Speaker 1: Welcome to you stuff you should know friend House Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Speaker 1: Josh Clark. There's Charles W Chuck Bryant and Knowles over there.
Speaker 1: So this stuff you should know. Yeah, the Web edition. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've heard of the web Uh huh. I want to
Speaker 1: point out there's a work party going on. This is
Speaker 1: how dedicated we are. Right outside our door, people are
Speaker 1: out there drinking and eating and having a good time
Speaker 1: and drinking alcohol. We're just in here working free alcohol. Yep.
Speaker 1: Even Knolls over there eating right in front of us. Yes,
Speaker 1: thanks for that because it's making a lot easier. So um, Chuck, Yes,
Speaker 1: have you heard of Anonymous? I have? Indeed, I have
Speaker 1: heard of Anonymous as well, because you know, I read
Speaker 1: the newspaper and things like that. You're a hip, happening guy.
Speaker 1: Super um. But I didn't understand really in any way
Speaker 1: how Anonymous actually worked until researching this episode. Very interesting.
Speaker 1: I think we should say we're not experts here, probably
Speaker 1: going to get some stuff wrong. Let's just hope it's
Speaker 1: a little like mostly right rather than maybe like the
Speaker 1: Sun episode. We're sorry and advance Anonymous right, So take
Speaker 1: take your ire out on us. I think we're in
Speaker 1: good shape. Actually, I read one of their key characteristics
Speaker 1: is that they don't talk about the group, they don't
Speaker 1: disclose their own identity, and they don't attack the media.
Speaker 1: Typically they don't. There was actually an attack carried out
Speaker 1: by an anonymous offshoot named wool sec that, um, I
Speaker 1: guess you could call it an attack of the front
Speaker 1: Line PBSS frontline website. Yeah, they posted a fake news
Speaker 1: story that said Tupac was alive and well in New Zealand.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that really constitutes an attack. I
Speaker 1: guess technically it does, but that that did get some
Speaker 1: people in the media a little little nervous, like, oh,
Speaker 1: is the media now fair game? But I think yeah,
Speaker 1: for the most part, we're media. If we're anything right,
Speaker 1: I think a we have some listeners who are a
Speaker 1: nons which is what anonymous members are called. You think
Speaker 1: so absolutely, You're probably right, not a doubt in my mind.
Speaker 1: And I think they're gonna love this because they like press,
Speaker 1: they like you know, headlines, and they like for people
Speaker 1: to know what they're doing. Even though they are in
Speaker 1: the shadows as far as their identities they are, they
Speaker 1: fully claim what they do and stand behind what they do,
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, And then I mean, I think it's
Speaker 1: pretty smart to keep their identities anonymous because there are
Speaker 1: a lot of federalities after anybody who does any kind
Speaker 1: of computer crime these days, and the laws are really
Speaker 1: draconian and really strict and really disproportionately um tough. Yes,
Speaker 1: And the government uses some of the same tactics that
Speaker 1: Anonymous uses to go after people an anonymous, which which
Speaker 1: as we'll see, really ticks Anonymous off. Yeah. They think
Speaker 1: they're big fat hypocrites basically, and they have a pretty
Speaker 1: decent case in a lot of cases. So chuckers, Um,
Speaker 1: I guess let's start at the beginning. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that deal where people like you never
Speaker 1: even said what Anonymous was, right. So, Anonymous is a
Speaker 1: group of activists, hacker activists. That term was coined I
Speaker 1: think in either six by a Cult of the Dead
Speaker 1: Cow member, which was an early hackers group. They really
Speaker 1: kind of set the stage in the eighties and nineties
Speaker 1: of what computer hackers and actually telephone hackers initially are
Speaker 1: meant to do. And and the idea is that um,
Speaker 1: freedom of speech and in the freedom of information is
Speaker 1: sacro sanct should not be messed with, and people who
Speaker 1: do mess with it deserve to be messed with themselves.
Speaker 1: But even that contains real Yeah, and they are. They've
Speaker 1: been described as everything from a collective um to a uh,
Speaker 1: shape shifting subculture, so that Miko kipon En called them
Speaker 1: or Bear Brown, a Texas journalist, said, uh, they're what
Speaker 1: they really are as a series of relationships. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: it's you know, it's all very secretive. It's not and
Speaker 1: we'll get into this more, but it's not an organization
Speaker 1: and where they go and meet every week with a
Speaker 1: president and of treasurer and they wear their guy Fox
Speaker 1: masks and they get together and decide what to do next. Right,
Speaker 1: which makes them really, really really difficult to take on
Speaker 1: if you're a centralized body like the US federal government,
Speaker 1: because really, and what Anonymous is is an idea and
Speaker 1: a concept and there's an ever shifting group of people
Speaker 1: that come in and out of it. And the whole
Speaker 1: idea is pretty simple. If somebody sees a wrong going
Speaker 1: on somewhere in the world, and the person and carrying
Speaker 1: out that wrong can be gotten to via the Internet,
Speaker 1: then they go and they try to rally the troops,
Speaker 1: and if enough people say, you know what, you're right,
Speaker 1: that is messed up and we should do something about it,
Speaker 1: they that that idea will have enough support that what
Speaker 1: happens is Anonymous that ends up carrying out an op
Speaker 1: an operation against that target, and there you go. Those
Speaker 1: people may never join together again for another operation, that
Speaker 1: that operation may end up becoming an even larger operation.
Speaker 1: It's totally unpredictable and it's completely fluid, and that means
Speaker 1: that if you bust some people, which the US government
Speaker 1: has done plenty of times, there's gonna be tons of
Speaker 1: other people to come take their place. Yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: kill Anonymous, uh, And what might happen is everything from
Speaker 1: something a little more lighthearted like taking over your website
Speaker 1: and replacing the banners with your own messages, to completely
Speaker 1: disabling your website altogether so no one can even access it.
Speaker 1: The writer named Brian Kelly said there are three key
Speaker 1: characteristics of the group. One an unrelenting moral stance on
Speaker 1: issues and rights, regardless of direct provocations. In other words,
Speaker 1: it's not like someone's messing with Anonymous, so they're gonna
Speaker 1: fight back. In fact, it rarely is. It's usually you know,
Speaker 1: like Westberg Baptist Church or Scientology. Uh, and that's I
Speaker 1: don't I know that that's that covers all of Anonymous.
Speaker 1: There's long almost from the beginning, there's long been fractures
Speaker 1: in the group between people who just want lulls, which
Speaker 1: is like entertaining yourself at other people's expense, basically trolling people,
Speaker 1: just a mess with them for last whatever, and others
Speaker 1: who say, no, we've got a really powerful weapon here.
Speaker 1: The Internet is serious business and we need to go um,
Speaker 1: we need to use it for like moral crusades. Basically
Speaker 1: uh number two, a physical presence that accompanies the online hacking.
Speaker 1: So don't just stop it like disabling someone's website, but
Speaker 1: get out in the streets with those Guy Fox masks.
Speaker 1: If you've seen the movie V for Fvendetta, or you
Speaker 1: know anything about the fifth of November, you know the
Speaker 1: mask that I'm referring to. Yeah. Um, And actually that
Speaker 1: mask being used by Anonymous goes back even beyond V
Speaker 1: for Vendetta. Actually there was a meme called um fail
Speaker 1: I think epic fail guy Yeah, and he was the meme.
Speaker 1: It was like a stick figure wearing the Guy Fox
Speaker 1: mask and everywhere he went. He just screwed everything up.
Speaker 1: It's cool mask. Yeah, so they were like, we'll use
Speaker 1: that mask. And number three a distinctive brand, which you
Speaker 1: know is that guy Fox mask. I mean they're great
Speaker 1: at branding. Yeah, you know that. In the in the
Speaker 1: suit and tie with a question mark in place of
Speaker 1: a head is one of their logos, which is great logo.
Speaker 1: And what is there? What is there their logline? We
Speaker 1: are Anonymous, we are legion. We do not forgive, we
Speaker 1: do not forget, expect us a little creepy. It is
Speaker 1: a little creepy. They're scaring. Uh, they're scaring people who
Speaker 1: and I'm not scared, but if you're doing something wrong,
Speaker 1: then you should be scared, you know what I'm saying. Yes,
Speaker 1: And a lot of people will say, well, no, actually
Speaker 1: there's um you know, Anonymous will come after you even
Speaker 1: if you didn't do anything really wrong. Um, that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily true. There are like offshoots to have you know,
Speaker 1: come and gone that that do believe much more in
Speaker 1: mayhem and stuff like that. But when you think of
Speaker 1: Anonymous these days, typically you do think of there is
Speaker 1: some sort of moral aspect tomension to the thing that's
Speaker 1: being carried out. And it depends on what your definition
Speaker 1: of right and wrong is too be there. Clearly a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that there anarchists that should be
Speaker 1: jailed and throw away the key. There's other people who think, no,
Speaker 1: you know what they're they're taking on the immoral corporate giants,
Speaker 1: not just corporate giants that are doing really bad things
Speaker 1: behind closed doors. Pretty interesting, Oh, it's super interesting. Should
Speaker 1: we take a break? Sure? All right, let's take a
Speaker 1: break and we'll dig in a little bit more right
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Speaker 1: let's go back to the beginning, shall we be? This
Speaker 1: whole idea of like, you know, we are legion, we
Speaker 1: do not forget, we do not forgive, expect us. That's
Speaker 1: a pretty far cry from how Anonymous ended up starting, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So there's this site um called four chan. Four Chan
Speaker 1: has all sorts of what are called image boards, right yeah.
Speaker 1: It was created in two thousand three by a fifteen
Speaker 1: year old and Christopher Pool. And Christopher Pool's whole thing
Speaker 1: was like, I want to have a place on the
Speaker 1: Internet that's totally censer free and anonymous. Yes self, no
Speaker 1: self censorship. No, there's nobody in charge, there's no rules,
Speaker 1: there's no nothing like that. Um, it is just whatever
Speaker 1: you want to post, whatever you want to say, you
Speaker 1: want to troll somebody troll them, and it's it's it's all.
Speaker 1: Let's just not take things too seriously, shall we? But
Speaker 1: let's also see how far we can push other people
Speaker 1: to take things seriously. And um so four chan attracted
Speaker 1: a certain kind of um net is in I guess
Speaker 1: pretty quickly off the bat and this one, this one
Speaker 1: image board in particular um b slash b slash. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: four chan dot org slash b slashes, it's the random board,
Speaker 1: it's whatever. Um people started kind of congregating there and
Speaker 1: finding that um, they they all shared this kind of
Speaker 1: like desire to mess with people. Yeah, and then Anonymous
Speaker 1: sort of evolved out of that because there were some
Speaker 1: people saying, you know what, let's step this up a
Speaker 1: notch and let's not just goof off and have fun.
Speaker 1: Let's actually let's like actually trying to accomplish something for good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and again that caused that caused a riff, like right
Speaker 1: from the beginning because some of the people were like, no, originally,
Speaker 1: we're doing this for fun. There was this thing called
Speaker 1: the Hebo Hotel, which is basically like a kind of
Speaker 1: a weird second life hang out that they went and
Speaker 1: infiltrated and just populated UM with characters that would like
Speaker 1: block the pool or basically just like shut down the site,
Speaker 1: take it over, just to mess with people, and it
Speaker 1: was fun. They were having fun doing it, just screwing
Speaker 1: with people, and other people said, um, no, let's use
Speaker 1: this for good. And that actually kind of came accidentally
Speaker 1: out of messing with a guy named Hal Turner. Have
Speaker 1: you heard of him? Uh? Hal Turner? Right? So Hal
Speaker 1: Turner was this um extraordinarily racist radio host and he
Speaker 1: UM got pranked by some of the original four Chun
Speaker 1: message board members, right Uh. He was getting like prank
Speaker 1: calls or whatever, and he recorded the calls and some
Speaker 1: how got the data and UM published it on his
Speaker 1: site or released it to his fans and said, hey,
Speaker 1: why don't you guys go figure out who these people are?
Speaker 1: And they figured out some of them, including some underage
Speaker 1: message board members whose parents addresses were posted now on
Speaker 1: this virulently racist radio hosts UM website. And so the
Speaker 1: people from Fortune said take that down, and he said no,
Speaker 1: and they said, okay, well that was your one warning
Speaker 1: and they went to town on this guy. And by
Speaker 1: the time they were done with Hal Turner, UM, he
Speaker 1: was off the air. He was off the air, UM
Speaker 1: and in prison for I think a couple of years,
Speaker 1: threatening federal judges. They basically went and found like all
Speaker 1: these emails and stuff and just published everything, including like
Speaker 1: his home address, all this stuff. They took like his
Speaker 1: tactic and just turned it on him a million times over.
Speaker 1: And that was the one where people said, hey, we
Speaker 1: just did something really good. We just got a racist
Speaker 1: radio host off air that was thrilling. We should use
Speaker 1: our stuff for good. And again some people said no,
Speaker 1: we're just in it for the lulls. Other people said no,
Speaker 1: we should do this morally. And then even other people said, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, wait a minute, what are you guys doing,
Speaker 1: Like that guy had a right to free speech and
Speaker 1: you just drove him off the air. How can you
Speaker 1: possibly be proud of that? The prong that said no,
Speaker 1: there was some good moral dimension to what we just
Speaker 1: did using our computing skills for good. What we determine
Speaker 1: is good, um, is that's the direction we should go.
Speaker 1: And it kind of took off from there. It was
Speaker 1: supported by the Operation against Scientology. Yeah, that came along
Speaker 1: in the two thousand and eight. That was one of
Speaker 1: their first big ops. It's called the Channeology And basically
Speaker 1: what they came across was a video UM that we've well,
Speaker 1: I was about say, we've all seen everybody obsessed with Scientology,
Speaker 1: but to the famous Tom Cruise video where he's um, oh,
Speaker 1: he's sort of just rambling and he seems a little
Speaker 1: crazy and cookie and talking about Scientology, and it got
Speaker 1: out there and Scientology said, um, not very smartly, like,
Speaker 1: we want to remove this from the Internet, which is impossible.
Speaker 1: I can't do that because it's two thousand eight at
Speaker 1: the time, but they were doing a pretty good job
Speaker 1: of it. Apparently, Yeah, I saw it, and this was
Speaker 1: before the channelogy op so they were trying to get
Speaker 1: it down and UM anonymous basically city you know it. Now,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do is, we're gonna we're gonna attack
Speaker 1: your website. We're gonna get your everything about Scientology off
Speaker 1: the internet. We're gonna um what's it called a di
Speaker 1: DOS attack, right, a distributed denial of service attack, which
Speaker 1: is kind of key to an anonymous op um. They
Speaker 1: attacked Google um with a google bomb for Scientology, So
Speaker 1: if you typed in dangerous cult, it directed you to
Speaker 1: the Scientology website. They had hundreds and hundreds of pizzas
Speaker 1: ordered and sent to Scientology offices worldwide, have you heard
Speaker 1: of black faxes. Yeah, they sent them jet black facts
Speaker 1: so they would just run out of the ink right
Speaker 1: over and over again. Yeah, which all you know, those
Speaker 1: are all pretty silly, little harmless um pranks. The Scientologists
Speaker 1: didn't take it that way. No, they weren't happy. In fact,
Speaker 1: I think they went to the FBI. They did, you
Speaker 1: need to look into these people, right, and so we
Speaker 1: have to we have to pause her for a second
Speaker 1: and point something out. One um. With both the hell
Speaker 1: Turner oup and Project Channology, a lot of people say, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, they went after this um, this racist uh
Speaker 1: radio host and got him off the air. So they
Speaker 1: went after Scientology, which is a roundly hated cult and
Speaker 1: and tried to drive them out of business. And the
Speaker 1: idea is it just stops there. But if you go
Speaker 1: a little further, both of those operations were based on
Speaker 1: infractions by the offending parties against the Internet. Hell Turner
Speaker 1: posted underage four chain users parents addresses on his website.
Speaker 1: Wouldn't take it down. That's a rule broken. That's why
Speaker 1: they went an after him. Scientology. They tried to censor
Speaker 1: the Internet, and Anonymous thinks of the Internet is like
Speaker 1: their Internet they're the cops of the Internet as far
Speaker 1: as they're concerned, and the Internet is not to be
Speaker 1: messed with, and they protected like that. UM. And so
Speaker 1: when Scientology tried to take that video down and was
Speaker 1: trying to sue people who kept it up, that was
Speaker 1: that was censorship ship of the Internet. That's why Anonymous
Speaker 1: went after the Internet. But again, just like the Hall
Speaker 1: Trener operation, the the Project Channology thing took on this
Speaker 1: moral dimension and Anonymous was called upon just by UM
Speaker 1: a guy named Mark Bunker, who was already an ardent
Speaker 1: critic of Scientologists, and he said, why don't you guys
Speaker 1: like use your your your what you're doing for legal
Speaker 1: productive ways, And so Anonymous called for actual physical protests
Speaker 1: of Scientology's churches around the world. Yeah, and I think
Speaker 1: now that's that's become one of their hallmarks. That's why
Speaker 1: they want to pair the activist activity with a physical
Speaker 1: presence and a YouTube video which says have you ever
Speaker 1: seen those? Yeah, they're creepy and awesome they are. They're
Speaker 1: really well done. It looks it's it's just the whole
Speaker 1: thing is like very Mr robot esque, right, And with
Speaker 1: every with every video that they released, with every operation,
Speaker 1: they release a video ahead of time saying what's gonna happen,
Speaker 1: what's going down? Right? Yeah, exactly. And it's very smart
Speaker 1: to do that because number one, um, they're they're taking
Speaker 1: account they're showing that they're accountable for their actions. They're
Speaker 1: taking accountability for it. But also it keeps them from
Speaker 1: being scapegoated, and it keeps other people from claiming uh
Speaker 1: their work, you know. Yeah. In two thousand ten, with
Speaker 1: Operation Payback, UM, they realized they found out that MasterCard, Visa,
Speaker 1: and PayPal said we're gonna stop. You won't be able
Speaker 1: to donate to wiki leaks using our services anymore. We're
Speaker 1: gonna shut that down, which in and of itself they
Speaker 1: figured was bad, but as evidence they went and found like,
Speaker 1: um skinhead websites that you could still donate to using
Speaker 1: those three mechanisms, but you couldn't donate to wiki leaks.
Speaker 1: They were like, okay, that's messed up. Yeah, so they said,
Speaker 1: you know what we're gonna do, Um, We're gonna shut
Speaker 1: you guys down. And they did. It was a cyber attack,
Speaker 1: and they disabled the home pages of Visa, master Card,
Speaker 1: and PayPal and um, you know, gloated they had their
Speaker 1: own special little smarmie messages back like U. There are
Speaker 1: some things Wiki leaks can't do. For everything else, there's
Speaker 1: operation payback. Yeah, And so like I said before, with UM,
Speaker 1: with an anonymous ops like that, people may disband and
Speaker 1: never worked together in another one, or your operation may
Speaker 1: grow to include even more stuff. An operation payback is
Speaker 1: a really good example of the ladder of those two.
Speaker 1: It started out because UM at some point the United
Speaker 1: States government hired an Indian firm, an Indian software firm
Speaker 1: UM to launch d d o S attacks on these
Speaker 1: two sites, Mega Upload and pirates Bay, and UM shut
Speaker 1: them down basically. And both of those are file sharing sites,
Speaker 1: typically illegal file sharing sites. And so the US government
Speaker 1: was using the same tactics d d o S attacks
Speaker 1: that they were also prosecuting the hackers and an Anonymous
Speaker 1: for using. But they were using it with impunity, and
Speaker 1: that really ticked Anonymous off. And we should also say
Speaker 1: what a d d o S is, right, So Chuck,
Speaker 1: it's basically it's taking when you contact a website. When
Speaker 1: you go to a website, you're contacting its server to
Speaker 1: request all the information on the page. If a bunch
Speaker 1: of people do that at once, the server becomes overloaded
Speaker 1: and the people who legitimately want to use the site
Speaker 1: can't get in, or the server becomes so overloaded the
Speaker 1: site crashes down right. So one of anonymous is key
Speaker 1: tactics is to do a distributed anallyis service where a
Speaker 1: bunch of people are doing that all at once, hitting
Speaker 1: the site to overload it. And then there's even software
Speaker 1: called the low orbit Ion Cannon which anybody can go
Speaker 1: download and use and you type in a U r
Speaker 1: L and this thing like really hits a site like
Speaker 1: it's like a bunch of people all at once hitting
Speaker 1: it with just this one computer. Um, we should say
Speaker 1: that you can be prosecuted, and many people have been
Speaker 1: prosecuted in says, to jail just for using that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not unless you're the U. S. Government. Again, but that's
Speaker 1: what set off Operation Payback was that the government was
Speaker 1: using these the same tactic that they were prosecuting other
Speaker 1: people for. Yeah, and uh, because they didn't want any confusion, um,
Speaker 1: and for people to say, oh, yeah, well they clearly
Speaker 1: just want to download movies for free and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: They have their YouTube video where they're like, no, that's
Speaker 1: not why we're doing this, right, We're doing that because
Speaker 1: you guys are using the same taxics tactics that you're
Speaker 1: prosecuting us for for other people for exactly, and so
Speaker 1: Operation Payback. Then at about that time they found out
Speaker 1: about the Wiki League stop payment from UM PayPal and
Speaker 1: MasterCard and Visa, and they extended it even further. PayPal
Speaker 1: said it costs them five and a half million bucks. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is a small dent and PayPal, but still it's
Speaker 1: you know, no, it is substantial. The idea though. UM.
Speaker 1: There's this really great UH documentary that's that's available for
Speaker 1: free on Anonymous official YouTube channel. I haven't seen that
Speaker 1: when this one's called the Story of Anonymous UM and
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty good. It's very straightforward, and it's got
Speaker 1: a lot of the people who were involved in the
Speaker 1: early days UM. And I think he goes up to
Speaker 1: like two thousand eleven or twelve UM, but it's definitely
Speaker 1: worth watching. But it interviews this kid who downloaded the
Speaker 1: low orbit ion cannon and engaged in UM project channelogy
Speaker 1: against scientology, right, and the FBI came to his door
Speaker 1: and arrested him, and he got like he's he I
Speaker 1: think he got like time served, so he didn't actually
Speaker 1: have to serve prison time, but he was um like
Speaker 1: he wasn't allowed near a computer for twelve months or
Speaker 1: else he would be arrested. Um And it was really
Speaker 1: bizarre punishment considering that he was just requesting the Church
Speaker 1: of Science Atology's website for its information to it to
Speaker 1: the nth degree. But that was it. He didn't make
Speaker 1: any threats, he didn't order any pizzas, he didn't do anything.
Speaker 1: And when you when you think of the other term
Speaker 1: for d d O S attacks, they're called virtual sit ins.
Speaker 1: It really kind of drives home the idea that this
Speaker 1: is a form of protest that's being harshly, harshly punished
Speaker 1: by the federal government in the US, which is really strange.
Speaker 1: Like there's a Wired article written by a guy named
Speaker 1: Tore Ecklin who's a very famous lawyer for these kinds
Speaker 1: of cases, and um, it's called America must end its
Speaker 1: paranoid war on hackers, And he really kind of lays
Speaker 1: it out there, like here's what's going on. Like most
Speaker 1: people don't realize this, but there's a there's an untoward
Speaker 1: amount of punishment being leveled at people who are protesting
Speaker 1: stuff legitimately by using things like d d O S
Speaker 1: attacks And they're going to prison for like ten years
Speaker 1: for this stuff, and that's messed up, it says, and
Speaker 1: I agree, I agree to. Uh. Some of the other
Speaker 1: things they've done. We mentioned Westboro Baptist Church UM, which
Speaker 1: a lot of people just say as a hate group
Speaker 1: in disguise as a church. I think it's labeled by
Speaker 1: by the government as such. Well, they would like take
Speaker 1: over their website and put messages of peace and tolerance.
Speaker 1: Probably really rankled them. Uh. They would pose as uh
Speaker 1: young girls online to Laura in sexual predators and then
Speaker 1: send that information to the police to expose pedophiles. Uh.
Speaker 1: What else have they done? Well, they were instrumental in
Speaker 1: the Arab spring. Yeah, they basically had a pretty large
Speaker 1: hand Anonymous did in um overthrowing the Egyptian government. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they like to top of dictators. Yes. And the reason why,
Speaker 1: specifically in Egypt that really ticked them off was Mubarik
Speaker 1: shut off the Internet. And again, just like with hal Turner,
Speaker 1: just like with scientology, just like with the government, you
Speaker 1: don't mess with the Internet if you don't want to
Speaker 1: excite uh, Anonymous, as I are right, UM, and so
Speaker 1: they they helped Egyptian dissidents by UM basically instructing them
Speaker 1: on how to get the internet back online there, how
Speaker 1: to set up like virtual networks UM that couldn't be
Speaker 1: shut down by the government. Some of them went to
Speaker 1: the point of just communicating with these people and then
Speaker 1: turning those communications into tweets for them, and then they
Speaker 1: also disseminated video of the government UM carrying out violence
Speaker 1: against protesters and spread it out to the world. They
Speaker 1: had a huge hand in the Arab spring, not just
Speaker 1: in Egypt and in Tunisia as well. Yeah, they've they've
Speaker 1: also had their hand in the the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, UM,
Speaker 1: Occupy Wall Street, UM, untold amounts of like police brutality
Speaker 1: cases or a police cover ups. Stupenville rape case, that
Speaker 1: was a big one. Yeah, in two thousand twelve, sixteen
Speaker 1: year old girl sixteen year old girl was sexually assaulted
Speaker 1: and they found out, you know what, there's a cover
Speaker 1: up going on here. So there was an offshoot called
Speaker 1: night KAY and I g h D SEC and they
Speaker 1: launched a crusade that said, you know what, here's what's
Speaker 1: going on here. There's a cover up going on. Uh,
Speaker 1: And they finally uncovered and publicized the names of two
Speaker 1: star players in the high school football team that allegedly
Speaker 1: committed this assault. That we're being covered up. So it
Speaker 1: was a big deal, they basically and and it was.
Speaker 1: That's a perfect example of an anonymous op. Right, there's
Speaker 1: an injustice in this little tiny corner of the world
Speaker 1: where Ohio meets West Virginia that no one else had
Speaker 1: ever heard about. That somebody got onto the four cham
Speaker 1: board and tell told everybody about this, and people started
Speaker 1: saying enough, people started saying we should do something about this.
Speaker 1: And um, they they left the message board, hit the
Speaker 1: I r C Internet relay chat channels right and started
Speaker 1: communicating with one another and figuring out how to launch
Speaker 1: this attack and what to do and who to attack.
Speaker 1: And then they attacked and and in the real world
Speaker 1: there were repercussions. And that's that's anonymous. This whole jam
Speaker 1: is they go do something, get a bunch of headlines.
Speaker 1: And then not only did anonymous do this, Why did
Speaker 1: Anonymous do this? Who did they do it too? Oh,
Speaker 1: we should go look at that. And now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this little tiny corner of where Ohio, West Virginia.
Speaker 1: Everybody's heard of and everybody's heard about it in the absolute, wet,
Speaker 1: worse terms. That's an anonymous operation. And then all the
Speaker 1: people who who were part of it disbanded. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, UM, the data dump that Anonymous had
Speaker 1: about about Steubenville, the rape case UM contain a lot
Speaker 1: of unvetted facts and things like that, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people were unfairly treated, targeted from the docks thing
Speaker 1: that resulted. So, I mean, I guess the point is
Speaker 1: that Stephenville is a good example of how anonymous UM,
Speaker 1: even when herring out some sort of moral justice, also
Speaker 1: has a there's an amoral dimension to it, and that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of innocent people who can become casualties
Speaker 1: as a result too. There's actually a really good Gawker
Speaker 1: article about UM stuben Ville a year later. I think
Speaker 1: it was UM the town that was torn apart by
Speaker 1: what two people did or something like that. Alright, so
Speaker 1: let's uh, let's take a quick break here and we'll
Speaker 1: come back and we'll talk about who Anonymous is and uh,
Speaker 1: how you can become a member right after this. Alright,
Speaker 1: So Anonymous is UM. It's tough to define it's stuff
Speaker 1: to pinpoint because they are hiding in plain sight. There's
Speaker 1: not You can't go to anonymous dot com and and
Speaker 1: sign up for their newsletter and buy your mask in
Speaker 1: the in the store and um, say I want to
Speaker 1: become a member, just fill out this application. Uh, it
Speaker 1: doesn't work that way. You should probably not accept applications
Speaker 1: to be a part of anonymous because it's probably a setup. Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1: But there is something called a non news which does
Speaker 1: post information about ops. Uh, you're probably not gonna you're
Speaker 1: not gonna learn too much inside real information as a
Speaker 1: casual Internet browser. No. And it's more like, um, if
Speaker 1: you follow a non news on Twitter, say you may
Speaker 1: like for operation payback. Um, I think they listed like
Speaker 1: the visa site or something and they said fire at will,
Speaker 1: and um, it was a link to the low orbit
Speaker 1: ion cannon and the visa website that you post that
Speaker 1: you r l in and it was a way to
Speaker 1: just get anybody involved in the d D O S thing.
Speaker 1: The problem is is that that's that is that can
Speaker 1: be very dangerous if you're just a casual person downloading
Speaker 1: low or a bit ion canon and you're just doing
Speaker 1: this because you're having fun helping Anonymous and you're not
Speaker 1: covering your trucks in any way, shape or form. In
Speaker 1: the FBI comes and knocks on your door, you may
Speaker 1: be facing several years in jail because they're looking to
Speaker 1: make an example out of you. Absolutely no, you gotta
Speaker 1: do a lot of work in fact to even get
Speaker 1: in there. Uh. And once you find yourself um in
Speaker 1: one of these forums where there's real information being discussed,
Speaker 1: you sort of need to prove your worth uh with
Speaker 1: either ideas or specific skill or knowledge you might have.
Speaker 1: And then you may be invited to participate in one
Speaker 1: way or another as an ANON. And again, even if
Speaker 1: you are at the top of your game at at
Speaker 1: what anybody in the media would think of as like
Speaker 1: a member of Anonymous, like one of the true um,
Speaker 1: the long term members who's done a lot of ops. Um,
Speaker 1: you can still get busted. A guy named Jeremy Hammond
Speaker 1: was busted and got years or some stuff. Named Barrett
Speaker 1: Brown was busted and got five years for some stuff.
Speaker 1: And all again, all of this is just computer crime
Speaker 1: we're talking about. So again, if this is really like
Speaker 1: cranking your case, just there's a there's a lot of
Speaker 1: repercussions to this. Yeah, there's there's a misconception to that.
Speaker 1: UM it is Uh, it's a bunch of brilliant UM
Speaker 1: code writers and hackers. Apparently only about a fifth of
Speaker 1: ANNs or true hackers. UM. Who who said that? Um,
Speaker 1: there's an anthropologist, Gabriella Coleman. Actually, UM, she is an
Speaker 1: expert at Anonymous and has written several books and is
Speaker 1: in that documentary I was talking about. So only a
Speaker 1: fifth or are hackers and the rest are quote geets
Speaker 1: and protesters. But UM, apparently you don't have to be
Speaker 1: some brilliant hacker. They will call on you if you
Speaker 1: have some other skill, if you have good ideas, if
Speaker 1: you're a graphics signer, if you're have if you're a
Speaker 1: good writer, you can help put together a press release,
Speaker 1: if you're a filmmaker and you want to do these
Speaker 1: YouTube videos. There's all sorts of ways that UM, you
Speaker 1: can contribute if you want to contribute and being ANN
Speaker 1: aside from being a coder. UM and the idea that
Speaker 1: they're completely what's put out there is that they have
Speaker 1: no hierarchy whatsoever, that everyone's equal, everyone has equal footing,
Speaker 1: There is no leader whatsoever. UM. It is just this
Speaker 1: big amorphous group of a non's that isn't entirely accurate. Um,
Speaker 1: they may not have a president and vice president per
Speaker 1: se or a treasurer, but um, supposedly they do have uh,
Speaker 1: four or five people who are really good at doing
Speaker 1: what they do. So they sort of take turns emerging
Speaker 1: as the leader of a specific op maybe because then
Speaker 1: the fall of the background in another perhaps and you
Speaker 1: become a leader whether you want to be or not,
Speaker 1: based on your skills as an organizer. Yeah. Um, if
Speaker 1: you are just naturally somebody who can rally the troops,
Speaker 1: then your ops are going to be the most successful
Speaker 1: because you're gonna attract the most people, and um, you're
Speaker 1: going to attract the guy who wants to put out
Speaker 1: like a good video for it. You're gonna get the
Speaker 1: most results. You're gonna get the most information, the biggest
Speaker 1: data dumps. Just naturally, that's how it happens. And people
Speaker 1: follow like, Commander X does it did a really great
Speaker 1: job on that ops, so let's listen and hear what
Speaker 1: he does next, right, But then other people are like, well,
Speaker 1: Commander X, you need to shut your mouth because you
Speaker 1: talk to the media and even though you've been you know,
Speaker 1: in in the hacker culture since the eighties or whatever.
Speaker 1: You Um, you have a loud mouth, and that's not
Speaker 1: cool for this. So on on a message board, he
Speaker 1: could be getting deferential respect. Commander X is a real person,
Speaker 1: by the way, UM, and he could be being called
Speaker 1: opposer at the same time, and both of those comments
Speaker 1: have equal weight on the message board no matter how
Speaker 1: long Commander X has been doing this. Yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of duality with anonymous UM. Some people look at
Speaker 1: him as a as a beacon of light for those
Speaker 1: who don't have a voice. UM. Attorney General UH Eric
Speaker 1: Holder in two thousand thirteen said they are a steadily
Speaker 1: increasing threat to America's economy and national security interests. Uh.
Speaker 1: People uh A, nons will say, you know what, I
Speaker 1: don't say that because we're not We're not stealing money,
Speaker 1: we're not robbing h banks digitally, we're not after financial
Speaker 1: gain at all. UM. We're out to expose people that
Speaker 1: are doing bad things for the most part. And but
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, though, when they're offshoots, there's always
Speaker 1: gonna be bad apples. I guess, yeah, there are. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: for example, the Westboro Baptist Church. They did, um, they doxed.
Speaker 1: It's where you get the person's personal information, home address,
Speaker 1: phone number, all that stuff and post it out to
Speaker 1: the masses. That's tricky and dangerous, it is, but it's
Speaker 1: Fred Phelps, so nobody really shed a tear the problem
Speaker 1: as they also did that the Libby Phelps, who was
Speaker 1: Fred Phelps, his granddaughter who had very publicly distanced herself
Speaker 1: from the church and denounced it and said, I don't
Speaker 1: agree with what my grandfather des ert says. She's still
Speaker 1: got docs out there and my personal information exactly. So
Speaker 1: so yeah, there's a lot of like lull sec is
Speaker 1: another another example they they were They were this group
Speaker 1: I think of like six or seven people, um, who
Speaker 1: carried out what's commonly called fifty Days of Mayhem where
Speaker 1: they just went crazy. They just hit whoever they wanted.
Speaker 1: The Uh. This this business called Magnets dot com got
Speaker 1: hit because they called their customer service reps and asked
Speaker 1: them how magnets work, and the customer service reps couldn't
Speaker 1: tell them, so they launched an operation against them. They
Speaker 1: should have told them listen to our podcast on Max
Speaker 1: totally should have I assume that our podcast probably spurred
Speaker 1: that phone call to begin with. But um, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: there are groups that do this. But then overall, if
Speaker 1: you think about Anonymous, it is they do the ones
Speaker 1: that get the most pressed, the ops they could most press,
Speaker 1: usually have the most moral to mention, it makes Anonymous
Speaker 1: seem the most robin hoodie. Like the Ku Klux Klan dump, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that just happened within the past couple of weeks, and
Speaker 1: they went after the clan and um got doses on
Speaker 1: several hundred members. And I don't think there were any
Speaker 1: huge revelations necessarily, and there there were a few, Okay,
Speaker 1: so there were some. But the point is they went
Speaker 1: after the clan and they basically shined a light on
Speaker 1: the idea that the clan is still very much around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there were also people, I think there was a
Speaker 1: senator or congress person or something that was exposed that
Speaker 1: were like, I have never been involved in the clan.
Speaker 1: So there was there was a separate dump that occurred
Speaker 1: before the actual one that Anonymous came. Because they can
Speaker 1: communicate with the media, they're able to do this and
Speaker 1: they said, that wasn't us, that's not our research. We
Speaker 1: can't vouch for that interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: like I said, that's that's tricky business. When you're exposing people,
Speaker 1: those are real lives. Um, you better make sure you've
Speaker 1: done your homework and you've gotten it right, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. And I think Anonymous thinks they're getting
Speaker 1: it right. Yeah. I think they tend to think that. Sure,
Speaker 1: Like I don't think they're just generally going about their
Speaker 1: business willy nilly because they want to be effective to
Speaker 1: not get a bad rap. They don't want to have
Speaker 1: anything that people can use against them, you know, to
Speaker 1: say like, well look what they did here. They were
Speaker 1: completely wrong. Yeah. At the same time, though, there is
Speaker 1: definitely a thread of you know, appreciating Mayhem for Mayhem's sake,
Speaker 1: and with some people who who work under the anonymous
Speaker 1: banner as well well, which is what you're gonna get
Speaker 1: when you're not a well defined like group with boundaries.
Speaker 1: When you're this a morphous everyone is anonymous type of thing,
Speaker 1: you know you're gonna have that happen. But I think
Speaker 1: it is kind of a pretty astounding that despite no
Speaker 1: central authority whatsoever, it isn't just more like crazy and
Speaker 1: frenetic and just way more Mayhem centric that it actually
Speaker 1: does carry out these ops that do have like repercussions
Speaker 1: that the average person can look at and say, I
Speaker 1: kind of agree with that, Like I agree with the
Speaker 1: outcome of this. I think somebody got there due who
Speaker 1: had it coming anything else I do. There's one last thing,
Speaker 1: so that the name anonymous came from four Chan. If
Speaker 1: you log into four chan, you can post anonymously, like
Speaker 1: you said I think early on. The whole reason why
Speaker 1: it's because that just helps the keep people from self
Speaker 1: censoring because you're posting anonymously. But then the this joke
Speaker 1: kind of developed on four Chan that Anonymous all these
Speaker 1: people with the thing that the anonymous handle, we're really
Speaker 1: just one omnipresent person. And that's where the using that
Speaker 1: term for these ops, this group, this collective group came from.
Speaker 1: Did you ever go to Fortune? Did you check it out?
Speaker 1: I've never felt so old than when but even Reddit
Speaker 1: does that to me. I just go to Yeah, read
Speaker 1: it's definitely look like that, and I'm just like I
Speaker 1: don't even know where to look, you know, I feel
Speaker 1: like an old man for sure. Yeah, And I'm like
Speaker 1: I don't understand what this means. I'm sure it's hilarious,
Speaker 1: but I don't understand it. Some of it's funny on
Speaker 1: its face, for sure, but others just like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: spent a little time on four Chune earlier today just
Speaker 1: sort of looking around and yeah, it's not my bag.
Speaker 1: But people are into it. They definitely are. Yes, Uh,
Speaker 1: you got anything else, dude? No. I thought I enjoyed
Speaker 1: this and I thought it was good. Oh we left
Speaker 1: out the HP Gary thing. What's that? So? So in
Speaker 1: a few years back, this security company named HB Gary.
Speaker 1: The CEO named Aaron Barr came out to the Financial
Speaker 1: Times and said, I've infiltrated Anonymous. I know who all
Speaker 1: the top guys are, and I'm going to the FBI
Speaker 1: with it. So some people in Anonymous, so let's go
Speaker 1: see what this guy's talking about. Cracked into their website,
Speaker 1: found out he was totally full of it, but found
Speaker 1: a presentation that's that had all these dirty tricks for
Speaker 1: undermining Anonymous and wiki leaks and like getting people to
Speaker 1: turn on one another all that. So they're like, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go after this guy because he was He was
Speaker 1: publicly boasting too that he was going to take down Anonymous,
Speaker 1: and that is not a smart thing to do. No,
Speaker 1: And there's actually in that Anonymous UM documentary. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: some hilarious clips from Stephen Colbert explaining what this guy
Speaker 1: did and equated it too. He put his penis into
Speaker 1: a hornet's nest and this is gonna turn out about
Speaker 1: the same way and it did physical reaction. Yeah. Image,
Speaker 1: So the guy the CEO ends up stepping down a
Speaker 1: CEO and like drops out of public. They totally just
Speaker 1: really got the guy and and really I think they Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was that was a dumb thing to do on
Speaker 1: his part, But not only was it dumb for him personally,
Speaker 1: it also gave Anonymous a really great opportunity to show
Speaker 1: just how you don't mess with Anonymous. You know, that
Speaker 1: was it. That's Anonymous. If you want to know more, seriously,
Speaker 1: go check out that UM. Well, every documentary you can
Speaker 1: see that's over an hour and a half long is
Speaker 1: probably pretty good. And then also there's this UM there's
Speaker 1: a presy by a person named Choi Ju Hook called
Speaker 1: Copy of Anonymous, which is a really great basic explainer
Speaker 1: on Anonymous and how it works and functions. By it
Speaker 1: sounds like somebody who's at least hung out with members
Speaker 1: if if isn't one himself for herself, I bet you
Speaker 1: you've hung out with a member of Anonymous. We may
Speaker 1: have one or two in this office. You never know
Speaker 1: my bunnies on Ben Bowlin sure stuff, but he's such
Speaker 1: an obvious choice. It's got to be somebody wouldn't think
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know? Yeah, Like is it you, Chuck?
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's like it's a Holly from stuff you
Speaker 1: mis't right, Yeah, she loves star wars and activists. If
Speaker 1: you want to know more about Anonymous, also, you can
Speaker 1: go type that word into the search part how stuffworks
Speaker 1: dot com instance, they said search parts time for listener mail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and speaking of mail, if you are an Anonymous member,
Speaker 1: right us because I want to know something. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm gonna buy it though somebody's like, I'm
Speaker 1: an Anonymous dear Josh and Chuck. Yeah, love Arey from
Speaker 1: Gary Jones at No. But if I get some weird
Speaker 1: and cryptic thing, uh, I don't know. I think we'll
Speaker 1: mem what if we like posted video to YouTube and
Speaker 1: be awesome unless it's saying like we're coming after you
Speaker 1: guys know, did we do a good job? Um? All
Speaker 1: right listener mail, what is this? Um, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: call it from an English listener. Hey, guys, I'm just
Speaker 1: an eighteen year old from the UK, but you have
Speaker 1: my most sincere congratulations for running the bets podcast out there.
Speaker 1: And I've listened to Cereal right. Your flowing conversation style
Speaker 1: works so well and it's always a pleasure listening to you. Uh.
Speaker 1: And you guys have to compete with British radio voices,
Speaker 1: so that's saying something. It really is because they are class.
Speaker 1: Having burned through eight hundred two episodes and seven months,
Speaker 1: I finally ended in a wonderful, spooky spectacular. You have
Speaker 1: been there with me through break up, six flights, eight
Speaker 1: long distance trains, three A levels, which is some sort
Speaker 1: of education thing in England. Oh, I think that's um
Speaker 1: like exams finals, four new jobs, one bite crash, one
Speaker 1: results day. All of this in six months, uh, seven months,
Speaker 1: an InterRail trip around Europe and a very lonely night
Speaker 1: in Brighton train station. Four jobs in seven months? Is
Speaker 1: this guy? Hit man? You have four new jobs? Huh? Interesting?
Speaker 1: It's been a crazy time in my life, sounds like it,
Speaker 1: and you've been the constant that's kept me saying so big,
Speaker 1: thanks to all of you. That's awesome. I show no favoritism.
Speaker 1: You've made it, Barrel, I think you're saying, like between us, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you run an awesome podcast. Keep it up, look forward
Speaker 1: to the next eight hundred. Do you have one question?
Speaker 1: Do you guys get along when the mic is off?
Speaker 1: Fantastic chemistry and I've always wondered if it overcomes from
Speaker 1: your friendship or if you two are just the most
Speaker 1: professional people ever. I've gone on too long. All the best,
Speaker 1: Hector Leech Clay. Thanks. Oh that's a British name. Uh,
Speaker 1: you guys better come to the UK for a live show.
Speaker 1: We are yes, and of course we get along off
Speaker 1: the air. We would not you've seen our TV show.
Speaker 1: You know we're not actors. We would not be able
Speaker 1: to take our way through this. Check has been gazing
Speaker 1: into my eyes this whole episode. Yeah, if it was
Speaker 1: this not some Sunshine Boys situation? Was that? Um? Is
Speaker 1: that George Burns? Just feel google at people Sunshine Boys.
Speaker 1: That'll it'll all become clear. Nice good reference. Thanks Hector
Speaker 1: Leech Clay Esquire the third Yeah, or he's Hector Leech
Speaker 1: from Clay. I don't know it's Clay at place? Is
Speaker 1: it Leech hyphen clay because that would be his last name,
Speaker 1: but that they know, they do that a lot over there,
Speaker 1: big on that. Yeah, um, well thanks a lot, Hector.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that, and thank you for not playing flavors.
Speaker 1: Isn't that the ideal human somebody who appreciates us both equally? Sure?
Speaker 1: Sure so um. If you want to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us, you can tweet to us at s y
Speaker 1: s K podcast tweet. You can join us on Facebook,
Speaker 1: dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, book book, You
Speaker 1: can send us an email to Stuff Podcast, us to
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com type type, and as always,
Speaker 1: joined us at at home on the web Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands
Speaker 1: of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: Yah