We should have expected Anonymous.
New Alternate Timeline
If you’ve been feeling like we’ve shifted into a more bizarre version of reality, you’re not alone. A quick scroll through Twitter will show that the strange events this year cause people to believe we may have entered an alternate timeline.
It really feels like the Universe hit us with an alternate timeline after Kobe died. Shit ain’t been the same since.
— 🇩🇪 Blankito 🇩🇴 (@TuBlankito_) May 30, 2020
So burning cars, chaos, and Donald trump as president… this is absolutely the alternate timeline from Back to the Future 2. Really hoping Marty and Doc find the sports almanac soon.
— Tony Gines (@TGines) May 31, 2020
we’re officially in an alternate timeline https://t.co/zsxessp3l9
— nessy nes (@ignorenesta) May 31, 2020
Enter Anonymous
We’ve been seeing crazier and crazier events unfold online, almost too many to be probable. The green and black flickering media you saw on Twitter yesterday may not have helped this perception either:
This is the worst thing to come out of the apocalypse. pic.twitter.com/vtbxEjJo3v
— adezero 😷 (@adezero3) May 31, 2020
Yes, the “online collective known as Anonymous” is attempting to re-emerge as a force against police brutality in 2020.
The video features the traditional Guy Fawkes mask-wearing entity in a hoodie. In the message, they describe themselves as hacker-men who will “hack bad people”. They talk about an oppressive regime (the police), who are using their position of power to oppress, not protect citizens.
The masked individual states that justice will not likely be carried out for George Floyd, nor for others who have suffered fatally at the hands of police. Due to this abuse of power, Anonymous plans to expose “many crimes to the world” committed by law enforcement, presumably through doxing and hacking.
Others are not so sure…
If anon do get involved in this it will not accomplish anything. They’ll dox a few people, DDoS some sites, get arrested by the FBI and then snitch on one another to save their own ass.
— The Oddguy (@EZPZisback) May 31, 2020
Brief History of Anonymous
For those unfamiliar with the Anonymous history, they were born inside the popular cesspit known as 4chan’s /b/ in the early 2000s. Anon became known early on for raiding online networks such as Habbo Hotel, using identical black avatars to block the pool and preventing other users from entering. They even arranged their avatars into a large swastika during one of the raids.
These antics intertwined Anonymous with trolling-culture communities like Encyclopedia Dramatica and Lulzsec.
Eventually, Anonymous moved away from edgy memeing and became associated with hacktivism. This shift notably began with “Project Chanology”, which targeted the Church of Scientology. Following a copyright battle by the church against Gawker, massive amounts of 4chan users calling themselves “Anonymous” retaliated against the Church of Scientology. They mostly carried this out with office pranks and DDoS/LOIC attacks against the church’s websites.
Later, Anons became synonymous with the Occupy movement. They also targeted and took down darknet services that hosted child pornography.
After years of protesting and taking down “bad people”, however, Anonymous eventually imploded. Hackers began snitching on one another. A notorious example of an Anonymous snitch was Hector Xavier Monsegur aka Sabu. Sabu was a Lulzsec hacker who became an informant for the FBI when faced with over 100 years in prison. He aided the feds in identifying other LulzSec members, which ultimately led to what’s been called the death of Anonymous.
The Comeback
Yet this new Anonymous video has garnered over 20 million views on Twitter. In our strange new timeline, will Anonymous make a comeback?
I think many of us hope not.
There’s no such thing as the “real Anonymous” though. It’s not like it’s some elite hacker gang. It’s literally just people on the Internet who decide to collectively mess with a specific target. Anyone who identifies themselves as an Anon is just a LARPer seeking attention.
— Spencer (@Sjhonaker) May 31, 2020
#OpNewBlood engaged
1. Never use a VPN
2. Buy laser pointers to keep by your computer. When you are told to “fire up your lasers” turn them on.
3. Click on all hyperlinks in dm messages
4. Follow @YourAnonNews
5. Get cool patches
6. Trust anyone named Sabu#Anonymous #Legion— An0nym0us HaxOr (@TachyonIsBackOn) May 31, 2020
lol, as if things weren't gay enough already. Here comes anonymous to remind us that yes, this can be much more gayer.
— Allen the magic Goose (@AllenthemagicG1) May 31, 2020
When you realize the real anonymous split in 2010 becoming LulzSec and the GNAA. But who am I to ruin a good larp.
— dark Odin (@darkOdin9) June 1, 2020
A bunch of posers who think they are legion but are just making fools of themselves.
— Kay Turner (@Kay_turner) May 31, 2020
They're co-opted from what they were originally supposed to be… no longer relevant… no longer fighting for what is right…
Fuck em.
— Max Hall (@facelessmax) May 31, 2020
Update: Gabriella Coleman, an author that focuses on hacker culture, has made some interesting discoveries about the number of retweets the Anonymous accounts are generating. It appears Kpop accounts are responsible for a lot of the activity:
The insane number of RTs for a number of Anonymous announcements and threats today are unlike anything I’ve seen and struck me as weird. pic.twitter.com/009bUX1axu
— Gabriella “Biella” Coleman (@BiellaColeman) June 1, 2020
Or maybe they are just popular in Korea as there are tons off RT from K-pop accounts
— Gabriella “Biella” Coleman (@BiellaColeman) June 1, 2020
Some of these K-pop accounts are obsessed with BLM. So likely many are not authetnic.
— Gabriella “Biella” Coleman (@BiellaColeman) June 1, 2020
see the follow as one example. pic.twitter.com/9WOuQQQGmw
— Gabriella “Biella” Coleman (@BiellaColeman) June 1, 2020
Why would Kpop accounts take an interest in Anonymous? Could the accounts be hijacked to retweet Anon accounts? Or could someone have possibly paid a Kpop bot farm to do the retweets?
Or perhaps Anon has just caught on with the Stans:
If you read through the thread you will see that there is also some evidence that K-pop, being such a large and influential twitter block, and one that has engaged with protests in Chile and other places, has driven this resurgence simply through their tweets. https://t.co/VhrzBkaqnF
— Gabriella “Biella” Coleman (@BiellaColeman) June 1, 2020