Who is Anonymous hacktivists? What do they do? What are their virtues?

One of the world’s most infamous hacker groups “Anonymous” is a mysterious online community that sometimes works toward a common cause as so-called hacktivists.

Anonymous is a group or collective of hacktivist people (combination of hacker and activist) who sometimes works toward a common cause as so-called hacking. The anonymous collective uses technology to protest against censorship, legal or societal injustices, etc. By this, they bring attention to the causes and take action against those injustices.

These hacktivists may deface a website by replacing images and text with their own messages or can hack any government website.

They also have created a DDoS service (distributed denial of service) that attacks the computer software and overloads its systems, making sites and networks completely unavailable to anyone. When the Anonymous collective hacks onto a particular website, both terrible and wonderful things happen. They announce their presence by their slogan, “We are Anonymous. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us!”

 

But what actually is this Anonymous collective? What work do they do exactly?

Anonymous is not only a worldwide digital mass mind but also a culture, a political and a social movement. It has been associated in several crashing web servers, website spoilers and leaking of private information. To be very clear, the Anonymous collective is known to aggressively go after its targets. The members of this group include women, men, Democrats, Republicans, youngsters, elder people and people of different races and nationalities.

Anonymous supports access to information, and free speech and supports various anticorruption movements. However, this group has no leader to control. Every individual member can make their own decisions in the group. Mainly in, this group protest their ideas and activities via social media. Consequently, the group says that it is easy to join them. Just one needs to hide his identity while conducting their online activities.

After Russia started the war against Ukraine at the end of February, the Anonymous collective declared a cyberwar against Russia.

Since then, Anonymous has cyber attacked Russian websites. Also, it leaked the data from Russian government agencies, businesses and corporations.

Anonymous got national attention in the year 2008 when the group hacked the Church of Scientology website. They attacked the website with a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS), in which multiple computers bombarded the server, requesting to shut it down. This group also hacked the BART website and released the personal information of 102 BART police officers. Also, their account information of about 2,000 customers. Later, it also targeted the government agencies of the United States, Israel, Thailand, Russia and others. Also, the business corporations such as PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sony were the victims of their cyber attacks.

Also, the group has been active in initiating public protests. But the web is the blood of the group, if it weren’t for the Internet, the Anonymous collective would’ve never existed. Also, the protestors of Anonymous carried out many of the Anonymous movements and rallies across the world. They wore the now-iconic Guy Fawkes masks to oppress the hacker’s identity.

What does this group want?

Specifically, there are no certain goals of this group. But they fight against censorship, promote freedom of speech and counter the attacks on injustice. The group’s only motive is “anti-oppression.” However, this group helps to open every injustice and corruption in our surroundings. The members are free to express their views without any hesitation by hiding their identity, but for good cause.