Anonymous

Inside Anonymous: Covering The Collective

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

For the first time in its two-year history, The Gad About Town is presenting a guest post. I am profoundly happy about this, and I hope to present more in the future.

In recent weeks, I published four pieces about two different operations launched by the Anonymous movement (#OpParis, #OpParis, Day 2, and #OpKKK), and they are written from my perspective as an outsider looking in but with some trusted sources guiding me. I am an informed outsider.

Walter Yeates, also known as Smooth, is a reporter who has interviewed, on the record, leaders of and participants in the operations against Daesh under the banner of #OpParis.

Thank you, Smooth, for writing this and asking me to publish it. It’s an honor. What follows is his own account.—Mark Aldrich, The Gad About Town
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#OpParis, Day 2

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The mainstream media has started to take Anonymous more seriously than it has in the past in the last two days. Part of this is born of the mainstream media’s continuous pursuit of an “Us vs. Them” narrative, and part of this comes from the human need to find someone to cheer for in this dark, bloody time.

Here is The Hill, a daily in Washington, DC: “Anonymous claims it has eliminated 5,500 ISIS Twitter accounts.” Here is Rory Cellan-Jones of the BBC, who landed an interview with “the person behind the #OpParis Twitter account” (@opparisofficial, by the way): “Anonymous takes on IS.” Cellan-Jones’ interview was conducted by email, not on camera, and was not recorded.
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#OpParis: The Fight Is On

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Whatever else ISIS, ISIL, Daesh may be—a group of religious fundamentalists, general terrorists, people with an ambition to become religious despots—it is at the moment a community. A dangerous community.

In religion, its members may be pre-medieval (which is almost an insult to the pre-medieval era), but Daesh’s members take full advantage of the many tools our current, plugged-in era offers: inexpensive smart phones and global cell phone coverage, ubiquitous Wi-Fi, and the dozens if not hundreds of social media platforms one can use to declaim ideology, assert ambitions, cheer each other on while pursuing bargain prices on new weapons purchases. Daesh’s members publish blogs, Tweet, own Facebook and VK accounts, put homemade videos on YouTube and elsewhere. There are other individuals out there who may not share in the religion-based hatred but who love violence and carnage, so they join in the online noise and learn what they can do to support the spread of religious bloodshed.

Who could possibly help separate the chatter from the actionable intelligence? Who could possibly thwart the next Paris-style, multiple-front attack? Who could possibly make it more difficult for Daesh members to communicate with one another, without looking like a government was doing the snooping? Is there anyone out there who can step up and be our assh*les for freedom?

Yes. Before dawn this morning, this announcement from a portion of the hacktivist group Anonymous appeared on Twitter:
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