Anonymous: guerrilla warfare 2.0?

Shock

New Member
Lately, the term cyberwarfare has been thrown around a lot recently and while most of the conversation is dealing with nation vs nation conflicts, they have yet to mention the 300 ton elephant in the room which is the group Anonymous.

now while the group (or idea depending on who you ask) is primarily focused on activism/entertainment by hacking websites and the mobilization of people to form peaceful protests and not purely military, i see the foundations with in the group of near perfection of the application of guerrilla warfare.

the first thing i mention of the lack of any higher up organization beyond the IRC chat rooms which they form when they proceed with an operation. this means there is little or no control over how a member is supposed to act and is completely free to abort the operation or use his own tools and ideas on how to do so.

the second is the tools themselves. when Anonymous does an operation, older members supply the tools (which are completely free) of which younger member hide their IPs and Mac addresses, effectively making them Anonymous.

the third thing is the ideology it's self. Anonymous is based on the idea that when people are able to hide behind masks or their proxy networks, they become empowered to fight those who would keep them down. the nebulous nature of this ideology means anyone can join it simply by hiding themselves behind a mask/ proxy and calling themselves Anonymous, effectively making them guerrillas.

now, we have seen Anonymous effect on the Arab Spring (which they hacked/DDoS government websites, and taught the people how to bypass the government firewalls) and they are continuing to have an effect on it.

now after saying all this, is Anonymous a model for the next generation of guerrilla warfare or simply a quark of the internet?
 

kato

The Bunker Group
Verified Defense Pro
If you want analogues, Anonymous is really a cyberwarfare analogue for Al Quaeda. In the sense that Anonymous is nothing but an umbrella organization for dozens, hundreds of independent groups and autonomous individuals. Anonymous, like Al-Quaeda, primarily provides a PR-relevant way of combining individual theater actions into a perceived more global "warfare".

Conceptually, that's nothing new either. PLO effectively forms a similar group for similar reasons since 1964. Regarding hacking, there are similar umbrella organizations too, albeit running a bit more of a tight regime - CCC in Germany for example since 1981.
 

nguyenvu51515

New Member
If you want analogues, Anonymous is really a cyberwarfare analogue for Al Quaeda. In the sense that Anonymous is nothing but an umbrella organization for dozens, hundreds of independent groups and autonomous individuals. Anonymous, like Al-Quaeda, primarily provides a PR-relevant way of combining individual theater actions into a perceived more global "warfare".

Conceptually, that's nothing new either. PLO effectively forms a similar group for similar reasons since 1964. Regarding hacking, there are similar umbrella organizations too, albeit running a bit more of a tight regime - CCC in Germany for example since 1981.
You read...
Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is a loosely associated international network of activist and hacktivist entities. A website nominally associated with the group describes it as "an internet gathering" with "a very loose and decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives". The group became known for a series of well-publicized publicity stunts and distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites.

Anonymous originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain. Anonymous members (known as "Anons") can be distinguished in public by the wearing of stylised Guy Fawkes masks.

In its early form, the concept was adopted by a decentralized online community acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal, and primarily focused on entertainment, or "lulz". Beginning with 2008's Project Chanology—a series of protests, pranks, and hacks targeting the Church of Scientology—the Anonymous collective became increasingly associated with collaborative hacktivism on a number of issues internationally. Individuals claiming to align themselves with Anonymous undertook protests and other actions (including direct action) in retaliation against anti-digital piracy campaigns by motion picture and recording industry trade associations. Later targets of Anonymous hacktivism included government agencies of the US, Israel, Tunisia, Uganda, and others; child pornography sites; copyright protection agencies; the Westboro Baptist Church; and corporations such as PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sony. Anons have publicly supported WikiLeaks and the Occupy movement. Related groups LulzSec and Operation AntiSec carried out cyberattacks on US government agencies, media, video game companies, military contractors, military personnel, and police officers, resulting in the attention of law enforcement to the groups' activities. It has been described as being anti-Zionist, and has threatened to erase Israel from the Internet[dubious – discuss] and engaged in the "#OpIsrael" cyber-attacks of Israeli websites on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) in 2013 [dubious – discuss]

Dozens of people have been arrested for involvement in Anonymous cyberattacks, in countries including the US, UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Turkey. Evaluations of the group's actions and effectiveness vary widely. Supporters have called the group "freedom fighters" and digital Robin Hoods while critics have described them as "a cyber lynch-mob" or "cyber terrorists". In 2012, Time called Anonymous one of the "100 most influential people" in the world.
 
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