The most powerful criminals of our time kept the whole world away. Where and why did they disappear?
Anonymous hackers have kept the world on hold for more than a decade. The authorities were afraid of them, and truth-seekers and the oppressed had hoped that Robins Hood would punish the guilty with skill. All strong crimes are attributed to a powerful group spread (in fact, to a large number of enthusiasts throughout the planet). Unidentified pirates and amateur crackers have been attributed to their "legions." Cyber terrorists and freedom fighters, hiding on the other side of the screen, and Guy Fawkes masks, have been considered an inevitable terrible force that will always be on standby and will not spare anyone in its path. However, in recent years, little is known about cunning intruders, and the familiar masks have turned into a brand and only appear on shirts. What happened to the largest anarchist pirate association in history.
Glorious way
Over the years, small and sporadic groups of hackers, united under an unknown name, have launched loud attacks and penetration one after another. Their victims include governments and large corporations, pages of religious groups, large corporate systems and banks. Organized on 4chan trolls and prankers in 2003, anonymous activists (or rather, intruders) caught everyone's attention after five years when they launched a massive campaign from DDoS attacks on the site to real protests. Then the anonymous pirates showed unbelievable cohesion, and were able to clearly proclaim themselves as a large and powerful subculture.
They managed to reveal their full potential to the world two years later: in 2010, HBGary CEO Aaron Barr recklessly announced that he was ready to assign anonymous members to anyone who paid for this information and would be happy to cooperate with the FBI. According to him, all data on intruders was found in social networks. Soon the company's website fell into the hands of biscuits: Not only did he access and send correspondence to the network, but he also broke into Barr's profiles on social platforms. It was reported that they also deleted the entire contents of the tablet, but this data remains unconfirmed. It shook a terrifying slogan around the world: “We are unknown. We are a corps. We do not forgive. Do not forget. wait ". Researcher Barmy Olson suggested that the slogan "We are a legion" was chosen as particularly evil and alluded to the written statement of evil power - "My name is Legion."
In the next few years, Anonymous strengthened his position: unknown hackers spread around the world attacked censorship, and supported the pirate movement and revolutions. Fame quickly came: in 2012, Time magazine reported that it is among the most powerful people in the world. For several years, activists did not leave the newspaper strips, shocked by the new tricks: they collected data on famous personalities, declassified them from important documents and waged war on the "Islamic State" (IG, organization banned in Russia). For example, they collected an alleged full file on Donald Trump (including personal mobile phone number and social security data), justifying their nickname “WikiLeaks Successors”. The fight against jihad was carried out with the help of intrusions, site casualties and accounts belonging to the Islamic State. Provocative content is often posted on captured profiles on social networks. Hackers particularly like to color pages with rainbow flags and fill them with gay porn.
Sheer disappointment
The researchers are certain: Anonymous has become so powerful and famous that the group's name has become synonymous with an unknown anarchist on the network. This was a picture that the screenwriter later took advantage of - for example, the dangerous hackers from the “Mr.” series were removed. Robot ”is completely from“ Anonymous. ” But if it was only half a year in 2012, the group succeeded in conducting 8 online operations (including against the FBI, INTERPOL and other large organizations), in recent years little would be known about the exploits of the intruders.
According to the anonymous sayings and federations of former members Greg Housha, the group was not structured and organized: it could become part of every person wishing to display their business under the unknown "brand". If a pirate calls himself an actor, he automatically becomes a member of the movement. Among the participants were people of all ages, who expressed completely different political opinions. Nationality, wealth and sex - According to Hosh, the group does not care who you are in real life. This led to some inconvenience - this fragmentation led to a general split - small groups of activists could communicate with each other, but there was no talk of widespread connections.
The movement also had no specific goal: the members of the group recognized the general principle of "anti-repression", and the ideology of each of them was realized and embodied in its own way. Most of them defended the fight against censorship and state control over the network in order to spread freedom on the Internet. Such a situation allowed the association to develop a virtual democracy: if a number of activists share a specific idea or plan, there is an opportunity to engage with helpers and achieve the plan. However, this freedom has turned into a problem: previous participants claim that it is impossible to find an "unidentified" person who will not be annoyed or frustrated by at least one of the network's strange "colleagues" behavior. However, contacting the group forces them to accept everything the other members have done under anonymous sponsorship. In the end, I played a cruel joke with the participants.
Step into the abyss
Anonymous's first concrete problems started at its height: the federal authorities of a number of countries were unwilling to tolerate the unknown on their hypothetical scams. Many hackers associated with the group were arrested in early 2010. This did not frighten society as a whole: researchers say that joy and support prevailed in hacking chats. They were sure they had a great time with like-minded people.
Jeremy Hammond
A number of anonymous members soon teamed with another group called LulzSec (also known as Lulz Boat), famous for hacking websites in the US Senate, the CIA, and safer companies. In 2012, a number of members of both groups were arrested - they were reported to have been extradited by a FBI enlistment fellow, Hector Muncigor, known as Sabo. Because of him, he fell into the hands of the authorities an unknown hacker and activist Jeremy Hammond, nicknamed Anarchaos. By this time, he had already spent two years behind hacking into political firm Protest Warrior, then stole the data of five thousand payment cards, without spending a single cent of this principle. A few years ago, as a teenager, he founded the legendary portal HackThisSite, which allowed those who wanted to "culturally" train in penetration. In 2012 Hammond was sentenced to ten years in prison for attacking government systems and government companies, including the private intelligence company Stratfor. Pirates can only request conditional release in 2021.
Soon, according to the researchers, for several years, law enforcement officers from different countries were able to find more than a hundred infiltrators. The US authorities made it clear: For them, pirates have turned from margin into a serious threat, and are always ready to remind them that they are capable of violence. In 2015, anonymous journalist and keynote speaker Barrett Brown was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of $ 890,000. Then the association's five-year term was considered a miracle: during the previous 2.5 years behind bars he tried to persuade the investigation of his innocence, because he had in general faced more than a hundred years in prison. As a result, given his time, he had to spend another 63 months behind bars.
Brown was involved in supporting the anonymous information: many hackers did not like him because of Abhi's statements on behalf of the association, but they realized that he was really sick of their common cause. Researcher Bella Coleman even baptized Brown, the "anonymous propaganda minister." Brown distributed to his portal the PM project, documents stolen by hackers. Stratfor's hack incident was fatal for him, as was Hammond's: Nevertheless, Brown was never a hacker, in fact, he just copied a link to a database containing stolen information. The suit arose out of the threats to the FBI agent in a video chat. A series of arrests of famous and unknown members, along with the most recent prominent case, dealt a heavy blow to the intruders.
last hit
However, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, hit the intruders, who apparently did not suspect that he would become a controversial figure for activists. They said it was reported that many "anonymous" Americans dreamed of gathering with colleagues from all over the world to destroy Trump - to "fix" what America could bring upon itself. These opinions were exchanged by the oldest activists.
But not everyone agreed with them: many anarchists on the Internet loved the mess the new president brought to the fossilized political life of the United States. They were happy that Trump was arrogant, not affiliated with the political elite, and who tapped the nose of politicians sitting in glorious offices. It doesn't matter if he's a bad person - hackers hailed the fact that he exploded like a natural disaster, and confused a long-established process. Such a person is completely satisfied with the ideals of free-thinking cyber fighters. The collective mind divided into unknown, most groups were unable to reach consensus. Democratic disputes in chat rooms have caused many to separate from the group.
After the presidential elections in the United States, he barely heard anonymously: their rare attacks were most likely the work of beginners or unknown amateurs. Cyber technology researcher Jason Walter said the disappearance of large pirate groups has upset the balance in a world where large corporations and government authorities control everything. No one else can capture the dark secrets of the government or companies widely. He concluded that there is no longer a neutral group and is working to use corruption and the secrets of those who control the situation. According to him, in the West, hackers have done something that the media does not want or cannot do.
We will continue to fight
However, former activists have identified: the cause of the group's collapse was not only conflicts, but also a general misunderstanding of the goals. According to Michael Holland's note, which, in his own words, has been loyal to Anonymous for many years, the group has gone through many stages of development - from a company of nerds and trolls who play jokes with each other and activate "for the sake of lulz", to an international association with great ideological motives. Sure enough, Hacks was only a fraction of a percentage of all “anonymous” activity - but it's most interesting though. Previous “advertisements” that participated in cyber attacks moved to the legal sector: for example, many of them were professionally involved in information security, counseling and speaking at conferences. They lead a normal life and even have families. However, according to According to the Netherlands, most hope that he will still be able to ever make war.
According to Coleman, who wrote a book on the history of intruders, photoboards played an important role in getting rid of enthusiasm: If previously active users gathered on these sites for a purpose (and this is how the first anonymous groups were organized), users now discuss policy on The internet is platforms, I swear, and basically you don't want to do anything. When asked if Anonymous is real now, she responds negatively, describing the "effects" of her current presence on network ghosts. Indeed, security researchers are recording a decrease in piracy - since 2015, the number of attacks has decreased by 95 percent. This period coincides completely with the extinction of unknown activity. The future of this type of activity in its previous form also appears mysterious to them. "This question remains open," said Coleman.
Foreign bloggers, who inherit intruders, are worried: the world, according to them, needs tech-savvy "heroes" who can save the world from lies and injustice. “To do all this, you need a special person. Valter concluded: "They should not notice heroes without feeling gloat," and he was confident that in the modern world no one would open people's eyes to the truth until unknown infiltrators did so.
Anonymous legacy can be seen everywhere, not just online. Hagopian has become a dynamic and brutal global epidemic, and the unknown qualities and phrases of anonymous people have permeated everywhere and become part of the global culture. Experts in cybersecurity are sure: it is too early to talk about the death of this phenomenon, instead the anonymous members of the societies took a short break. Will we hear anything else about Anonymous?
