The Anons involved in the hack formed a splinter group, LulzSec Lols Security , and went on a high-profile hacking spree, targeting major corporations like Sony and several government agencies whenever they felt that these organizations were trampling individual freedoms—or simply to show that they could.
Monsegur has denied being responsible for those arrests, though does not deny being an FBI informant. Anonymous never fully recovered. Small groups of Anons remained, but the energy behind the banner dissipated. However, when Anonymous announced the name of the shooter, it named the wrong person , damaging its reputation. Fredrick Brennan was 12 years old when he discovered 4chan in But he spent his late teens struggling financially, bouncing between low-paying jobs in the gig economy.
And eventually, the neo-Nazis they targeted began using 4chan in their online recruitment efforts. So by , Anonymous hacktivists had turned back to the places where they had once organized—chat rooms and forums that are adjacent to 4chan—and begun to fight a rearguard action. From the June issue: The prophecies of Q.
Some Anonymous hackers now spend their time tracking and outing alt-right organizers, often in the same networks they occupied in the mids trolling era. What does all of this mean for the future of Anonymous? Some members have shifted their modus operandi.
Several told me they now work quietly, rarely if ever repeating the mistake that had landed many of them in jail: publicizing what they do. This has not been the case with BlueLeaks, however. A hacker involved in the leak identified as Anonymous, and other Anonymous groups were happy to adopt the hack under their banner. They are more wary than ever, often openly wondering who among them are police or informants. They no longer organize on the archaic Internet Relay Chat IRC , believing it to be compromised, instead preferring more modern end-to-end encrypted chat clients, such as Wire, Gajim, or Signal.
And age has brought temperance. This time around, many members emphasized, they would like to play a supporting role to Black Lives Matter, as they had during the Ferguson protests, when despite their stumbles, their presence was appreciated by some BLM activists. And in the long term, it now appears that Anonymous might be with us perennially, blooming in revolutionary moments, when it feels as if one big push might effect change.
But there is another possibility—that once again Anonymous will be recast. Anonymous began with teens hanging out in chat rooms. They put on the mask of the anti-fascist superhero for fun, but over time learned to play the role first with style, then conviction.
When teens began hanging out in Discord chat rooms last month wondering how they could join Anonymous, the answer from the largest Anonymous Twitter accounts was simple: Do it yourself. Read: The hackers who hate Donald Trump. The pattern felt familiar: a group of teens meeting online to consume media, then realizing that their numbers were so strong, they could pull some epic pranks, or become a political collective, or maybe both.
In V for Vendetta , after a pandemic leads to a fascist dictatorship in the year , everyone puts on the Guy Fawkes mask to topple the regime. And if there were ever any difference between our world and the other side of the screen, it feels as if it were effaced long ago.
Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic. In , anons attacked the City Hall website of Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown, and threatened cyber attacks against police and local government if protesters were harmed.
Anonymous members have had several run-ins with the law, with government agencies making arrests for computer hacking, fraud, and cyber-stalking. In , American hacktivist James Robinson was sent to prison for six years after being convicted for carrying out DDoS attacks. Another hacker, Deric Lostutter, was sentenced to two years in prison after infiltrating the website of a high school sports team for exposing the alleged coverup of a rape case. Click here to join our channel indianexpress and stay updated with the latest headlines.
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Related Terms What Is Hacktivism? Hacktivism is a social or political activist plan that is carried out by breaking into and wreaking havoc on a secure computer system. Bitcoin is a digital or virtual currency created in that uses peer-to-peer technology to facilitate instant payments. Combating the Financing of Terrorism CFT Combating the Financing of Terrorism is a set of policies aimed to deter and prevent funding of activities intended to achieve religious or ideological goals through violence.
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Partner Links. Related Articles. Cryptocurrency Who Is Ross Ulbricht? Bitcoin How Bitcoin Works. Investopedia is part of the Dotdash publishing family. If you have a voice, you can help Anonymous. Since its peak in the early s, Anonymous mostly faded from the public eye after a series of arrests, but a new generation seems to be taking up the mantle.
For example, earlier this year, a person identifying as Anonymous leaked hundreds of gigabytes of internal police files from more than agencies in what was called the BlueLeaks. So what happened to the original crew? I more or less abandoned everything I was doing for this.
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