LONDON: What began as a trolling for fun group at an anonymity forum transformed into a brute force working against who they hold corrupt and unjust. It took the Anonymous group years to transform into what they stand for today.
Take a look this video explaining what Anonymous is all about before take you to the history and major anonymous hacktivism activities.
How Anonymous came together?
Well the group is believed to have formed in 4Chan a forum allowing anonymous post 4CHan in 2003. Anonymous has 4Chan traces all over it, for example the forum allows names but uses the word Anonymous instead of Guest User. The symbolic element, Guy Fawkes mask, is believed to have come out of the 2005 Hollywood movie “V for Vendetta”.
Anonymous was limited to trolling different online entities such as the “Habbo Hotel”. Anonymous members trolled the gamers by flooding bot players making it virtually impossible for real gamers to join the game.
First Blood
In 2008, their first series attack under “Project Chanology”; also rooted in trolling, came at the Church of Scientology in both physical protest and various trolling methods including spread of internal promo video featuring Tom Cruise with double the extent with which Church of Scientology tried to hide it. Anonymous also trolled Church of Scientology hotlines, fax with black papers and repeated attacks on their website.
Backing Piracy Networks
The group then continued to defend internet piracy networks providing free content to millions of users across the globe. In 2010, they took a swing at Aiplex and Motion Picture Association of America taking side with the likes of The Pirate Bay.
Arab Spring
Until 2010 Anonymous was simply a group working here and there in the United States however during Arab Springs. In 2010 the group helped revolutionaries by engaging in cyber attacks against the Tunisian government.
The group also got involved in Egypt to share information and images Egyptian government was blocking from the citizens. Cyber Censorship and Piracy are two of the very first and on-going projects by Anonymous.
Human rights, Animal Rights and Minorities
Anonymous hacktivists have also been active on various human rights, animal rights and minority related issues against governments and groups including such as Westboro Baptist Church, the Government of Uganda working against anti-homosexuality campaigning and sex offenders.
Read More: Rehtaeh Parsons suicice: Anonymous threatens to avenge, expose accused rapists
On going Operation Beast #OpBeast is one of the anonymous initiatives to tackle crime against animals specifically x-rated animal abuse websites and forums to protect animals right and raise awareness towards animal brutality. Other anonymous initiatives for animals includes #OpWhales, #OPCheetah where the latter targets Cheetah cub trades in the middle east.
Another important anonymous initiative is @OPSafeWinter campaign focused on creating awareness on the dangers and problems homeless on the streets face every winter. Initiated in 2014 anonymous carried out the campaign throughout 2015 and likely to continue this year as well.
French hacktivists associated with Anonymous also pledged a vengeance initiative against the Charlie Hebdo attackers.
Authorities and Governments
The largest hacktivist group took a swing at various authorities and governments including U.S Government, U.S Police Departments, Australian Government, Thai officials websites, FBI, CIA and and Official Greek websites.
An Indonesian fraction of Anonymous took an initiative against Australian government under the #OPAustralia to protest against spying on it’s neighbors and strategic allies. The group took down and defaced more than 170 Australian websites leaving a message “Stop Spying on Indonesia”. This created quite a diplomatic rift between Australia and Indonesia.
Read More: “Anonymous Indonesia hacks Australia sites over spying
Anonymous also hacked also disabled the US Sentencing Commission’s website in an operation to avenge the death of Internet freedom advocate Aaron Swartz. The co-founder of Reddit had been named Internet’s Own Boy when he attempted to steal JOSTR data from an MIT Facility and make it public for free.
Read More: Hacker group Anonymous downs US government site
Anonymous also claimed responsibility of a mass Greek government take down that brought down several websites to protest against German Chancellor Angela Merker’s visit to Greece.
Read More: Hacker group Anonymous claims attacking Greek official websites
In 2011, anonymous took a massive swing at CIA by taking down the Central Intelligence Agency website (cia.gov). The attack was carried out by an Anonymous fraction group Lulz Security.
Read More: CIA websites hacked by Anonymous again: Reports
In addition anonymous also took a shot at two of the largest and strongest law enforcement agency the United Stated Federal Bureau of Investigation and Scotland Yard of United Kingdom when they released an alleged conference call between the officials of two agencies. This hack was also carried out by the Lulz Security fraction on anonymous.
Read More: Anonymous releases alleged FBI-Scotland Yard conference call
Anti-Terrorism campaign against ISIS
The most important and most admirable anonymous came last year when Anonymous helped twitter bring down various profiles related to ISIS operatives and released identities of various ISIS terrorist from across the globe the attack against ISIS came after attack on Charlie Hebdo as an act of vengeance and anti-terrorism initiatives.
Read More: Anonymous hackers declare war on ISIS after Paris Attacks
Anonymous helped bring down ISIS network across the globe earning massive respect among online users, masses and government officials alike. It has been the most effective and the largest anonymous campaign.
Anonymous against Donald Trump
Anonymous attacked the Presidential goof of the century Donald Trump over various acts of hatred speech against Muslim in 2015. It has been the most profound attack on Trump empire bringing down the Trump Tower’s website, hacking and releasing his personal emails and voice mail.
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