Anonymous traces its roots to the infamous message board on 4Chan.org. Much of the communication on the board takes place in the form of rapid-fire, freewheeling, and often blatantly offensive images and remarks from legions of individuals posting anonymously, riffing on, insulting, and trying to top each other. The most familiar (and misleadingly innocuous) meme to emerge from this iteration-obsessed corner of the Internet is the lolcat phenomenon. 4Chan has been around since 2003, and it’s hard to pin down when and to what degree some of the people posting as Anonymous began to think of themselves as a de facto entity of the same name.
Anonymous insist they have no centralized operational leadership, which has been a significant hurdle for government and law enforcement entities attempting to curb their actions,” an Aug. 1 Homeland Security bulletin noted. “With that being said, we assess with high confidence that Anonymous and associated groups will continue to exploit vulnerable publicly available Web servers, websites, computer networks, and other digital information mediums for the foreseeable future.
The hacking group Anonymous claimed via its Twitter feed to have breached servers belonging to NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance that has largely been responsible for the military defense of Europe since the end of World War II. There has been a lot made of the fact that the files were not really secure documents but “lame” as described by one writer, but then, when does the government or any big agency ever tell that truth.
Acting like Robin Hood of old Anonymous has hacked the Stratfor site obtaining credit card info and emails. Anonymous also linked to images online that it suggested were receipts for charitable donations made by the group manipulating the credit card data it stole. “Thank you! Defense Intelligence Agency,” read the text above one image that appeared to show a transaction summary indicating that an agency employee’s information was used to donate $250 to a non-profit. One receipt – to the American Red Cross – had Allen Barr’s name on it. Barr, of Austin, Texas, recently retired from the Texas Department of Banking and said he discovered last Friday that a total of $700 had been spent from his account. Barr, who has spent more than a decade dealing with cybercrime at banks, said five transactions were made in total. “It was all charities, the Red Cross, CARE, Save the Children.
Anonymous is not so anonymous anymore. The computer hackers, chat room denizens and young people who comprise the loosely affiliated Internet collective have increasingly turned to questionable tactics, drawing the attention of the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and other federal investigators.
These examples reveal that the iconography of Anonymous is highly accessible: If there is a Grand Conspiracy, you don’t have to fear it-in fact, you can join it! But both Housh and Coleman underscore a vital point about the visual identity of an entity with no real structure: All these examples borrow from the same set of images and tropes-but almost always tweak them in some way. “With Anonymous,” Housh says, “you can only make suggestions.” People will pick up and riff on the stuff they like-and ignore whatever they don’t. Some things, like the attempt to control the internet will most likely galvanize action against the supporters who are trying to control for profit something that was designed to be free. Our countries were designed on the basis of protecting the rights and freedoms of individuals, not on government always looking after the new age “Robber Barons”.
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