Anonymous and its Purpose
Anonymous and its Purpose. Who is Anonymous? What do they do?
Anonymous is the name of a world-renowned hacker group. It occasionally makes news with its actions on the internet. This formation is known as a hacktivist group that protests various political cases, mostly by attacking the websites of state institutions.
Anonymous is known to have accessed many confidential state data during these actions.
Anonymous and its Purpose Where Did First Appear?
The Anonymous group first appeared in 2008 on the website named 4chan, which is an imageboard (websites that tell something with images).
In the past years, the “4chan” website offered all its members the option to be anonymous, and with more than fifty subcategories, it was easy for people to share without any name or address link.
Although the 4chan website supported freedom of expression when it was first established, it later stopped this policy under pressure from the government at the time.
The issue that distinguishes this group from other hacker groups is that this group has protested various political events by organising attacks on the websites of state institutions.
There is another different aspect of this group, which is that it continues all its activities in secret and does not have a subordinate structure. In other words, the concept of ruler and ruled does not exist among them.
In 2008, the group, which continued its activities as ‘hacktivists’, said, “We are Anonymous. We are the army. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Wait for us” slogan announced themselves to the world.
Who is the Anonymous Hacker Group?
Anonymous and its Purpose. Anonymous Hacker group has no specific religion, language and nationality. It communicates in the countries they will attack using their language and opposes racism.
The hacker group, which calls itself ‘Anon’, is at the centre of the beginning of the Wikileaks and Occupy movements.
Today, supporters of the group all over the world describe themselves with names such as ‘Freedom Fighters’ or ‘Digital Robin Hood’.
What did Anonymous and its Purpose Want in the Beginning?
At first, they mostly took actions against the anti-piracy campaigns of companies that trade in cinema and copyrighted works. Their actions were carried out by these unknown people who introduced themselves as ‘Anonymous’ (Anonymous).
The use of the masks used in the film ‘V for Vendetta’ by the hackers of the group, in the eyes of millions of people around the world, not only political or political attacks, but also the arrest of a child abuser and the solving of a rape case.
Although they do not work with the law in principle, Anonymous members have voluntarily helped in such matters of public concern.
Most Important Anonymous Attacks ?
1-Chanology Project
The hacker group reacted to the removal of a speech made by American actor Tom Cruise about Scientology from Scientology’s websites by Scientology, and stated that the attempt to remove the video published in January 2008 was an act of internet censorship.
The group, which disrupted the organisation with DDos attacks and various other attacks, also gathered demonstrations on the streets and even initiated the process for a legal review of Scientology’s tax exemption.
2- Anonymous Avenge Assange Operation
When the WikiLeaks documents were revealed one by one, the whole world learnt about the secrets of the United States of America. Amazon, PayPal, MasterCard and PostFinance, among the companies that pressurised Assange, were subjected to DDoS attacks on the internet.
3- HBGary Federal Attacks by Anonymous
Aaron Barr, the head of the American security company HBGary Federal, tried to infiltrate Anonymous to obtain important information. However, the Anonymous organisation reacted instantly and attacked both HBGary Federal and HBGary, capturing all their e-mails.
The group also took over Barr’s Twitter page and shared Barr’s personal information. This attack also revealed that HBGary was preparing to attack WikiLeaks.
In 2011, during a DDoS internet attack, the Anonymous group also attacked 40 websites that it discovered were uploading child pornography to the internet network. It revealed and exposed 1589 members of a group of paedophiles and stopped access to the sites.
4- Anonymous Russia Attack
The hacker group Anonymous also obtained the e-mail addresses of Russian government supporters Vasily Yakemenko, Kristina Potupchik and Oleg Khorokhordin.
The information in these e-mails documented that these individuals had set up an army of paid trolls and hackers. These trolls were used to glorify Putin supporters while attacking those who spoke against Putin.
5-Sony Operation
At the time of PlayStation 3, Sony took users Geohot and Graf-Chokolo to court, accusing them of hacking the PS3 and leaking data. The Anonymous group also carried out a lot of DDoS attacks on the sites of the company and Kilpatrick Townsend, who provided legal support to the company.
The court proceedings were then halted. Anonymous hacker group hacked Sony to protect two users. Sony accused the Anonymous group of stealing the information of about 100 million players. Anonymous group denied this claim.
Apart from these attacks, Anonymous had also made many attempts to expose fraud in various elections or corrupt structures within organisations.
