anonymous: good or bad?

weedemon

enthusiast
I have a pretty strong opinion on the subject. I believe they are a great example of ordinary citizens of the "human race" speaking up for social justice.

Their latest operation #oprollredroll is a great example. (google "occupy stubenville" if you don't know what i'm talking about please :) )

or when they tracked down info on Amanda Todd's scum bag tormentors... I wish more came from that... heads needed to roll imo.
 
weedemon,

CentiZen

Evil Genius in Training
Accessory Maker
Everyone seems to have this romantic concept of Anonymous being some sort of V-For-Vendetta-Esque protective force of freedom and rights, but really, there is no Anonymous. At least not in the sense that everyone is using the word. It's not a group of people. It used to be - but now it isn't. It's a label now, a way of deflecting and hiding from the consequences of the actions people undertake in the pursuits of their own personal goals.

Don't get me wrong; people have done lots of good things under the guise of anonymous. But there has also been an unforgivable amount of bad done also. Leaking databases of innocent peoples information, taking down services used by tens of millions over childish reasons and all sorts of others. How do you know that man was really to the one to drive Amanda Todd to suicide? You don't, and they ones that outed him didn't either. There was no proof. They just wanted a pariah to hoist to the world further the anonymous name, and now his life is irreparably changed for the worse.

I find it hard to keep from laughing the odd time I hear someone claiming to be a member of "Anonymous". As someone who took part in project chanology back in the day, I am personally embarrassed by what has happened to the name of Anonymous. It is not an organized group anymore, it is constantly changing environment of smaller bands of hackers and script kiddies, all with their own values (or lack thereof) all pursuing their own goals while trying to paint themselves as something much bigger than they actually are. And not all of these goals are as rosy and honourable as most would have you believe. Right now most of the members of "Anonymous" seem more interested in mining Bitcoins on stolen servers than doing any good.
 

djonkoman

Well-Known Member
that souns about how I imagined it, I've always been a little surprised with the image the newspapers etc paint of anonymous, like it's an organised group, with 'lines/borders' (there are members, and not everyone can just say they're a member)
 
djonkoman,

aesthyrian

Blaaaaah
It's a large group with no accountability. However, some of them(well, most of them it seems) do really great work with defending and protecting the weak and unnecessarily targeted. I like this video I just found today.

and on that note, people really fucking suck. I think I am becoming more pro gun rights just so everyone can off themselves and help this planet and the human race move forward.
 
aesthyrian,
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darkrom

Great Scott!
Neutral honestly, but I find myself cheering some efforts on.

Realistically a DDOS isn't exactly groundbreaking, but shit happens.
 
darkrom,

CentiZen

Evil Genius in Training
Accessory Maker
It's a large group with no accountability. However, some of them(well, most of them it seems) do really great work with defending and protecting the weak and unnecessarily targeted. I like this video I just found today.

But these cases are few and far between; and in some - like the Todd case, implicate people who may or may not have had anything to do with it. Vigilante justice is not the way to take care of these issues; and for every girl who was raped who gets help from anonymous, there's a thousand who didn't.

I'll be honest - I know why these people do what they do. Hell; I've participated. But that was a long time ago, when I was younger and had a much more illusion-ed view of the world and the effects my actions were having. A lot of the people who consider themselves to be Anonymi's idea of justice is 24 hours of LOIC denial of service attacks, and posting personal information to reddit. Maybe dumping the credit card information of a few thousand innocent patrons of a service you don't agree with. All of these things have massive collateral damage and don't really accomplish anything. But it gives the thousands of script kiddies with a need to feel like they are white knights protecting justice something to do.
 
CentiZen,
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pakalolo

Toolbag v1.1 (candidate)
Staff member
I've never been part of Anonymous but I know people who have been, and they pretty much feel the way Centizen does. I think his summary of the history and current state of affairs is accurate.

I'm strongly opposed to vigilantism. The harm done is orders of magnitude greater than the good. The scariest people on the planet are the ones who "know" they are right and what is "just", and who are prepared to do it regardless of the law. There is no protection from them.
 
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