The above picture is the logo for international hacking group Anonymous. Now without just pasting the Wikipedia page below and calling it a day I am going to try and explain who they are and why I care. 

The term came from the oldest and largest imageboard site 4chan.org where you can post anything in the world (usually something awful) as "anonymous". The site is an open forum for everything from porn, to anime, to video games, ect. The "anonymous" moniker became a celebrity within its own community as people imagined it as just one dude named "anonymous" posting all kinds of shit all day everyday, and the "meme" was born from there. 

In 2005 there was a widely popular website originating out of Finland called Habbo Hotel it was a place for "teens to hang out" and is a cross between The Sims and an old AOL chat room. You go around in a virtual hotel, and interact with other teens soliciting a/s/l and asking for bra sizes from female users. 

There were unproven rumors that the moderators in the game were racist, where black players on message boards complaining getting their accounts banned due to "term violation", and they claimed to be the recipient of racist comments from the people in charge.. The complaints either became unnervingly consistent, or just a thing to joke about on the 4chan boards where action by a group of people was organized and executed. They called it the "Great Habbo Raid of '06" 

The raid is considered the birth of the Anonymous "hacktivism" movement. The had dozens of users create accounts, and become a black guy avatar with afro and business suit. and simply block the pool while typing the lyrics to "Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire" repeatedly. No users could walk through others so having the pool shut down in a virtual hotel was a big enough deal to have the web administrators conduct month long research to ban all offenders. 

While the meaning behind that "attack" was mostly unfounded and silly it gave the people who loosely organized the raid a spark for future ideas, and the hope that there are other like-minded  people out there for things bigger and better than ruining some 13 year old's day in the digital swimming pool. On the plus side a year after that another raid was planned, and has now become a annual tradition (July 12th) trying to circumvent the websites ever evolving security measure to keep them out of the game. Plus this awesome internet meme was born:

Anonymous' next attack was against a real opponent Hal Turner a white supremacist jabroni who had an internet radio show for a few years. It was very popular to call up his show and prank call him, as he could not take a joke at all. The would go into racist tirades about the callers, and would inspire hatred and support it openly and publicly. 

On December 20th 2006, Hal Turner was supposed to air his final talk show on the internet. During the course of this three-hour show, almost 150 prank calls were made, another organized attack from 4chan.org boys (still not yet under the anonymous name yet). The lines were bogged down so badly, his "real" callers could not make it through, and in typical angry white guy fashion he struck back in order to get one last rub from negative press.


He posted all the caller ID's from the prank calls on his website goading his "real" fans to call and attack the prankers back. He then said he had pending litigation against all the websites that coordinated this prank call blitz on his show. He was embarrassed, and someone as simple minded as him demanded shift revenge, and legal compensation.

It was at this point where the actual hacking aspect of  Anonymous came into play instead of harmless jokes. The gave Hal one warning to take the information off his site, but Hal being arrogant, refused thinking he was untouchable. 

The Anonymous hackers took down his site where it simply said "Merry Christmas" and found all of his personal information and made it public, including the fact that he was full of shit trying to scare the prank callers with legal action as no such proceedings were filed at all. 

Here is an awesome breakdown:

Not only did they achieve something admirable, but they did it with a real harsh consequence. He tried to sue back for loss of "thousands of bandwith dollars" but as we all know you can't sue the whole internet.

In 2007, and with a newly found inspiration for justice through vigilantism a pedophile from Toronto caught Anonymous' attention. Chris Forcand was all about showing underage girls his balls, and being just an awful human being. Members of Anonymous posed as underage girls and collected enough evidence to charge him with "two counts of luring a child under the age of 14, attempt to invite sexual touching, attempted exposure, possessing a dangerous weapon, and carrying a concealed weapon". The Toronto police admitted to this being the first predator being charged and arrested solely by "internet vigilantes"

In 2008, Anonymous gained global recognition by it's "Chanology" war against the Scientology Church. It all started when a video of Tom Cruise being interviewed for the Scientology Church was uploaded to YouTube. It was rage-fully taken down siting "copyright violation". This triggered Anonymous to strike out against "internet censorship" and organize Project Chanology.

For completion's sake here is the "banned" interview:

Project Chanology was a blitz of prank calls, black faxes, and a full blown attack to their website enabling is useless. After the initial attack Anonymous posted it's first video describing their intention giving a physical presence to the hacker group.

Pretty bad ass, straight out of movie. They then posted a video to organize their VERY ambitious call to protest on February 10, 2008 with this video:

What's crazy is that the protest worked to some extent. They estimated 7000 people collectively, and peacefully protested the Church's questionable ethical standings, over 93 cities on that date.  On March 15, 2008 the second wave of protests were spurred, and commanded another 7-8 thousand people across a international collection of cities. There was also a third wave dubbed "Operation Reconnect"

Anonymous took down the website, replacing the home page with the anonymous flag, they dumped 68,000 emails from the company server, and destroyed a pending plan to pitch to Bank of American from the firm describing an attack and elimination of the wikileaks website. To put the final nail in the coffin the took over control of Arron Barr's twitter account publicly posting his address, home phone, and social security number. Ouch.

They have participated in a few other various anti-govermental attacks, and national attacks in 2011. What piqued my attention is the planned attack against facebook.

Operation Facebook will happen November 5, 2011. They are going to take down facebook, and they don't give a shit who knows it. If this tedious post has done anything, it confirms the fact that Anonymous can do anything they want. They took down Sony, Mastercard, Amazon, Paypal, Australian Government, (allegedly) NATO, Tunisia, Anguilla, Brazil, Zimbabwe, Turkey, Orlando Chamber of Commerce, Bank of America, Spanish Police, and dozens of other attacks against everyone they set their mind on. They have not made empty threats, and everything they have set out to achieve they have done. Time will tell.


Now I'm not anti-government, or feel that injustice all over the world must be dealt with swiftly, and accurately. I do, however, believe in this quote from John Basil Barnhill in which it states,

"Where the people fear the government you have tyranny. Where the government fears the people you have liberty."

I do feel that we as a country have gotten so apathetical towards politicians, policies, and general injustice to where they feel that they can do whatever they want. The information is there, right for us to read about "pork" in bills passed, good programs not getting funding, and bad programs getting that particular funding. It's a mess; and it's undeniable, most people don't care (me included) and what gets me the most is that its not even a secret. All misdeeds are documented and available for curious eyes thanks to people like Anonymous for protecting free speech on the internet. I feel that they aren't even trying anymore. They have no fear of repercussion, and like an abused animal we are so used to how bad it is, we have come to accept just the shitty way it is.

I'm not criticizing anyone for not grabbing torches and marching to Washington, but I do admire for such a large group of people so passionate about an ideal they band together under a common goal, and well .... fucking shit up. Anonymous as a collective consciousness have a strong conviction and they do anything, including risking the highest level of federal penalty, to stay true to what they believe in. 

I wish them the sincerest form of success. I love the romanticism about a mysterious group of internet vigilantes  who are taking on big, fat corporate American, and making them check the places where their nightlight doesn't reach.

Guy Fawkes has never been sexier.