One of the big - but to be expected - problems had always been, that basically every group or individual could don the "Anonymous" label. But yeah, this is in the spirit of the anti-authoritarian hacker identity, that it started out with.
Granted that any time humans wield anonymous power without oversight there will be bad behaviour. When I was younger I took for granted that a key part of the social construct of Anonymous was an ironic awareness of that, hence its suitability for striking back at high-handed enemies of humanity.
Yeah, Scientology is still quite powerful but they were exposed for a lot during that attack.
Plus, this isn't the same group of people. Anonymous was never a set group of hackers or anything, it was a catch all name used back in the day to keep anonymity, and then later on a bunch of edgy dorks decided to pretend they were an actual organization
I spoke out about Scientology and now have unmarked cars/vans outside my house daily (off and on for a year)… I was perma banned from Reddit for speaking my truths… it’s effing terrifying!!! Fuck Reddit and the cesspool they are creating! It’s embarrassing!
Instead of facing black pieces of paper to DOGE, we can just sign their emails up for so many spam mailing lists. So many that legit emails get lost in the chaos
Twitter is working fine, "blackouts" aren't what they used to be. DDOS attacks aren't really hacking, and would barely interrupt services at the level today's "anonymous" has access to.
People claiming to be anonymous hackers very slightly inconvenience whoever's still on Twitter.
I'm no fan of Musk, but something more powerful needs to be done.
Voting. Voting could have been done. I know it sounds trite and overly simplistic, but that's the power We The People have, as set up in the founding of our country. We just have to use it...
How many people sat out in 2024, as everyone politically-engaged screamed that a Trump administration would be bad for the economy, bad for Palestinians, bad for Ukrainians, and bad for America (because it might literally elect a fascist dictator who will enact Project 2025 and refuse to give up their power)? Several thousand? That sounds reasonable, right? Maybe up to hundreds of thousands? Maybe even a million people...? No. 90 million people who were eligible to vote in the presidential election didn't vote by mail, ignored the election drop boxes, and sat at home on Election Day.
That's enough to beat any entrenched political coalition opposed to progress. That's not some "pie in the sky" fantasy, we literally had the numbers to accomplish every single political agenda that actually helps working Americans:
#If "Did Not Vote" was a candidate:
I say this all without an ounce of schadenfreude. I genuinely don't want to hurt the faces of the people who voted for the leopards, not least of all because we all suffer along with them. I will keep shouting this point because we have to do better in the future. Voting isn't always fun, but it's the first and most powerful defense against a wannabe dictator like Trump or Musk. I literally don't care how "not excited" you are about the candidate that doesn't want to tear the US apart, you need to vote, and vote against fascism. That's our only hope going forward...EDIT: Okay, maybe it's not our only hope, but it's where we have to start.
If the computer exists it can theoretically be compromised, it just depends on the resources of the individual or group attempting to compromise it. For example, the US Government created Stuxnet targetting the completely airgapped computers which operated centrifuges in Iran. They created brand new malware, loaded it onto flashdrive and sprinkled said flashdrives near the target, then sat and waited then observed their nuclear refinement centrifuges fail way more rapidly than they should effectively killing their nuclear program
low orbit ion cannon and friends were tools for participating in anon ddos ops back in the day, but it wasn't exactly safe -- without a vpn your isp and other intermediaries can see your traffic, and the host can see your ip address. with a vpn you're in part dosing your vpn, depending on the attack
Wow, good for them. Way to roll in to save the day after the fascists took power. Too bad they didn't do something when it could have made a difference.
Like what? I get wishing things never got to the stage they are at, but what do you wish a bunch of unorganized hackers did earlier? Genuinely curious as I'm not good enough at coding to think of any creative "solutions"
The conspiracy crowd believe that Anonymous are a wing of the FBI/CIA. I wonder how they'll reconcile known persons openly attacking another piece of the government. Probably “something something deep state”