Recently, news concerning hacktivist group, Anonymous made headlines after the group posted a video and claiming to expose the Minneapolis Police department’s,” many crimes to the world” as a retaliation to George Floyd’s death due to brutality of four cops the state’s police department.
The video features an activist who had put on a Guy Fawkes thus maintaining his anonymity and ended the video with lines from the group’s slogan, “We are legion. Expect us.” The HACKTIVIST group has also made tweets threatening the US president, Jerry Epstein, and the British Royal Family. While it has claimed that they have documents against the former duo on charges of crimes like sexual assault and rape. It has asserted against the latter that it has evidence proving their involvement in the death of Princess Diana.
So as we have seen that the group professes itself to be a potentially dangerous organization for the reputation of many high profile personas. Let’s have a look at what the world knows about this group. Anonymous is a cosmopolitan group of hackers, or more, particularly, hacktivists, i.e., activists who work digitally by launching cyber-attacks against various governmental organizations, corporations, and various individuals. The group claims itself to be ‘de-centralized’ which means that the group has neither any fixed leader or any fixed methodology of functioning.
The members of this group maintain anonymity as the name claims as they are seen covering their face or wearing the Guy Fawkes mask, popularized from the novel and its screen adaption, V for Vendetta. The members use text-to-speech engines or voice changer software’s to prevent themselves from being traced.
Although the group was initially an entertainment source, it later got themselves in global issues and hacktivism. Notably, the organization found a place among Times 100 most influential persons list in 2012. The group works with the motto, “We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive, we do not forget. Expect us.” They have a Twitter account by the name @YourAnonNews which is operated by most of its members.
Previously, the organization has been involved in a series of cyber-attacks against many corporations, institutions, and government. The organization first reported association with hacktivism was Project Chanology in 2008 under which it targeted the Church of Scientology which led to protests against the same. Following which the group launched Operation Payback in 2010 against Airplex software who worked with various film studios to shut down infringement websites.
It put out a statement stating, “Anonymous is tired of corporate interests controlling the internet and silencing the people’s rights to spread information, but more importantly, the right to SHARE with one another.” Later on, the faction has caused trouble to PayPal, the Chinese government, the US government, terrorist organizations like Al- Qaeda and ISIS, Child pornography websites. The cyber-attacks often comprise the shutting down of websites or applications and leaking confidential information. The recent threats by the group have surely raised eyebrows of those it has warned of action against.
