The Mysterious Anonymous

 

Anonymous is fast becoming one of the most influential, or at least, most documented hacking group there is. Linked by the to all manner of notorious hacktivist cases, such as the WikiLeaks backlash [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11935539], an attack that saw them take down the MasterCard, PayPal and Visa websites after they removed their services from the website. Similarly, they aided the Egyptian revolution [http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/more/notaro20110309], and are described by that new media outlet as a hacker group that “takes down websites across the world for the greater good: peace, freedom of information and solidarity.” Anonymous boast many feats, as well as many members, the group itself is very illucid, it’s very easy to take part in some of their hacktivist actions, often they’ll upload programmes that do the work for you, or you’ll simply have to take part in e-mail campains or basic acts of hacking.

 

And Anonymous are more then just an online syndication. Created on the notorious 4Chan board, /b/ (described by many, including itself, as the asshole of the internet), Anonymous has an impressive record of IRL protests too. One of its more noted protest was Project Chanology [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Chanology], a protest that saw members of the loose-knit organisation protest outside the churches headquarters, dressed mostly in cloaks and hats to protect their identities. Alongside this protest came cyberattacks against the church of Scientology; Anonymous utilised DDoS and a variety of other methods to attack and disrupt the churches’ running.

 

Anonymous have fast become one of the most feared cybergroups, arguably, not least due to their size, one of the strongest and most formidable. Previous hacking victims have included the Bank of America [http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/03/anonymous-hackers-release-bank-of-america-emails/1], BMI [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/anonymous-hacker-group-attacks-bmi-166283], Amazon, PayPal, MasterCard and Visa, Sarah Palin [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/us_elections/article4780133.ece], and many, many more. Most recently they have decided to take fight against Sony after Sony repressed information on how to jailbreak the PS3 [http://news.techworld.com/personal-tech/3268344/sony-ps3-websites-attacked-by-anonymous-group/]

 

And it kinda all started, believe it or not, when some kid hurt a cat.

 

 

Hacktivism

A portmanteau of hack and activism, hacktivism is the term coined to describe activists who choose to make their stand via the computer. Often hacktivists are portrayed neutrally, occasionally even sympathetically by the media, with a clear distinction made between “hacktivism” and “cyberterrorism”. This is most probably due to the issues many hacktivists hack against. Often the media and the hacktivist will find themselves on the same side, notable cases being the defence of WikiLeaks [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11935539], the rebellion in Egypt [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41407082/ns/technology_and_science-security/], and many other key political issues.

Due to the media’s previous history of vilifying all forms of hackers and hacking, hacktivists are treading new, uncertain territory. For a while now hacking and the cyberworld have been changing the way wars are fought, introducing the acts of data warfare, secret stealing, and cyberfighting. Yet these hacktivists are also changing who these wars are fought by. Hacktavists aren’t exclusively versed hackers. Often versed hackers will create and upload hacking tools and programmes, programmes that can be downloaded and used by anyone, turning any computer into a hacktivist device, and anyone into a basic little hacktivist. Below is a copypasta list of the most common tools used by hacktivist;

 

1. Defacing Web Pages Between 1995-1999 Attrition.org reported 5,000 website defacements. In such a scenario, the hacktivist will significantly alter the front page of a company’s or governmental agency’s website.

2. Web Sit-ins In this form of hacktivism, hackers attempt to send so much traffic to the site that the overwhelmed site becomes inaccessible to other users in a variation on a denial of service.

With the advent of geotagging and the ability to geo-bomb Google Earth with YouTube videos, an alternative definition of a web sit-in can be the targeting of a particular locale such as a government building with an overwhelming amount of geo-tagged videos.

3. E-mail Bombing Hacktivists send scores of e-mails with large file attachments to their target’s e-mail address.

4. Code Software and websites can achieve political purposes. For example, the encryption software PGP can be used to secure communications; PGP’s author, Phil Zimmermann said he distributed it first to the peace movement. Jim Warren suggests PGP’s wide dissemination was in response to Senate Bill 266, authored by Senators Biden and DeConcini, which demanded that “…communications systems permit the government to obtain the plain text contents of voice, data, and other communications…”. WikiLeaks is an example of a politically motivated website – it seeks to “keep governments open”.

5. Website Mirroring is used as a circumvention tool to bypass censorship blocks on websites. It is a technique that copies the content of a censored website and posts it to other domains and subdomains that are not censored.

6. Geo-bombing is a technique in which netizens add a geo-tag while editing YouTube videos so that the location of the video can be displayed in Google Earth.^[8]

7. Anonymous blogging is a method of speaking out to a wide audience about human rights issues, government oppression, etc. that utilizes various web tools such as free email accounts, IP masking, and blogging software to preserve a high level of anonymity. [Wikipedia]

 

There are many different forms of hacktivists, hacktivists who hack for their homeland, hacktivists who hack against oppression, hacktivists who hack for one issue, and one issue alone. More recently however we have seen the rise of online, mass hacktivist groups, the most notable being the group called Anonymous.