Inspired #2 - Anonymous

Last year around this time, Anonymous became a household name across America. In response to the treatment of Bradley Manning and Wikileaks, Anonymous launched a series of attacks across the internet. Anonymous Targets of Anonymous included Amazon, MasterCard, PayPal, Visa and Sony. Through a coordinated distributed denial of service attack, Anonymous brought successfully brought down the websites of MasterCard, PayPal and Visa. 

The attacks by Anonymous were not the first attacks from the hacker organization. In 2008, Anonymous targeted the Church of Scientology after the church tried to take down a video of a Tom Cruise interview. Called Project Chanology, Anonymous began a series of attacks against the church. A few methods of attacks included: distributed denial of service attack, black faxes, prank calls, and pizza deliveries. Eventually, the group planned a series of protests against the Church at various locations around the world. As part of the protest, the protestors wore Guy Fawkes masks from V for Vendetta. The Guy Fawkes Mask would become the symbol of anonymous. 

The rise of groups like Anonymous certainly raises interesting ethical questions for the public. The actions of Anonymous are not simply hacking in the traditional sense. Instead, these groups are participating in the rise of hacktivism. Hacktivism is the use of computers and computer networks as a means to promote political ends. Just last year, the public became more aware of hacktivism as Anonymous and Lulz Sec both participated in Operation #AntiSec following the Wikileaks backlash.

Anonymous and the rise of hacktivism raises serious ethical concerns that we as a society will need to address in the near future. As a society will we treat hacktivism as another form of activism or will we consider it cyber terrorism? There is no easy answer as both sides of the argument have valid arguments and concerns. If you consider hacktivism a valid form of activism, where do you draw the line between activism and hacking? If someone were to hack Bank of America and stole money protesting the mortgage crisis, would that be considered hacktivism or hacking? The line between hacking and hacktivism is razor thin, and groups like anonymous walk that line every time they operate. The sooner we develop a standard as a society, the better off we will be.

Personally, I find myself constantly in an internal debate between whether Anonymous is a benefit or negative portion of society. As an organization, Anonymous has done both good and bad for the society as a whole. One day they may be shutting down Visa and MasterCard; the next they are shutting down a child pornography network. The "anonymous" nature of the organization certainly does not make it easier for me to make my mind up on the nature of the organization. Anybody on the Internet could claim that Anonymous s did something, because no one really knows whom Anonymous is. Good or bad the actions of Anonymous have done one thing spectacularly well. Anonymous and Lulz Sec have pointed out the pathetic nature of our cyber-security initiatives to the non-technological public. People tend to panic when "hackers" hacked the Central Intelligence Agency. While the CIA hack was a joke, it will at least generate a public discussion on cyber security initiatives in the United States.