There has been a sharp increase in hacktivism in recent years. In most cases this is the work of Anonymous.
Hacktivism
Hacktivism is a compound word. It consists of the words hacking and activism. Activists are people who oppose the policies of a government or organization. In the past, they took to the streets to resist, but today activists use the same methods as hackers. Hackers penetrate computer systems to steal data. With this they try to substantiate their statement.
Anonymous
Anonymous is a hacker collective with followers all over the world. There are several small groups that adhere to the ideas of this organization. The ideas are very broad. People are opposing the monopolies of large companies, the government’s intrusion into people’s privacy, and the stamp that the government will leave on all kinds of aspects of daily life. There has been an increase in hacktivism in recent years. In most cases this is the work of Anonymous.
Method
Anonymous mainly attacks governments and large, well-secured companies. She thinks that humanity would make enormous progress if all the information and progress made in the world were freely distributed among everyone. But, in contrast, governments and large companies keep all information under lock and key. Anonymous must therefore take the illegal path. To do this, members break into servers, remove the information and make it freely accessible. They try to do this without leaving traces of their own identity because this is still illegal and punishable. Hackers risk up to five years in prison and fines of up to 200,000 euros. The members of Anonymous therefore prefer to keep their identities secret, but they can contact each other via encrypted chat channels. They usually don’t know each other by name, but they keep in touch a lot through these chat channels. Anonymous shuts down their opponents’ computers by overloading them. The principle is simple: if computers connect en masse to a website, the website can no longer cope and goes down. They don’t necessarily have to go to the sites themselves. They can also use bob net. Bob just created networks of infected computers. The hacker therefore has control over all hacked computers in his bob net. With his army of infected computers, he can take down any website: he does this by having all computers surf to the website at the same time until the website goes down. Anonymous has already attacked hundreds of targets in this way. Anonymous has also taken down many websites in Arab countries. With this, Anonymous wants to support the Arab decision-makers in their fight against oppression in countries such as Libya and Syria. Anonymous has programs that can shut down entire websites.
Some Activities
- Operation Payback
- Wikileaks
- Attack on the pedophile association
- Operation Titstorm
- Westboro Baptist Church
- Anonymous seduction
- Private information disclosure
- ArcelorMittal Belgium
- Operation Blackout
- Retaliation for action against megaupload.com
- Attack on NATO
- Publication list with suspected Twitter pedophiles