Anonymous

Hacking and activist group

    Primary Company/Organization: Anonymous

    Introduction

    Computer hacking has become increasingly political and ideological. The term “hacktivism” has been coined to refer to hacking that is motivated by a conviction that access to online information should be free and open; hacktivists may engage in crashing websites and publishing sensitive information online. The online network of hacktivists known as Anonymous, with thousands of members and no official leadership, is among the best known of all such groups, variously viewed as either heroes or cybercriminals. Membership in Anonymous, as in most computer hacking groups, is intentionally loose, with members joining and leaving at will. However, a group of highly skilled and particularly active members form the core and are responsible for the online Anonymous Security Starter Handbook, a how-to book for novice hackers. Members of Anonymous come from all walks of life and include high school and college students, journalists, office workers, software developers, and information technology experts as well as corporate spies, members of organized crime groups, and ordinary con artists. The group's motto is, “We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.” The overall purpose of Anonymous, according to members, is to empower the public. High-profile targets have included private organizations such as the Church of Scientology, major corporations such as MasterCard, PayPal, and Amazon, and government agencies in numerous countries. In response to increased threats, officials around the globe have engaged in organized manhunts for members of Anonymous and other hacking groups, resulting in a number of arrests in both North America and Europe. Though these arrests brought the sustained power of the original group into question, by the early 2020s Anonymous remained capable of acting on behalf of various social causes, and served as an inspiration to many hackers worldwide.

    Origins

    Anonymous began to emerge as a group in 2003 on the Internet forum website 4chan.com. In its early days, 4chan was heavily associated with pornography and dirty jokes. Users typically posted on the forum without identifying themselves, resulting in their comments being tagged "Anonymous." Over time, visitors to the forum embraced the idea of Anonymous being an individual, then a collective entity.

    Originally, Anonymous largely engaged in Internet-based pranks they described as "raids," in which members would gather en masse on a particular website in order to crash it or otherwise prevent others from accessing it. While these raids generally seemed motivated by little other than the group's amusement, some had an element of vigilantism as well, such as the alleged 2006–7 attacks on the website of white supremacist Internet broadcaster Hal Turner. In addition, in December 2007, members of Anonymous provided information to the Toronto Police Service that led to the arrest of Internet predator Chris Forcand after Forcand had allegedly propositioned younger members of the group.

    Among Anonymous's earliest hacktivist endeavors, and the first to attract worldwide attention, was Project Chanology, an organized attack against the Church of Scientology. In January 2008, a video interview with actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise, in which Cruise discussed Scientology at length, was posted to the video-sharing website YouTube. The church, which has a history of taking legal action to suppress criticism of itself on the Internet, threatened litigation in order to have the video removed from YouTube and attempted to do the same to other sites that had reposted it. In response to this attempt at "Internet censorship," Anonymous began a campaign of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on the Church of Scientology's websites, as well as other activities, such as prank phone calls and "black faxes" (faxes of entirely black pages), intended to disrupt operations at various Scientology centers.

    Anonymous gained further notoriety in 2009 as a result of Operation Payback, an attack waged against corporate giants that included MasterCard, Visa, Amazon, and PayPal, after those organizations had canceled the accounts of WikiLeaks in response to that website's publishing of classified diplomatic cables. Lulz Security (LulzSec), a splinter group, was allegedly behind the attack on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program Frontline, which reported on the WikiLeaks scandal. Before the attacks, Anonymous widely publicized their intentions. Using the open-source application Low Orbit Ion Cannon (LOIC), thousands of volunteers again launched a series of DDoS attacks.

    Following the attacks resulting from the WikiLeaks scandal, Anonymous focused on what it identified as anticensorship activities. This focus led to subsequent attacks on government sites in Egypt and Tunisia; during these attacks, Anonymous stated that they were opening up citizen access to government information. The group also resorted to physical tactics by ordering large amounts of pizza to be delivered to the embassies of both countries.

    Members of Anonymous do not always support the activities of other members. For instance, when an individual claiming to be a member of Anonymous posted an online video in August 2011 that threatened to “kill” social media company Facebook on November 5 of that year, other members stated that it was a hoax. Information subsequently surfaced suggesting that such an attack had been planned but later discarded.

    Overview

    The year 2011 was a banner year for computer hackers, and one of the most successful hacking activities undertaken by Anonymous occurred early in the year, when five members of the group managed to bring down the security firm of HBGary Federal and its client, the law firm of Hunton and Williams. Anonymous's vendetta was a response to an announcement by Aaron Barr, chief executive officer (CEO) of HBGary Federal, to a suspected member that he was planning to reveal the names and addresses of members of Anonymous at an upcoming computer security conference before releasing them to authorities. Anonymous responded by hacking the firm's computers, changing all employee passwords, and stealing seventy thousand email messages. Damaging emails were posted online, and Barr was subsequently forced to resign.

    Anonymous's most public activity of 2011 was to help launch the Occupy Wall Street protests that began in New York in September and soon spread globally. During protests, the Guy Fawkes masks made popular by the 1980s-era graphic novel (and 2005 film adaptation) V for Vendetta served the dual purpose of ensuring anonymity and making a political statement. The Occupy Wall Street movement was intended to call attention to corporate greed and the increasing gap between the rich and poor in the United States. During the protests, Anonymous threatened to “erase” the New York Stock Exchange.

    Considered more malevolent than any other hacking group, LulzSec, which stands for “laughing out loud at security,” is believed to be a splinter group of disenchanted Anonymous members. Before it was brought down, LulzSec was so well organized that the group had its own public relations office. Successful hacking attacks targeted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the US Senate, the United Kingdom's Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), Fox Broadcasting Company, PBS, Citigroup, and Sony. LulzSec members tweeted that they had joined Anonymous in Operation Anti-Security, or AntiSec, to steal and leak information online. The splinter group became so troublesome within the hacking community that other hackers cooperated with authorities in bringing it down.

    One of the group's most disruptive activities of 2011 was the hacking of Sony Corporation's PlayStation Network, which resulted in the entire network being offline for twenty-eight days beginning on April 20. While pursuing a copyright infringement lawsuit against hacker George Hotz for his efforts to reverse engineer a PlayStation 3 console, Sony was granted access to a list of IP addresses of everyone who had visited Hotz's blog. In retaliation for what they saw as an infringement of “free speech and internet freedom,” hackers attacked Sony's network, gaining access to credit card numbers, passwords, and game activity and depriving PlayStation Network members of access to the PlayStation Store and the ability to play online games for the PlayStation 3. Once it was discovered that hackers had intentionally left behind a file labeled “Anonymous,” both outraged PlayStation users and the media were quick to blame Anonymous for the crime. The group admitted responsibility for attacks on Sony websites but denied involvement in the outage. However, Spanish authorities subsequently arrested several hackers who claimed to be members of Anonymous. PlayStation Network was back in service in early June at a cost of $173 million. Even after Sony completely remodeled its security measures and restored service, LulzSec hacked into tens of thousands of Sony user accounts, bragging about the feat on Twitter.

    In March 2012, Anonymous announced that it had hacked the Vatican's website as reprisal for “corrupt” and “retrograde” activities by the Catholic Church. Anonymous was also accused of hacking Time magazine's website and rigging the votes so that the group came in first place on the reader's poll of the 100 Most Influential People of 2012, recording 395,793 votes. In the published list, Anonymous ranked thirty-sixth. Anonymous also intercepted an FBI conference call about investigations into the group's activities and posted it online.

    Other activities in 2012 included ongoing attacks against Arab dictators. Anonymous accused President Bashar al-Assad of Syria of slaughtering seventeen hundred Syrians and hacked the government website, encouraging Syrians to overthrow the Assad regime. Anonymous published the email passwords of government officials in Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, and Jordan. Anonymous has also developed so-called care packages that contained instructions for hackers with details on how to cover up hacking tracks. When members of Food Not Bombs were arrested in Florida for feeding homeless individuals in violation of local ordinances, Anonymous launched an attack on the Florida Chamber of Commerce.

    Throughout the 2010s, Anonymous continued to involve itself in what it considered to be worthy causes. In late 2012 and early 2013, in the midst of the Steubenville High School rape case in Steubenville, Ohio, the group leaked incriminating evidence of the perpetrators as well as the names of other alleged perpetrators who had not been indicted. Later in 2013, Anonymous released the names of eleven Cleveland, Ohio, police officers who were involved in the fatal shooting of two unarmed civilians. Similarly, in 2014, following the fatal shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Anonymous leaked personal information about Saint Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar after he refused to release the name of the officer responsible. When the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) threatened to attack protesters in Ferguson, Anonymous hacked a number of KKK websites and social media accounts and began releasing members' information. Other targets by that time included the Westboro Baptist Church, the Mexican Army, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the governments of Uganda, Nigeria, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Israel, and the Philippines.

    In 2015, following the terror attacks on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and the even deadlier attacks across Paris on November 13, the organization "declared war" against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the terrorist organization responsible for the attacks. It also reportedly launched Operation Trump to attack Donald Trump's presidential campaign, later declaring "all-out war" on Trump himself in 2016. However, the collective also released a video, Elucidating #OpISIS and #OPTrump, on the Anonymous Official YouTube channel. In the video, they said that #OPTrump "goes against everything that Anonymous stands for. Threatening a presidential candidate to keep his mouth shut concerning a subject is censorship. We are for everyone letting their voice be heard, even if the person at hand . . . is a monster." Parties claiming to be Anonymous also targeted former secretary of state and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

    In October 2017 a poster known as QAnon declared on the platform 4Chan that they were the true Anonymous. Furthermore, QAnon claimed to have Q-level security clearance and connections inside the US government and propagated various conspiracy theories regarding Hillary Clinton, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election, and other public figures. The QAnon conspiracy theories spread to the mainstream and adherents appeared at Trump rallies held during his presidency; by the early 2020s, the conspiracy had spread widely and won over many believers in the US. Anonymous responded by launching Operation QAnon with the aim of exposing those behind QAnon and launching cyberattacks against its supporters.

    After a period of relatively low activity, Anonymous emerged once again in May 2020 as massive protests against racial injustice and police brutality erupted throughout the United States following the death of George Floyd. The collective released a video on a Facebook page in what was reportedly an attempt to expose what they considered a history of violence perpetrated by the Minneapolis Police Department. When the website of the city's police department was then found to be temporarily inaccessible, it was speculated by the media that hackers at least loosely affiliated with Anonymous may have been behind a coordinated attack. In June 2020, Anonymous also published BlueLeaks, a data trove of information stolen from over two hundred US law enforcement agencies; it included emails, personal data of individual officers, internal reports, and other sensitive information dating from 1996 to 2020, and exposed patterns of illegal surveillance and other controversial conduct in some US police departments. At the time of its release, BlueLeaks was the largest hack of US law enforcement data to date.

    Throughout 2021, Anonymous continued conducting high-profile activities in the US. In September 2021, after Texas passed the Heartbeat Act banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, Anonymous launched "Operation Jane," intended to severely disrupt the effectiveness of websites for anti-abortion whistleblowers and other measures established to help enforce the new law. On September 11, the collective hacked the Texas Republican Party's website. Two days later, Anonymous also released a large batch of data stolen from Epik, a web hosting company known to host websites affiliated with Neo Nazi groups and other far-right organizations.

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 prompted another flurry of activity attributed to Anonymous, which declared cyber war on the Russian government. Throughout February and March 2022, the collective attacked and disabled a number of websites belonging to Russian businesses and government agencies, including state-run media company RT and the Russian Federation's Ministry of Defense. Anonymous also released stolen data from the Russian Central Bank, and hijacked state television channels to broadcast pro-Ukrainian content.

    Traditionally, few names have been attached to members of Anonymous, because members tend to work behind the scenes, often using assumed names. Some members' names became public in 2011 as the result of a number of high-profile arrests in several countries. Many of the hackers arrested were young and relatively inexperienced; older, more experienced members were assumed to be better at covering their tracks. Some security experts argue that releasing details of arrests serves to attract other hackers and gives groups the publicity they crave instead of acting as a deterrent to additional hacking activities.

    In June 2011, Spanish police arrested three men suspected of being at the core of Anonymous activities. Anonymous responded to the arrests by crashing the website of the Spanish police. Later in the month, Turkish authorities arrested thirty-two others who were believed to be active members of Anonymous. On July 19, twenty-one alleged hackers associated with Anonymous were arrested in the United States, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. Sixteen of those were accused of taking part in the WikiLeaks attacks. In the fall, Scottish authorities arrested Jake Davis, eighteen, who was accused of hacking the CIA, Rupert Murdoch's media empire, the British police, and the Sun newspaper.

    In August 2011, Hector Xavier Monsegur of New York, who helped found LulzSec in May 2011, was charged with taking part in the WikiLeaks attacks; hacking the governments of Tunisia, Algeria, Zimbabwe, and Yemen; and stealing personal data of potential X-Factor contestants. His subsequent cooperation with the FBI led to the arrests of other members of LulzSec, including Jack Davis of the Shetland Islands, Ryan Ackroyd of England, and Darren Martyn and Donncha O'Cearrbhail of Ireland. O'Cearrbhail was also charged with intercepting the FBI conference call that appeared online. Following his arrest, Jeremy Hammond, who was considered a particularly high-profile hacker, was sentenced to ten years in prison in 2013. The following year, due to his cooperation with authorities, Monsegur was released upon being sentenced to time he had already served.

    In 2017, Deric Lostutter, who had pleaded guilty to charges related to his involvement in the hacking efforts around the Steubenville rape case, received a sentence of two years in prison. That same year, the man accused of aiding Lostutter in the hacking of a website dedicated to fans of the high school's athletics was also sentenced to serve prison time. Two years later, Martin Gottesfeld, who was accused of a cyberattack against a major Massachusetts hospital in the name of Anonymous, was given a lengthy prison sentence.

    Through the late 2010s and into the early 2020s, various individuals thought to be affiliated with Anonymous continued to face legal repercussions for their alleged hacking activities. For example, in June 2021, hacker and activist Christopher Doyon was arrested for taking down the website of Santa Cruz County in California as a protest against what he viewed as the county's hostile policies towards homeless individuals. In 2024, Anonymous publicly announced its support of presidential candidate and former president Donald Trump. Political theoristsspeculate the reason for this but feel it may have to do with Trump's anti-establishment stance.

    Bibliography

    "Anonymous Group Signal Support for Donald Trump in 2024 Presidential Bid." Anonymous Group News,www.anonymoushackers.net/anonymous-news/anonymous-group-signal-support-for-donald-trump-in-2024-presidential-bid/. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.

    Bever, Lindsey. "Amid Ferguson Protests, Hacker Collective Anonymous Wages Cyberwar." The Washington Post, 13 Aug. 2014. Web. 30 Sept. 2015.

    Clayton, Mark. “Hacker Arrests: Why Anonymous Might Not Be So Anonymous.” Christian Science Monitor 21 July 2011: n. pag. Academic Search Complete. Web. 29 Sept. 2015.

    Doffman, Zak. "Anonymous Hackers Threaten to 'Expose the Many Crimes' of Minneapolis Police." Forbes, 21 May 2020, www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2020/05/31/anonymous-hackers-threaten-to-expose-the-many-crimes-of-minneapolis-police/#22693e063069. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.

    Dysart, Joe. “The Hacktivists: Web Vigilantes Net Attention, Outrage and Access to Your Data.” ABA Journal Dec. 2011: 40–46. Print.

    Greenberg, Andy. "Hack Brief: Anonymous Stole and Leaked a Megatrove of Police Documents." Wired, 22 June 2020, www.wired.com/story/blueleaks-anonymous-law-enforcement-hack/. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.

    "The Face of Anonymous." Digital World, 26 Apr. 2023, www.dw.com/en/the-face-of-anonymous/a-65048983. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.

    Huddleston, Tom Jr. "What is Anonymous? How the Infamous ‘Hacktivist’ Group Went from 4chan Trolling to Launching Cyberattacks on Russia." CNBC, 25 Mar. 2022, www.cnbc.com/2022/03/25/what-is-anonymous-the-group-went-from-4chan-to-cyberattacks-on-russia.html. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.

    Milmo, Dan. "Anonymous: the Hacker Collective That Has Declared Cyberwar on Russia." The Guardian, 27 Feb, 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/27/anonymous-the-hacker-collective-that-has-declared-cyberwar-on-russia. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.

    Morrison, Sara. "Anonymous Hacker Jeremy Hammond Sentenced to 10 Years in Federal Prison." The Atlantic, 15 Nov. 2013, www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/11/anonymous-hacker-jeremy-hammond-sentenced-10-years-federal-prison/355193/. Accessed 5 Mar 2024.

    Murphy, Samantha. “The Heart of a Hacker.” New Scientist 9 July 2011: 26–27. Print.

    Vicens, AJ. "Here's the First Guy Computer Hackers Call When They're in Trouble with the FBI." Mother Jones, Nov./Dec. 2017, www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2017/12/heres-the-first-guy-computer-hackers-call-when-theyre-in-trouble-with-the-fbi/. Accessed 5 Mar. 2024.