

Unmasking the "Anonymous" Hackers  - kapilkaisare
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/telecom/security/unmasking-the-anonymous-hackers

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sigzero
I like the second comment:

"Anonymous is an internet-era gang, plain and simple."

Indeed they are.

~~~
keiferski
Not quite sure I agree. Anonymous has zero financial incentive to do any of
this, which may or may not be a requisite to gang-status. Either way, it's
still a point worth considering.

~~~
frisco
I don't think gang members do it for the money, but rather for the social
status. By definition you don't have that here; as soon as someone proclaims
herself a "leader" they get raided just as hard as any of Anon's targets. Moot
has a love-hate relationship with Anon and certainly isn't a leader figure in
a sense that he isn't directing raids.

So to your point Anon is something very different than traditional gangs, but
I think that's because there's no hierarchy to aspire to, rather than lack of
money.

~~~
bugsy
Ok, but how the heck can you get social status when you are completely
anonymous and no one knows who you are, not even your fellow gang members?
They don't seem to have unique Anonymous ids, or do they?

Oh wait, now I see. That's your point - that the difference is they don't have
social status. OK, good point.

~~~
ligerhearted
If you recall the last zf0 zine (zf05.txt), Anonymous was shown to have a
loosely organized group who directed raids when they picked up enough momentum
and convinced enough kids and btards to launch LOIC. Most other anon jump on
when there is sufficient critical mass and coverage, resulting in more lulz to
be shared all around. Technically we are all Anonymous.

------
ryoshu
It's amazing how a writer can get so many things wrong in such a short
article.

~~~
ryoshu
I guess I should expound: The title of the article is silly. Anonymous is a
concept and perhaps the first large scale stand alone complex (SAC)
(<http://www.cydeweys.com/blog/2008/01/28/scientology-sac/>) we have seen
emerge. Trying to unmask an SAC is a sisyphean effort because it acts as a
scale free network. This is very important to white hats who need to protect
against attacks. We aren't dealing with your garden variety skiddies or black
hats. As evidenced by the attacks in Operation Payback, Anonymous has created
a voluntary botnet with LOIC's new hivemind feature. Anonymous is something
different.

The author states: "Whenever a thread is particularly weak, discussants mark
it with an image of Guy Fawkes." This is wrong. The author is attempting to
show knowledge of chan culture, but he can't even get basic facts straight.
Another example: "Once, hackers in the group busted into an online children’s
game, flooding an animated swimming pool with their own characters." Also
wrong. Five minutes on Google will tell you about the raid on Habbo
([http://encyclopediadramatica.com/The_Great_Habbo_Raid_of_Jul...](http://encyclopediadramatica.com/The_Great_Habbo_Raid_of_July_2006)).
Not only is Habbo not a children's game -- its target market is teenagers --
the raid shut down numerous aspects of the game. Sloppy research and/or
writing on the author's part. And then there is his use of the word "hacker"
and the phrase "busted into" to describe the act of registering an account.
The author seems to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what he is writing
about.

All of these details are important to anyone that wants to understand
Anonymous, which should include any white hat, and especially those of us who
work on multi-player web based games. It's amazing how a writer can get so
many things wrong in such a short article.

