"Anonymous" (hackers) is not a group of people, as many believe, but rather an ideology whose followers seek to make information publicly available. Oppose government and corporate actions that restrict freedom of information.
What is it, who is it?
Where the Anonymous hackers come from and who they are, no one knows. They have no leaders or representatives. Moreover, the composition of this society is also unstable. Everyone is equal. Although, as time shows, there were and are some users with advanced features.
Become an "anonymous" can be anyone, and for this it is not necessary to be a computer genius. To put your ideas into action, you need to either join an existing trend or create your own. Everyone knows that it is very easy to disseminate information these days. The main task of the representative is to maintain anonymity (their own) and protect the secrets of others.
History of the foundation of the society
As you know, the participants in this movement are not terrorists or world criminals at all. They most often do not carry any international danger. These are people who skillfully can confuse any media and those who wish to reveal all the secretscyberworld.
The origin of "Anonymous" is the discovery in 2003 of the 4chan imageboard. Then this site became a follower of the famous Japanese forum with completely different content. At the same time, all the information that exists on the forum was posted anonymously.
A certain moot became the creator and administrator of 4chan. On the new platform, the publication of anonymous messages immediately became available, but not in Japanese, but in English, or rather slang. Everyone who decided to post information without disclosing their name automatically received the pseudonym Anonymous.
There were many boards on 4chan with different themes, but the /b/ section was the most interesting and popular. It is here that the field of popular memes, which further spread throughout the world wide web. Such messages were always published with the aim of insulting or astonishing, or maybe immediately insulting and astonishing users. Naturally, such a post has always been anonymous.
Guy Fawkes Mask
Researchers of this trend believe that the organization of hackers "Anonymous" is not new. The world-famous anonymous mask is the symbol of Guy Fawkes, a man who fought against injustice in government back in the 17th century. According to history, despite the fact that the idea of conspiring against the King of London did not belong to Fox, it was his task to undermine the House of Lords.
Of course, with the development of the Internet, hacker steps began to appear. Already in the early 90s there were groupswho hacked projects for political revenge.
Social network
In 2010, the Anonymous hacker community announced that it was launching its own social network. It was called AnonPlus and was developed due to the fact that many social networks like Twitter, Google + and Facebook blocked community accounts.
On the main page, only a splash screen was shown, which contained messages about the reasons and goals for the formation of the social network. At the same time, the project was supposed to attract not only fans of the ideology, but also ordinary people who are not hiding behind a mask. In 2011, the project was under development, the forecasts for its opening were disappointing, and now the site page is not available at all.
Most likely, this is due to the fact that, without having time to open and make an announcement, the social network was hacked. Immediately, a statement was received from two hacker groups - TURKIYE and AKINCILAR: they say, this is the work of our hands. After this hack, another one happened, and on the main page there was a porter of Bashar al-Assad, the head of Syria. Under it were the signatures of those who hacked the Anonymous project.
Now it is difficult to say why such an incident happened. Is it possible to assume that the Anonymous hackers fell into their own trap, or did the guys not bother at all about protecting their “brainchild”? Perhaps the confessed hackers are just a publicity stunt, because no one knew about them before.
Anonymous Activity
The main method by which "Anonymous" (hackers) act is DDOS attacks and hacks. Now this is the mosteffective ways to prove your idea and fight for it. Thanks to these actions, the LOIC cyber-attack program became known to the world. It was created using the C language.
The Anonymous hacker group also uses a program developed back in 1988 - IRC, which allows you to provide group communication, conduct an anonymous operation or transmit commands to PCs that participate in a botnet. But The Onion Router has become an assistant in the secure establishment of an anonymous connection with protection against wiretapping.
Who are they?
The main task of "Anonymous" is secrecy, and every special service dreams of getting any information about the representatives of this direction. Therefore, the world still occasionally, but get acquainted with the followers of this ideology.
One of the first to fall for the bait was Dmitry Guzner, who was seen in attacks on the Church of Scientology. The guy admitted his guilt, but did not agree that he was an accomplice, but argued that he acted alone. The prosecutor tried to beat Dmitry out for 10 years, but he received only 366 days and a two-year ban on using a computer.
Christopher Doyon became known to the world, or, as he was called in Anonymous circles, Commander X. His first case was the accusation of hacking the Santa Cruz website. And only then the secret services discovered his connection with the organization. Later it turned out that he was the coordinator of the attacks. They tried to put him in prison for 15 years, but Doyon was released on bail of 35 thousand dollars and fled to Canada. Here he tried to find support from his companions,but everywhere he was refused, after which, having lost all his means, he remained a tramp with a laptop and left the Anonymous community (hackers), feeling betrayed.
Some hackers never became true anonymous crackers. They revealed all the secrets under pain of being imprisoned for life. Such a story happened with Monseguru. He was charged and called the term of imprisonment - 124 days. As a result, he turned over other members of Anonymous and began to cooperate with the FBI.
Scientology
The most famous scandal happened in 2008. Then a propaganda video of the Church of Scientology appeared on YouTube. Representatives tried to eliminate the video, to which Anonymous hackers posted an appeal to Scientologists. Thus began Operation Chanology.
In January 2008, a DDOS attack was carried out. "Anonymous" claimed that the cult's activities are a violation of freedom of speech, and that this dangerous organization exposes its members to financial exploitation and threatens those who try to leave it. According to many who support this action, Scientologists have embedded a code on the page of the foundation dedicated to the fight against epilepsy. This animation caused an epileptic seizure. But then many began to blame the Anonymous society.
The Pirate Bay
Another popular operation associated with anonymous hackers was the protection of Pirate Bay. The hackers said that they hacked into the Swedish government mail, and that problems with the mail servers of Germany, India, Israel and otherscountries are also linked to their activities.
The reason for this is the removal of servers that belong to The Pirate Bay pirate torrent tracker. The Swedish government decided to take up this case, and therefore it is they who are accused by Anonymous. Also, some files suddenly became paid, which was contrary to the format of the site.
EX. UA
In 2012, a similar story happened, but with a Ukrainian pirate site. On January 31, he abruptly stopped working. Immediately, in response to this action, an attack began on the websites of the National Bank of Ukraine, the resource of the President of Ukraine, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Security Service of Ukraine. A couple of days later, a statement was received that Ukrainian computer hackers began to cooperate with the Anonymous team (hackers). A few hours later, the investigators stopped blocking the site's domain, and it began to function in a day.
ISIS
After a terrible tragedy in Paris in 2015, an organization of anonymous hackers declared cyber war on ISIS. They warned the terrorists that I would organize massive cyber attacks on Internet resources that are in every possible way connected with ISIS. A few months before this, "anonymous" had already declared war on terrorists (after the bombing of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo - then almost 150 sites were made public, and more than 5,000 Twitter accounts). According to the hackers, this is the largest operation in the history of the community.
Anonymous hackers, photos of which are hard to find anywhere, are now at the peak of popularity. They supported for a long timeWikileaks website, many people who revealed state secrets for the benefit of the people. So who are they after all - cyber-terrorists or rescuers?