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With recent posts about Anonymous taking down some sites and such, I thought I would share an essay I wrote last semester on Cyberterroism. I know it is not the best developed essay, but I hope you get the point. It is worth a read.
CJ
English
Dr. M
October 9, 2011
Terror Without The Bombs
When Americans thought of terrorism, especially after 9/11, they thought of suicide bombers, extreme Islamic Jihad Muslims blowing themselves into pieces at supermarkets. While in the past twenty years this has been the case, it is greatly changing now that America and the rest of the world are in the information and internet age. Terrorists are finding that using the internet as a weapon can be much more destructive than blowing up a bomb in a populated area. Organizations like Anonymous which is a loose group of hackers and WikiLeaks which is a structured website, both contribute to the international data hacking epidemic, and give presence to the term cyberterrorism.
Anonymous, a group of hackers who prefer to be labeled as “hacktivists,” are one such cyberterrorist group. Anonymous has had the spotlight in recent years as threats, both carried out and not, have come from this seemingly illusive organization. While Anonymous does not view themselves as a cyberterrorist organization, simply as liberators holding corporations liable for their actions, it can easily be debated that they are nothing but cyberterrorists and should be dealt with and tried as such. Although cyberterrorism has been defined for years, it has not received the attention it should have until recently. With hacking groups like Anonymous and Lulz carrying out attacks that have received global attention and large backers with copious amounts of funding like WikiLeaks; cyberterrorism is now something that Americans, along with the rest of the world, have acknowledged as a rising issue. What exactly is Anonymous? Where did they come from and how are they organized? Is Anonymous a terrorist group, or are they hacktivists, taking on the man and in the same category as America’s valiant leader George Washington? What is the backbone of the cyberterrorism/cyberliberation? Although it is near impossible to give definite answers to these questions, strong personal opinions can be made.
Three years ago the hacking group Anonymous was almost unheard of in the public media. Today, the group is in articles almost weekly and has the attention of the nation. Anonymous, which are a self-proclaimed hacktivists group, (meaning they hack for the justification of something) emerged out of the ******* area of the internet called 4chan.org forums, more specifically the /b section of the forums (/b referring to the section of the forum where random posts are allowed). 4chan forums is a huge picture forum where users can post what they please, which is often very controversial and illegal. When a user post’s or replies on 4chan, they do not need to create an account or log in. A user simply posts what they please and the post will have the username “anonymous,” just like every other 4chan user. This is where Anonymous coined their name, striving to achieve global and domestic goals online without revealing their masked identity (Olsen). Although there is not a specific website or headquarters at least not that are publically known, Anonymous members communicate by posting on internet boards. For instance I remember a specific occurrence where Anonymous threatened to take down the blog site Tumblr. The 4Chan website was covered in forum post and threads starting they would bring down the popular photo-blogging website Tumblr in two days, which actually ended up happening. I could not log onto my Tumblr account for a day. Since there is no official structure or leader, attacks like these must be carried out by the integrity of the Anonymous population to work together, even though minimal face-to-face communication occurs. Incredibly, the dedication Anonymous members have has shown in the past years with large organizations and governments being attacked, and occasionally successfully shut down for a period of time. Although the members claim their attacks are to help stop corruption and censorship, I feel the overall goal of the loosely organized group is sometimes overlooked by the idea of fame and media attention. With Anonymous role model WikiLeaks receiving so much attention, Anonymous is getting the followers they need to carry out even more attacks as they see fit.
While Anonymous claims to be hacktivists and claim that all their attacks are justified to help battle censorship and keep corporations and governments in check, the title of cyberterrorism is also associated when them. According to Dictonary.com, cyberterrorism can be defined as the illegal use of computers and the internet to achieve some goal. It is obvious that this is what Anonymous is doing. The use of DDos (Denial-of-Service) attacks on servers for the purpose of bringing downtime, or the hacking of government classified documents to be released publically are both illegal uses of a computer. The problem with the term terrorist is that people tend to think of physical violence and damage, but that is not always the case. Do these viral attacks deserve the title of terrorism, or liberation and justification; truly being hacktivists? Although this is more opinion based, there is evidence to support both claims, and a small conclusion could possibly be made, which in my case, leans more towards the terrorism and lesson on the Anonymous ideas of liberation.
In recent news, Anonymous has taken responsibility for taking down over 70 law enforcement websites throughout America, and releasing it via a 10GB BitTorrent file, making these documents publically available worldwide. These files contained informant tips, sensitive personal information and email addresses, along with detailed information on law enforcement officers. The “justification” for this action is given in a release note from Anonymous, which said, "a massive amount of confidential information that is sure to [embarrass], discredit and incriminate police officers across the US'' (Magee). This is undoubtedly cyberterrorism, and if it were possible, each hacker should be punished as a terrorist; yet it is difficult to arrest these hackers due to Anonymous’ knowledge of computer. If they are able to hack countless corporations and governments, they can make themselves a challenge to trace. The countless lives that are now put in danger due to the publication of these documents are in the thousands. Any “greater good” argument is futile in my opinion, and the full title of terrorists should be applied to these “hacktivists”. Another example is the attack called Operation: Payback or Operation: Payback Is A ***** which started on December 7th, 2010. This is where MasterCard and PayPal, along with the Swiss Bank Post Finance, froze all payments that would go to the organization called WikiLeaks, which is a website dedicated to releasing sensitive and confidential documents and videos to the public. 17 hours after this DDos assault was launched, MasterCard confirmed their site was temporarily unavailable due to these attacks, followed by PayPal and Visa (Brian). While I agree these companies should not have frozen donations to WikiLeaks, even if the use of the money might be unethical, there is no justification for making these sites unavailable for the millions who depend on them for their finances and income. While Anonymous saw these two attacks as destroying censorship, I see it as terrorism.
Although WikiLeaks is an entire different entity than Anonymous; it is the backbone of the cyberterrorist/cyberliberation culture. WikiLeaks has been attacked by the press and governments for the past few years as being a terrorist group, and attempts to arrest the Swedish founder Julian Assange has been anything but successful. WikiLeaks is a website that publishes documents hacked from governments which contain censored and classified information. Such examples include the Iraq and Afghanistan war journal entries, and a video from a US military helicopter mowing down dozens of Iraqis’ because a target was among them. While WikiLeaks does release documents that could jeopardize the safety of the US military, it does keep the United States in check to the people, and gives citizens information about the two wars we funded that the government does not want us to know. In a sit down interview with Assange, he is quoted saying, “you could call it the ecosystem of corruption,” referring to the bank which he plans to release thousands of internal documents. These documents will provide evidence that a major American bank will find itself turned inside out, claims Assange (Greenberg). The documents will expose the financial firm’s secrets, so anyone can view them as they please. It is dumps of data like the two given above that keeps the battle of WikiLeaks alive, and with WikiLeaks receiving support from hacking groups such as Anonymous, it is going to be a long time until the dust settles, and one side claims victory, or even better, moral justice.
Anonymous cyberterrorist group will continue to grasp more power across the global internet web if international recognition for the dangers of such organizations is not met with force and justification. This is something that is effecting entities all over the globe, since most of the war documents are containing information not just on the United States, but on other NATO countries. Anonymous must also realize that what their idea of the greater good is might not be accurate and that what they feel as their right to do could be causing catastrophic damage to thousands of people, possibly millions in the perfect storm scenario. With huge nationally recognized entities like WikiLeaks backing Anonymous, both will have to be tackled before these terrorist acts will cease to threaten our national security.
Works Cited
Brian, Matt. "Anonymous’ Operation : Payback Campaign Defends Wikileaks, Downs MasterCard Website - The Next Web." The Next Web - International Technology News, Business & Culture. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. <http://thenextweb.com/media/2010/12/08/anonymous-operationpayback-campaign-defends-wikileaks-downs-mastercard-website/>.
Greenberg, Andy. "WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Wants To Spill Your Corporate Secrets - Forbes." Information for the World's Business Leaders - Forbes.com. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/wikileaks-julian-assange-wants-to-spill-your-corporate-secrets/>.
Magee, David. "Anonymous Takes on BART: Is Hacking Group Cyber Terrorists? - International Business Times." International Business News, Financial News, Market News, Politics, Forex, Commodities - International Business Times - IBTimes.com. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. <http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/198174/20110815/anonymous-bart-hacking-facebook.htm>.
Olson, Parmy. "Anonymous Speaks." Forbes 187.2 (2011): 38. Print.
Sharp, Adam. "A Brief History of Anonymous' Hacktivism." Bearish Market News | By Adam Sharp. Web. 13 Oct. 2011. <http://www.bearishnews.com/post/3624>.
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