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Isn't anonymous less an organized group with leaders and more a bunch of people who hang out and occasionally someone says "hey, it would be cool if we all did
by DrStalker 16y ago
Isn't anonymous less an organized group with leaders and more a bunch of people who hang out and occasionally someone says "hey, it would be cool if we all did <thing>" and whoever is listening joins in?
- cookiecaper 16y agoYes, but traditional media has a hard time grasping the concept. It's just a lot of directionless guys that latch onto whatever cause seems palatable at the time and requires no more effort than running LOIC/other simple DDOS programs. Basically the definition of script kiddies, there's just a large concentration of them on one message board system.
- Helianthus16 16y agoThis is true, but doesn't mean there aren't coordinators, actually skilled hackers who embrace the directionlessness even as they give it direction. It isn't _just_ foot-soldiers.
- pessimizer 16y agoBut the "coordinators" drift in and out, too.
- cookiecaper 16y agoThere are no real leaders; they may break off into factions, like those that frequent a certain IRC room, but the group "Anonymous" is a non-entity by any meaningful definition. It's whoever happens to be on 4chan or other, mostly similar message boards, and out of those, whoever is enticed to join a chat room or download LOIC, and out of those, people that actually click the button to send a lot of requests to DDOS (or people that show up to taunt Scientologists, as the case may be). There are lots of people that go there to marshal the forces and most fail, cf. "/b/ is not your personal army". If someone happens to generate a buzz that rings for most of the board's demographic, they can start a chain reaction where a lot of people hit MasterCard at once, and get a bunch of disciples attracted to an IRC room for who knows how long -- it may last a day or a month, there's no way to say definitively. The marshaller then becomes the leader of that group of disciples, but "Anonymous" isn't a group by itself. The most accurate definition for Anonymous is "a subset of users of Xchan". That's not a very good definition, especially if you want to go around and pin DDOS and whatever else on individual people.
- Natsu 16y ago> The most accurate definition for Anonymous is "a subset of users of Xchan". That's not a very good definition, especially if you want to go around and pin DDOS and whatever else on individual people. I mentally replace "Anonymous" with "protesters" whenever they're protesting anything. It makes it a lot more clear and it's more accurate. We already have amorphous groups of people who protest various things, and this is, as near as I can tell, the online equivalent.
- stcredzero 16y agoI would guess that such groups are being manipulated by exceptionally smart people for specific ends, some significant fraction of the time.
- chc 16y agoAren't we all being manipulated some fraction of the time?
- bioh42_2 16y agoI would guess that such groups are being manipulated by exceptionally smart people for specific ends, some significant fraction of the time. I think that's a tempting theory to have. Explains a lot and is easy to understand, but I think it gives individuals too much credit. I would guess exceptionally smart people drift in and out at random and attempt to use the group for specific ends. I think their success rate is slim and random. By "random" I actually mean the group may go along if it thinks it would be "lulz". Notice I said "may", it also may not - lots of random noise in the hive mind. What this means is that trying to control or predict the actions of the group is a fool's game. At best you may be able to influence them occasionally in some small way, its pure chaos theory.
- stcredzero 16y agoI would guess exceptionally smart people drift in and out at random and attempt to use the group for specific ends. I think their success rate is slim and random. I think that's what they want you to think. It may even be true. It's not a reason to give up on the "smart core group" theory, though. I think it gives individuals too much credit. This is a long running debate. There is a camp that thinks individual personalities have significant effects on History. I'd be willing to believe that Anonymous is entirely emergent, but in that case, there would be a "fossil record" of its evolution. (Great. Now that I've posted that, some smartass Anon is going to create one!) What this means is that trying to control or predict the actions of the group is a fool's game. At best you may be able to influence them occasionally in some small way, its pure chaos theory. There's no good way to guarantee which way a buffalo herd will stampede. Doesn't mean there's zero utility in doing so, or that no one can be held accountable.
- DrStalker 16y agoSkilled technical hackers giving the attacks technical direction, or skilled social hackers who know how to get a bunch of anonymous teenagers to do their bidding?
- fleitz 16y agoAnonymous describes themselves best when they describe a hive. Yes, a hive has a queen but she lasts only as long as the workers feel she is productive. When a hive reaches a certain size it will establish a new hive, it too will have it's own queen. Members of the hive will give off pheromones to signal the other members. Not all will follow, some will, however what's important is that the more pheromones of a certain signal propagate the larger the response. The workers are controlled by themselves to a large degree and the queen is in place with certain ceremonial roles. (laying eggs) The only reason anonymous is a difficult concept to grasp is that from the day we are born we are taught to respect and obey a hierarchy of authority. This authority exists only in the minds of those that believe it. When the last person stops believing it, it will cease to exist.
- orbenn 16y agoAnd from what I hear Boxxy is the queen of /b/ http://images2.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/4642541/QUEEN-OF-B.jpg?imageSize=Medium&generatorName=Boxxy http://images2.memegenerator.net/ImageMacro/4642541/QUEEN-OF...
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- DrStalker 16y agoSo, a human powered botnet that follows commands at random based on how much fun they are?
- fleitz 16y agoI believe that's the polite way of putting 'did it for the lulz'
- masklinn 16y agoYep, a lulz-driven notbot-net.
- chc 16y agoIf it's based on how fun they are, then it's not random (unless fun is randomly distributed).
- jokermatt999 16y agoAnd assuming fun is not randomly distributed, then it should be possible to identify possible Anon targets by judging the amount of fun it would be for them to take on. Of course, this being Anonymous, it would be unfeasible to survey the full range of targets, because they seem to select those at random.
- orbenn 16y agothis is the kinda thing that makes you think "shit, I've gotta teach myself to use proxies and then sign up!" I mean, who doesn't want to be part of something that's specifically directed ONLY by what's the most fun?
- Devilboy 16y agoAt least one person on Barr's list as one of 'leaders' of Anonymous has responded: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2011/02/07/i-confess-im-a-member-of-anonymous-hail-xenu/ http://blogs.crikey.com.au/thestump/2011/02/07/i-confess-im-...
- stcredzero 16y agoHe could be using the Richard Feynman gambit. "Feynman! Did you take the doors?" "Oh, yeah!" I said. "I took the door.
- radu_floricica 16y agoPower law still applies. Most likely 90% of serious action is done by the same 0.1% contributors (same as it is on HN or reddit or anywhere else). It may be a real difference if the 0.1% can be easily replaced, Stand Alone Complex style. Say they're all arrested one day, and a month after something happens (Julian Assange is extradited, there's a revolution in Iran, whatever piques Anonymous' interest). There's a good chance many people at the same time will think that something needs to be done, see that nothing is happening, and do it. Not as good as the "old guard" maybe, but they'll probably try. We can't really know how well this replacement mechanism works...
- stcredzero 16y agoImplying that the 0.1% have never been caught?
- radu_floricica 16y agoOnly that it's hard to know, one way or another.
- rapicastillo 16y agoIf we go with the fact that Anonymous is infact a true distributed environment, then the replacement mechanism will be very easy. I think Anonymous is a kind of humanized group-comm architecture sans a coordinator.
- radu_floricica 16y agoYou're overestimating the uniqueness of Anon. Most communities nowadays don't have coordinators. And Anon doesn't have limitless communication channels, only about a dozen. For a site/software to be a good choice, it has to be already in the "hivemind". Ask 10 Anon tot tell them 10 places where they hang, and the most common choices are the (only) ones that are viable. There is a unique feature though - the anonymity. This could really make a difference if things get serious.
- 16y ago
- NonOrthodox 16y agoActually no. I had been in their IRC for some time during the first couple weeks of the Wikileaks leaks, and it isn't like that. They are a group that, just like any other, like HN, have certain common and shared values and talk, discuss and act by them. In their case, basicly, they are pro free-speech, pro internet and privacy. They, like we here in HN, organize themselves around those ideas. Sometimes they act together against someone that goes against their values, like they just did to Aaron, and sometimes they act towards other positive goals like they did in Egypt. It is not about being cool, having fun or anything like that. That is just one of the ways they attract kids and other people to join them in their attacks and other actions. There is no central leadership, no hierarchy, but all their actions are done following certain values and ethics that you cannot really grasp unless you are part of it, just like HN. Although they don't have leaders, at least in their IRC, there are moderators, that, at least during the leaks, when there were over 3 thousand people in a single IRC channel, would lock the channel, summarize arguments, add questions and unlock it, while they were selecting targets. But usually that only happened when there were that many people and too many trolls spamming the chat. They are people, from all ages that act by their shared values.
- stcredzero 16y agoIsn't anonymous less an organized group with leaders and more a bunch of people who hang out and occasionally someone says "hey, it would be cool if we all did <thing>" and whoever is listening joins in? This idea is repeated so often, I suspect that there's a group of people somewhere that wants that particular message to be repeated and believed. If I were manipulating a group like Anonymous from behind the scenes, that's exactly what I'd want the net at large to think. On the other hands, if Anonymous were really as decentralized as implied in this meme, I should think everyone would want the media to think there was a shadowy conspiracy inolved -- if nothing then just for the LULZ. My best guess is that the truth is somewhere in the middle. Anonymous is somewhat decentralized, but there is also a core group (are core groups) that started a self-perpetuating process toward some end. This core group is a little worried that things are a little out of hand, so they are now covering their tracks using the same social-media manipulation techniques used to start Anonymous itself.