"The anthropologist Gabriella Coleman, recognized expert Anonymous, was the first to follow suit. River in this article, originally published in English, Gabriella Coleman summarizes its findings and analyzes on the Collective Anonymous. Researcher in the humanities at the University of New York, she is one of the finest observers of activists Occupy Wall Street. Thanks to Elodie Chatelais for the French translation. " "Anonymous, the Lulz to Collective Action. "A test of Biella Coleman, translated by Elodie Chatelais. Taken together, the concept of Anonymous means something vast and complex that name now takes its full meaning in a world in which its role is to coordinate a series of disjointed initiatives, which range from trolling to political demands. Initially this term was used to coordinate the pranks of Internet users on this great playground that is the Web, but during the winter of 2008, some Anonymous have become politicized, and especially denounced the excesses of Church of Scientology. In September 2010, they inaugurated a new political campaign called Operation Payback, to expose the practices of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and a few months later, they are the same who lent a hand to Wikileaks, which deal caught the attention of millions of people around the world. This action has been extensive media coverage on the wave of spectacular attacks Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks launched by many Anonymous (against Paypal and Mastercard, to show their support for Wikileaks). Despite their reputation, and despite the fact that they have coordinated a protest against the Church of Scientology two years earlier, commentators are desperately trying to describe ethics, sociology and history of the movement Anonymous with a lot of traditional analytical categories. From there, the difficulty arises because the concept of Anonymous is deliberately shrouded in mystery. The Anonymous say they have no leadership, no hierarchy, and even fewer geographical epicenter. While several forms of organizations and cultural logics underlying undeniably a variety of means of expression, any individual or group can claim the Anonymous movement. As such, as defined by Marco Deseriis, Anonymous serves as misnomer: "The adoption of the same alias by organized groups, affinity groups, and bloggers. "Thus, people with coordinated DDoS attacks are not necessarily the cause of apparent Anonymous, or sites or blogs launched under that name; protest actions taken on behalf of Wikileaks have, for the most part not was initiated by the Anons who denounced the practices of the Church of Scientology, but it is not often mentioned by the media. In Anonymous, hackers are a rather small circle of people: they are genius programmers, security researchers, or system administrators. The engine of many of them - but not all - is a variation in the theme of the quest for freedom of information. The hackers are not in my view a much larger group - I will therefore take the liberty to describe them as "geeks". The latter had mastered a number of digital media tools for video editing, graphic design, dedicated tools for collaborative writing, and enough technical knowledge to connect to IRC ("discussion relayed via the Internet"). And others? Or geeks or hackers, they contribute in their own way to the constant reinvention of the digital domain, in which they are impregnated with cultural codes and discover new digital technologies. If they do not become geeks, they will nevertheless be familiar with their world. In this article I will discuss briefly the history of the birth of Anonymous through several political operations conducted under this standard, then I will describe in broad terms the logic of their organization and their ethics. This test should in no way be considered exhaustive, but it will allow you to sweep a few myths about the political orientation of Anonymous, and why in three years, a few Anons have chosen to abandon certain practices disarticulated, unrelated, and rooted in the culture of trolling, to create a form of collective action and rhizomatic (or techno-nomadic), catalyzed and fueled by operations worldwide, and by political interference. Anonymous movement was born on 4chan, an image sharing site anonymously extremely popular. Trolling is the main phenomenon which we can relate their beginnings and their development. On 4chan, trolling is often a random mixture of the following: phone jokes, pizza delivery targeted DDoS, and especially the posting of confidential information, preferably humiliating. "Anonymous" has led many campaigns trolling like this since at least 2006 or even before. The leitmotif of the instigators of trolling - and the result sought emotional - including on 4chan, the lulz, plural altered laugh out loud (lol). The lulz is the pleasure derived trolling, however, it is not limited to this. More generally, it is possible to reach the lulz by schoolboy jokes, posting pictures or playing tricks. In 2008, Anonymous decided - overnight - to unleash all the anger they fed to the Church of Scientology, leading a wave of trolling operations become legendary. The Church tried to prevent the viral spread of video (designed to be viewed in the context of the Church) with losses and noise. In this video, Tom Cruise is an apologetic discourse, exuberantly singing the praises of the theology and practices of Scientology. The Church has threatened some online publishers like Gawker to bring a legal action (by invoking the violation of the DMCA (Digital Millemium Copyright Act) if they did not remove the video. Anonymous responded by conducting a series of " Raids, "to use their words, against the church between 15 and 27 January 2008. One participant described the actions of" foutage mouth of ultra-coordinated. "Following the logic that underpinned their already previous exploits, the Anonymous above all have trolled the Church of Scientology - which geeks to dedicate a jubilant hatred - for the lulz. Shortly after this first wave of trolling the Anonymous have moved towards a more conventional form of politics. What caused them to go this route? In late January 2008, in the space of one week, several videos - the main driver of their work - were completed and put online, raising the transition controversy among the instigators of the attacks, which could not s grant on the purpose and the meaning of this raid. However, this episode introduces the now famous first and declared war against the Church of Scientology. But this video was not a statement quite honest, it has just been completed for the lulz. Five days later, another video was posted online. Mark Bunker, a longtime critic of the Church of Scientology, was sending a message to Anonymous masked, asking them to forget their manners trolls, to be more serious, and especially to deploy legal strategies to combat against what he and his friends regarded by politicians as a sect. The Anonymous reacted quickly and were more sincere, calling to set up political action. Home videos that follow are the catalyst for a period during which heated debates were held on some IRC, one of the most recurring being the time: "Is it time to disconnect and to publicly express our anger at the Church? " Anonymous Many have decided to coordinate a global day of action - which resulted in a significant number of events extremely well organized and widely followed. February 10, 2008, over six thousand people took to the streets of North America to Europe via New Zealand and Australia - many of them expressed the gates of the Church of Scientology of their city. At the time, many protesters were short of what we may commonly associate with street demonstrations: a purpose and a political consciousness. But during this period, there was an almost carnival atmosphere in the streets of New York; everyone ridiculed the Church of Scientology, spoke in a jargon-impregnated lol cats, long cats, and other lulz mudkips. These shares will remain outstanding as the crowd was strong and bold aesthetic present, through the staging of anonymity - a majority of demonstrators took to the streets was the face hidden by the mask of Guy Fawkes, which is now part of the iconography Anonymous. A few days after the day of global action, a split occurred among Anonymous. Many participants joined the mothership Internet, while those who remain have organized demonstrations to more conventional report on abuses against members of the Church, while demonstrating a political sensitivity larger (but still wearing the mask of Guy Fawkes for some). "I came for the lulz and I stayed because I was outraged," explained to me a while Irish Anonymous in August. It was a feeling shared by many others, but the lulz was always at the rendezvous; the demonstrators as they were juggled between tradition and lulz, by staging performances outlandish, grotesque, humorous or offensive - and inseparable from the lulz. The winter of 2008 until mid-fall 2010, more politically moderate Anonymous have spent much of their time vilifying the excesses of the Church of Scientology. In September 2010, Operation Payback, a new political operation was launched from 4chan. The Pirate Bay servers in the site had just experienced a denial of service attack launched by an Indian manufacturer of software piracy entered the time of a mission on behalf of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). In order to show their support for the founders of file-sharing site torrents, Anons have targeted the site of the MPAA (and other), the attacker with a lot of DDoS. As with previous operations, it was organized on 4chan before be migrated to an IRC channel, in fact, it is difficult to coordinate an operation on an image sharing site anonymously . Although some have participated in Operation Payback and the protests against the Church of Scientology, a sociological standpoint, the operation targeting the MPAA stands Operation Chanology. Both operations were coordinated on IRC channels and initiated by distinct groups rather different. In December 2010, shortly after the publication of diplomatic cables - full of pearls - by Wikileaks, users involved in Operation Payback decided to embark on a project involving an impressive set of major actions that remain unmatched to date. The Anonymous have not done this for the sole purpose of expressing their support for Wikileaks, they took action to denounce what PayPal, Mastercard and Amazon had just made, that cut off access to their services and terminate the accounts of the organization Wikileaks, which was yet face any criminal charges. The fallout from this operation were exceptional: the websites of some of the most powerful corporations in the world have been disabled for several days. Thus, the history of the Internet Relay Chat channels never before had been attacked by hordes of lurkers and geeks willing to lend a hand - one day, over seven thousand people gathered on the main channel at the same time. The interaction of many participants were seemingly chaotic, yet they still managed to handle the DDoS so quite deliberately, and with the utmost care. The targets have been chosen through surveys, participants drafted text to indicate which sites were to be attacked or not, and they never failed to remember always on IRC. Participants were not all involved in this protest movement digital, some have created and posted dozens of images and videos. During this period, those who stood against the Church of Scientology continued on this path, but some of them also chose to participate in Operation Payback. Many people are just remained on IRC to see what would happen, while a number of geeks and hackers have expressed the view that an ethical standpoint, DDoS attacks constituted a tactic of protest and of dispute. At the end of December, shortly after the end of denial of service, Anonymous took place in Tunisia, found unexpected choice at the time. They worked so well that the media in North America and Europe have begun to talk about their role - sometimes with great detail and accuracy - in the protest movement against the Tunisian government, which was preparing to retaliate on the field and had just block the site Wikileaks. January 2, 2011, Anonymous have launched "OpTunisia" and continued to provide support as the events were spread throughout the country. As tradition dictates, they launched a denial of service attack against the website of the government and against some tourism websites, but they also posted videos showing violence that reigned in the streets of Tunisia and created tutorials for online activists and demonstrators, to help them avoid government scrutiny. In their "emergency kit", some Anonymous have chosen to indicate that their competence in the field of hacktivism has its limits in the following statement: "This is your revolution, it will not happen on Twitter or on IRC (sic ), it will not show on television (ndt: reference to the song The Revolution Will not Be Televised by Gil Scott Heron) You need to take to the streets, or you will lose this battle. Stay on your guard constantly, once imprisoned, you can not anything for you or your people. Your government is to monitor you. "OpTunisia represents a new milestone in the birth of political protest movement" Anonymous. " While most of the previous operations were related to the censorship of Internets and policies relating to it, this process converged with an existing social movement, thus registering in the tradition of activism for human rights. Since that time, Anonymous have been continuously implementing various actions; the Tunisian protest movement that has spread to Egypt, they have subsequently turned their attention to this country. They include launched operations in Syria and New Zealand, but also in Italy, when Silvio Berlusconi was accused of having sex with an underage prostitute, and in the State of Wisconsin , to denounce a law to restrict collective bargaining rights of public service unions. And early April, The Anonymous launched a fierce attack against the site of the multinational Sony, who had to sue George Hotz, a young gamer-hacker who circumvented digital protection of his PlayStation. The notions of authority and power in Anonymous The complete picture of Anonymous have been compiled, we can now ask the following questions: who are they? What connects them? When and how do they exercise leadership, is it a group decision or are they isolated incidents? Technically, the concept of Anonymous is open to all with no barriers of any kind whatsoever. However, certain knowledge, skills and sympathies are required implicitly or explicitly, so only a special category of Internet makes the process of engaging in this political movement. Unlike many other organizations, including Wikileaks, it is easy to make a contribution to the building of Anonymous, among others by participating in one of many micro-challenges set up in a jiffy on IRC.
To capture the dynamics of influence among Anonymous implemented, it is imperative to talk about the technical architecture in which they spend a lot of time to discuss and coordinate their actions: IRC, Internet Relay Chat ( in French, "discussion relayed via the Internet"). And it should be noted that there is currently two separate IRC channels through which participants can set up different actions: AnonNet and AnonOps. Contrary to a number of media reports, they are open to the public, but much of that public has no idea how to access an IRC, let alone how to use it, although it is not difficult a technical perspective. Within each IRC network are hiding a large number of channels, but in general, only a dozen of them are crowded at times. Some channels are dedicated to issues of social or humorous banter, the lulz are always a current value for many of them. As explained by one user, the lulz is an outlet that makes the work involved in political activism - in itself a difficult and sometimes depressing - more bearable. On other channels, specific technical issues are addressed, and there are undoubtedly many channels on which political operations are coordinated. Some participants play a key role on many channels, while others are only involved in one or two IRC at a time. On IRC, people able to work on infrastructure - IRC operators - hold more authority than others (there are "ops" on all IRC channels, not only in Anonymous, and are therefore responsible for maintaining order. As such, they are able to return or to banish unwanted people on the channel for various reasons, including violation of cultural norms or regulations in force on the channel, that - in the case of AnonOps - are prohibited from connecting and disconnecting constantly, to target the media or to the glorification of violence. It is not necessary to be very technically competent to be operator, which is why dozens of ops work on every IRC channel. Although their views are given more weight during the many debates on IRC, they do not determine action plans or operations by Anonymous. Some are just for working on the infrastructure, while others are involved in most political operations. The authority and discipline are also present in the form of principles, standards and ethical sensibilities - which are constantly changing according to the news. Users involved in both channels focus on the problems inherent in censorship, freedom to disseminate information, and as the name clearly indicates, they tend to fall, body and soul in a secular liberal principle that the expression is required for anonymous healthy democratic society. In the case of AnonOps, the current policy is to refrain from attacking the press, even in the United Nations in which the media are considered to be in the pay of the regime in power, as in Iran. This clause is not to everyone's taste, it has been violated repeatedly by some participants, causing much debate discordant - a classic situation common to all movements of political protest. Ultimately, to understand the mechanisms of power and authority in Anonymous, it will confront a precept - the most popular among online activists - very interesting and stimulating a social point of view, namely the ethical code (which mitigates, if not eliminate, the concentration of power) that the leadership or fame are by no means an end in itself. The Anonymous therefore offer what Mike Wesch defines as "scathing critique of post-modern cult of celebrity, of individualism and the concept of identity, and which still derives benefits contradictory." It is important to note that participants are not content to philosophize on their commitment, they live it. Participants often remind each other it would be unfortunate to behave leadership or seeking to attract media attention, calling such practices "spoofing" or "abuse of power "(ndt: in English," name fagging "or" leaderfagging "," fagging "resulting in" chore "in the sense of" nuisance "). Engaging in this type of overflow is issued in its place in the public square or in a private discussion, and whoever attracts too much attention to see banished from the IRC with a single click.
I recently witnessed a situation like this, because one Anon - who had made no capital remaining behind during DDoS attacks - looked too much about him to a reporter. A person who had read the article in question has summarized the mood that prevailed among Anonymous in one sentence: "Trying to use a work done by others to take credit for the merits is something intolerable. "(The sentence quickly fell, he was banned from the IRC.) The fact that Anonymous will be equipped with an ethic mean it that power is never channeled, there are certain forms of authority? Anonymous where are they lying THE incarnate? Neither one nor the other. Obviously, in the case of certain actions such as hacking target, only a small circle of hackers engineering can take their game and it is hardly surprising that this type of operation remains shrouded in secrecy. This does not mean that only a few hackers take over the reins of the movement. However, being able to hack - which is a source of undeniable power - and the ability to conduct all transactions "Anonymous" can be confusing. As mentioned above, the most active people on the network, those who worked hard, hold more authority than others - but these are not necessarily the ones who lead the dance. An analysis of the dialectic implemented between the creation and dispersion of centralized power - also present in other collaborative actions undertaken by geeks or hackers - would better understand this dynamic of influence. Both trends have a relationship complicated, but this is partly offset by the fact that the Anons to constantly remind each other that should not behave as a leader, what drives them to strive for consensus - their preferred decision-making process. Conclusion: The entry into politics Anonymous study the movement is a challenge, because their characteristics overlap, forming a complex whole. However, Anonymous are they - as suggested by the end of the article - a "gang of cyber lynch mob who organize online under the banner of Anonymous meme, in which a handful of surfers offer Ops ; people on the same wavelength will participate in these operations, while others will continue to post on 4chan lolcats "? Taking the time to study the different wings in existing policies Anons, it is clear that they are consistent enough, they have a history and an ethical substance, which in some way away from the various facets of the culture to 4chan, or the discipline that is trolling. Although the lulz is inherent in every existing political wing in Anonymous, and if the trolling remains a common practice and claimed, it is simply impossible to reduce Anonymous movement that could be called cyber-lynching, and to simply assimilate the different forms of politics portrayed in this trial. Even if I tried to put the Anonymous in a particular context, based on my cultural background they come from (4chan, trolling and lulz), I first focused their different political expressions. IRC channels are used to identify the various political factions claimed by the Anonymous, and participants who give their time more than others, and the messages they send through videos, manifestos and press releases, or yet the standards by which they organize, take action and change. I merely scratch the surface of mechanisms inherent to current standards in the area of authority, ethics and behavior, and political tactics that are born and are used by some clusters of Anonymous. But there is still much to learn, understand and say about them. In conclusion, one thing to note about Anonymous is that since the winter of 2008, this movement has become a gateway to political and consort for geeks who wanted to take action. Among other opportunities, the movement has the potential Anonymous - unpublished - to set up micro-events in all discretion, allowing some individuals to evolve within the movement and participate in major operations. No need to fill any form, to give his identity or his own pocket to have the feeling of being part of a large group. It is therefore to make the decision to enter politics one way or another, establishing a means of concrete action to adopt a set of events or influences - and the Anonymous movement offers this possibility. Biella Coleman. Translation by Elodie Chatelais.
We are Anonymous
We are legion
We do not forgive
We do not forget
Excpect us
http://youtu.be/Yur2SVQ4pus
