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ISIS’ recent actions have had a global impact, especially the major attack on Paris that killed over a hundred people. There have been various reactions, but the response by the hacktivist group, Anonymous, has especially garnered attention. Anonymous is a hacking collective formed in 2004 with members from around the globe, and their latest target is ISIS. People have mixed feelings about the organization. They are difficult to track and could potentially release inaccurate information doing more harm than good. However, in the fight against ISIS, the people involved with Anonymous are exactly who we need to foil their future plans.

These people come from diverse backgrounds and include expert hackers as well as working professionals who engage in smaller scale online activism. The main issue with Anonymous’ activism is that because it is so quick to release data on specific persons of interest, there are many opportunities for error. The most productive way for Anonymous to operate would be in concert with intelligence agencies like CSIS and the CIA as opposed to freely releasing information to the masses independently.

Anonymous’ hacktivism is comparable to citizen journalism — there is no central power controlling the content that is released to the public, and fact-checking cannot occur until the information is out there. There is a reasonable amount of concern regarding Anonymous’ system of online politicking. Author of Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous, Gabriella Coleman, told CBC in a recent interview that she is very worried about “doxxing,” the practice of determining a person’s real identity and releasing it online. She notes that if anyone were incorrectly named, the ramifications could be disastrous for affected individuals.

While the vast majority of people generally agree that ISIS must be stopped, Anonymous’ methods of doing so can be questionable. For example, two Anonymous members hacked Australian and international government websites from Perth and Sydney in May 2014. They stole personal data, an act that resulted in their arrest. The Anonymous network must remember that just because it is capable of wreaking online havoc, it should still operate within legal boundaries. However, when a network is so extensive and there is no one at the helm of the operations, who is to be held accountable? More importantly, how do we find those involved? While one would like to believe Anonymous to be the Crime Stoppers of the online world, it can be dangerous to give individuals a platform to release highly sensitive and confidential information without considering national security. On the other hand, having a global network of people watching criminal organizations like ISIS also has its benefits.

This past summer, Anonymous affiliate, GhostSec, presented data collected after carefully monitoring ISIS social media accounts to U.S. national security. This intelligence helped prevent a planned attack in Tunisia. In addition, the group provided law enforcement with leads that were considered instrumental in foiling a terror plot in New York this past July. Third party groups like Anonymous have their merits. They are able to focus on smaller things that have far-reaching impacts. For example, Anonymous removed over 5,000 ISIS Twitter accounts recently in hopes of reducing their online presence and stopping the spread of propaganda. This act was the effort of many ordinary people coming together and mass reporting the accounts to Twitter. It is a means to distract, but also to prevent outreach to people abroad who may be susceptible to the misinformed temptations associated with joining ISIS.

Anonymous and online vigilantism have their flaws, but their value should not go unnoticed. We should be thankful for the members of Anonymous who do maintain correspondence with law enforcement because they have been crucial in identifying perpetrators in the past and will likely continue to do so. Rather than condemning a group that generally aims to create positive social change, we should find a way to ensure that they do not operate entirely separately from intelligence agencies in order to establish a systematic way of releasing accurate information to the public.

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Emily Scott
Video Editor

It is easier to be anonymous than it is to be a highly involved student on campus.

Sure, there are hundreds of clubs shaking flyers at you as you walk with your head down through the hallway of MUSC (and if you are in residence the sometimes painfully awkward floor gatherings). If you are lucky enough to be in a small program that you enjoy, you might look forward to seeing recognizable faces in your regular sized lecture rooms, and feel accountable for attendance because you know that your professor actually knows your name.

But for others, after the business of frosh week dies down, after you discover you do not and never will possess the skills to be a varsity athlete, after you don’t need to ask anyone how to get to TSH 120, it is a lot easier to become anonymous.

A typical day consists of snagging a bagel and a coffee from home, or maybe a ready-made Centro breakfast for you residence folk, showing up to an 8:30 a.m. lecture with 300 other people, and sitting in the back so you don’t bother anyone with the sounds of your snacking. An hour in between class means find a spot in the busy student centre (try the third floor) to check each social feed a couple of times before glancing at the essay outline and taking a quick nap. Another coffee sometimes helps too.

After the day of class is done, you could go check out whatever is happening in the atrium, but nah, your bed and an episode of New Girl seems a lot more appetizing. Come Friday, and the world is a better place. Gather the others, drink, go out, come home (or at least to  a house), sleep it off, and repeat until Monday.

It’s not a surprise to me that university is where people find themselves in crisis mode for the first time. Not because you haven’t had to study before, because the culture of university, while busy and exciting to the outside observer, easily fosters a lifestyle of anonymity. If that doesn’t bother you, props to you my friend.

But being anonymous makes it easier to struggle, and not think you need to reach out. It makes it easier to drown in your schoolwork and never bother to ask for help. It is an easy life to get used to, but it is in no way the most appealing.

Let’s not hide in our achievement of being a stranger, or forget that we’re surrounded by thousands of others like us. If you are feeling alone, chances are other people are too. Think about what you loved back in high school, and find the university equivalent. Or find something new to love.

Go out to an event, a club, a meeting. Tell someone if you hate the idea of being alone. If you are an introvert like me, the idea of it can be quite exasperating. It’s a big place, but being anonymous is no way to fill your spot.

Anonymous is responsible for many online attacks, but the members are hiding in plain sight.

Ryan Mallough

Silhouette Staff

In 2008, they targeted the Church of Scientology for Internet censorship after the Church had a video that had been leaked to YouTube removed from the site; in 2009 they helped to launch Anonymous Iran as a support platform for Iranians whose Internet is heavily censored; in 2011 they hacked HBGary Federal, an American security firm; and in February they brought down the Central Intelligence Agency website.

They are Anonymous. They are Legion. They do not forgive. They do not forget. Expect them.

When the Internet became available for public use in the ‘90s, neither governments nor consumers had any idea as to what they had, or what it would become. To date the Internet has allowed its users nearly absolute freedom, and as a result any attempt at regulation is now viewed as a government overstepping its authority. The Internet has become, in the view of its users, the final frontier, a vast, endless space unbound by laws, regulations or government restriction.

Anonymous, and similar “hacktivist” groups, have positioned themselves as the guardians of that freedom, attacking those who would threaten it without prejudice.

But who watches the watchmen?

The recent emergence of over-regulation attempts in the United States (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and Canada (Bill C-31) on the Internet stem from a lack of understanding from the generation in charge. Those who have lived half their lives without it are failing to grasp exactly what the Internet is.

However, just because they have been overzealous in their attempts to protect Internet users does not mean Internet users don’t need protection. Like with any great invention, there are those who seek to use the Internet and the freedom it provides to do harm, and they deal in the most important resource there is: intelligence.

Global leaders, still very much of the baby boomer era, continue to view the world through realist-tinted glasses. It used to be that when you caught someone in your national archives stealing information, they would be labelled as a spy, an agent acting on behalf of a foreign country, states interacting with states. However, this logic no longer applies to the interactions occurring on the state level. There are third party organizations that act independently of states but with the same level of influence. The realist lens cannot cope.

The spy is no longer in the room but thousands of miles away, and answers to no state. So where does Anonymous fit? The most recent label is that of a “cyber-terrorist” organization.

It is difficult to deny that Anonymous and similar hacktivist groups share several characteristics with terrorist organizations. They operate on an internal ideology with its own system of morality. They attack those who conflict with their internal ideology without prejudice, and their attacks are ideologically motivated. They promote their cause through threat and by instilling fear in those who oppose them; and like many modern terrorists organizations, Anonymous claims allegiance to no specific government or nation, but only to their cause – an intangible concept.

There is very little difference in ideologies behind the absolute freedom of Anonymous’ Internet utopia and the Ireland envisioned by the IRA.

Furthermore, while there is no universal definition, the United Kingdom’s Terrorism Act 2000 sets out one of the most comprehensive interpretations of terrorism in use today. Section 1(b) notes that terrorism is “the use of threat that is designed to influence the government or an international governmental organization or to intimidate the public or a section of the public,” adding in Section 1(c) that terrorism is also “the use or threat ... made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious or ideological cause.” Section 2 (d) and (e) add actions that create “a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public” and are “designed seriously to interfere with or seriously disrupt an electronic system.” Under this understanding of terrorism, Anonymous’ 2011 service disruptions actions against Visa in the wake of Wikileaks or their 2012 attack on the Central Intelligence Agency website, as well as their general modus operandi of threatening to publicize sensitive information if their demands are not met, all fall under this definition of terrorism.

Yet Anonymous fails to meet the most integral aspect of terrorist activity: the intent to cause bodily harm or death. In fact, hacktivist organizations, as well as information distributors such as Wikileaks, have so far shown remarkable restraint when it comes to parcelling out the information they have acquired. However, that does not discount the possibility they one day could.

It is often overlooked that these groups elect not to share certain information with the public, either by personal choice or because the information is highly sensitive. That is where hacktivism organizations become threats, both to governments and the public.

In a time where the phrase “knowledge is power” is paramount, these groups are sitting on a powder keg of information, distributed at their will. Equally, if not more dangerous is that anyone who amasses that amount of information will become a target for theft by organizations who would use it to cause harm. Anonymous may not have reached the level of “terrorist threat” yet, but their information acquiring and distribution capabilities, as well as their disdain for anyone who would impose any restriction on their domain, have them well on their way.

They are Anonymous. They are Legion. They do not forgive. They do not forget.

But we’re the ones who will pay for their battles.