We haven’t heard much about rogue internet freedom-fighting group Anonymous lately, but it’s not for lack of effort on the part of those involved. In fact, it looks as though there are more simultaneous “operations” being initiated by Anons than ever before. That, however, is what some are blaming for the lack of impact that those operations have been suffering as of late.
Since the Anonymous rise to media fame at the beginning of this year in response to the group’s defense of Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, membership has increased exponentially. Despite this increased manpower for their trademark DDoS attacks, the lack of structure and increased fragmentation of the group has rendered operations ineffective and frustrated the media that had been providing coverage of Anonymous activities.
“It’s driving the lamescram media crazy. There’s no one to quote — not reliably, anyway. No central HQ. No executive director,” writes Jon Newton of p2pnet. “It’s like trying to drive a nail through mist.”
And just over the past few days, there has been several new operations posted, including the following:
- Operation Sockmonkey ("Use artificial debate between multiple personae to dominate online discussions through exaggeration, false consensus, etc.")
- Operation WakeUp ("Simply Wake Up on March 9th and know, the world is one—think about this on March 9th. We are together on this planet.")
- Operation Icarus ("Attention Brothers: The opportunity to create financial chaos and public unrest and from that, there will be a previously unachieved amount of lulz to be had. Charge your lasers and aim them at the the New York Stock Exchange.")
- Operation Blowback ("The American media has committed many crimes recently, all of them ignored by everyone except for us. We, the people, will not allow this to continue.")
- Operation Shutdown ("On March 4th the US government will shutdown and all nonessential government functions will be put on hold. This gives us a chance to show the world that we are a force to be listened to. This will give us a chance to gain leverage. This will give us an undeniable voice in the world. We must attack while they are weak or they will eventually land a crippling blow.")
Anonymous members themselves are getting so frustrated about the disorganization that they have penned press releases in an attempt to refocus the group’s operations.
"We cannot afford to tackle every opponent that dares to confront us, or to corrupt our numerous societies," said one such press release. "Everyday, there are new operations. Some even in the same exact topic. For the revolutions happening amongst our eastern brethren, there is an operation for each country. This does NOT help gain support. This does NOT make matters simpler. This will only cause more problems than solve them. Anonymous, we should work to consolidate our tactics."
There is evidence, however, that a core group of Anons who were originally responsible for Operation Payback are attempting to regroup and refocus their efforts. They may even be behind the recent BREIN DDoS attacks (that BREIN has blamed on the FTD Usenet community) that have rendered the anti-piracy organization’s website inaccessible much of this week.
Whether Operation Payback can rise above the current noise and regain the momentum it had before and during the peak of the WikiLeaks media coverage, of course, remains to be seen, and will likely be quite a challenge for the Anonymous founders.
