

4chan's chaos theory - bl4k
http://www.vanityfair.com/business/features/2011/04/4chan-201104

======
DarkShikari
It's practically a rule of the internet at this point that every single news
article about 4chan will basically only talk about /b/, even though there are
dozens of other boards with millions or tens of millions of posts. This is
like an encyclopedia article about Asia that only mentions China.

For some reason, /b/ seems to be the most interesting to the media outlets --
this lets them talk about Anonymous, hacking, lolcats, and other things that
the media seems to like, without having to explain difficult things, like what
"Dungeons and Dragons" or "Yaoi" or "Touhou" are.

Perhaps this is for the best, lest the rest of the site be overrun by the
"Eternal September" that hit /b/ years ago. There's some surprisingly good
communities left, with topics ranging from 3D modeling to tabletop gaming.

~~~
contextfree
Or they are focusing on what they expect to be the most interesting to a
general audience - not Touhou games.

~~~
DarkShikari
For sure, articles cater to their audience, but are we still writing articles
on /b/ in 2011? This is like the articles in 2008 explaining this new
phenomenon called "blogging" -- this isn't even new in the mainstream media,
let alone our typical news sources. It's just repetitive garbage that could
have been written with 15 minutes of copy-pasting from Encyclopedia Dramatica
and 500 other previous articles on the topic.

------
jedsmith
I walked the street during Project Chanology, and I'm not particularly afraid
to admit it -- it was a long time ago, though. These days, I wouldn't dream of
admitting being associated with Anonymous. Somewhere between then and now they
really lost their way; Anonymous isn't about media appearances (which they
seem to _love_ now. CNN? really?) nor the infamy, it's about committing to an
ideal that a bunch of "overnight neckbeards" believe in. _That_ was the power
I signed up for, and it was impressive to behold. I really felt like the
Internet could catch on and do some good in the real world, but then it all
went to hell.

Then again, maybe I'm wrong, and Anonymous means something a lot different
than I thought it does.

I'm convinced now that Anonymous is down to a small group of people who are
basically really clever botnet herders. LOIC itself is a clever way to get a
large botnet with fairly little effort. Since they operate under a guise of
religious zeal and fervor, they largely get positive attention from the media
for doing something that all Internet operators hate. As such, they're a
pretty big threat to the operations community, and they're just discovering
how to wield that power. The media eats it up because it's a story that sells
itself.

When is the last time Anonymous actually picketed something to take their
message public? Now their _modus operandi_ seems to be to basically be that
group of script kiddies that everyone hates, and punish groups they disagree
with by hitting them with over 9,000 cable modems. That isn't to say that
wasn't a part of Chanology, but I felt like the picket lines had a more
positive effect than shutting down Scientology's Web site.

It's been a pretty sad transformation to watch.

~~~
danssig
I think you're way too pessimistic. Anonymous is anyone and everyone who wants
to be Anonymous. Even if the current people called Anonymous in the lime light
right now aren't what you would hope for it's still an inspiration of what can
happen.

I remember years ago someone warned against a company angering the internet. I
laughed. What is the net going to do? Spam email them? Shut down their network
documentation? BFD. Anonymous is like in the matrix where Agent Smith managed
to escape the virtual world and could affect things in the real world. That is
power and that is potential.

~~~
jedsmith
> Anonymous is anyone and everyone who wants to be Anonymous.

Well, that's simultaneously the benefit and the drawback. Nightly News ran an
exclusive the other night that interviewed some chain smoker who whored it up
as well, and the piece highlighted Anonymous's accomplishments of taking down
VISA and MasterCard. That's what Nightly News indicated that they were known
for. I don't even recall if they mentioned Scientology, and if they did, it
was in passing.

Regardless of what Anonymous _can_ be, the media has latched on to the
"computer hacking," and that's what Anonymous _is_ now to every non-informed
person who gets their information from press. A bunch of basement computer
nerds, triumphing over old money establishment with all the suspense of a
Grisham novel; that made a lot more headway in the international media than
Project Chanology ever did, because it's a more interesting story.

The important part is that Anonymous isn't making strides to fix it: they're
learning where the reward is, and all of the recent operations have lingered
in that area -- countless SQL injections and DDoS attacks later, any possible
positive outcome for Anonymous has long been overshadowed by the destructive.
Even if, as you say, all of the destructive ops have been the work of a group
that's genuinely out of touch with what Anonymous should be, the inherent
drawback to anonymity itself means that their tactic has won the fight.

~~~
danssig
>Regardless of what Anonymous can be, the media has latched on to the
"computer hacking,"

The media is going to link bait and, frankly, a lot of them make money off the
current establishment and don't like upstarts rocking the boat. Personally I
would ignore the media aspect because there is no reasonable way to appeal to
the Fox/CNN crowd.

>any possible positive outcome for Anonymous has long been overshadowed by the
destructive

I disagree. You yourself have different goals and focus on different victories
they've had. Every person like you can be the change you want to see tomorrow.

Dabblers never understand what it is they're dabbling in. That can't be fixed.
And making the world a better place normally comes at the expense of those who
gain from it being as it is. These two facts combined mean Anon will always
have a bad rep with the uninformed no matter what anyone does. I say one
should just ignore it and do what we can for the causes we care about. If the
world gets better for people do we really care so much who gets the credit?
Credit is good to get people involved but I would argue that most of the ones
who can make the difference will know who was actually responsible and will
get their motivation from results.

------
Jun8
The article has an overall feeling of wide-eyed female (because expectation is
that she'd be even more alienated from technology than the regular clueless
male VF essayist) journalist, ooh-ing and aah-ing her way into dark and deep
geek secrets, like how you would feel if you were transported in time to a
Templar secret gathering. Low-orbit ion cannon, DDoS (she even explains this
for "the nerds out there"), what _are_ these terms?

My questions are (i) Why don't magazines like VF put someone more technically
knowledgeable to cover stories like these or (ii) if they're not going to
bother with (i) , why even cover the story?

In this regard, the _New Yorker_ is much better, I think. They either don't
jump on the wannabe bandwagon for the latest tech meme or if they decide to do
it, do a good job.

~~~
MichaelGG
If the tech magazines rarely put knowledgeable reporters on anything, why
should Vanity Fair?

------
GHFigs
Better than a lot of the press on 4chan and Anonymous, but still pretty
cringe-inducing.

The middle third or so is good--they talked to moot, and give a pretty good
description of at least some of the content--but then that's bracketed with
the standard "Anonymous is Legion" story about Scientology protests and
Wikileaks DDoSes, with media whore Gregg Housh being literally the beginning
and end of the article.

It's frustrating to feel that there is something genuinely interesting going
on there (and a dozen other places on the web with just the right conditions)
but find that attention only ever seems to be directed at the shadows cast on
the wall.

------
TimothyFitz
For any Hacker News readers at SXSW, Team Canvas will be around, drinking at
other company's parties because our booze budget is still $0. Text me
(<http://TimothyFitz.com> for my phone #) if you'd like to hang out.

Edit: In case you're wondering, in that photo Chris is working on Canvas via
Skype chat.

------
alexophile
_"...posting under deadpanned handles like Coldblood and Tux, the latter a
possible shorthand for the group’s logo, which features a man in a tuxedo,
sans head."_

------
corin_
I like VF, but was rather disappointed with this article, remarkably boring.

------
MichaelGG
"On one hand, Web sites are property, and taking them down is stealing, in a
way."

Wow, that's a bit misleading. The only way you to "steal" a website is to copy
all the files then delete them, maybe. A DoS might "steal service", but that's
about it.

What's wrong with "On one hand, web sites can be like stores, and taking them
down is obstructing commerce, in a way." ? Are people not capable of handling
nuance and ambiguity? Must everything be forced into "theft"?

------
maus_
Why do journalists never cover other online internet communities? (like
something awful)

