Anonymous and Other Hacktivism Groups

Anonymous is a pretty well know hacktivism group, generally identified by the Guy Fawkes mask, which popularized in the movie/graphic novel 'V for Vendetta'. Recently, a "member" of Anonymous leaked the video and images that lead to the Steubenville rapists being brought to trial. While the rapists received two years, the member of the group who leaked the information may face up to ten.

Another recently event was when two members of Anonymous were supposedly kidnapped by cartel members in Mexico, a [then] member threatened to release the names and address of seventy cartel members and their families. According to the story, the kidnap victims were released, though some people believe the entire thing was fabricated. However, the member of Anonymous is currently facing up to 100 years in prison.

Hacktivism is general vigilante style work that can be as simple as taking over a website (like Anonymous has done with the Westboro Baptist Church), knocking out government websites, or accessing information and distributing it with intent of creating a reaction (like the in the case of Steubenville).

According to Anonymous, anyone can be a "member", but Anonymous is an idea, not a group. A lot of the masks were seen at Occupy protests a few years ago.

Their tag phrase is as follows:

"We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."

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What do you think of this sort of hacktivism, group, or vigilante effort?

I honestly can't say I don't think it works a lot of the time. I think it's sick that rapists get less time than the man who brought them to trial. I think a lot of times the members are brave. But a lot of the time they post things that make me angry on their websites.

We freak out when police obtain evidence illegally, but if its some schmuck on the internet, everyone is outraged when they get in trouble. I think it's ridiculous- a crime is a crime regardless of what the outcome is. If you illegally violate someones privacy- citizen or criminal- you deserve to be punished. Criminals (or the accused) have rights to a fair and just trial, and these hackers are poking more holes in an already shaky justice system.

The fact that rape isn't justly punished in this country is a completely separate issue. Rape being bad doesn't make privacy violations acceptable.

@ Kurtni
I think police should be held to a higher standard than the average citizen. But I think if the police refuse to do their job, then citizens are obligated to protest and do it for them.

I'm talking about getting evidence or information, not carrying out death sentences. I think vigilante violence is different than vigilante detective work.

I agree with Kurtni, one crime does not justify the other.

Here in Portugal, Anonymous members released private documents from polititians in hopes that the people would wake up to the corruption going on in my country. But the people KNOW, they're just powerless.

I actually support hacktivism. In the 2012 presidential elections in Mexico there was electoral fraud; of course government agencies tried to cover it up by deleting information from online databases and buying their way through people so they would ignore it; however, thanks to Anonymous Mexico, we managed to get the elections databases in which it showed how skewed they were (we ended up with 98% of votes to the current elected president and in the totals there was a 180%, shows how stupid the ones doing the fraud where); they also managed to pull through databases with the money from presidential campaings and in what they were used with, bribes being crystal clear since they bought people with... food. They bought them food that would last for a month and they did this to gift cards to a particular major store; photos were also leaked from officials who burned down urns with votes in there to destroy evidence of the fraud, but there were people stupid enough to take pictures of it and these guys managed to pull them.

This is the reason why I support hacktivism, because, yes, through civil disobedience we managed to put forth the corruption of the government. We are still struggling and being involved in trying to take this government down (#yosoy132 and Pacto por Juarez being of the main ones) and it is all thanks to this group who made everything public.