Gabriella Coleman - Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous

O n July 29, 2007, an entity calling itself Anonymousunknown, at the time, to all except the most erudite Internet denizensuploaded a video to YouTube. A metallic, digital tone thrums as a headless suited man appears over a blank background. A male voice begins to speak through the interference: Dear Fox News, it intones. The news organization had recently devoted a segment entirely to a group they described as the Internet Hate Machinea title the collective would subsequently adopt as a badge of honor.

But for a collective that revels in trickery and guile, to simply laugh and dismiss such an expos would be to miss a great opportunity. And so, the disturbingly ponderous, down-pitched voice of Anonymous continues: The name and nature of Anonymous has been ravaged, as if it were a whore in a back alley, and then placed on display for the public eye to behold. Allow me to say quite simply: you completely missed the point of who and what we are We are everyone and we are no one We are the face of chaos and the harbingers of judgment. We laugh at the face of tragedy. We mock those in pain. We ruin the lives of others simply because we can A man takes out his aggression on a cat, we laugh. Hundreds die in a plane crash, we laugh. We are the embodiment of humanity with no remorse, no caring, no love, and no sense of morality.

The video ends, YOU HAVE NOW GOT OUR ATTENTION.

They certainly got minesoon after the videos publication, I became entangled in a multi-year research project on the collective that I have only now just twisted my way out of (this book monumentalizes that struggle). The video was meant to satirize Fox Newss hyperbolic characterization of Anonymous as the ultimate purveyors of Internet pranking and trolling, hackers on steroids, as Fox had called them. And yet, the creepy sentiments and chilling style captured the trolls terrifying side perfectly; instead of overturning Fox Newss ridiculously one-dimensional portrayal, the video seemingly confirmed it to the utmostthough only, of course, to those not in on the joke.

This double meaning captures the dark humor of Anonymous (the lulz, they call it) in a nutshell. The lulza deviant style of humor and a quasi-mystical state of beinghas, as we will see, evolved with Anonymous from the beginning. And there was a time when spreading lulzy mayhem was all Anonymous seemed interested in. But not long after this parodic and bombastic video, Anons could be found at the heart of hundreds of political opsbecoming integral, even, to some of the most compelling political struggles of our age. In solidarity with Tunisian protesters, Anonymous hacked the Tunisian governments websites in January 2011; months later, Spains indignados beamed the collectives signature Guy Fawkes mask onto a building in the Puerta del Sol; and Anons disseminated some of the first calls to occupy Wall Street.

By then the collective had established itself as a social, political force with a series of ops that remain some of its most memorable. In 2008, adherents to a new vision for Anonymous took Scientology to task after the litigious organization attempted to censor a famous video of Tom Cruise. Germinated for the sake of the lulz, Anons both realized their power to impact global struggles and the pleasure such engagements could provide. Anonymous became even more widely known two years later in December 2010, the result of Operation Avenge Assange. Initiated by AnonOps, one of the collectives more militant and prolific nodes, Anons engaged in digital direct action by launching a distributed denial of service (DDoS) campaign. This tactic, which disrupts access to webpages by flooding them with tidal waves of requests, was directed against financial institutions that had refused to process donations to WikiLeaks, including PayPal and MasterCard. With each operation Anonymous was further emboldened.

And yet, even after Anonymous drifted away from ungovernable trolling pandemonium to engage in the global political sphere, whenever people scrutinized its activist interventionswhether in a street protest or a high-profile computer intrusiona question always seemed to loom: are Anonymous and its adherents principled dissidents? Or are they simply kids screwing around on the Internet as lulz-drunk trolls?

This confusion is eminently understandable. Beyond a foundational commitment to the maintenance of anonymity and a broad dedication to the free flow of information, Anonymous has no consistent philosophy or political program. While increasingly recognized for its digital dissent and direct action, Anonymous has never displayed a predictable trajectory. Given that Anonymouss ancestry lies in the sometimes humorous, frequently offensive, and at times deeply invasive world of Internet trollingthe core logic of which seems, at least at first glance, to be inhospitable to the cultivation of activist sensibilities and politicized endeavorsit is remarkable that the name Anonymous became a banner seized by political activists in the first place.