The Anonymous implementation of Post-Materialism

I, like anybody, still struggle to find good and sharp definitions that catch the essence of the phenomenon of Anonymous. It is unsatisfying to hear (or read) the same negative definitions over and over again: It is a non-group, unorganized, anti-establishment ... there must be better ways of describing it.

For today, I would like to point out one aspect that I believe is core to the understanding of the Anonymous phenomenon: post-materialism.

To recall: materialism is the idea that there is nothing in existence beyond matter. This implies that all human needs can be satisfied by material things. Yes, this is the very foundation of our today's capitalistic consumerism.

But even the other side is not much different. In spite of all his criticism, Communism/Socialism are essentially just as materialistic. In fact, socialist materialism is not much different from its capitalist sibling. But I digress …

The antithesis to materialism is (not very inventively) called anti-materialism: It is essentially the denial of the importance of the material world - in favour of the spiritual world. Yes, indeed, this is where all these esoteric and neo-religions idio^Wpeople come from.

Which brings us to the third one: post-materialism – meaning: "what comes after materialism" – is the thinking that after the life's necessities are provided and after the electricity and Internet bills are paid for, other, non-materialistic needs become prevalent.

For us it seems natural that once people don't have to worry about how to sustain their basic life's needs, one wants to invest some of one's money, workforce, bandwidth or brain power into projects that give you a moral or intellectual satisfaction.

However, for somebody who lives a ‘materialistic’ life, it is incomprehensible that someone purposely defies the run for more and more cash, or for the latest greatest things that money can buy. We all have seen them posting what seems like hate messages on any news about Anonymous, but in reality it is a mixture of fear and fascination that stems from the feeling there is someone challenging their way of life. But back to the topic …

So what about the anti-materialists? Well, they were the last ones to get a computer. You won't hear from them - they are still busy trying to download the latest Enya album.

Interestingly, Anonymous is the perfect occupation for any post-materialist: It's ideal of selflessness and, well, anonymity fits just perfectly to their frame of believe. If it weren't so, the whole idea would have disappeared by now. But it hasn't, and is probably going to stay with us for a while.

And tell you what: that's a damn good thing, methinks.

All of this is, of course, not much more than a puzzle piece in the project of understanding Anonymous. I'll try to add more later.

Want to read more, please see the Wikipedia article. From there you can see that there is a potential of about 30% of the population in modern Western societies.

Three things are inevitable:

... death, taxes and Anonymous coming back at you:

How to "join" Anonymous

Nice text found on "The Hacker News": How to join Anonymous.
So good it could be from me :-)

All Hats are Grey Tonight

The international “security industry” has not only borrowed the ‘black hat’ / ‘white hat’ dichotomy from ancient Hollywood western movies but also a self-characterisation that is no longer justified by the actions and attitudes of those who take part.

In this little essay I’m exploring how the events of the past months have changed the picture of the “white hat” hackers.

The Emperor is Naked!

Going back in time: Not more than a year ago, the clandestine “security community” was treated with respect: highly skilled experts, paid by governments and huge multinational companies to protect their interests; the warriors of the cyberspace, if you will. You don’t want to mess with them, nor with the organisations they represent – unless you have an equally powerful organization or government to back you, that is.

Entering stage: “Anonymous”. Not an organisation but rather just a mob of angry youngsters; at that time: angry with international banks and payment services that refused to transfer money to WikiLeaks (probably due to U.S.-government pressure). This angry mob now decided to attack these global players: VISA, MasterCard … the tools are as low-tech as one could possibly imagine but the enthusiasm is high … and they win!

One after the other these big company web sites fell. Not that it did much damage – the transactions are handled over other channels, and – honestly – how many people actually even noticed the outage? But it destroyed something that is immensely important: trust in their technical capabilities.

All these huge organisations were completely unable to deflect the attack; and even if you could forgive a company like VISA or MasterCard for not keeping their web server secure, you would never forgive it to their security consultants. The police giving an even more desolate impression: obviously struggling to make even the faintest impression of “handling the situation” they went around and arrested a few random teenagers. This really helped little to calm the storm, but much to have everybody know just how clueless they were.

It was a pivotal point: Anonymous took the role of that fearless kid who shouted: “Look, the emperor wears no clothes!”

From that moment onwards, nobody could take this kind of “security experts” serious any more. And nobody did.

A Darker Shade of Grey

Soon after that, a certain Aaron Barr did the mistake of his life by talking big of his supposed insider knowledge of Anonymous; he was working for HBGarry, a company that really likes to be portrayed with a brightly white hat: firmly embedded in the “security community”, cooperating with the FBI and many big players in the world of security…

Surely, no hacker with a sane mind would dare to mess with such a company? Well, maybe half a year earlier this would have been true. It was not true any more.

And the drama continued: Inevitably, Anonymous hit hard on HBGary. At first simply with the usual DDoS attacks, but soon a group of more apt hackers managed to break into their network and the best sense of the word gutted them in a way this has never been done before.

More importantly, the outfall of the “Anonymous” atom bomb striking HBGary was an unfiltered insight into the business world of the so-called “whitehats”: And that sight was not pretty:

Underneath the whitewashed surface, these people were dealing in smear campaigns, blackmailing and spying on civil liberties groups … oh, and let’s not forget to mention the balloons of hot air they were trying to sell for hard tax dollars.

It also became clear that HBGary is not the exceptional black sheep in the white flock: others were in just as deep.

This day, white hats turned grey. Dark grey.

Coda

Many more things have been uncovered since then. Most notably: self-proclaimed “white hat” Karim Hijazi offered money to LulzSec to hack and damage his competitors (they refused). But the story is not over yet.

My point is: if this is what the “good guys” do, I’d rather side with the “bad”. So far, “black hat” hackers like LulzSec have shown a lot more responsibility and moral backbone than the “white hat” community. Not only that, but they have also shown more skills.

Thank goodness – because this is what we need today: skilled hackers with strong moral standing. Anonymous and LulzSec have shown that they are worthy of placing our hopes in them.

Why we are Legion (and why you should expect us)

Λεγιὼν ὄνομά μοι, ὅτι πολλοί ἐσμεν (My name is Legion, for we are many.)”
– Mark 5:9

Yes, the plain and straightforward language of the Bible still has a suggestive power in itself that rarely fails to deliver a shiver on your spine, even if you are a non-believer like myself. What plethora of images does this evoke: the one that is many, the many that are one – and each one of them an unfathomable, incalculable and most of all: un-combatable danger for anybody less resourceful than indeed Jesus himself.

Why do we evoke such a picture? Of course, we are many, and we are getting more by the hour … but are we a “Legion” in the sense that people in the time of the apostle Mark would have understood the word – as a battalion led by a general? Surely not.

In the past, Anonymous has proven that it is quite able to bring about the daemons of hell over its enemies (a lesson HBGary had to learn the hard way), but of course, we are also children of enlightenment, and none of us would ever see anything but figurative speech in an expression like this.

Having said this, many of us indeed sometimes seem to feel like the revenging angels that come to bring fear and repentance to those who have sinned. Others know that there is but little hope for them, and the best we can do is to bring public attention to what is wrong in our society.

But while Anonymous has neither leaders nor any kind of hierarchy or structure, we do have a “common mind” (some call it “hive mind”) – we have common goals, zeals, ideas and most of all, we have shared communication structures.

In the end, Anonymous is all about communication. What we do and who we are would be impossible without modern means of digital real-time communication. This is why we react so sensitively to anybody who tries to muddle in “our” Internet: we strictly oppose any kind of censorship. And we will fight against any real or supposed censorship attempts, and we will fight with all means that we have available.

And the combined power of the legions of Anonymous means we have quite a lot of means at our disposal. You would be surprised. In fact, even we are surprised again and again when we see that somebody has found yet another ingenious way to kick some bully’s arse.

It is in the nature of the Internet that any information, knowledge, secret, procedure, tool, etc. that is available to any one person becomes immediately available to all participants. This is its strength, and this is our strength, as we are the ones are able to exploit this advantage better than anyone else out there.

Our power, if you want, is a product of the number of people times the knowledge the most knowledgeable of them is ready to share. According to this formula Anonymous is very powerful indeed!

But there is one more aspect to it: To the innocent observer, Anonymous may be all about DDoS attacks to web servers, and all you need to do to become “Anonymous” is to download the LOIC and point it to today’s favorite target. In fact, many beginners seem to think this. They couldn’t be more wrong.

A lot of Anons – the vast majority in fact – have never touched the LOIC and would never use it for various reasons. So what are they doing?

Many more people are programming, researching, doing all kind of background work – for the common good, and to stay ahead.

If we were a company, one could say: R&D is our biggest advantage. We are ahead of our competitors by finding new, inventive ways to annoy them.

In the past, I am sure there was more than one organization where people “did not expect us” to do what we did to them. Bad mistake. We will never do what you think we would. We may not even do what we think you’d think we do instead. But we may well do it if you expect us to do something else. Unless of course we have a different idea. OK, I stop it now before that little brain of yours explodes.

Here is what you should expect: We will play the game according to our own rules. And this is why we will win. You better expect us!

The History of Anonymous

A beautifully executed "documentary" on Anonymous. Great work, guys:



… and welcome to my new blog. Expect more things Anon to appear here soon.