9 ms·

What the decentralized nature of Anonymous tells us about its power

66 points by laurex 2y ago

kryogen1c 2y ago
First paragraph: clause comma clause comma clause comma clause period. 8 commas to one period. I mean I just can't read this. I'm far from a literary person, but this is awful.
- HKH2 2y ago
  It's the length of the sentence that makes it cumbersome.
- esafak 2y ago
  The writer's just generous with his subclauses and commas. Here's the opening sentence of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
- A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
  It's not really that bad. Perhaps a bit old-fashioned; the author might be a fan of 19th century literature. That paragraph would be improved with a dash instead of a comma after "currents" -- but, besides that, there's nothing much wrong with it.
euroclear 2y ago
The author's name seemed vaguely familiar. He was involved in the 2011 email leaks from Stratfor and spent time in prison for it. Although the article notes that he "declared political asylum in the United Kingdom in 2021 and currently lives in London", it looks as though his request for asylum was denied earlier this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown
Hizonner 2y ago
[flagged]
drekipus 2y ago
We r legion xDDDD. I have always felt that "the power of anonymous" is precisely the power that we claim it has. (As someone who was involved in 4chan from 2009 until 2015) "Anonymous" is just the default username for someone on 4chan. Asking "What does anonymous thinks" is a roundabout way of asking "what do <random people> think?" - but with the latter, you have to face reality that people think this. If we use the former, we can group everything together as a big scary "alt-right 'anonymous group' (tm)" and not have to face the fact that real people have opinions.
- rexpop 2y ago
  Anonymous is very probably (edit: at this point) just a cover for some totally centralized, authoritarian actions. At best, they are useful idiots for centralized powers.[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
  - duskwuff 2y ago
    At this point, absolutely. At a guess I'd say that most of the real grassroots use of that nom de guerre faded out by 2010-2015.
    - treebeard901 2y ago
      A few groups can still be found around the globe. The Feds took care of anyone else that mattered many years ago... Even one started a podcast about it with an FBI Agent.
  - drekipus 2y ago
    Oh absolutely. I'm glad that we are openly at that point of the discussion. I was contending the (perhaps old) notion that "anonymous" was some gang of outlaws that have a secret hideout where they plot the next parliamentary blow-up guy fawks style
  - kmeisthax 2y ago
    The anarchist deep state[0] strikes again! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...
crngefest 2y ago
Great article! In September 2012, journalist and Anonymous associate Barrett Brown, known for speaking to media on behalf of the group, was arrested hours after posting a video that appeared to threaten FBI agents with physical violence. Brown was subsequently charged with 17 offenses, including publishing personal credit card information from the Stratfor hack.[
- drekipus 2y ago
  "on behalf of the group" Naturally, once you reveal your name, you are no longer anonymous.
jchw 2y ago
> “Marie Sue” was a character, generally in fan fiction, that was clearly intended as an unrealistically perfect projection of the author; I'm pretty confident it's specifically spelled "Mary Sue", and probably predates the Internet entirely, though I guess whether it predates the Internet or not doesn't really mean you wouldn't learn about it on the Internet. > For reasons unclear to me, /b/ stood for “random.” This is inherited from the Japanese imageboard that inspired 4chan, Futaba Channel. As I recall, the original /b/ was actually "Anime / Random", but /a/ was already taken for the general "Anime" board, thus it was christened /b/. --- I do have some more things I was going to comment on but I'll show some restraint since it's not like anything is really inaccurate, even if the commentary is weird to me in some places. That said, I wasn't really able to ascertain the point of this story. Like, about that headline: What does "the decentralized nature" tell us about "Anonymous's" power? I didn't really get much of an impression from the article. Despite that, it was still an interesting trip through some of the more fascinating things in Internet history, and I found it amusing in that regard. Unrelated tangent: I have a tendency to think of the early 2000s as the "early Internet", as it's used in this article, but it feels a bit silly when you think about it. It's still relatively early, but it's nowhere near the beginning, especially if you consider before the web. But, I guess since many of us were not there for much of the part before that, it's easier to think of the late 90s and early 2000s as being "the beginning".
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- duskwuff 2y ago
  > I'm pretty confident it's specifically spelled "Mary Sue", and probably predates the Internet entirely... It specifically originated as the name of the main character in a 1974 parody of bad Star Trek fan fiction. So, yes, it's pre-Internet. http://web.archive.org/web/20100830041159/http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/dark/1000/marysue.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20100830041159/http://www.fortune...
- 0dayz 2y ago
  Afaik it was just that moot had made /a/ and was unsure of what /b/ should be about so he labeled it random.
nyolfen 2y ago
this dude has been coasting on this one thing for like 15 years
- A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
  This seems overly dismissive. We all have some impact on the society we live in, but not all impact is created equal. Are you saying he should have done more? Are you saying he should do something else? Would you be willing to elaborate? I am trying to better understand the nature of your complaint. I currently have very limited knowledge on the author of the article.
  - nyolfen 2y ago
    i am saying he did a relatively uninteresting thing and centered his identity around it, seemingly for the rest of his life. i find this pitiable.
mannyv 2y ago
Power to do what, exactly?
ziggyzecat 2y ago
Anonymous is a bit like Slim Shady back in the day, "I am whatever they say I am" ... but now he announced his own death so I guess the "Shady Sim" is approaching its boring end game ... aw man, I should have been a farmer, after all, with some cows, sheep, chickens, bunches of dogs and cats, dinkel wheat & corn fields, and a botanical garden for exotic stuff; and of course a wife or two and breeding as our main hobby.
smitty1e 2y ago
I believe That a Weev Can deceive Many an eve Yet time's sieve Will make grieve
badgersnake 2y ago
There was even a stage play about it - https://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/teh-internet-serious-business-royal-court-theatre https://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/teh-internet-serious-bus...

66 points by laurex 2y ago

First paragraph: clause comma clause comma clause comma clause period. 8 commas to one period. I mean I just can't read this. I'm far from a literary person, but this is awful.

HKH2 2y ago
It's the length of the sentence that makes it cumbersome.
esafak 2y ago
The writer's just generous with his subclauses and commas. Here's the opening sentence of Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only."
A_D_E_P_T 2y ago
It's not really that bad. Perhaps a bit old-fashioned; the author might be a fan of 19th century literature. That paragraph would be improved with a dash instead of a comma after "currents" -- but, besides that, there's nothing much wrong with it.

euroclear 2y ago

The author's name seemed vaguely familiar. He was involved in the 2011 email leaks from Stratfor and spent time in prison for it. Although the article notes that he "declared political asylum in the United Kingdom in 2021 and currently lives in London", it looks as though his request for asylum was denied earlier this year. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_Brown

Hizonner 2y ago

[flagged]

drekipus 2y ago

We r legion xDDDD. I have always felt that "the power of anonymous" is precisely the power that we claim it has. (As someone who was involved in 4chan from 2009 until 2015) "Anonymous" is just the default username for someone on 4chan. Asking "What does anonymous thinks" is a roundabout way of asking "what do <random people> think?" - but with the latter, you have to face reality that people think this. If we use the former, we can group everything together as a big scary "alt-right 'anonymous group' (tm)" and not have to face the fact that real people have opinions.

rexpop 2y ago
Anonymous is very probably (edit: at this point) just a cover for some totally centralized, authoritarian actions. At best, they are useful idiots for centralized powers.[0] 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot
- duskwuff 2y ago
  At this point, absolutely. At a guess I'd say that most of the real grassroots use of that nom de guerre faded out by 2010-2015.
  - treebeard901 2y ago
    A few groups can still be found around the globe. The Feds took care of anyone else that mattered many years ago... Even one started a podcast about it with an FBI Agent.
- drekipus 2y ago
  Oh absolutely. I'm glad that we are openly at that point of the discussion. I was contending the (perhaps old) notion that "anonymous" was some gang of outlaws that have a secret hideout where they plot the next parliamentary blow-up guy fawks style
- kmeisthax 2y ago
  The anarchist deep state[0] strikes again! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessness https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Structurelessne...

crngefest 2y ago

Great article! In September 2012, journalist and Anonymous associate Barrett Brown, known for speaking to media on behalf of the group, was arrested hours after posting a video that appeared to threaten FBI agents with physical violence. Brown was subsequently charged with 17 offenses, including publishing personal credit card information from the Stratfor hack.[

drekipus 2y ago
"on behalf of the group" Naturally, once you reveal your name, you are no longer anonymous.

jchw 2y ago

> “Marie Sue” was a character, generally in fan fiction, that was clearly intended as an unrealistically perfect projection of the author; I'm pretty confident it's specifically spelled "Mary Sue", and probably predates the Internet entirely, though I guess whether it predates the Internet or not doesn't really mean you wouldn't learn about it on the Internet. > For reasons unclear to me, /b/ stood for “random.” This is inherited from the Japanese imageboard that inspired 4chan, Futaba Channel. As I recall, the original /b/ was actually "Anime / Random", but /a/ was already taken for the general "Anime" board, thus it was christened /b/. --- I do have some more things I was going to comment on but I'll show some restraint since it's not like anything is really inaccurate, even if the commentary is weird to me in some places. That said, I wasn't really able to ascertain the point of this story. Like, about that headline: What does "the decentralized nature" tell us about "Anonymous's" power? I didn't really get much of an impression from the article. Despite that, it was still an interesting trip through some of the more fascinating things in Internet history, and I found it amusing in that regard. Unrelated tangent: I have a tendency to think of the early 2000s as the "early Internet", as it's used in this article, but it feels a bit silly when you think about it. It's still relatively early, but it's nowhere near the beginning, especially if you consider before the web. But, I guess since many of us were not there for much of the part before that, it's easier to think of the late 90s and early 2000s as being "the beginning".

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
duskwuff 2y ago
> I'm pretty confident it's specifically spelled "Mary Sue", and probably predates the Internet entirely... It specifically originated as the name of the main character in a 1974 parody of bad Star Trek fan fiction. So, yes, it's pre-Internet. http://web.archive.org/web/20100830041159/http://www.fortunecity.com/rivendell/dark/1000/marysue.htm http://web.archive.org/web/20100830041159/http://www.fortune...
0dayz 2y ago
Afaik it was just that moot had made /a/ and was unsure of what /b/ should be about so he labeled it random.

nyolfen 2y ago

this dude has been coasting on this one thing for like 15 years

A4ET8a8uTh0 2y ago
This seems overly dismissive. We all have some impact on the society we live in, but not all impact is created equal. Are you saying he should have done more? Are you saying he should do something else? Would you be willing to elaborate? I am trying to better understand the nature of your complaint. I currently have very limited knowledge on the author of the article.
- nyolfen 2y ago
  i am saying he did a relatively uninteresting thing and centered his identity around it, seemingly for the rest of his life. i find this pitiable.

mannyv 2y ago

Power to do what, exactly?

ziggyzecat 2y ago

Anonymous is a bit like Slim Shady back in the day, "I am whatever they say I am" ... but now he announced his own death so I guess the "Shady Sim" is approaching its boring end game ... aw man, I should have been a farmer, after all, with some cows, sheep, chickens, bunches of dogs and cats, dinkel wheat & corn fields, and a botanical garden for exotic stuff; and of course a wife or two and breeding as our main hobby.

smitty1e 2y ago

I believe That a Weev Can deceive Many an eve Yet time's sieve Will make grieve

badgersnake 2y ago

There was even a stage play about it - https://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/teh-internet-serious-business-royal-court-theatre https://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/teh-internet-serious-bus...