INTERVIEW:Activist group Anonymous talks co-ordination, ops and the humanistic side of the movement

ANONYMOUS, THE largely internet-based, decentralised activist group that chooses to use hacking exploits to protest against internet censorship, emerged in recent weeks as one of the most unusual new global protest forces to be reckoned with.

In December, the group became a household name when it claimed responsibility for staging massive, well co-ordinated distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks against the websites of several American companies – Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal – after they withdrew services that allowed people to make donations to whistleblower website WikiLeaks. DDOS attacks hurl a barrage of constant page requests at a website from vast numbers of computers at once, causing its servers to crumple under demand.

Then came the overthrow of the government in Tunisia. Angry at reports from Tunisians that the government was blocking access to Facebook, webpages, websites and e-mail, Anonymous says it launched DDOS attacks on government sites, while also supplying code to bloggers, Facebook users and others to let them evade the government’s attempts to limit internet access. The group also began feeding video and news from inside Tunisia to YouTube, Twitter and international journalists. Many credit Anonymous with being among the first to highlight to the world that there was something very serious happening in the country.

And, of course, there was that Fine Gael election website hack claimed by Anonymous, raising its visibility in Ireland.

Before all this, it would primarily have been known – if known at all to most people – as the organiser of worldwide protests, some of them masked street demonstrations, against the Church of Scientology, including in Dublin.

While it had been known to take other actions (which it calls “ops”) before – claiming responsibility for tracking down an internet child predator online resulting in his arrest; crashing the website of a white supremacist radio show host – something has shifted and the group seems more intent on international protest.

Anonymous has no formal membership, no leader, no spokesman, no rules. Any act claimed by anyone as being done by Anonymous is just that – because anyone can be Anonymous. Yet how a range of highly sophisticated computer-based exploits and support activities can be done by an elusive, collaborative, ephemeral group is puzzling and fascinating. Anonymous says it works as a “hive mind”, many individuals linking in common purpose without being told what to do. Most communication happens over an almost forgotten, anonymous internet communication format: IRC or Internet Relay Chat, though it uses sites such as Anonnews.org and 4Chan too. Often Anonymous bring an absurdist sense of humour to its protests.

The Irish Timesspoke to one “anon” who was willing to talk via internet chat about their own perception of the organisation, its aims and thinking and the Fine Gael attack. All contact was made using anonymised e-mail addresses and accounts; several times the internet connection dropped on Anon’s side. The person’s age and gender are unknown. The informality of “chat” spelling and grammar has been cleaned up in the following report, as have questions and some replies.

Irish Times: You are an Irish Anonymous member?

Anonymous:I am Irish and I am anonymous. There is no membership, as you know.

IT:How does someone offer to speak then for Anonymous?

Anon:I speak only for my own experiences. Many of those are of Anonymous operations. Anonymous is something that I feel many people in Ireland will not understand at first.

IT:Do you get involved on the information technology side?

Anon:Not as such. My interest is humanism. Though [Anonymous is] not specifically IT based, IT plays a huge part of Anonymous as the internet is the final frontier of freedom of expression. I play a role in decisions made by the hive, as do all anons. I had a heavy involvement in OPTunisia [the Tunisian campaign].

IT:How is an op co-ordinated when there is no co-ordination?

Anon:There is a great deal of co-ordination. Especially for OPTunisia, the co-ordination I experienced surprised me greatly. There is no organisation within the group or its “members” but there is a great deal of co-ordination and co-operation. For instance when Anonymous first heard of the Tunisian government allegedly phishing for Facebook and e-mail passwords we immediately referred this to the members who are involved heavily with programming.

IT:Do people tend to know identities of some or any other members or is it all anonymous via chat?

Anon: There is an IRC network where everything is co-ordinated as well as a number of message boards and chatrooms for specific interest groups within Anonymous. As far as I know very few know the identities of other anons. I do not and it is strongly discouraged within Anonymous to use any kind of identification. It requires a lot of effort and dedication to get involved with something like OPTunisia. Generally people do not become activists unless they are prepared to work together.

IT: Those involved must feel a strong trust and connection to those they do not know both in and outside Anonymous.

Anon:That is true. Anonymous is human, to have trust in Anonymous is to have trust in humans.

IT:Can you describe some of your own involvement?

Anon:I was involved with contacting people inside Tunisia and obtaining news, information and stories while the media blackout was in place and making press packages of videos, photos and statements all backed up by sources. This was sent to the anons involved with media for distribution. We obtained many statements from Tunisian people about their experiences and translated them into many languages.

IT:How do you find your role in such an op? Is a request made or do you offer?

Anon:I just did it. During the operation it became apparent and frightening to me that there was no media coverage at all in Ireland and in Europe. (Posts link to copied IRC discussion.)

This is an example of statements we received and translated. These were sent to media all over the world in all the languages. Acting on behalf of Anonymous is voluntary; to say I offered is misleading because no permission is needed. Many Anonymous news reports were made on YouTube, also, in many languages. Anonymous also contacted many governments around the world drawing attention to what had happened and putting pressure on them to act, in particular France.

IT:It seems OPTunisia began then as anger and frustration with net censorship. How quickly did you realise it was becoming something much bigger?

Anon:When people started being shot at by the police. We received some very disturbing footage of policemen firing live rounds at protesters. We kept very close track of every killing we heard of and the locations. We received reports around the same time of opposition leaders, activists and journalists being visited and threatened in the middle of the night by secret police, many of whom were taken away and locked up.

Anonymous’s priorities are with internet censorship. As a net-based organisation we believe that censorship has no place on the net as the internet is nothing more than a collection of people’s thoughts, beliefs and expressions. To censor the net is to censor the mind. This will in the majority of cases be the cause of Anonymous’s involvement in an issue. We know our strengths and limitations.

IT: Do you feel media coverage of the WikiLeaks op failed to explain this?

Anon: Yes I do but hopefully it has inspired people to look up more information.

IT: Do you feel OPTunisia offered a clearer picture of Anonymous?

Anon: I hope so. If people can hear about the humanistic nature of the movement they will understand much better. Anonymous is not an organisation, it is a disorganisation that applies to anyone who wants change.

IT:Is this what you mean about Irish people at first not understanding Anonymous?

Anon:Yes. Especially in the light of the hack on the Fine Gael website. That will hold us in negative light for a while. Not an attack that I, or many other anons on the IRC, approved of.

IT:But I suppose it cannot be “unclaimed”, as anyone can be Anonymous, if they claim to be.

Anon: Yes you are right, the hack cannot be unclaimed as all are Anonymous, even people who do not yet realise it. If someone commits murder in the name of Anonymous it is the same – but at the end of the day, it will just be an anonymous murder.

IT:But the FG hack has created much interest in Anonymous in Ireland.

Anon:It has and I am afraid that Anonymous will be continued to be labelled as a group of hackers which we are not, generally we are computer enthusiasts. Our computers are our platform for most of our operations but hacking and DDOS-ing are only small “weapons” we use and usually to gain media attention to a bigger cause.

IT:It is interesting to observe the difference in public perception and acceptance between hacking for WikiLeaks and for Tunisia. For example, an organisation like Front Line Defenders in Dublin has a download kit for helping human rights defenders and activists stay anonymous and evasive online, seen as a good thing and similar in intent to the protective code distributed by Anonymous.

Anon:Anonymous created an extensive care package for Tunisian people similar to what you described, including many tools to ensure anonymity and a list of proxies that they could use to get their messages out safely without being spied on. This was distributed on a large scale within Tunisia. Included was much information of how to deal with riot situations safely, tips on defence against CS gas, etc. I think it is important for regular people to know how much work went into supporting people in Tunisia. The Tunisian uprising has been called a Twitter revolution, as a significant part of it was organised online. I believe Anonymous had a large role in making this possible.

IT:Was Anonymous also active in the protests in Iran?

Anon: Not that I am aware of. At that time Anonymous was mainly concerned with Scientology. We have only really entered the world stage with OPPayback (the WikiLeaks op) and OPTunisia. Personally I don’t protest against Scientology, though I recognise them as a very dangerous cult I think they are unimportant in the scheme of things.

IT:Is the kind of deliberate absurdity (of wearing masks, etc) you bring to such protests appealing to you?

Anon: It all started with protesting Scientology. They are extremely litigious. Anonymous made a huge effort to ridicule them and show the public what really goes on within the church. Absurdity is much of what anons thrive for, one of our main goals in operations are lulz [defined by the New York Timesas “the joy of disrupting another’s emotional equilibrium” and derived from LOL (laughing out loud)]. Lulz are essential if an anon op is to get anywhere. I cannot imagine The Irish Timesstaff leafing through a quarter of a million cryptic messages from diplomats.

The ball started really rolling with Scientology. This was when Anonymous became a “power” if you will, a force to be reckoned with, when we started to really realise what could be accomplished by working together on a large scale. I am very happy that Anonymous has begun involving itself with important international affairs. Also that it is self organising with common goals and beliefs. Very basic ones, but it has given the movement direction.

IT: It has certainly brought significant profile. Many would criticise using methods like hacking.

Anon:These are details of a current operation that is under way in Venezuela. ( Attaches link to an image of an ICR chat full of requests for help, information about political incidents, comments from Venezuelans translated into multiple languages.)

We are very concerned with the rights of journalists to publish what they want especially when about their political leaders. We believe that freedom of speech is all or nothing and will fight, resist and sabotage all efforts made to stifle this right.

IT:Is it frustrating to have people differentiate between “good hacking” and “bad hacking” depending on their perception of the cause?

Anon: Yes. It is a very grey area. It doesn’t help that very few people know what a DDOS is. If they did they would perhaps understand a bit better. The way we see it is a DDOS is an online version of a sit-in. Imagine 500 anons going to Tesco and blocking up all the cash register queues and all buying a penny-sweet each or a sit-in in front of a company doorway.

It is very important to differentiate between privacy and secrecy also.The two are similar concepts but wildly different.

(At this point the line disconnected and the chat was dropped.)