biellacoleman

Out of all the legal cases, Barrett Brown's is the MOST disturbing and shocking. I simply cannot believe he has been in jail for over 2 years for sharing a link, cavorting with the hackers, and threatening an FBI agent. I expected him to be put in jail for a few weeks and released on bail until a trial that would have found him guilt of threatening the agent but with a minor punishment. This is totally excessive and frightening and all journalists and activist along with the public should be concerned. Let's hope he gets time served.

Hi,

There are three words I like to use to describe Anonymous: prolific, multitudinous, and unpredictable. They are decentralized but there are poolings of power in various ways and this is one of the issues I address quite a bit in the book. Many of the hackers have stabilized into teams. There are those who run the infastructure. So yes, there is a hierarchy but there are multiple ones so there is no single point of control and command. I like to describe Anonymous as a hydra to get at is social organization. And yes, there are informal rules and norms that guide behavior, the most notable of these being an anti-celebrity ethic.. But there otherwise it is a very permissive culture and since there is no single mandate, Anonymous has gotten involved in many distinct types of political ops.

Woah a Paul Tag appears! Well first, the fact that Anonymous became an activist force in the world was durnnnn surprising given the business of trolling they were into--though with some time it makes sense.

I was surprised that the hackers in specific and Anonymous is more diverse than people assume. A lot less middle class folks, a lot of Europeans, and ethnically quite diverse as well. I think that to me was a big surprise. It is more diverse than say open source software development.

Thanks! I don't think every Anonymous op has been squeaky clean: that is mistakes were made but the same sort of mistakes (misidentifying people for instance) has occurred with journalist (like with the Newsweek Satoshi story). But generally, they have for the most part made a positive difference in so many different operations and given how so many folks are apathetic or cynical, it is great that some folks are deciding to get off their asses and do something.. That is what I find most hopeful about Anonymous.

My student Molly Sauter has written an awesome book about this very topic which really provides the best answer http://www.amazon.com/The-Coming-Swarm-Hacktivism-Disobedience/dp/1623564565

But generally there is so much fear and misunderstandings about DDoS it is frightening. One of my students this year likened a DDoS to setting a hotel on fire--even after a few lectures about it! I had to remind the student that while it is ok to disagree with its use and it does cost companies $ and resources, the fire analogy does not work and is rather alarming. So one big step would be just get people to understand what happens during a DDoS attack/campaign.