Understanding Anonymous: The Culture Of Lulz

from the it's-not-an-organization dept

We've written a number of times about the not-really-a-group Anonymous, and just how little those who position themselves "against" Anonyomous understand what it is they're fighting against. But even for those who are "of internet culture," explaining just what Anonymous really is certainly can be difficult. Either you live it and you get it, or you don't. That doesn't mean that everyone who "gets" Anonymous agrees with Anonymous. Hell, even Anonymous doesn't agree with Anonymous much of the time -- which is part of the point. But for those who are used to arguing against a group or those with an established position, the entire concept of Anonymous is completely alien.

Quinn Norton is putting together what looks to be a brilliant exploration of Anonymous and related efforts. The initial piece is the best I've seen to date in encapsulating what Anonymous is. The key point? It’s a culture. And, it's a culture with a long heritage of similar efforts that many people didn't get at the time, but there's definitely a (rather non-linear, of course) relationship:

The birthplace of Anonymous is a website called 4chan founded in 2003, that developed an “anything goes” random section known as the /b/ board. 4chan itself comes from a Japanese-language predecessor called 2chan, founded in 2001. Before that, the lulz and hacker pranking was alive and well in old-school IRC chat rooms, EFnet, and the 1990s hacker scene.

But if you’re going back that far, add as influences Mondo 2000, and publications like RE/Search, and a billion shitty zines that were dead by 1996. But those all came from something, too.

Hacker culture, and almost all of computer culture back in the day is shot through with the Discordian edge of 1960/1970s counter-culture and Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus. So from there it’s the yippies, Andy Kaufmann, and the Situationists we need to first comprehend. Or do we head back to early 20th century absurdists of Dada? Or maybe we venture all the way to that olde booke of epic trolling lulze, Tristram Shandy?

We’re all the way to 1759 now.

Perhaps this means the 1960s Discordians are right, and there’s a Ha Ha Only Serious giggle that is cosmic in nature. That there is a part of reality, a force of physics, that is actually a Fundamental Sense of Humor. But the gravity we deal with can only be explained to an even larger amount of Dark Humor, woven into the fabric of the universe.

Of course, those who don't get Anonymous still won't get Anonymous after this article. In fact, they're likely to be more confused, or more sure than ever that it's "just a bunch of bratty kids" or something along those lines. And thinking that works exactly to Anonymous' favor, which is part of the joke, in which everyone is the punchline.

Filed Under: anonymous, culture, history, lulz

International Lulz: Anonymous Aids Rebellions in Tunisia, Algeria and Libya

from the these-powers-can-also-be-used-for-good dept

Say what you will about Anonymous*, but they've managed (with a few outlying exceptions) to become one of the most unexpected forces of good in the world. Early indications of this revolutionary sense of purpose emerged during the collective's spirited defense of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, and any ideas one might have had that they could be taken lightly were completely shattered by their remorselessly thorough dismantling of HBGary's smack-talking CEO Aaron Barr, who was forced to eat his words nearly as fast as they could be downloaded.

But Anonymous hasn't stopped. An eye-opening Al Jazeera article runs down the latest activities of the headless collective, whose efforts have reached as far as Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. In a day and age when various talking heads decry internet anonymity as a cowardly safe haven for various levels of misanthropic behavior, it's always good to see the conventional "wisdom" undermined by the activities of a group -- who value anonymity and privacy (at least their own) -- using this same safe haven to wreak incredibly disruptive good.

Anonymous hit the ground running in Tunisia, performing DDOS attacks against government websites, providing "care packets" to help cyberdissidents to conceal their identity and developing a Greasemonkey script to block government phishing attacks.  After a false start in Algeria (mainly due to a lack of internet services), Anonymous' efforts moved on to Egypt, helping restore censored websites and operating mirrors, even going so far as to send old school faxes to places without internet service. When supporters of Iran's government began posting a "hitlist" comprising photos of protesters, the "legion" was there to take the websites down.

They (whoever "they" are) may be the newest threat to authoritarian regimes, but they haven't lost touch with their roots:

"In the operations for Egypt and Tunisia, some lulzy methods were used that harked back to Anonymous' past, including placing massive orders for pizza to be delivered to the countries’ embassies."

Now that Anonymous is a do-gooding multi-national, it's tempting to view them as a brutally efficient vigilante force. But as with any vigilante force, the odds of doing the wrong thing (or doing the right thing wrongly) increase greatly. And as with any other ad hoc group, the baser tendencies of the "hivemind" are often indulged.

These inherent dangers, along with the always present "Law of Unintended Consquences," should help keep things in perspective. After all, one day they could be handing out long distance tech support to rebel forces and the next day taking down and defacing a software company's website just because they can. The anonymity cuts both ways in these instances, linking the group with actions both righteous and indefensible.

There are also indications that some members have split off from the core and are now wreaking havoc as its own end, including the possibility that some of the "legion" may have hacked Sony despite official denials. (Well, as official as things get with Anonymous -- a posting with the now-familiar "Question Mark Head" logo.)

With Anonymous, you take the good with the bad. Both run to the extremes and the actions you were applauding one week can turn incredibly malevolent the next. After all, as they cheerfully point out, they are no one's personal army.

*No, go ahead. But make it perfectly clear those are your words and not mine, especially if you're going to start poking at the hornet's nest.

Filed Under: anonymous, lulz, rebellions