What do you think of when you think of Guy Fawkes? Maybe you think of a mask, the Gunpowder Plot, ‘V for Vendetta’ or maybe you think of the group, Anonymous. Anonymous is a group of hacktivists who come together on the internet to share important information that the public may not see otherwise.

The group has made huge headlines exposing the Church of Scientology, supporting anti-corruption movements, and has provided a platform for Iranian citizens to criticize their government. One large group that benefits from Anonymous and anonymous information, is WikiLeaks. The founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, is currently facing an American “witch hunt” against him in which the New York Post says, “It’s trying to punish him for leaking American military and diplomatic secrets on his controversial site.”

The question is, how far should one be punished for revealing pertinent, valuable, information? The point of the Anonymous group is to have a safe place to reveal information that one may not be able to release with their name attached to it. Sometimes that is the only way the most important facts can be known.

Anonymous Analytics describes themselves this way:

“We provide the public with investigative reports exposing corrupt companies. Our team includes analysts, forensic accountants, statisticians, computer experts, and lawyers from various jurisdictions and backgrounds. All information presented in our reports is acquired through legal channels, fact-checked, and vetted thoroughly before release. This is both for the protection of our associates as well as groups/individuals who rely on our work.”

The founder, Assange, has currently been told by Swedish officials that he needs to be extradited from the UK where he has been on house arrest for alleged sex crimes. In a speech he made outside of his balcony, he asked that Bradley Manning (a contributor to WikiLeaks who is facing trial soon) be left alone. Manning, a Unites States Army soldier, was arrested in 2010 in Iraq for suspicion of giving classified information to WikiLeaks. He could be incarcerated for “aiding the enemy.” Manning could be seen as an object of treason, or someone who believes in telling the whole truth.

It always seems to be a debate, especially in the field of journalism, if anonymity is “okay” or not. Anonymity can lead to false information, but can also expose information that can change the lives of many people. Anonymous is a group who is challenging power through anonymity. There is a moral issue with this. The public has a right to know this information, but they also have a right to know where the information is coming from and if it is reliable or not.

However, Anonymous seems to be focusing on helping the people, and keeping them aware of what is going on around them. They have dozens of youtube videos, where they expose information and say, “We are Anonymous, we are Legion, we do not forgive,we do not forget, expect us,” as almost a threat to people who are causing harm. In one video, they even tell the U.S. Senate to expect them.

It really says something when a group of people put forth much time and energy into helping the people by researching and exposing groups who are causing harm, and who are not being paid a single cent for it. However, it also means something when they won’t attach their names to it, and are willing to destroy many group’s reputations and people’s lives at the same time.

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Anonymous has attacked several British Government websites in support of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. In the attack titled #OpFreeAssange, Anonymous took down both the site of the Ministry of Justice as well as the site of the Department for Work and Pensions with the message ‘Tango Down http://www.dwp.gov.uk/  & http://www.justice.gov.uk #Assange’ posted by the #AnonymousIRC account.

Assange was granted Asylum by the Ecuadorian government earlier last week, following over two months of waiting within the Ecuadorian embassy after he broke his bail conditions and stayed there overnight. As a result, Assange has been unable to leave the embassy for fear of being arrested.

However, the British government warned that it could still enter the embassy despite the diplomatic immunity he has and arrest Assange. While the British Government have yet to follow through on this threat fully and arrest Assange, they have not seen fit to withdraw it either. The police did enter the embassy two days ago and although they did not arrest Assange, this act could have been the Government showing they will enter and arrest him should they choose to.

Addressing the public keeping watch outside the embassy Assange, said in a speech on Tuesday “Inside this embassy after dark I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through its internal fire escape, but I knew there would be witnesses and that’s because of you.”

While it is not clear whether Anonymous’ members appear to be carrying out their attacks just for fun or as a way of causing disruption, they do have loosely agreed goals that they attempt to achieve. The main factor prompting Anonymous to launch an attack is any attempt from government’s to curtail people’s freedom of speech or rights especially concerning censorship of the internet.

This can be seen in their defence of several pirating websites, as well as their involvement in the Occupy movement. Therefore it is easy to see just why they have leapt to the defence of Assange. After all, Assange’s website is devoted to bringing news to the public, and like Anonymous, has received condemnation for its methods of obtaining data.

The attack, which also apparently targeted the Prime Ministers No 10 and home office websites, was done using Anonymous’ standard method of DDOSing. DDOSing stands for distributed denial of server, and involves a multitude of computers bombarding a website with requests for information. If successful, the server will be unable to handle the huge amount of information received by the various attackers, and as a result is forced to shut down and stop processing information for the site being attacked.

This type of attack is illegal in both the U.S. and U.K., with laws in place to prevent them from taking place. These laws seem to have done little to prevent people from taking part in the attacks, which have become vastly more popular in recent years.

They are so effective that governments may have started using them. Demonoid, one of the world’s largest torrent websites, was DDOSed and hacked three weeks ago, just days before the Ukranian government raided Demonoid’s servers. This attack was either a huge coincidence or a carefully constructed plan by the Ukranian authorities, turning the attackers’ main weapon against them.

Image Courtesy of   Uros Zunic / Shutterstock.com

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Anonymous has been very active, posting videos via Youtube in order to attain a more just and positive world. All viral campaigns are aimed to encourage people to step up and make a difference in today’s unequal society.

On July 16, Internet hacking group Anonymous released a two-minute long video, plotting against Facebook. Their bone to pick with Facebook is its deception of users, regarding privacy on Facebook.

Facebook has legally maneuvered its terms and conditions so that it allows them to sell users’ private information with consent. Facebook has records of users’ logs and has access to said information, which is a breach of privacy. They know more about users than the people we come into contact with every day.

In order to send a message to Facebook and its users, as a result of its misappropriation of rights, Anonymous announced that on November 5 Facebook will illegally be shut down. The name Guy Fawkes was a trending topic on Twitter on August 10.

This date was not chosen at random; it is connected with their identity and is the idea behind the mask. The idea was inspired by Guy Fawkes, a man who is known for taking part in a failed plot to bring down King James in 1605.

Recent updates show that members of Anonymous are in a sort of civil war; the entire group is not in agreement with the idea of bringing Facebook down. In a Twitter post they say “#OpFacebook is being organized by some Anons.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that all of #anonymous agrees with it.” The message of the campaign is to bring awareness to the lack of privacy Facebook grants users when they agree to its terms and conditions upon joining.

Anonymous is not enthused about the gross violation of privacy put upon people, in order to provide advertisers with personal information, which makes the spamming of pages possible.

The message spread so quick that it inspired them to release a new video pertaining to the London riots that took place earlier this month. The operation is known as Operation Britain. The message was to motivate protestors to speak up for their rights on October 15 and to resolve conflicts in a peaceful manner.

They do not condone “thuggery” but support the reasoning for the actions that took place in London. In their message they say “The riots that we have witnessed over the last week, whilst violent and misguided are a product of decades of neglect inflicted on your country by various governments.

We do not condone mindless thuggery, but that does not stop us from seeing the reality behind it,”

Later in the video, Anonymous said, “Saturday October 15, 2011 will be your opportunity for rebellion. We call on Britain to unite and organise peacefully. Unions, anti-cuts groups, community organisations, students, activists, citizens: you know your political system is not fit for purpose,”

There is no definitive answer as to whether what Anonymous is doing is right

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