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Anonymous · Journey to the Fringe

• 0:03
  From the unexplained to the mundane, come join
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  us on a journey to the fringe. Hello and welcome
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  to Journey to the Fringe, now plastic -free,
• 0:18
  thanks to those plastic -eating amoebas that
• 0:20
  we were talking about. Maybe, I don't know, I
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  don't have any plastic -friendly amoebas. I'm
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  holding them, I think is how we left it, right?
• 0:26
  The amoebas or the plastic? Both. Oh. Oh man,
• 0:30
  that sounds violent. It is a little bit. I'm
• 0:32
  feeling too. The battle that ensued. Anyhow,
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  we're your podcast hosts, Taylor and Chelsea,
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  here today doing a Chelsea episode that I vaguely
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  know something about, but it turns out not at
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  all. So I don't need to worry about that. Yeah,
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  I feel like you don't. But you will soon because
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  I'm about to start the episode. I wanted to talk
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  today about a little group that caught my eye
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  and I didn't know much beyond like a few vague
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  details. Probably not beyond what you all know
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  about it when I say what it's about. So I wanted
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  to take a little look into it further and bring
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  you all along with me as we do on our journey
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  to the fringe. It's a little group that goes
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  by the name Anonymous. Oh, it's been a while
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  since they've been in the news. Anonymous is
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  an international collective organized as a decentralized
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  group of activists and hacktivist individuals.
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  The group is known for launching cyber attacks
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  against governments, corporations, and organizations
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  they view as oppressive or unjust. They orchestrate
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  cyber attacks against governments, government
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  institutions, agencies, and corporations, so
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  far as I know about them. And broadly speaking,
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  Anons opposed internet censorship and control,
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  and the majority of their actions target governments,
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  organizations, and corporations that they accuse
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  of censorship. Anons were early supporters of
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  the global Occupy movement and the Arab Spring.
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  There is no one leader of Anonymous, so no one
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  action can be attributed to the membership as
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  a whole. And we'll get into this further as we
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  go through this episode. And that's always something
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  that I've weirdly kind of thought about Anonymous
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  is anybody can technically claim to be part of
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  it. Yep, absolutely. So they don't really have
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  like a group per se. They don't have like a leader.
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  It's a very unique kind of organization. Parmi
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  Olson described Anonymous as a brand and characterized
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  it as a movement rather than a group. Quote,
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  anyone can be a part of it. It is a crown of
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  people, a nebulous crowd of people working together
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  and doing this together for various purposes.
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  End quote. you see anonymous is not well organized
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  or homogeneous rather there are a few organizational
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  minds that sometimes pool together to start planning
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  a stunt so as you kind of just mentioned here
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  taylor i want you to keep this in mind it's kind
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  of a polarizing thing to think of this as perhaps
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  you know, vigilantes working on behalf of the
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  people for the people, like a Robin Hood type
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  of organization. Yeah, it would almost be like
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  if Batman wasn't disowned by the police, like
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  anybody could technically take up the cowl of
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  Batman. Yes, exactly. But on the other hand,
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  anybody can be anonymous. And be really shitty
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  at it too. Exactly. You get these people who
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  just want to make mischief and be anarchist and
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  just, you know, cause chaos. It has two very
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  opposing polarities that we're going to see,
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  not necessarily throughout because of the way
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  that I've organized this, but it's something
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  to keep in the back of your mind that there's
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  two very opposing polarities to this organization.
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  So I think the best way to start is to or organize
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  this episode is just to take you through a history
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  of this group obviously it's not going to cover
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  everything because there's a lot to know but
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  for the purposes of what i'm trying to do this
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  is how i'm going to do it so anonymous gets its
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  start originating in 2003 on 4chan particularly
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  the i don't know how to say this i don't know
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  the which board it was on slang Dash B dash board?
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  Is that how you say it? I have no idea. Because
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  I know they have like the art politics boards
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  or the art poll board, but... It's like slash
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  B slash is how... I don't know how you say that.
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  Anyhow, the name Anonymous itself is inspired
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  by the perceived anonymity under which users
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  post images and comments on the internet. Did
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  we actually have worry about where that came
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  from? I felt like that was pretty straightforward.
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  Yeah, I don't know. It's a B -B -B -B. I just
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  meant like them being called anonymous. It just
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  seemed like pretty obvious from everything about
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  them. It is very straightforward why they're
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  called anonymous. So users post images and comments
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  on the internet. Some joking that anonymous was
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  used as a single individual that was posting
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  rather than, you know, people posting as anonymous.
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  It isn't an organized group yet. It is simply
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  a shared moniker used by anonymous posters who
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  eventually start pretending to be a single chaotic
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  hive. It's kind of like the less shitty version
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  of Q in that a lot of people ended up like posting
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  under the name Q because it was that how they
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  were. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, because it was like that.
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  No, it was the entire thing about Q. It was the.
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  Oh, top secret clearance level. Clearance level
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  Q is what they were. I'm not sure how exactly
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  that they operate because I really know nothing
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  about it. So I'm not going to say anything. But
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  because each one posted as anonymous, they just
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  started referring to it as one single individual.
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  and coming to a hive mind so in 2006 the collective
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  organizes massive coordinated internet pranks
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  strictly for entertainment such as flooding the
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  digital social game hobo hotel with identical
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  avatars to block regular players in 2007 mainstream
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  media takes notice a dramatic fox news report
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  dubs them quote, hackers on steroids, end quote,
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  and an internet hate machine, inadvertently giving
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  the group legendary internet folklore status.
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  The group's few rules include not disclosing
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  one's identity, not talking about the group,
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  and not attacking media. Members commonly use
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  the tagline, quote, we are anonymous, we are
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  legion, we do not forgive, we do not forget,
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  expect us, end quote. Brian Kelly writes that
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  three of the group's key characteristics are,
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  number one, an unrelenting moral stance on issues
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  and rights, regardless of direction provocation.
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  Number two, a physical presence that accompanies
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  online hacking activity. And number three, a
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  distinctive brand. Journalists have commented
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  that Anonymous's secrecy, fabrications, and media
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  awareness pose an unusual challenge for reporting
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  on the group's actions and motivations. Quinn
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  Norton of Wired writes that, quote, Anons lie
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  when they have no reason to lie. They weave vast
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  fabrications as a form of performance. Then they
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  tell the truth at unexpected and unfortunate
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  times, sometimes destroying themselves in the
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  process. They are unpredictable, end quote. Norton
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  states that the difficulties in reporting on
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  the group caused most writers, including herself,
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  to focus on, quote, small groups of hackers who
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  stole the limelight from a legion, defied their
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  values, and crashed violently into the law, end
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  quote, rather than, quote, anonymous's sea of
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  voices all experimenting with new ways of being
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  in the world, end quote. Food for thought as
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  you listen to what we're going through is the
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  paradox of accountability. Because anyone can
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  claim to be anonymous, it begs the question,
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  who is actually pulling the strings? Some cells
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  are noble human rights advocates. Others are
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  mischievous trolls or malicious actors, as we
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  kind of talked about at the beginning. So between
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  2008 and 2010, we get the birth of the hacktivism
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  from Anonymous. And this is kind of the early
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  days where stuff like this can exist on the internet.
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  Just giving a look at what's available at the
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  time and how new the internet is. You definitely
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  could get away with a lot more at that time.
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  And it's the exact place for something like this
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  to be able to come to prominence, to be able
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  to To you know collect and quote unquote organize
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  I guess. It's a major turning point from trolls
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  to activists. This is one of their first projects
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  that comes about. It's a major turning point
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  from trolls to activists. Outraged by the Church
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  of Scientology's attempt to censor a leaked Tom
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  Cruise video. It is being a Scientologist people
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  are turning to you. So you better know it. You
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  better know it. And if you don't. you know go
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  and learn it but don't pretend you know it and
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  or you know whatever it's like we're here to
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  help I mean if you're Scientologist you see life
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  that you see things the way they are in all its
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  glory you know all of its complexity and the
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  more you know as a Scientologist you don't become
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  overwhelmed by it And I went, you know, they
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  said, so have you met an SP? And I looked at
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  them. Anonymous launches digital attacks and
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  organizes worldwide. So this is referred to as
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  Project Chinology. This was Anonymous' first
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  major coordinated hacktivist campaign, launched
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  as a war against the search of Scientology after
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  the church tried to scrub a Tom Cruise interview
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  from the internet. They used distributed denial
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  of service, DDoS attacks to crash church websites,
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  flooded their fax lines with all black pages
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  to waste their ink, and organized massive global
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  street protests where participants wore Guy Fawkes
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  masks for the first time in mass. Ah yes, of
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  course, the thing that is most well known about
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  anonymous hackers. It is. So during the DDoS
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  attacks, a group of Anons uploaded a YouTube
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  video in which a robotic voice speaks on behalf
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  of Anonymous, telling the leaders of Scientology
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  that for the good of your followers, for the
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  good of mankind, for the laughs, we shall expel
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  you from the internet. Within 10 days, the video
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  had attracted hundreds of thousands of views.
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  With more than 10 ,000 followers on their IRC
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  server waiting for instructions, they felt they
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  had to come up with something. The idea of a
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  worldwide protest emerged because they both wanted
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  to use a symbol or image to unify the protest.
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  And since all protesters were supposed to be
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  anonymous, it was decided to use a mask. Duh.
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  Due to shipment problems caused by the short
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  amount of time to prepare, they improvised and
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  called all the costume and comic book shops in
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  major cities around the world and found that
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  the only mask available in the cities was the
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  Guy Fawkes mask from the graphic novel and film
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  V for Vendetta. Oh, is that really why it was
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  available? Interesting. I find it a happy coincidence.
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  Because it is a terrible representation, like
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  if you're actually talking about like this. cause
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  of this like protest Guy Fawkes is a terrible
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  representation of it. I don't know that it's
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  a terrible representation. So in V for Vendetta,
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  it's a rebellious freedom fighter named V who
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  uses the mass to fight a cruel government. And
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  the story draws from the real life historical
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  figure Guy Fawkes who tried to blow up the English
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  parliament in the gunpowder plot of 1600. Yes,
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  but the whole reason Guy Fawkes wanted to do
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  that was to bring about a religious dictatorship.
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  Okay. See, that was missing from the notes. No,
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  that's kind of a very important thing about Guy
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  Fawkes is he was like, you guys aren't religious
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  enough. You're actually persecuting my religious
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  beliefs because you're not enforcing my religion
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  enough. Okay. So that's why there's two of us
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  because we can always bring in the appropriate
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  amount of insight that we need from one another.
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  So yeah, that is why. They have the guy fox mask.
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  So while I thought it was fitting, I guess I
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  didn't have the full story of V for Vendetta.
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  Yeah, and no, it does make sense. It's like an
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  anti -authoritarian thing. If you don't look
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  at like why he was saying the government was
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  bad. Because he's anti -government. Exactly.
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  I was like, oh, that seems fitting. But I haven't
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  seen V for Vendetta. So it's on my list. I was
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  going to watch it. Really? Okay. That was like
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  a big 2005 movie. maybe in the next 10 years
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  i'll see if i can get around to watching it i
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  i was i feel like maybe one day we'll do like
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  a movie or book club for movies and books we
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  should have watched 20 years ago at the other
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  one is that one book that you just told me about
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  project hail mary yeah oh that's way too new
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  for this new idea It really is. It came out last
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  year, I'm pretty sure. That is way too new. Okay,
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  so that's why they have the Guy Fawkes next.
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  So the suggestion of the choice of mask was well
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  received, probably because it was so widely available.
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  And on February 10th... Thousands of Anonymous
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  joined simultaneous protests at Church of Scientology
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  facilities in 142 cities and 43 countries. The
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  stylized Guy Fawkes mask soon became a popular
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  symbol for Anonymous. Next, in 2010, the group
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  shifts focus to massive corporate targets, crashing
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  the websites of corporate enforcement agencies
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  like the MPAA, I don't know what that stands
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  for, and punishing financial heavyweight... like
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  PayPal and Visa for freezing WikiLeaks donations
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  which brings me to the next one which is operation
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  payback in 2010 When major financial and tech
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  giants like PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, and Amazon
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  cut off services and donations for WikiLeaks,
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  following the leak of classified U .S. diplomatic
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  cables, Anonymous retaliated. They launched massive
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  DDoS attacks and temporarily crippled the website
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  of those corporate giants, proving they could
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  punch well above their weight against multi -billion
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  dollar corporations. It was very interesting.
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  I watched a handful of documentaries going into
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  this with hackers that were as anonymous and
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  they were saying you know what I might not necessarily
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  agree with Julian Assange but I fight for his
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  right to be able to put this forth so they were
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  involved in operation payback and during this
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  era their weapon of choice is the LOIC which
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  is low orbit ion cannon a simple downloadable
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  tool that allows thousands of ordinary users
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  to point their connection at a single website
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  overloading it and crashing it and then between
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  2011 and 2015 they shift to global activism and
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  ideological battles in 2011 anonymous steps onto
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  the geopolitical stage by getting involved with
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  the arab spring which is there were a lot of
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  protests in the arabian peninsula or western
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  asia in the about 2010 which were sparked through
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  twitter people came out they were heavily cracked
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  down on but because they usually were pushed
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  through social media it was actually fairly easy
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  for them to regroup and re -go And it did lead
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  to some social reform. A lot of questions on
• 17:03
  how it was so organically pushed. But I'll leave
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  that up to you for the rest. And going into this,
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  I knew nothing of this. So during the uprisings
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  across the Middle East and North Africa, Anonymous
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  stepped in to support anti -regime protesters
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  in countries like Tunisia and Egypt. When oppressive
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  governments tried to block internet access or
• 17:26
  censor citizen communication, anonymous hacked
• 17:30
  government websites provided alternative communication
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  pathways and famously ordered hundreds of pizzas
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  to be delivered to Egyptian and Tunisian embassies
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  abroad as a form of digital meets physical protest.
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  They aid Arab Springs dissidents, providing scripts
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  to bypass state surveillance and crashing oppressive
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  government websites in Tunisia and Egypt. So
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  between 2011 and 2012, they take on highly sensitive
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  targets, hacking into dark web child pornography
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  networks, Operation Darknet, to dismantle servers
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  and expose the real identities of the users.
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  In 2012, we get Operation Mega Upload, hashtag
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  OpMegaUpload. The mega corporation and wealthy
• 18:19
  tech founders combined with government overreach
• 18:22
  was the target of this operation. And when the
• 18:26
  U .S. Department of Justice shut down the file
• 18:29
  sharing giant Mega Upload and arrested its eccentric
• 18:32
  flamboyant billionaire founder, Kim Dotcom. Oh,
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  I forgot about that guy. That can't be his name.
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  That's his name. Yeah, he changed it to Kim .com.
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  Oh, that's disturbing. He changed it. Okay, that
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  makes sense. Anonymous viewed it as heavy -handed
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  assault on internet freedom orchestrated by Hollywood
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  and government pressure. In retaliation, Anonymous
• 18:56
  launched coordinated DDoS attacks that simultaneously
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  took down the websites of the U .S. Department
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  of Justice, the FBI, the White House, the U .S.
• 19:06
  Copyright Office, the major recording industry
• 19:08
  associations, which is the... RIAA, and MPAA,
• 19:13
  it remains one of their largest synchronized
• 19:17
  displays of retaliation against state and corporate
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  power. One of the reasons that I'm actually even
• 19:23
  started looking at Anonymous is I watched this
• 19:26
  one -off documentary that was about one, it was
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  back in the early, it must have been shortly
• 19:34
  after their Scientology operation that they did.
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  It was a guy He had a website and he was tried
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  for one of the original websites that ended up
• 19:46
  posting revenge porn is what came out of it.
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  And he was essentially doxing girls where people
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  would submit their exes, post their jobs, location,
• 20:00
  and everything. And Anonymous came after them
• 20:04
  and doxed this guy and took him down. Oh, okay.
• 20:07
  weirdly, I thought they would be on the other
• 20:09
  side of it because they end up in very weird,
• 20:11
  like they're such pro free speech. It ends up
• 20:14
  really weird sometimes. And that's the thing
• 20:16
  about anonymous. You never know what way they're
• 20:19
  going to go. And I wish that I knew the name
• 20:21
  of it. It's funny because I feel like 60 % of
• 20:24
  the time they have a very good cause. And then
• 20:26
  there's just like, maybe it's 70%, but there's
• 20:29
  such a good chunk of it that you're just like,
• 20:31
  you came up weird in this one. You know, you
• 20:33
  want to look at the group as, you know, they're
• 20:35
  vigilante, they're great, but some of them are
• 20:37
  just hackers that just want to create chaos.
• 20:40
  And aren't even actually like associated with
• 20:42
  them. They're just like, they took the name to
• 20:45
  use it because anybody can be anonymous. Yeah.
• 20:48
  They're not a group. Yeah. They're not, they
• 20:50
  have no central leadership. Nobody is actually
• 20:53
  associated actually with them because, you know,
• 20:57
  everybody's anonymous from where they got their
• 21:00
  start. But that's where I heard about them. People
• 21:05
  ended up getting tried and why revenge porn is
• 21:09
  illegal now is because of this website in the
• 21:13
  early, early 2000s. And I feel like this guy
• 21:16
  had a big name too, like the website. He did.
• 21:18
  I can't remember it though. Well, his name was
• 21:22
  Hunter Moore. Oh, you found it? He created the
• 21:26
  revenge porn website, Is Anyone Up? Okay, that's
• 21:30
  not the one I was thinking of. Oh, that's it.
• 21:31
  But it came from another website. Or maybe it
• 21:35
  was Is Anyone Up? And then it became something
• 21:39
  up. He called himself a professional life ruiner.
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  He compared himself to Charles Manson. The website
• 21:45
  was up for 16 months. And he tried to use the
• 21:48
  same laws that protected Facebook. Wow. Yep,
• 21:51
  so it was anonymous that ended up taking it.
• 21:53
  I can't even remember what show that was. Wow,
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  so it came down in April of 2012, and it had
• 21:58
  to sell itself to get any amount of money back
• 22:01
  to an anti -bullying group. And he was like a
• 22:05
  celebrity among all of these men who were posting
• 22:08
  all their exes. Oh, the incels, yeah. Yeah. So,
• 22:12
  sorry, what date did you give? November of 2015,
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  he was sentenced to two years and six months
• 22:17
  in prison. Wow, a $2 ,000 fine. Oh, ew. And in
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  2022, there was a Netflix show called The Most
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  Hated Man on the Internet about this. That must
• 22:27
  be what I watched. I watched it. Oh no, my English.
• 22:34
  That must be what I watched. I don't recall watching
• 22:41
  that show, but it must be what I was watching.
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  So between 2014 and 2015, the collective tackles
• 22:49
  domestic and international extremism, declaring
• 22:53
  cyber war with some of the following operations.
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  So this must be the time where they're declaring
• 22:59
  war on people like Hunter Moore. So we have Operation
• 23:03
  Ferguson, and this is the systematic abuse of
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  power, police corruption, and authoritarian cover
• 23:10
  -ups. Following the police shooting of Michael
• 23:13
  Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, local authorities
• 23:17
  and police departments faced immense backlash.
• 23:20
  Anonymous stepped up in the fray to expose municipal
• 23:23
  and police corruption. Anons docks the police
• 23:27
  officer involved, leaked sensitive internal police
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  data, and threatened local government systems.
• 23:33
  This campaign highlighted their shift toward
• 23:35
  attacking local symbols of institutional oppression
• 23:39
  and racial injustice, forcing municipal networks
• 23:42
  offline and bringing global attention to the
• 23:45
  local abuse of power. And you look at stuff like
• 23:48
  that, and it's stuff where, like you said, they're
• 23:51
  opposed. They're anti -authoritarian, yeah. They're
• 23:55
  anti -authoritarian, but they're also opposed
• 23:57
  to, you know, stuff like that happening. But
• 24:01
  they're also putting stuff out like that for
• 24:04
  where they're seeing injustices. So it's hard
• 24:06
  to see, you know, what's going to do what or
• 24:10
  land where with anonymous because of who anonymous
• 24:13
  is. We don't know. It's anybody. It could be
• 24:17
  anybody. And even if you know the person who
• 24:20
  is anonymous at the time, it doesn't mean you
• 24:22
  know them at the next time that they're. and
• 24:24
  interaction with it. And it's up to, you know,
• 24:27
  their, what would you call it? Like their personal
• 24:29
  ethics. Yeah. Yeah, what they would think is
• 24:33
  right or wrong at that time. And the weird thing
• 24:36
  is, is that when you get into these hacker groups,
• 24:39
  like the idea of anarchism is very vastly different.
• 24:43
  Exactly. Spreading from like the communist utopia
• 24:47
  to the Ayn Rand dystopia. Next, we have in 2015,
• 24:52
  they target ISIS, which is hashtag op. Paris.
• 24:56
  Following the devastating terrorist attacks in
• 24:59
  Paris in November 2015. Oh, at that heavy metal
• 25:02
  show, right? I believe that's what it was. It
• 25:05
  was like the wings of metal or something like
• 25:07
  that. I completely forget. Yeah, I can't remember
• 25:08
  exactly. Anonymous declares total war on the
• 25:13
  terrorist organization ISIS. And rather than
• 25:16
  just crashing sites, which is what Anonymous
• 25:18
  is good at, the Anons coordinated globally to
• 25:22
  dox, track, and mass report thousands of ISIS
• 25:26
  -linked Twitter accounts, Telegram channels,
• 25:28
  and propaganda websites, successfully shutting
• 25:31
  down massive swaths of their online recruiting
• 25:34
  infrastructure. It's kind of crazy when you think
• 25:37
  about it because we have a very, I have and I
• 25:41
  assume you do too, have a very backwards way
• 25:43
  of thinking about these terrorist cells like
• 25:44
  ISIS and that they have like an online recruitment
• 25:48
  area that is actually incredibly useful. Like
• 25:53
  that's not something I would think about, but
• 25:55
  like it is. It is something that was incredibly
• 25:57
  helpful. It was something that they have and
• 26:00
  not something we normally think about in our
• 26:03
  Western thinking of this place or this group.
• 26:06
  Yeah, which is kind of double edged sword. Well,
• 26:09
  maybe that's not the exact word to think of with
• 26:12
  anonymous, but... No, but they knew what needed
• 26:14
  to be done in that situation, and they did a
• 26:16
  good job, as opposed to, say, like, I don't know,
• 26:19
  the President of the United States and the Secretary
• 26:21
  of Defense, who were just like, oh, yeah, we'll
• 26:23
  invade. That will do everything, and created
• 26:26
  ISIS. Yeah. Which brings me so nicely to the
• 26:31
  next op. George Bush is an anon? Op. op trump
• 26:37
  between 2015 and 2016 targeting donald trump
• 26:43
  oh it was it was george bush i knew it As Donald
• 26:52
  Trump surged into the political arena during
• 27:06
  his initial presidential campaign. Now we're
• 27:11
  what, on the 17th or something? It was beautiful
• 27:15
  because he was too incompetent to actually do
• 27:18
  the real damage that he wanted to. And you know
• 27:21
  what? He still is and he's still doing the damage.
• 27:23
  No, the problem is he was so incompetent that
• 27:25
  he got people to figure it out over eight years
• 27:27
  of how to be so shitty. And now here we are.
• 27:31
  Here we are. It's a different world here however
• 27:35
  many years later. We are all so much older and
• 27:39
  so much more tired. 2010's us. As Donald Trump
• 27:44
  surged in the political arena during his... This
• 27:47
  is beautiful to look back on, really. It seemed
• 27:50
  like a mistake at the time. Just an anomaly that
• 27:53
  would go away. His initial presidential campaign,
• 27:56
  Anonymous declared total war on him, condemning
• 28:00
  his rhetoric on immigration and Muslims. I think
• 28:04
  that they maybe should have gone a little harder
• 28:07
  on this. They released personal information,
• 28:10
  phone numbers, social security numbers, and addresses
• 28:13
  belonging to Trump and his executives, urged
• 28:16
  hackers to take down his campaign website, such
• 28:19
  as DonaldJTrump .com, and released video manifestos
• 28:23
  belonging to Global Stability. Yeah, well, look
• 28:27
  at what he's doing now. He just uploads his fucking
• 28:30
  AI videos on to truth .com. Yeah. Yep. This is
• 28:35
  one of my favorite ones is the next one. I obviously
• 28:38
  can't encompass all as I said earlier. I can't
• 28:42
  even encompass the thing that I said earlier.
• 28:45
  That was what I came here to do this episode
• 28:49
  for. This one's hashtag op KKK. 2015 to 2016
• 28:55
  and this one's targeting hate groups bigotry
• 28:59
  and systematic oh man they have failed the cbc
• 29:04
  is the one doing the real work now they are doing
• 29:06
  the real work on this actually bravo cbc following
• 29:10
  civil unrest in ferguson local ku klux klan chapters
• 29:16
  begin Ku Klux Klan. I'm not even used to saying
• 29:20
  that. I'm not embarrassed to say that I can't
• 29:23
  say this word. Is it Ku? K -U? Ku? What did you
• 29:27
  think it was? Klu. No, it is Ku Klux Klan. Yeah,
• 29:30
  you're right. Chapters began threatening protesters
• 29:33
  with lethal force. Anonymous responded by declaring
• 29:37
  war on the group's hate group. Declaring war
• 29:41
  on the group. Oh, my God. Declaring war on the
• 29:44
  hate group's digital footprint. This is not a
• 29:47
  funny subject. It's funny that I can't get the
• 29:49
  words out. Rather than just crashing sites and
• 29:52
  non -systematically infiltrated KKK -affiliated
• 29:56
  Twitter accounts, email servers, and forums,
• 29:59
  they doxed and publicly unmasked dozens of active
• 30:02
  KKK members across the United States, effectively
• 30:06
  stripping away the cloak of anonymity that hate
• 30:09
  groups rely on to operate. Yeah, that's that
• 30:12
  whole thing of, like, the Ku Klux Klan. Ku Klux
• 30:15
  Klan has to be anonymous. Like, for... Hilariously.
• 30:19
  Sorry. I will get to that part. I know. You need
• 30:22
  to be anonymous to be able to be a part of it.
• 30:23
  Maybe not at the time of, like, their big part.
• 30:27
  Like, the early... Late 1800s, early 1900s. But
• 30:31
  for it to be able to actually breed now, you
• 30:34
  need to be able to be anonymous. Exactly. And
• 30:36
  it is hilarious that a group calling themselves
• 30:39
  anonymous is doing this now. It is, isn't it?
• 30:43
  But, to be fair... I do understand their point
• 30:46
  of being able to do good sometimes. You have
• 30:48
  to be able to be absolved of repercussions and
• 30:51
  be anonymous. Which is the whole reason that
• 30:54
  they are anonymous too, the Ku Klux Klan, is
• 30:57
  they need to be able to be absolved of repercussion
• 30:59
  in society. But the whole thing is, doing wrong
• 31:04
  in society has just as much, if not less, repercussions
• 31:09
  as doing the right thing sometimes. Depending
• 31:12
  on the social structure of the wrong. And it's
• 31:15
  a very frustrating thing. And especially coming
• 31:19
  with... I mean, this was 2015 to 2016. So...
• 31:23
  This is about 10 years ago now, and it's about
• 31:26
  time for another resurgence, and I don't know
• 31:29
  if there is another resurgence because it didn't
• 31:31
  come up in my research. No, from my understanding
• 31:34
  of they've fallen off a lot the last little while,
• 31:37
  and I can't remember why, but yeah, they're not
• 31:40
  going to be resurging in the next little while,
• 31:42
  unfortunately. Anonymous? Yeah. Really? Yeah.
• 31:47
  I might be wrong, and you can edit this out,
• 31:50
  but from the readings I had in the last year
• 31:52
  or so. They've kind of dispersed themselves and
• 31:55
  aren't really doing this anymore. Really? Why?
• 31:58
  From what I understand, it's just kind of like
• 32:00
  they've been either recruited for groups within
• 32:04
  the government, not in a necessarily bad way,
• 32:07
  but in a counter -hacking group. Okay. Or have
• 32:11
  just been caught at this point. Keep in mind
• 32:15
  that this is... 10, 11 years ago. And I think
• 32:19
  it's a little bit time for a resurgence in this
• 32:22
  because, you know, we're seeing a huge resurgence
• 32:27
  in these far -right groups. We're seeing a huge
• 32:31
  amount in Canada because we're Canadian. Obviously,
• 32:35
  we're more up to Canadian news. Taylor and I
• 32:39
  keep an eye out more for news like this. And
• 32:43
  man, we see so many of those. If you're looking
• 32:45
  for white... white nationalist groups, look for
• 32:48
  the words athletic club, because that's what
• 32:51
  they call themselves now. And it's very concerning.
• 32:54
  Like Taylor said, CBC is doing a great job. I
• 32:59
  don't know how it is in other countries. We have
• 33:01
  done it in our fringy mini. Yeah, just to somewhat
• 33:05
  add to what you're saying, this is not a profitable
• 33:08
  thing to journalize. So it has to be done by
• 33:12
  somebody who doesn't make a profit off of being
• 33:14
  a journalist. And this is why the CBC is actually
• 33:18
  doing a great job with it. Yeah. So we see this
• 33:21
  as 11 years ago, and it might be Taylor saying,
• 33:24
  you know, all these people in Anonymous are being
• 33:27
  recruited to other places, which is perhaps why
• 33:30
  they are so silent right now in the face of a
• 33:33
  huge resurgence of things like this, where...
• 33:37
  People who are taking part in these white supremacist
• 33:40
  rallies, which we are seeing more and more and
• 33:44
  more all over. Yeah, you have those heavy metal
• 33:47
  shows. You have the athletic group meetups. You
• 33:50
  have, oh man, it's... Absolutely. They are operating
• 33:53
  under an amenity for the most part. I mean, other
• 33:58
  than these people who are reporting them, such
• 34:00
  as the CBC. No, and in fact, getting harassed
• 34:02
  on the other end of it. It's wild. And it's because...
• 34:06
  more and more important to be reporting on and
• 34:09
  it's something that I wish that anonymous would
• 34:12
  be doing right now because it's coming to such
• 34:15
  concerning prominence if you're taking these
• 34:18
  guys down you absolutely get anonymity yeah if
• 34:21
  you are then no go away please please anonymous
• 34:25
  if you're listening to this at least all we need
• 34:28
  is one take them down docks the fuck out of them
• 34:31
  okay so next we got modern cyber warfare and
• 34:35
  massive leaks between 2020 and 2022 we're coming
• 34:39
  up close to where we are at not quite i can't
• 34:42
  believe this is that far away from us now so
• 34:45
  in 2020 we got the blue leaks Returning to their
• 34:48
  anti -authoritarian roots amid global protests,
• 34:51
  the group leaks nearly 270 gigabytes of internal
• 34:55
  U .S. law enforcement data exposing widespread
• 34:59
  surveillance tactics. In 2021, we have Operation
• 35:03
  Jane in response to restrictive Texas abortion
• 35:07
  laws. Anonymous hacks a far -right web host and
• 35:11
  sabotages whistleblower tipster site to protect
• 35:14
  patient data. In 2022, the group declares a full
• 35:19
  -scale war on the Russian government over the
• 35:23
  invasion of Ukraine. I didn't actually know about
• 35:25
  this one. I didn't know about that one. Successfully
• 35:27
  hacking Russian state television to broadcast
• 35:30
  uncensored news and leaking hundreds of gigabytes
• 35:33
  of military and corporate emails. This is a recent
• 35:38
  resurgence of Anonymous, which is the cyber war
• 35:41
  on Russia in 2022. Following the invasion of
• 35:45
  Ukraine, decentralized cells operating under
• 35:49
  the anonymous banner declared cyber war against
• 35:52
  the Russian government. They hacked Russian state
• 35:55
  television broadcasts and leaked internal documents
• 35:58
  from Russian corporations and government ministries
• 36:02
  and temporarily took down major state -run media
• 36:05
  and banking websites. Since 2008, a frequent
• 36:09
  subject of disagreement within Anonymous is whether
• 36:12
  members should focus on pranking in entertainment
• 36:15
  or more serious and in some cases political activism.
• 36:20
  So Anonymous has seen waves of arrests worldwide
• 36:23
  since 2009 for DDoS related hacks with supporters
• 36:28
  often treating those changed in movement maters.
• 36:32
  Key cases include early convictions like Dimitri
• 36:36
  Guzner in 2009, large coordinated arrests in
• 36:40
  Turkey and across the US and Europe in 2011.
• 36:45
  and high -profile figures such as Commander X
• 36:47
  and journalist Barrett Brown. Operations tied
• 36:51
  to WikiLeaks, especially Operation Avenge Assange
• 36:54
  and Operation Payback, triggered major law enforcement
• 36:58
  crackdowns leading to multiple convictions, including
• 37:02
  a non -ops admin, Christopher Weatherhead, in
• 37:05
  2012. So that might be what you're talking about,
• 37:08
  why they're not as active anymore, because a
• 37:11
  lot of the major people acting on these major
• 37:14
  operations have now been arrested. Yeah, or persecuted
• 37:18
  in some way, yeah. Persecuted is the word I'm
• 37:21
  looking for. Law enforcement has arrested dozens
• 37:24
  of prominent anons over the years. So the question
• 37:28
  with Anonymous is, are they digital freedom fighters
• 37:33
  upholding global justice or dangerous cyber criminals
• 37:36
  acting above the law? I would argue both because
• 37:41
  of the broad spectrum of people that can be anonymous.
• 37:46
  Yeah, it's almost like saying is the... officer
• 37:49
  who's going to arrive to help you with the reason
• 37:52
  you called 911 going to be corrupt? wrong in
• 37:56
  some way it's because it's an entire group and
• 37:59
  even it's even easier to join anonymous because
• 38:02
  you don't need to join anonymous other than saying
• 38:04
  you're anonymous it'd be like a person you call
• 38:06
  the cops and a person shows up dressed as a police
• 38:09
  officer who happened to have a ham radio and
• 38:11
  heard your call or something like that and it's
• 38:13
  even more like obstructed than that because you
• 38:17
  know police officers under the guise of police
• 38:20
  officer but anonymous you can get anything with
• 38:23
  anonymous And there's something about that that
• 38:26
  I really like. There's something so profound
• 38:32
  in Anonymous that I really... It's just the most
• 38:38
  purest thing I feel like you can get out of the
• 38:41
  early days of the internet. Yeah, it's... You
• 38:45
  know what? I actually heard an interesting description
• 38:47
  of the Internet as it went through its ages.
• 38:51
  And up until the early 2000s, people considered
• 38:53
  the idea of the Internet as communist in that
• 38:56
  there was no profit incentive. It was just everybody
• 38:58
  did what they wanted to on there. You contributed
• 39:01
  what you wanted and you took what you need from
• 39:03
  it. And eventually the corporations came in and
• 39:07
  that's all that there is on the internet now
• 39:09
  is advertisements and cookies. And it has gone
• 39:14
  to a capitalist hellhole at this point. I can't
• 39:16
  do anything on the internet without an advertisement
• 39:19
  now. And I think it's just the most pure form
• 39:22
  of the internet. You don't know what you're going
• 39:25
  to get. Are you going to get this random anarchist
• 39:29
  take down a website because they feel like it?
• 39:32
  Or are you going to get it? because they're going
• 39:34
  after vigilante justice. I like that about it.
• 39:38
  And does it matter in the end? To me, it doesn't.
• 39:42
  I don't care if it's just a chaotic, everybody
• 39:47
  DDoS the website or if it's actually doxing them
• 39:50
  with a greater good. In the end, the means don't
• 39:54
  matter the ends. Don't justify the ends. I don't
• 39:59
  know if justify is the right word if it's not
• 40:01
  organized. But to me, in the end, they're dogs.
• 40:07
  So Quinn Norton of Wired wrote of the group in
• 40:12
  2011, quote, I will confess up front that I love
• 40:16
  Anonymous, but not because I think they're heroes.
• 40:19
  Like Alan Moore's character V, who inspired Anonymous
• 40:23
  to adopt the Guy Fawkes mask as an icon and fashion
• 40:26
  item. You're never quite sure if Anonymous is
• 40:30
  the hero or anti -hero. The trickster is attracted
• 40:34
  to change and the need for change. And that's
• 40:37
  where anonymous goes. But they are not your personal
• 40:40
  army. That's rule 44. Yes, there are rules. And
• 40:44
  when they do something, it never goes quite as
• 40:46
  planned. The internet has no neat endings, end
• 40:50
  quote. And I love that quote to end on. And that's,
• 40:54
  I think, what I was exactly trying to get at.
• 40:57
  I love the idea of the group of Anonymous. I
• 41:00
  love what they've done. I love the chaoticness
• 41:04
  of it. And I do want to revisit why Anonymous
• 41:09
  is fading out as you were just talking about
• 41:13
  earlier in the episode. Well, and I always like
• 41:15
  that people do, like, especially in this day
• 41:18
  and age, feel kind of helpless. as to what's
• 41:20
  happening and you have to remind yourself that
• 41:23
  like this is a group of just like losers of the
• 41:27
  interwebs that took massive like even governments
• 41:33
  down in the day like remember like what people
• 41:37
  are capable of when we unite behind a common
• 41:41
  goal and just truly what can be done with humanity
• 41:46
  It is like one of those underdog stories that
• 41:49
  just like always completely gets forgotten. Exactly.
• 41:53
  And yeah, it can do good. It can do bad. But
• 41:55
  at the end of the day, like they did important
• 41:56
  things. And like, honestly, between 2008 and
• 42:00
  2015, like they were the biggest thing people
• 42:03
  were talking about at that time. They were. And
• 42:06
  I remember hearing about them so much and I don't
• 42:09
  hear about them as much anymore. I should just
• 42:13
  because. We've referenced it enough at this time.
• 42:15
  I'm pretty sure it was on Ask Reddit what happened
• 42:18
  to Anonymous. Okay. Where I saw it answered that,
• 42:22
  like, a lot of them just, like, dispersed because
• 42:24
  they got older and things like that and got other
• 42:27
  jobs. Okay. And it could be that, you know, younger
• 42:30
  generations just aren't contributing to it as
• 42:33
  much. And, well, it could be, too, that they
• 42:35
  feel helpless at this point, too. Because at
• 42:38
  the end of the day, you need to be able to feel
• 42:39
  like you can do something to be able to contribute
• 42:41
  to this. True. And I can't speak to that as much.
• 42:46
  They do have official social media handles, which
• 42:49
  I can, again, post into because I don't have
• 42:53
  them readily available. I'll post into the episode
• 42:57
  notes if you'd like to follow them because they
• 43:00
  do post ever so often. Again, like I said, there
• 43:04
  is no head spokesman for not. So there are one
• 43:09
  -off accounts of people who will upload as anonymous
• 43:13
  because anybody can be anonymous. So it might
• 43:17
  not necessarily be under one of the accounts
• 43:20
  that I post under our episode notes. I would
• 43:23
  be curious, just because it's a famous Mark Fisher
• 43:26
  quote from the, I think, late 2010s. He wrote
• 43:29
  a book, a little novella called Capitalist Realism.
• 43:34
  famous quotes that came from that book is people
• 43:36
  can envision the end of the world more easily
• 43:38
  at this point than they can the end of our capitalist
• 43:41
  situation now i wonder that might be one of the
• 43:44
  reasons too why we've lost things like anonymous
• 43:48
  because people can't view the end of our current
• 43:52
  situation as opposed to just the end of the world
• 43:55
  We are definitely getting to the end of a late
• 43:59
  stage capitalism scenario at this point. So that's
• 44:05
  a very concerning quote. Yeah, but it makes you
• 44:08
  think like they're no longer trying to bring
• 44:10
  down a system. They're just trying to end the
• 44:12
  world at this point. Yeah, I have nothing further
• 44:18
  to add to that because that is a scary thing
• 44:22
  and very much a reality. But I had a lot of fun
• 44:28
  looking at this just because I really, I really,
• 44:33
  really enjoyed the polarity of it. That one side
• 44:38
  is a chaotic. mess of whatever happens and the
• 44:43
  other is a vigilante system and it just kind
• 44:47
  of comes together in this beautiful mess of anonymous
• 44:53
  and I don't know why but I love it and I think
• 44:58
  it works so well together that is not a cohesive
• 45:02
  thing that is very understandable. That you can
• 45:07
  wrap your mind around. No, and the important
• 45:08
  thing is it can't be understandable. It's what
• 45:11
  it needs to be. And I love it. I love what it
• 45:16
  is. And I think we've been through a very big
• 45:20
  journey on this episode. I'm sure we felt a lot
• 45:25
  of things. Yeah, I'm not sure what further to
• 45:29
  add at this point. I had fun looking at it. I
• 45:34
  hope that something comes more of it because
• 45:38
  I'm always happy where one of us can add more
• 45:42
  insight where one of us is lacking on it because
• 45:45
  I didn't know that they weren't posting as much.
• 45:48
  But it makes sense given what I was saying. Well,
• 45:52
  and I think this is a good spot to stop it. So
• 45:55
  I'll end it here. I have been Taylor. You're
• 45:57
  Chelsea. We are Drained to the Fringe. Thank
• 46:00
  you all for listening. We'll see you next week.
• 46:02
  Bye. Thank you for listening to Journey to the
• 46:08
  Fringe. If you have liked what you have listened
• 46:11
  to, please like, share, subscribe, or follow
• 46:15
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• 46:17
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• 46:20
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• 46:23
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• 46:31
  really want to communicate with us and give us
• 46:34
  ideas for new episodes or tell us that were wrong
• 46:36
  and terrible either way please send us an email
• 46:39
  at journeytothefringe at gmail .com for now I'll
• 46:43
  see you in the next episode