Anonymous and the Sadism of Social Engineering

[Prestidigitweeze]

Qualification: By social engeneering, I mean the hacker and con man's practice of seducing people into allowing access to information, not the psychological and sociopolitical meanings of the term as originally coined and used.

Because of their success in raising the visibility of worthy causes (Occupy Wall Street) and fighting ones that promote censorship or exploitation (corporate censorship, scientology, retricted access to the internet in the name of intellectual property), some of us have been inclined to cut Anonymous and 4chan some slack. And even if they began ignobly, does that matter in the long run if they evolved into something more principled?

Unfortunately, the story arc isn't that clear. According to a recent article on Huffington Post (see below), Anonymous began with acts of sadism, theft and humiliation, and has never lost its interest in destroying people for fun, nor are its founders and key members above racketeering and identity theft for profit. Given its visibility and effectiveness in making a few worthy causes known, how comfortable are you with its amoral ambiguity?

Anonymous and the War over the Internet

I find it difficult to support anything they do in the name of ethics now that I've seen their systematic cruelty and opportunistic acts of theft. Sequences of behavior like the one described in this quote (see below) seem nearly as sadistic as those of some hooded figure torturing a victim in their basement:

In 2010, an 11-year-old girl nicknamed Jessi Slaughter issued a YouTube threat against "haters" who had started an Internet rumor about her. . . . As a Gawker account put it, "Ha ha." Unfortunately, as Gawker went on to note, the response went beyond "ha ha." People found her real name, address and phone number. They passed the information around. A bomb squad showed up to her school after a suspicious package arrived in the mail. Encyclopaedia Dramatica . . . published an item on how to troll her. "Tell her dad that we are going to beat her up." "Tell her to kill herself." Jessi responded with another video. In this one, she was seen crying and whimpering while her father crouched in the background, screaming at the camera and shaking his fist. His awkward threats would become memes. A year later, he was arrested for punching Jessi in the mouth, and six months after that, she posted a video saying she'd been institutionalized and was living in foster care. Last summer, her mother wrote on Facebook that the father had died of a massive heart attack. Someone posted a screenshot of the message on FunnyJunk.com.

Edit: Second link fixed.

[tubemonkey]

While I never condone such actions, people need to learn to lay low. Never give your enemies tools for your own destruction.

Learn to walk away.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Read the article: It hardly stops there.

Even if you yourself lie low, your coworkers, your ISP, your bank and even the guard at the front gate of the complex in which you live might not.

But the point of this thread is only tangentially related to protecting ourselves from identity theft. My point is that Anonymous is often portrayed as the white knight of hacker groups. What do you think about their activist media profile as opposed to their sadistically motivated activities? What do you think of their professed support of human rights given the way they themselves have treated other humans? What do you think of their stance against corporate greed given their own history of theft from private citizens?

[tubemonkey]

The ends never justify the means and doing good works never excuses the bad works. Anonymous gets a big thumbs down from me.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

My point is that Anonymous is often portrayed as the white knight of hacker groups.

They are? They appear to support the activities of criminals such as Mr Dotcom, the owner of "MegaUpload". I'd hardly call that a praise-worthy act, personally.

[Ekaros]

Anonymous is something new, not sure if there is one clear description.

It's not coherenet, different individuals do different things. Some are for something others for something else. Also it's easy to go behind their name. Some have different values than others, they do some bad things and sometimes do some good in even though by radical means.

Yes some of their doing is off the norms. They are just something new.

I could in sameway say some goverments are absolutely evil, even if they have done some radical things for good being of our race...

BTW second link?

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by HarryT

They are? They appear to support the activities of criminals such as Mr Dotcom, the owner of "MegaUpload". I'd hardly call that a praise-worthy act, personally.

Yes, but that level of support could be attributed to a fundamental disagreement with you as to the nature of ownership. That disagreement could be seen as honorable in intent were it not for Anonymous members' rather vicious history and present actions.

Their other actions suggest they take acquiring wealth and pleasure through identity theft at least as seriously as human rights and internet freedom.

They're portrayed as white knights in their support and implementation of Occupy Wall Street, for example, and their visible organized outcry against the thievery, censorship and (ironically) human sabotage of Scientology. Many people believe such tactics are excusable in the name of democracy. Even ordinary liberal voters have seen them as fighting the good fight against corporate domination.

My point is this: Even if someone doesn't condemn their support of Mega-Upload, how is it possible to support Anonymous in any capacity when they seem as dedicated to hurting private citizens as any of the corporations they condemn?

And Ekaros: I've been watching, reading and reading about Anonymous since their initial activism against Scientology. Until now, I had no idea how pointlessly cruel many of their key and founding members truly were.

It makes sense, though, given the content of 4Chan's Random forum, which makes Something Awful look like UNESCO.

[Ekaros]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

My point is this: Even if someone doesn't condemn their support of Mega-Upload, how is it possible to support Anonymous in any capacity when they seem as dedicated to hurting private citizens as any of the corporations they condemn?

You can support certain agendas of them, it's not a ideology where you have to take everything which anyone how far they might be might do. It's not like saying some entire organisation should be stopped just because part of it does something bad.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Ekaros

You can support certain agendas of them, it's not a ideology where you have to take everything which anyone how far they might be might do. It's not like saying some entire organisation should be stopped just because part of it does something bad.

It isn't a question of its doing "something bad." It's a question of the supposed good actions it launches being hypocritical and selfish given the trajectory of its founders and key members' other actions under the same name.

These other actions aren't simply in the distant past, any more than the 15-year-old founder of 4Chan was a legion of faceless individuals.

[Prestidigitweeze]

To contrast the social sabotage of Anonymous against that of an activist who truly is working for the public good, see the career of Jacques Servin and his public face, The Yes Men. Jacques is one of the fairest and nicest people I've ever met, both politically and personally.

[Sil_liS]

I don't support Anonymous anymore than I support nuclear weapons. Their existence is as comforting as the fact that since more than one country has nuclear weapons nobody would fire them. Anonymous keeps the internet free and the people informed. I don't like the fact that some of them screw up people's lives with trolling and I don't like the fact that some governments justify torturing people. Anonymous is not the best or the worst thing in this world.

[RainingLemur]

There's times that I applaud the things that Anon does, like their efforts to protest SOPA/PIPA and such (DDoS-ing sites, which isn't really THAT big of a deal to me). But, when they get to acquiring personal information and harassing people (that Slaughter girl, Boxxy, etc), I just shake my head in shame.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Your post is full of black and white without allowing for gray. Nations are immense behemoths erected by vast consensus and brutal manipulation. Anonymous are simply a bunch of people like us. They chose to be activists and saboteurs, and they've been effective. But if their immorality comes to blur and taint just social causes with casual hypocrisy and outright cruelty, then it isn't necessary to live with that as we do those dominating presences we call governments. If we have the power to change even those, if we can choose our leaders in any real sense, then we can easily choose which hackers, if any, deserve our support.

Servin is a hacker who has never gone after anyone out of cruelty. He's a prankster who has never used his powers of persuasion to cheat people out of money. Anonymous has a presence today, but if their actions ceased to fascinate people, they'd fall back into mere criminality and stop trying to impress us by occasionally handing out candy at virtual orphanages.

No one wants to point this out because the worst thing you can do on the internet is take yourself too seriously. But what is Anonymous doing if not taking its own whims more seriously than the people it ruins and, occasionally, helps to kill?

Originally Posted by Sil_liS

I don't support Anonymous anymore than I support nuclear weapons. . . . Anonymous keeps the internet free and the people informed. I don't like the fact that some of them screw up people's lives with trolling and I don't like the fact that some governments justify torturing people. Anonymous is not the best or the worst thing in this world.

RainingLemur: I agree.

[Penforhire]

I'm not a fan of any group that does harmful things "for the lolz." If they were consistently socially conscious then I'd cut them more slack. However, in the age of the internet I do see their existence similarly to the 2nd Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms) -- as a force, however weak, against the potential tyranny of our own government.

[Andrew H.]

Originally Posted by Penforhire

However, in the age of the internet I do see their existence similarly to the 2nd Amendment (the right to keep and bear arms) -- as a force, however weak, against the potential tyranny of our own government.

They're not even that, though.