

Is Anonymous Less Anonymous Now? - jcr
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=37572

======
zby
Sounds relevant: <http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm>

Some quotes:

"During the years in which the women's liberation movement has been taking
shape, a great emphasis has been placed on what are called leaderless,
structureless groups as the main -- if not sole -- organizational form of the
movement."

" Contrary to what we would like to believe, there is no such thing as a
structureless group. Any group of people of whatever nature that comes
together for any length of time for any purpose will inevitably structure
itself in some fashion. The structure may be flexible; it may vary over time;
it may evenly or unevenly distribute tasks, power and resources over the
members of the group. But it will be formed regardless of the abilities,
personalities, or intentions of the people involved."

"A "laissez faire" group is about as realistic as a "laissez faire" society;
the idea becomes a smokescreen for the strong or the lucky to establish
unquestioned hegemony over others. This hegemony can be so easily established
because the idea of "structurelessness" does not prevent the formation of
informal structures, only formal ones."

------
erikb
Are we really asking the right questions? I mean, for us guys, who are not
part of Anonymous, does it really matter how strong their hierarchy is?

For me other questions matter a lot more. Like, how does Anonymous influence
our laws and how do these apply to my daily life? Maybe they help making
organisations who possess a lot of power, to consider the public oppinion more
(like Sony, Paypal, and so on). Or maybe they help the governments more to
convince big organisations like Google and Facebook to spy on ME.

AnonOps is for sure not the one, who dictates which questions matter for me
and which don't. I hope the scientists who try to analysie the Anonymous
situation don't forget that, despite spending so much time in the surroundings
of them.

~~~
PostOnce
"us guys, who are not part of Anonymous"

Anyone can be part of Anonymous at any time just by saying so. At least, this
is my idea of Anonymous. If Anonymous is doing something you like, you can
either follow instructions that some other random (possibly secretly
organized) person/group has posted to the internet, or you can simply decide
what you think would be a productive action for you to take. Anonymous doesn't
like Organization X, and wished to cause them economic harm by DDoSing their
servers, you join in the DDoS, or, if you are more thoroughly versed in
infosec, you can engage in a different sort of attack. If you don't support
what Anonymous is doing at that particular moment, you can simply choose not
to participate.

My idea of Anonymous is that it changes from day to day, both in members and
in structure. It may become more or less organized depending on who views
themself as a member on that particular day, or who supports the currently
popular "operation".

This may be a naive, misinformed, or idealistic view, but it's the view I've
always had. Anonymous can't be disassembled, since you could imprison every
member of Anonymous today, and tomorrow an entirely different group of people
could reconstitute it to just as much effect.

I would be glad to hear alternative opinions of the nature of Anonymous.

------
faitswulff
TL;DR - No.

~~~
jcr
You should read the article, and _then_ form an opinion. If you're really
curious, try to figure out what information was released by the umm "non-
conforming" admin about other Anonymous users/members. I don't know the
details, or care to know, but it doesn't sound good.

------
rabidsnail
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS-0Az7dgRY>

