Rizal Ardiyanto
Vhareant Cyber Team
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Anonymous (used as a
mass noun) is a loosely associated international network of activist and
hacktivist
entities. A website nominally associated with the group describes it as
"an internet gathering" with "a very loose and decentralized command
structure that operates on ideas rather than directives". The group became known for a series of well-publicized publicity stunts and
distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks on government, religious, and corporate websites.
Anonymous originated in 2003 on the
imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an
anarchic, digitized
global brain.
[3][4] Anonymous members (known as "Anons") can be distinguished in public by the wearing of stylised
Guy Fawkes masks.
[5]
In its early form, the concept was adopted by a decentralized
online community
acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely
self-agreed goal, and primarily focused on entertainment, or "
lulz". Beginning with 2008's
Project Chanology—a series of protests, pranks, and hacks targeting the
Church of Scientology—the
Anonymous collective became increasingly associated with collaborative
hacktivism on a number of issues internationally. Individuals claiming
to align themselves with Anonymous undertook protests and other actions
(including direct action) in retaliation against anti-
digital piracy
campaigns by motion picture and recording industry trade associations.
Later targets of Anonymous hacktivism included government agencies of
the US, Israel, Tunisia, Uganda, and others; child pornography sites;
copyright protection agencies; the
Westboro Baptist Church; and corporations such as
PayPal,
MasterCard,
Visa, and
Sony. Anons have publicly supported
WikiLeaks and the
Occupy movement. Related groups
LulzSec and
Operation AntiSec
carried out cyberattacks on US government agencies, media, video game
companies, military contractors, military personnel, and police
officers, resulting in the attention of law enforcement to the groups'
activities. It has been described as being anti-Zionist, and has
threatened to erase Israel from the Internet
[6] and engaged in the "
#OpIsrael" cyber-attacks of Israeli websites on
Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) in 2013.
[7]
Dozens of people have been arrested for involvement in Anonymous
cyberattacks, in countries including the US, UK, Australia, the
Netherlands, Spain, and Turkey. Evaluations of the group's actions and
effectiveness vary widely. Supporters have called the group "freedom
fighters"
[8] and digital
Robin Hoods[9] while critics have described them as "a cyber lynch-mob"
[10] or "cyber terrorists".
[11] In 2012,
Time called Anonymous one of the "
100 most influential people" in the world.
[12]
bye: VhareantCyberTeam
