This thread makes my head hurt. Ok, I know seven pages is a lot to read though, but geez, some of you people don't even
pretend to try.
I also know that this post will be ignored by the next nacho-eating dork who sees the OP and
instantly goes "OMG ANONS A BUNCH OF P*SSIES WHO NEED THEIR HANDS CUT OFF AND KILLED A BILLION TIMES HURRRRR", as does happen with overzealous people. Because, clearly, seven pages and a half-dozen links are too much for the average gamer (/stereotype). In any case, I'm here to (try to) be the 151st voice of reason. I've read most of the citation material that's been linked. I think that counts as a reasonable education on the subject.
Expect a wall of text. You struck a nerve.
First gripe: Threats and bravado. My first gripe is with all you whiners who say "Someone kill Anonymous." or "Find them and throw them in prison". The person who claimed that they should be slapped with a restraining order forbidding them 20ft within all computers gets particularly high marks for not being an internet musclehead who seems to have his/her brain and testes swapped (which does not apply to the latter pronoun. I apologise).
It is safe to say that Anonymous are fairly well hidden, geographically. They're pretty globalwide. There are many. How many? We don't know. We won't know. But I'm sure if you found them in their dashing Guy Fawkes masks and told them to line up so you could chop their fingers off, they'd laugh at you. In fact,
I'd be laughing at you now if it wasn't the same trite story. You are as bound by John Gabriel's Greater Internet F*ckwad Theory (Google it. Preferably Google Images.) as they are, and I'm pretty sure you'd sing a different song if you were face to face with them. I think you'd be even more pathetic than you sound now.
Next gripe: Chippy1337 and Anonymous. There's evidence for and against Anonymous' involvement in this. Let's put aside everything we know about Anonymous, whether or not this Chippy1337 personage is one of them, whether Ryan is implicated, etc. I'm not going to take the easy approach and say "This is the Internet, evidence can be fabricated like a fictional chatlog or a photoshop job" because this deserves
srs biz or whatever them youngsters are calling it with their hip-hop and their skateboards and their pokemans.
They could (and probably are) a legion of stoned teenagers, or they could be a company rivalling the CIA in terms of size, complexity and organisation. Let me know when you see it for yourself. Because in my country, the burden of proof falls on the claimant.
All we have to go on are their words. We all heard the stories of infighting, and an affidavit from them saying "We weren't involved, it was a splinter group." doesn't carry much weight. Conjecture is okay, but if you're
certain, it's up to you to prove
why. Show me circumstantial evidence, I show you a possibility. We only have Anonops to go on, though.
Gripe the third: Modus Operandi: Are you a spokesperson for them? I doubt it. Do you know who they are? Of course not. Do you
know what they stand for? No. You only
think you know. The most insightful explanation I ever seen was provided by Cracked (not exactly a burgeoning spring of knowledge, I know). But they said to the effect that Anonymous only advocate vigilantism "if it either involves child/tentacle-rape or in cases where it would be funny". That, like everything, is conjecture. We have cases of them being vigilantes, amoral thugs who stand up for morals, and we have cases of them sticking it to people who need sticking it to. But that doesn't mean they're your shining white knight.
Sure. We have cases of them going for people who deserve it. Like the was-famous 'Korean Dog-Shit Girl', and the boys from Texas who filmed themselves throwing their cats at the wall, and the woman who moaned that the 9/11 attacks ruined her selfish day. But did you know they also went for people who
didn't deserve it? Because absense of evidence does not in itself equal evidence. What about Habbo Hotel (aka 'AIDs in the Pool')? Less like your ideal white knight and more like the historically accurate knight.
Get over yourselves. See Anonymous as what they are for the whole of what they are. Not what you want them to be based on snippets. They don't stand up for what's right by standing up for George Hotz or Julian Assange. They stand up for them, as thus the term goes, "for the lulz". Or maybe, they do it for a reason we don't comprehend yet?
Gripe quatre: Legality of hacking. A minor quibble. I doubt anyone here has a problem with it. But not all hackers/crackers are evil, and not all are intending to create mayhem for the sake of mayhem. You know the creators of the first wild computer virus ((c)Brain) now own an Internet Service? They are very well-trusted people (plus, the release of the virus was not malicious. It was an attempt at anti-piracy). Down the line, a lot of people are hired for hacking the company that hired them. Do you know what we call them? We call them
Server Engineers. They do it to test the company network against a
real assault by staging a phony assault. Sort of like how getting a vaccine teaches your body how to defend against the mean viruses. Or filling a pipeline with water and seeing where the leaks happen. Those same people make fake viruses and see how effective they can defend against it (or, easier, they download the EICAR Test Virus and disseminate it within the network).
Is this relevant to the stuff up there? Probably not. But I'd like you to not shine intrusion with such a discriminatory and prejudiced light, because that is how some people make an honest living.
Gripe five: Glamourising it. Urgh. I didn't think I'd have to say this. But Anonymous aren't heroes and they're not the good guys. Vigilantism does not solve anything properly. Laws aren't made to be broken, they are to protect the security of those under it. If someone stole food to feed themself, is it okay because they're poor?
Besides, they're freakin' Anonymous. What would they care if a forum filled with internet nobodies like you or I showered them with adoration? Until we learn why, what's the point?
Six:
Anonymous versus
anonymous. Faith and begorrah, people! It's not rocket science! Your arguments that Chippy can't be from Anonymous because he has identified himself are
retarded!. Here. Let's get the basic definitions down.
anonymous. Noun. Without any name acknowledged of a person responsible, as that of author, contributor, or the like. (Source: Wiktionary)
Anonymous. Noun. An Internet meme originating 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain. (Source: Wikipedia).
Just because someone isn't anonymous desn't mean they aren't Anonymous. It'd be much more logical if they were, but they're not mutually exclusive? Just because we (supposedly) know Ryan's real name, does that automatically boot him from the Anonymous group and affiliation? Does he have to hand in his free Anonymous t-shirt and beer mat and rear-view mirror hanger?
No. Shut up, then.
