Empty suit: the chaotic way Anonymous makes decisions

[steve2470]

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/02/empty-suit-the-chaotic-way-that-anonymous-makes-decisions.ars

On February 16, the freewheeling hacker collective decided to take on the Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church, best known for its "God Hates Fags" protests. The Anonymous hivemind, the "Voice of Free Speech & the Advocate of the People," has had enough of this sort of free speech and has decided to fight the church's "assembly of graceless sociopaths and maniacal chauvinists & religious zealots" who issue "venomous statements of hatred."

The manifesto contains the trademark Anonymous prose style, one that might be summed up with the words "florid bombasticism." (Case in point: "Your demonstrations and your unrelenting cascade of disparaging slurs, unfounded judgments, and prejudicial innuendos, which apparently apply to every individual numbered amongst the race of Man…")

And it closes with the typical Anonymous threats, which drinks deep from the wells of prophetic denunciation literature—combined with a splash of The Matrix. "We will target your public Websites, and the propaganda & detestable doctrine that you promote will be eradicated; the damage incurred will be irreversible, and neither your institution nor your congregation will ever be able to fully recover. It is in your best interest to comply now, while the option to do so is still being offered, because we will not relent until you cease the conduction & promotion of all your bigoted operations & doctrines. The warning has been given. What happens from here shall be determined by you."

But did Anonymous really write this? An "organization" without traditional leaders or members faces a problem: knowing who speaks officially for the group. The message had been posted to AnonNews, a site with an "open posting concept" in which "no censorship takes place!"

[Tunkamerica]

1. that's the thing about anon. Anyone can claim to be them

because really anyone is them. It hasn't bitten them yet, but that's prob not too far away.

[NC_Nurse]

2. Seems to be the essence of their strength to me. If someone posts this sort of

Ultimatum and it isn't something the "hive mind" can get behind, it just won't go anywhere. This has to help them remain diffuse and untraceable, dontcha think? Otherwise, they would be too easy to track. Just a thought, I don't know shit about hacking...

:-)