We are anonymous inside the hacker world of lulzse

Stephane Fitch, who also introduced me to David Fugate of Launch Books. David has proved himself to be a brilliant and continually
supportive agent who helped me find the best possible publisher in the form of Little, Brown. From the beginning of my relationship with
Little, Brown, I have been impressed with the company’s genuine, solid championing of this book and with the clear and incisive editing by
John Parsley. Given the subject’s intricacies and complexities, its multiple identities and sometimes unreliable storytellers, I can imagine that
We Are Anonymous might have been a troublesome manuscript for some editors, but John did a masterful job of keeping me focused. He
helped me tell the story as clearly as possible, and aided me with just the right amount of editorial intervention.
I must finally acknowledge my wonderful circle of friends and family, whose constant support and encouragement kept me going through
the sometimes ulcer-inducing process of researching and writing this book through most of 2011 and early 2012. Those friends include
Miriam Zaccarelli, Natalie West, Luciana and Elgen Strait, Victor Zaccarelli, Nancy Jubb, Il-Sung Sato, Anthea Dixon, Leila Makki, and
ethical hacker Magnus Webster. My father has been my number one cheerleader for writing this book, while my husband has shown
unbelievable support and patience as I worked my way from idea to proposal to manuscript. Another member of my family who did not
know about the book but has been a guiding light in spite of that fact was my grandmother, who died on the day I finished revising the final
draft of the manuscript and to whom this book is dedicated. Though she was ninety-six years old and hailed from a farming village on a
remote volcanic island in the Azores, I think even she would have found something familiar in the stories that underlie Anonymous and its
adherents. Despite their modern, mysterious world, steeped in jargon and technobabble, I think she might have seen, as I did, that
Anonymous is a very human story.
Timeline
November 5, 1994—In one of the first known acts of hacktivism and cyber disobedience, a group called the Zippies launches a DDoS
attack on U.K. government websites, taking them down for a week starting on Guy Fawkes Day.
1999—The Anti Security movement is spawned, as a post on the anti.security.is website calls to end the full disclosure of known website
vulnerabilities and exploits.
September 29, 2003—Christopher “moot” Poole registers 4chan.net. (It is now 4chan.org.)
March 15, 2006—Jake Brahm, twenty years old, posts fake threats on 4chan about detonating bombs at NFL stadiums; two years later he
is sentenced to six months in prison.
July 12, 2006—Users of 4chan’s /b/ raid Habbo Hotel, a virtual hangout for teens. They join the online game en masse and flood it with
avatars of a black man in a gray suit and an Afro hairstyle, blocking the entrance to the virtual pool and forming swastikas. This spawns the
“pool’s closed” meme.
January 2007—Controversial blogger and radio show host Hal Turner tries and fails to sue 4chan after users on /b/ launch a DDoS attack
on his website.
June 7, 2007—Partyvan’s /i/nsurgency site is founded as an information hub on raids and, later, communications through the
establishment of the Partyvan IRC network.
July 2007—A Fox News affiliate in Los Angeles describes Anonymous as “hackers on steroids” and an “Internet hate machine.”
January 15, 2008—Gawker posts a video of Tom Cruise that the Church of Scientology has been trying to suppress. The church issues a
copyright violation claim against YouTube. In response, an original poster on /b/ calls on 4chan to “do something big” and take down the
official Scientology website. Using a web tool called Gigaloader, /b/ users manage to take down Scientology.org, keeping it down
sporadically until January 25, 2008.
January 21, 2008—A handful of Chanology participants publish a video on YouTube of a robotic voice declaring war on Scientology.
The following day thousands more people join in the IRC channel where Chanology attacks are being discussed.
January 24, 2008—Anonymous launches a bigger assault on Scientology.org, taking the site offline.
February 10, 2008—Anonymous supporters don masks from the film V for Vendetta and hold protests outside Scientology centers in key
cities around the world, such as New York, London, and Dallas, Texas.
Late 2008—Protests and cyber attacks against the Church of Scientology wind down as supporters lose interest in the cause.
January 25, 2010—Anonymous supporter and engineering student Brian Mettenbrink pleads guilty to downloading and using the Web
tool LOIC to attack Scientology as part of Project Chanology and is sentenced to a year in prison.
September 17, 2010—Supporters of Anonymous launch a DDoS attack on Indian software company Aiplex after it admits to launching
its own DDoS attacks on BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay. Anonymous launches several more attacks against copyright companies under the
banner Operation Payback. Supporters collaborate on an array of IRC networks.
October 2010—The FBI starts looking into the Anonymous attacks on copyright companies ahead of what will become a full-blown
international investigation.
November 3, 2010—Anonymous supporters with server resources set up AnonOps IRC, a more stable chat network to host discussions
about Operation Payback and other Anonymous operations.
November 28, 2010—Five newspapers begin publishing U.S. diplomatic cables that have been fed to them exclusively by whistle-blower
organization WikiLeaks. Over the next few days, a hacktivist known as The Jester launches a DDoS attack on WikiLeaks.org, taking it
offline.
December 3, 2010—Online payment giant PayPal announces on its blog that it is cutting off funding services to WikiLeaks, which relies
on donations. Shortly thereafter, a few organizers in the #command channel on AnonOps IRC coordinate a DDoS attack on the PayPal blog.
December 4, 2010—An announcement posted on Anonops.net states that Anonymous plans to attack “various targets related to