Extremely Lame

Today, it’s been disclosed that Sarah Palin’s personal Yahoo account (not the one she used to conduct official government business) had been hacked by Anonymous.

Sadly, a lot of misinformation is being circulated about just what anonymous is. Hell, even the normally spot on guys on This Week in Tech were confused on it when they discussed Anonymous back in episode 154. Of course, that’s not surprising if they’re getting their information on Anonymous from the New York Times. So, here’s a brief explanation of what is and is not Anonymous that will likely be completely wrong by the time I finish the post.

A bit of history. It all started with the little anime site that could, 4-chan. One of the message boards was /b/, for random images. /b/ is the virtual gutter of the internet, where pictures are tossed about for maximum shock value. /b/ is the purveyor of the vilest of the vile images lurking on the internet, such as tubgirl, goatse, and 2 girls 1 cup. It’s like a rotten.com for the 21st century. Conversely, /b/ is also the origin of pretty much every widespread internet meme out there, such as rickrolling and LOLcats.

Anonymous spawned from this and spreads chaos and Old West justice to those they see fit, both online and in real life. Targets are usually chosen for their schadenfreude potential, often targeting people who they consider as taking the internet way too seriously as they are the ones who are usually prone to drama. Think Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight. “Why so serious?” Anonymous, however, have gone after large groups that have been determined to have done things anathema to them, groups such as the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous are not Democrats, Anonymous are not Republicans. Anonymous are not Libertarians. They are all these things and more. They like to spread chaos and anarchy, but they are by no means anarchists. They are not white hats, they are not black hats. In fact, Anonymous make black hats look like choirboys.

While there is no way of predicting what will incur the wrath of Anonymous, there are a few things which seem to be anathema to /b/ and, by extension, Anonymous. Other than the previously mentioned drama queens and attention whores, Anonymous find things like censorship and digital rights management (copy protection) to be particularly vile. Though they revile things like copy protection, they have been shown to respect intellectual property, particularly when someone uses someone else’s property for their own profit without permission, such as Eric Bauman.

And, because I actually tried to define Anonymous, this entire post has been a display of EPIC FAIL because it’s a concept that’s pretty much beyond definition, particularly from someone on the outside.