's review, dumb luck. They didn't go out of their way to uncover HBGary's nefarious plans, they went out there to ***** slap someone for daring to reveal who they actually were. Along the way, they got lucky and secured a data cache they shouldn't have. That's a black eye to how shitty HBGary's internal security was, but it wasn't a positive gain.

It's like breaking into someone's house to steal their TV because you don't like what they're saying about you. Along the way you find out they were planning to murder someone. That isn't a net positive, you still committed a fucking crime getting in there in the first place, and you can still be charged with that.

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.

Well, one of these things never happened... the rest... well, the rest never happened either. Let's take this apart. Tunisia happened first. Anon "noticed" the protests after they'd been going on for weeks, and decided to jump in ass for brains first. They launched DDoS attacks against the State sites. Tunisia went batshit, and cracked down harder on the protesters. We had people being disappeared, we had an internet crackdown, we had people dying. After the dust cleared, Anonymous patted itself on the back, told themselves they'd done a great job and rolled onto the next target.

In Egypt we had another anonymous instigated crackdown. You can say they aren't connected, and there is a legitimate fallacy: post hoc, ergo proctor hoc, but at the end of the day, this was cause and effect, not just before and after. Anonymous got people killed.

A group of anonymous hackers did work on getting around the internet lockdown in Egypt, but it is seriously doubtful that they were affiliated with Anonymous for a simple reason: they were competent. To date all of anon's attacks have been pathetically low tech, low skill intrusions or DDoS attacks on a compromised utility.

In the end, they hid behind anonymity, claimed success and glory for the victories regardless of their influence in them, and ignored their failures.

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.

"Owen has not only told me that he doesn't really give a shit about freedom of speech, he's also moderately against the action that's being taken on Sony," this Anon said.

... Right. You were saying?

For those not keeping score at home, "Owen" was one of those ShadowAnons who functioned as an actual leadership structure while hiding behind the masses claiming there was no underlying structure.

Link [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/the-hackers-hacked-main-anonymous-irc-servers-seized.ars]

 

[Jumwa]

An interesting article as usual, Shamus. Though the comments section seems to be going rather ridiculous. Or, rather MORE ridiculous than usual, I guess.

Hackers are annoying, I wont deny that, but coming from a guy whose own website was just hacked last night by spammers (and who had to spend a large chunk of today wrangling with issues to fix it) all but the worst of them are just nuisances at most. And Anonymous are mostly just teens and manchildren using basic denial-of-service software they just downloaded and double-clicked on who, as you rightly put it, have no monetary gain in mind. Basically they're after attention for their deeds.

Frankly, if occasionally having to deal with nuisances like Anonymous or the kindly spam jerks who complicated my day is the price of having a big, free internet with so many interesting things going on and being said, then I'd be prepared to pay it.

Also people, there's no need to quote the last seven comments in a conversation thread every time you quote somebody, yeesh.

 

[Chatboy 91]

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A corporation is a corporation. There are quite a bit of corrupt corporations out there. But there are a lot of those "corrupt" corporations that employ hundreds of people with jobs that have nothing to do with the actions of the company as a whole.

Fair enough, there are always casualties in these instances.

 

[Starke]

As I said, when they compromised HBGary, they released a document which had a large list of names, phone number, addresses, and handle names for Anonymous members. They gave up their anonymity for the freedom of information.

While claiming they were in fact releasing the names, phone numbers, addresses, and handles of people who were completely innocent of any crime and were being incorrectly affiliated with anonymous by HBGary.

Oh so noble a gesture.

 

[Starke]

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A corporation is a corporation. There are quite a bit of corrupt corporations out there. But there are a lot of those "corrupt" corporations that employ hundreds of people with jobs that have nothing to do with the actions of the company as a whole.

Fair enough, there are always casualties in these instances.

The fact of the matter is, Anon has demonstrated, time and again, they don't care about the collateral damage of their actions. Which kinda puts a damper on the whole, "we're doing it for you" angle.

 

[Chatboy 91]

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Still holding onto that blatant absolute lie huh? well than I guess its time to kick it up a notch.

http://711chan.org/i/
http://boards.808chan.org/i/
http://rockstararmy.com/i/
http://partyvan.info/wiki/Main_Page

please everybody, enjoy these boards. They attack everything from a school{not fucking kidding, check the first link}, to myspace users, facebook users, hacking random poeple and anything vile you can possibly think of. This doesn't even touch on the racism and homophobia happening with almost every post. Most of these attacks are completely unwarranted. You will find that these "great acts of kindness and safeguarding our liberties" are strangely in the minority here. gee I wonder why... Oh wait, thats because they are BULLIES.

of course these aren't bullies. they are doing it for free speech. They are doing it for human rights and for US.

Right, because the idiots on those boards actually have any true affiliation with Anonymous.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

It's not a matter of simply they can do it. They attack when something goes against their ideals.

But that's just the problem. Someone goes against my ideals, I adress my grevences within the boundries of the law. They don't.

As I said, when they compromised HBGary, they released a document which had a large list of names, phone number, addresses, and handle names for Anonymous members. They gave up their anonymity for the freedom of information.

Let's look at what wikipedia has to say on this?

On February 5-6, 2011, Anonymous hacked their website, copied tens of thousands of documents from HBGary, posted tens of thousands of company emails online, and usurped Barr's Twitter account in revenge. Anonymous also claimed to have wiped Barr's iPad remotely, though this act remains unconfirmed...

What HBGary was doing was wrong, yes. But last I checked, if you kill a murderer (in normal cases) you are a murderer. Break the law to expose a lawbreaker, and you STILL broke the law.

I don't agree with the WBC on any level, but they have the right to freedom of speech as anyone else.

Didn't quite answer my question there.

 

[iDoom46]

they attack everything from children to governments and everything in between. Just because somebody pissed you off online doesn't give you the right to send hundreds and hundreds of your buddies in his direction. You wouldn't do it in real life, but of course your keyboard warriors can gang up on single targets online.

No one deserves to have a mob at their door step. If you had any grasp on reality anymore you'd probably realize this for half a second.

If you've EVER seen how the group works, then you'd know that simply isn't true.
You have to do something OVERTLY CRUEL OR OFFENSIVE (or, in some rare, unfortunate cases, extremely stupid) on the internet to warrant them attacking you. Otherwise, the typical response is "Not your personal army, GTFO."

You obviously don't understand Anonymous, what the group stands for, or how it works.

And Anonymous isn't the only group that does these things. Anonymous internet vigilantism happens all over the internet ALL THE DAMN TIME. Its just that most of the big instances in the western hemisphere get associated with Anonymous, by virtue of their name.

I'm going to actually respond to all of you here. because your voice is singing the same tune. "a 12 year old child deserves to be harassed by grown adults from hundreds of miles away."

I know you 3 are in the monitory. 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.

You guys have some really screwed up morality issues if you think attacking children is ever justified. But its pretty obvoius you 2 hang with the group so its arguing against a wall of thugs again. Seriously, you both are extremely transparent.

While I can't speak for the others you may be arguing with, or that fellow emailing you, I'd like to reassure you that I was not in any way attacking you. There's no need to be so defensive. I was just letting you know that you have some misconceptions about Anon.

On the topic of misconceptions, you appear to be under the impression that all trolls from 4chan = Anonymous, and this simply isn't true. I can assure you that most of the people who were pestering that poor Jessie girl were not the same people who helped find that kid who lit his pet cat on fire.

Anonymous is a big group that anybody can join, obviously you're going to get some bad apples. The same is true for any group of equal size. Anon only seems worse because you can't tell the difference from the good and the bad, and its so much easier to be bad on the internet.

I won't try defend the parts of Anonymous that tell random girls to strip online or ruin the lives of people like Ms. Slaughter as some kind of "social justice" because that simply isn't true. There is no equality, what these poor people get in "retaliation" is far worse than what they had done.
But I will say that, at the very least, the experience is a lesson, not only to the victim, but to future people who might say or do something inflammatory or stupid on the internet to think twice before they do so. After all, Anonymous isn't the only group of people who can ruin your life if they find you post "I hate niggers!" all the time.
A perfect example is that kid Casey from (I think it was) Australia. Sure, he over reacted when he pile-drived his bully into the concrete floor, but that bully is going to think twice about picking on other kids in the future.

I'm not saying its right. I'm saying its effective.

Finally, Anonymous doesn't attack people who disagree with them. One of their mottoes is "I may not like what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it!", after all. They attack people who say negative, hurtful, inflammatory things, or people who they see as hurting others by their actions. Its an entirely subjective mindset, to be sure, but it works for them.
People who disagree with Anonymous get attacked by people who idolize Anonymous, usually the lower peons, new members, and people who aren't even actively part of the group.

Anonymous is just a group of pranksters, and treating them as anything more (be it bad or good) is pointless and just asking for trouble.

 

[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.

because like it or not, they are a extension of anonymous. A splintered off horrible chaotic extension, but a extension all the same. People can blame one or the other because at any time "pieces" of anonymous can break off to do something terrible. For anon to sit back and say 'welp it wasn't us." and devolve themselves of all blame is complete insanity.

You know that Anonymous is not, and never was a group of white knights, right? You talk about horrible offshoots like Anonymous was some kind of heroic group to begin with. This is a group that singles out little girls like Jessie Slaughter and pretty much ruins their lives (even if she was kind of a twit). I just mention here because she's old news, but still pretty recent and I believe was mentioned on this site.

Anonymous was never a free speech, hacktivist group, they WERE an elemental force of chaos, and made no bones about it. Sure, they did some positive things here and there, but they were (or I should say they are) always primarily out for "the lulz" above and beyond anything else.

Anonymous by it's very nature would never say "we didn't do it" and that in of itself raises some questions about that denial... but that really isn't the subject here.

Anyone who thinks that this was against the standards of Anonymous, or against their creed, or whatever else, really has no idea what they are talking about, or who they are talking about, and I'm not just talking about Anonymous' own statements... I'm talking about their deeds. They have a body of work going back many years now, even if many people are just now becoming aware of them.


Lulzsec might be an Anonymous offshoot, but then again Anonymous claims typically claims to be itself irregardless of whatever else is going on.

The point here being that right now a differant group/name is taking responsibility here, and that does seem to imply that Anonymous is not involved in the most recent chaos. That by no means says anything about Anonymous overall... I very much doubt if Anonymous as a whole cares what anyone thinks about them. I just think that if we're going to talk about this issue we should at least be clear about the guys who are claiming responsibilit

 

[Starke]

If I wasn't browsing one of the /i/ boards right now, I would actually consider whatever your saying. I am looking right now at a 140 post thread of a group of anons just railing this black guy... and guess for what? for nothing basically the thread consensus is "he's a ****** and does ****** things" Its a lynch mob without ropes. And there is nothing warranted about it, there is nothing to be learned its just bullies being bullies. They already dropped his dox, they already harassing him with racist calls they apparently smacked down his myspace page. For. no. reason.

he's just a guy who they settled on for nothing. Sure is justice in here.

Yeah, that's the 4chan we all know, love, and want to pull out and nuke the site from orbit just to be sure. Kinda puts a damper on the whole "we're the good guys" bullshit.

 

[Nick_Snyder]

they attack everything from children to governments and everything in between. Just because somebody pissed you off online doesn't give you the right to send hundreds and hundreds of your buddies in his direction. You wouldn't do it in real life, but of course your keyboard warriors can gang up on single targets online.

No one deserves to have a mob at their door step. If you had any grasp on reality anymore you'd probably realize this for half a second.

If you've EVER seen how the group works, then you'd know that simply isn't true.
You have to do something OVERTLY CRUEL OR OFFENSIVE (or, in some rare, unfortunate cases, extremely stupid) on the internet to warrant them attacking you. Otherwise, the typical response is "Not your personal army, GTFO."

You obviously don't understand Anonymous, what the group stands for, or how it works.

And Anonymous isn't the only group that does these things. Anonymous internet vigilantism happens all over the internet ALL THE DAMN TIME. Its just that most of the big instances in the western hemisphere get associated with Anonymous, by virtue of their name.

I'm going to actually respond to all of you here. because your voice is singing the same tune. "a 12 year old child deserves to be harassed by grown adults from hundreds of miles away."


I know you 3 are in the monitory. 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.

You guys have some really screwed up morality issues if you think attacking children is ever justified. But its pretty obvoius you 2 hang with the group so its arguing against a wall of thugs again. Seriously, you both are extremely transparent.

While I can't speak for the others you may be arguing with, or that fellow emailing you, I'd like to reassure you that I was not in any way attacking you. There's no need to be so defensive. I was just letting you know that you have some misconceptions about Anon.

On the topic of misconceptions, you appear to be under the impression that all trolls from 4chan = Anonymous, and this simply isn't true. I can assure you that most of the people who were pestering that poor Jessie girl were not the same people who helped find that kid who lit his pet cat on fire.

Anonymous is a big group that anybody can join, obviously you're going to get some bad apples. The same is true for any group of equal size. Anon only seems worse because you can't tell the difference from the good and the bad, and its so much easier to be bad on the internet.

I won't try defend the parts of Anonymous that tell random girls to strip online or ruin the lives of people like Ms. Slaughter as some kind of "social justice" because that simply isn't true. There is no equality, what these poor people get in "retaliation" is far worse than what they had done.
But I will say that, at the very least, the experience is a lesson, not only to the victim, but to future people who might say or do something inflammatory or stupid on the internet to think twice before they do so. After all, Anonymous isn't the only group of people who can ruin your life if they find you post "I hate niggers!" all the time.
A perfect example is that kid Casey from (I think it was) Australia. Sure, he over reacted when he pile-drived his bully into the concrete floor, but that bully is going to think twice about picking on other kids in the future.

I'm not saying its right. I'm saying its effective.

Finally, Anonymous doesn't attack people who disagree with them. One of their mottoes is "I may not like what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it!", after all. They attack people who say negative, hurtful, inflammatory things, or people who they see as hurting others by their actions. Its an entirely subjective mindset, to be sure, but it works for them.
People who disagree with Anonymous get attacked by people who idolize Anonymous, usually the lower peons, new members, and people who aren't even actively part of the group.
iDoom46
Anonymous is just a group of pranksters, and treating them as anything more (be it bad or good) is pointless and just asking for trouble.

(Crap, sorry, my computer screwed up on the quoting thing. The above portion is from iDoom46. I'm sorry about that one.)

I'm referring to the kid from Australia, Casey. He solved his problem personally. I can't really see any one person that belongs to "Anonymous" or even says they are actually solving a problem first hand. Person to person. I know about the Guy Fawkes incidents in front of the Scientology Churches.

As for being "just a group of pranksters". I'd say they go above and beyond being a group of pranksters.

 

[Starke]

You know that Anonymous is not, and never was a group of white knights, right?

You know that "white knights" used to be a Klan rank or an epithet for their members?

Sorry, it's not that I don't disagree with you, it's just, in context, alternately either very clever or... something.

 

[Nick_Snyder]

they attack everything from children to governments and everything in between. Just because somebody pissed you off online doesn't give you the right to send hundreds and hundreds of your buddies in his direction. You wouldn't do it in real life, but of course your keyboard warriors can gang up on single targets online.

No one deserves to have a mob at their door step. If you had any grasp on reality anymore you'd probably realize this for half a second.

If you've EVER seen how the group works, then you'd know that simply isn't true.
You have to do something OVERTLY CRUEL OR OFFENSIVE (or, in some rare, unfortunate cases, extremely stupid) on the internet to warrant them attacking you. Otherwise, the typical response is "Not your personal army, GTFO."

You obviously don't understand Anonymous, what the group stands for, or how it works.

And Anonymous isn't the only group that does these things. Anonymous internet vigilantism happens all over the internet ALL THE DAMN TIME. Its just that most of the big instances in the western hemisphere get associated with Anonymous, by virtue of their name.

I'm going to actually respond to all of you here. because your voice is singing the same tune. "a 12 year old child deserves to be harassed by grown adults from hundreds of miles away."


I know you 3 are in the monitory. 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.

You guys have some really screwed up morality issues if you think attacking children is ever justified. But its pretty obvoius you 2 hang with the group so its arguing against a wall of thugs again. Seriously, you both are extremely transparent.

While I can't speak for the others you may be arguing with, or that fellow emailing you, I'd like to reassure you that I was not in any way attacking you. There's no need to be so defensive. I was just letting you know that you have some misconceptions about Anon.

On the topic of misconceptions, you appear to be under the impression that all trolls from 4chan = Anonymous, and this simply isn't true. I can assure you that most of the people who were pestering that poor Jessie girl were not the same people who helped find that kid who lit his pet cat on fire.

Anonymous is a big group that anybody can join, obviously you're going to get some bad apples. The same is true for any group of equal size. Anon only seems worse because you can't tell the difference from the good and the bad, and its so much easier to be bad on the internet.

I won't try defend the parts of Anonymous that tell random girls to strip online or ruin the lives of people like Ms. Slaughter as some kind of "social justice" because that simply isn't true. There is no equality, what these poor people get in "retaliation" is far worse than what they had done.
But I will say that, at the very least, the experience is a lesson, not only to the victim, but to future people who might say or do something inflammatory or stupid on the internet to think twice before they do so. After all, Anonymous isn't the only group of people who can ruin your life if they find you post "I hate niggers!" all the time.
A perfect example is that kid Casey from (I think it was) Australia. Sure, he over reacted when he pile-drived his bully into the concrete floor, but that bully is going to think twice about picking on other kids in the future.

I'm not saying its right. I'm saying its effective.

Finally, Anonymous doesn't attack people who disagree with them. One of their mottoes is "I may not like what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it!", after all. They attack people who say negative, hurtful, inflammatory things, or people who they see as hurting others by their actions. Its an entirely subjective mindset, to be sure, but it works for them.
People who disagree with Anonymous get attacked by people who idolize Anonymous, usually the lower peons, new members, and people who aren't even actively part of the group.

Anonymous is just a group of pranksters, and treating them as anything more (be it bad or good) is pointless and just asking for trouble.

I'm referring to the kid from Australia, Casey. He solved his problem personally. I can't really see any one person that belongs to "Anonymous" or even says they are actually solving a problem first hand. Person to person. I know about the Guy Fawkes incidents in front of the Scientology Churches.

As for being "just a group of pranksters". I'd say they go above and beyond being a group of pranksters.

You might want to go back and fix your breakdown, you screwed up the quote boxes.

Sorry about that one, I'm new to posting on this website and am not quite used to it yet.

 

[wolas3214]

I hate to be the stereotypical /b/tard but this thread is full of lulz. Best advice from anon, about anon. Is to just let it slide. Anon is NOT a personal army and if you give them nothing to work with they lose interest. to people defending jessie slaughter, really? Really?

Anywho.. anon will always be some strange intangible force, only reappearing "for the lulz" I wouldnt try to explain it, it cant be done.

 

[Chatboy 91]

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By hacking their website ON TV. Yeah, that worked well.

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Which was, let's review, dumb luck. They didn't go out of their way to uncover HBGary's nefarious plans, they went out there to ***** slap someone for daring to reveal who they actually were. Along the way, they got lucky and secured a data cache they shouldn't have. That's a black eye to how shitty HBGary's internal security was, but it wasn't a positive gain.

It's like breaking into someone's house to steal their TV because you don't like what they're saying about you. Along the way you find out they were planning to murder someone. That isn't a net positive, you still committed a fucking crime getting in there in the first place, and you can still be charged with that.

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Well, one of these things never happened... the rest... well, the rest never happened either. Let's take this apart. Tunisia happened first. Anon "noticed" the protests after they'd been going on for weeks, and decided to jump in ass for brains first. They launched DDoS attacks against the State sites. Tunisia went batshit, and cracked down harder on the protesters. We had people being disappeared, we had an internet crackdown, we had people dying. After the dust cleared, Anonymous patted itself on the back, told themselves they'd done a great job and rolled onto the next target.

In Egypt we had another anonymous instigated crackdown. You can say they aren't connected, and there is a legitimate fallacy: post hoc, ergo proctor hoc, but at the end of the day, this was cause and effect, not just before and after. Anonymous got people killed.

A group of anonymous hackers did work on getting around the internet lockdown in Egypt, but it is seriously doubtful that they were affiliated with Anonymous for a simple reason: they were competent. To date all of anon's attacks have been pathetically low tech, low skill intrusions or DDoS attacks on a compromised utility.

In the end, they hid behind anonymity, claimed success and glory for the victories regardless of their influence in them, and ignored their failures.

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"Owen has not only told me that he doesn't really give a shit about freedom of speech, he's also moderately against the action that's being taken on Sony," this Anon said.

... Right. You were saying?

For those not keeping score at home, "Owen" was one of those ShadowAnons who functioned as an actual leadership structure while hiding behind the masses claiming there was no underlying structure.

Link [http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/05/the-hackers-hacked-main-anonymous-irc-servers-seized.ars]

They hacked the website after a member was provoked, primarily to prove a point, the original hacks had nothing to do with it.

I would love to know where you heard that they decided to infiltrate HBGary's website solely to prove a point and not find information. The stealing metaphor doesn't exactly work when you consider that they were trying to simply undermine HBGary through information.

Anonymous not only took down state websites but also supplied information to protesters, which helped topple the government. As you say it is a fallacy to link the death or disappearance of individuals to Anonymous, blame the corrupt government, not the individuals seeking to help those in a fight, the same goes for Egypt.

In the case of Owen, the words of one do not out weigh the words of many.

But, let's face it we're arguing on the internet. You're set in your current beliefs, I'm currently set in mine. Let's just agree to disagree and stop wasting each other's time.

I will be the first to admit that Anonymous isn't perfect, but they have done good, and they certainly still have the potential to do far more good. I'll wait and see if they can.

 

[wolas3214]

I hate to be the stereotypical /b/tard but this thread is full of lulz. Best advice from anon, about anon. Is to just let it slide. Anon is NOT a personal army and if you give them nothing to work with they lose interest. to people defending jessie slaughter, really? Really?

Anywho.. anon will always be some strange intangible force, only reappearing "for the lulz" I wouldnt try to explain it, it cant be done.

You're a newfag aren't ya.

Mostly a lurker, I like to post on these anon threads however.

 

[wolas3214]

I hate to be the stereotypical /b/tard but this thread is full of lulz. Best advice from anon, about anon. Is to just let it slide. Anon is NOT a personal army and if you give them nothing to work with they lose interest. to people defending jessie slaughter, really? Really?

Anywho.. anon will always be some strange intangible force, only reappearing "for the lulz" I wouldnt try to explain it, it cant be done.

You're a newfag aren't ya.

Damnit, double post.