We Are Legion: The Story of the Hacktivists (2012)

1. It was 6:00 in the morning.

2. I got a knock on my door... a

3. really loud knock... and I

4. thought it was my dad, who had

5. locked himself out or something.

6. So I opened it, and it's the.

7. I.e.d. Flashlights and the

8. really obnoxious bullet-proof

9. vest and the dragging me out

10. into the cold when I'm in my

11. pajamas.

12. That was not fun.

13. They seemed pretty shocked by

14. the sarcastic, belligerent,

15. angry teenager that they dragged

16. out of bed that day.

17. I don't know if it's just that I

18. was 19 or that I was a girl, but

19. they didn't expect... This.

20. 10,000 angry kids... whoever

21. they are, they scared the shit

22. out of some people those days.

23. They scared the shit out of the

24. powers that be, and that's why

25. this is being investigated.

26. That's why I'm under

27. indictment.

28. That's it, because between the

29. days of December 6th and

30. December 10th, 10,000 angry

31. people proved to the government

32. that their regulations, their

33. ideas, their view of PayPal,

34. their view of wikileaks, their

35. view of the Afghan war, and

36. Egypt and Tunisia and Libya...

37. It didn't... Matter.

38. Their opinion no longer mattered

39. because someone was out on the

40. Internet kicking ass.

41. The computer hacker group

42. anonymous is claiming tonight

43. that it took down the website of

44. the federal appeals court in

45. San Francisco this afternoon.

46. They took down senate. Gov

47. servers, they've taken down

48. hbgary, Sony's claiming they did

49. $150 million worth of damage.

50. So many confidential files

51. that tonight, because of these

52. hackers, can be in the hands of

53. anyone.

54. Visa, mastercard, the PayPal

55. situation.

56. The criminals who hacked into

57. Sarah Palin's private e-mail.

58. The church of scientology

59. says anonymous is a

60. cyber-terrorist group of

61. religious bigots.

62. Anonymous and this other

63. group called lulzsec... they

64. seem to be wanting to prove a

65. point.

66. Anonymous kind of was like

67. the big, strong, buff kid who

68. had low self-esteem, and then

69. all of a sudden, punched

70. somebody in the face and was

71. like, "holy shit, I'm really"

72. strong!"

73. And anonymous calls itself "the"

74. "final boss of the Internet," and

75. sometimes if proves to be

76. really fucking true.

77. If you are going to violate the

78. freedoms of the Internet, you

79. certainly better watch the fuck

80. out.

81. They are kind of the rude

82. boys of activism.

83. There's a real rough edge to

84. them, which I think also is one

85. reason why they garner so much

86. love and hate from people, too.

87. They represent a certain sort of

88. chaotic freedom.

89. Individual, young, nameless,

90. faceless folks are having

91. geopolitical impact.

92. I mean, it's both exhilarating

93. to realize that and terrifying

94. to realize that.

95. It kind of depends on how that

96. power is wielded.

97. We are legion.

98. We do not forget.

99. Expect us.

100. We stand for freedom.

101. We stand for freedom of speech,

102. the power of the people, the

103. ability for them to protest

104. against their government, to

105. right wrongs.

106. No censorship, especially online

107. but also in real life.

108. We have members throughout

109. society, in all stratas of it

110. worldwide.

111. Yeah, we have no leadership.

112. It's one voice... it's not

113. individual voices.

114. That's why we don't show our

115. faces, that's why we don't give

116. our names.

117. We're speaking as one.

118. It's a collective.

119. Good timing.

120. I got called a terrorist

121. sympathizer.

122. We've been called kids, we've

123. been called cyber-bullies, we've

124. been called hooligans, and, you

125. know, sometimes those words

126. aren't entirely unfair, but this

127. is a serious political movement.

128. No one in the general public

129. really seems to get it.

130. What they don't seem to get is

131. that the ability for anonymous

132. to be everything and anything is

133. it's power.

134. Anonymous is a series of

135. relationships... hundreds and

136. hundreds of people who are very

137. active in it, and who have

138. varying skill sets, and who have

139. varying issues they want to

140. advance and who are

141. collaborating in different ways

142. each day.

143. They're a little bit like a

144. prism or a kaleidoscope...

145. They're got many different

146. facets and many different sides.

147. Of course, when you spend enough

148. time with them, you start to get

149. a sort of feel or texture that's

150. not just random, right?

151. Yet it's very multifaceted,

152. very rich, which does span from

153. the quite lighthearted to the

154. very, very serious.

155. Bob Dylan had a line in his

156. song, to sing, "to live outside"

157. the law, you must be honest."

158. They might do something which

159. isn't technically correct,

160. maybe it's not legally correct,

161. but they're doing it for

162. purposes that, in their minds at

163. least, are ethical.

164. People who know what they're

165. doing, who share an ethos, who

166. have a commitment to exposing

167. and humiliating "the man," who

168. have a very low tolerance of

169. lies and what they perceive as

170. evil on the part of overweening

171. power structures.

172. They share information, they

173. share tools and techniques, and

174. they are currently having a very

175. good time.

176. They hacker culture, as we

177. know it, really sprang from one

178. place.

179. It was m.I.T., and it was

180. specifically the people in the

181. model-railroad club, the

182. tech-model-railroad club.

183. Hacking originated as

184. humorous pranks when the guys at

185. m.I.t. Put a Volkswagen up on

186. top of the dome of the building,

187. and people woke up and saw the

188. car up there in the morning.

189. Or they measured a bridge by the

190. body lengths of somebody, I

191. would say his name was Brian,

192. and discovered the bridge over

193. the Charles river was

194. 822 Brians.

195. These are funny things.

196. That's where hacking originated,

197. and it migrated into engineering

198. and computer communities.

199. It's witty. It's pranks.

200. Basically, Microsoft and

201. apple both got their entire

202. start off computer crime.

203. Bill Gates stole pretty much all

204. of ms-dos.

205. Steve Jobs... he was creating

206. boxes to defraud the phone

207. company.

208. I always saw hacking as

209. implicitly political.

210. Hackers, whether they're

211. conscious about it or not,

212. whether they're explicit about

213. it or not, make a statement

214. about how we should treat

215. information.

216. And some years after my book

217. came out, one of the people I

218. wrote about, Richard stallman,

219. got very publicly and

220. explicitly political about

221. software.

222. And he believed that software

223. should be free... free as in

224. freedom, not free as in beer, as

225. he put it there.

226. Behind it, whether misguided or

227. not, there's a political

228. impulse.

229. I'm Chris wysopal, former

230. member of the lopht.

231. We don't necessarily say

232. "hacking group" because it makes

233. it sound like we're hacking, so

234. we used to call it

235. "a hacker's think tank."

236. "Hacktivism" was a term coined

237. by a group called

238. "the cult of the dead cow."

239. The lopht had an interesting

240. relationship with

241. the cult of the dead cow.

242. Actually, there were some

243. members that were in both

244. organizations.

245. And we kind of kept, like, the

246. serious security research that

247. they were doing, they would do

248. under the lopht name, and if

249. they were doing some sort of

250. just goofy stunt-like things,

251. they would do it under

252. the cult of the dead cow name,

253. because the cult of the dead cow

254. was really kind of sort of like

255. a propaganda type of

256. organization.

257. They had a guy who was the

258. minister of propaganda.

259. They're kind of merry

260. pranksters, like everything they

261. did was completely over the top.

262. One of the guys there coined the

263. term "hacktivism" because he saw

264. one of the things his group was

265. doing, which he called

266. "hacktivism," was writing

267. software that people in other

268. countries could use to

269. communicate securely, even if

270. their government was spying on

271. them.

272. So the principle was really

273. freedom of expression.

274. It was everyone should have

275. access to the Internet, everyone

276. should be able to communicate

277. and get their message out on the

278. Internet, even more important,

279. in countries where there was

280. repressive regimes that if you

281. said something against the

282. regime, they would come and take

283. you away and you weren't saying

284. it anymore.

285. "Hacktivism" has often meant

286. to designate a form of political

287. activity in which technology

288. assistance is used for

289. human-rights activism.

290. That's kind of the narrow sense

291. of the word.

292. It usually stays within the

293. purview of the law... usually,

294. because by providing

295. technological assistance, you

296. may be breaking a local law,

297. however.

298. And yet, other forms of digital

299. interventions, protest, dissent,

300. disobedience are clearly pushing

301. the boundaries of the law, are

302. seeking to actively break the

303. law in protest, or are just

304. merely transgressive, as well.

305. Just like in traditional

306. activism, it spans the full

307. gamut from sit-ins or pickets to

308. actually spiking trees and

309. pouring sand in the engines of

310. construction vehicles.

311. I mean, there's real sabotage.

312. The same thing does all fall

313. under the "hacktivism" label.

314. There is a spectrum.

315. A good place to start are

316. with what has often been called

317. virtual sit-ins, which use the

318. tactic of a denial of service

319. attack.

320. Denial of service has been

321. around for a long, long time.

322. The equivalent of if you, for

323. some reason, wanted to disrupt a

324. bus service, right?

325. You can hire a thousand extras

326. to all go and line up at the bus

327. station and get on the bus.

328. And so then anyone who was

329. really trying to get on the bus

330. couldn't do it.

331. It's as simple as that... when

332. you stop trying to visit,

333. website goes back up, no

334. permanent damage.

335. And this tactic has been used

336. by a number of different groups.

337. Probably the most famous is the

338. electronic disturbance theater.

339. Another really interesting case

340. happened in Germany where a

341. group of activists got together

342. who wanted to protest the fact

343. that the airline lufthansa...

344. They were using their planes to

345. deport immigrants.

346. And they would take down the

347. site.

348. And, in fact, eventually, the

349. German courts ruled that this

350. could be a legitimate form of

351. protest.

352. This sometimes has strong

353. anarchist flavor to it, as well.

354. It's resistance to authority and

355. those who would impose

356. group-think and group-behavior

357. on the people, which was

358. rightly perceived to be a

359. consequence of the digital

360. revolution as it was used by

361. people in power... to do

362. hacking on behalf of

363. righteousness and to redress the

364. grievances of the world.

365. Lance-lowered Don quixote on his

366. horse, nag though she was,

367. flying at the windmills of

368. modern life.

369. Anonymous grew out of what's

370. know as 4chan.

371. And essentially, this is just a

372. website where people can upload

373. images and you don't actually

374. give your name, it's just sort

375. of anonymous.

376. When you look at 4chan,

377. you're often surprised because

378. it looks like a site from like

379. 1995 or something.

380. The idea is very simple... you

381. post a comment and you post a

382. picture, and you can post under

383. your name or anonymously.

384. And it's separated into boards

385. about particular topics, so

386. there's a topic on anime,

387. there's a topic on weaponry.

388. There's like a 4chan board

389. for origami and you just upload

390. interesting pictures of origami.

391. And then, there was a group

392. called the "/b/ board," which

393. essentially was for, like,

394. anything goes.

395. The first time anybody goes

396. on /b/, it's kind of an instant

397. revulsion, 'cause there's never

398. a time that you go on there

399. where you don't see something

400. horrible.

401. That instantly puts off a lot of

402. people.

403. The idea is post something

404. that can never be unseen.

405. Half of the posts on /b/ are

406. there specifically to make

407. people not want to come back to

408. /b/.

409. Have you ever read

410. "lord of the flies"?

411. 4chan and especially /b/ is

412. "lord of the flies," except some

413. of them aren't 16 anymore.

414. They're just allowed to act 16.

415. It's the most vile,

416. disgusting, and funny thing on

417. the Internet.

418. 4chan was founded by

419. Chris "moot" poole when he was

420. very young, maybe 15, in the

421. early 2000s.

422. He started 4chan because he was

423. a big fan of Japanese animation.

424. Chris "moot" poole's the

425. sweetest kid you've ever met in

426. your life.

427. He's small, and he's, like...

428. He's got these sort of like tiny

429. features, and he runs the most

430. disgusting website in the world.

431. What I think is really

432. intriguing about a community

433. like 4chan is just that it's

434. this open place.

435. As I said, it's raw, it's

436. unfiltered, and sites like it

437. are kind of going the way of the

438. dinosaur right now.

439. They're endangered because we're

440. moving towards social

441. networking.

442. We're moving towards persistent

443. identity.

444. We're moving towards, you know,

445. a lack of privacy, really.

446. The /b/ board... that's the

447. exact opposite of Facebook.

448. Facebook, you're supposed to be

449. who you are and there's sort of

450. one model, which is that you're

451. friends with people, right?

452. In 4chan, you're a totally

453. anonymous nobody.

454. And anonymous speech is... a lot

455. of it's ugly, but not all of it

456. is.

457. It's actually sort of a place

458. where people can be honest.

459. One of the important things

460. about 4chan is to have a thread

461. that really explodes and lasts

462. for a long time.

463. 'Cause if it doesn't, then it

464. disappears... it's a site that's

465. not archived.

466. So it creates conditions for

467. anything that grabs attention,

468. at some level, and so humor and

469. grotesqueness, as a result, are

470. quite good for that.

471. I'd rather just be referred

472. to as anonymous, I guess, in the

473. interviews 'cause I have some

474. docs out on me.

475. You'll see something posted one

476. day, and then a week later it's

477. got 50,000 derivatives of it.

478. A lot of the great Internet

479. memes that we all know and love,

480. you know, lolcats, right, you

481. know, little cats doing funny

482. things and then they have "I can"

483. "has cheezburger," right?

484. All that stuff seems to start in

485. this petri dish that is 4chan,

486. /b/ board.

487. Name any meme from the last

488. about six years, and I'll bet

489. you, either in it's first

490. posting ever was on 4chan, or at

491. least one of it's earliest

492. revisions that became what it

493. was was on 4chan.

494. I can see the food situation

495. is so we'll be on our

496. way.

497. It's basically the best

498. breeding ground for Internet

499. culture, as far as I'm

500. concerned.

501. 4chan is also very known for

502. acts of trolling.

503. For them, it's funny, that

504. people think the Internet is

505. serious business.

506. And if people think the Internet

507. is serious business, it's a

508. troll's job to make their life

509. terrible.

510. The idea of anonymous came

511. initially as a joke.

512. I mean, somebody suggested that,

513. "what if the whole site, what if"

514. 4chan, what if /b/ was just one

515. person, and what if that's just

516. one guy called anonymous sitting

517. somewhere and you're just

518. reading all these posts by one

519. "guy?"

520. And it kind of looked like

521. that, from the outsider's

522. perspective.

523. I mean, there's no way to tell

524. the difference.

525. It might as well be one guy.

526. Fox news did a very famous

527. segment about it.

528. They call themselves

529. "anonymous."

530. They are hackers on steroids,

531. treating the web like a

532. real-life video game... sacking

533. websites, invading MySpace

534. accounts, disrupting innocent

535. people's lives, and if you fight

536. back, watch out.

537. Threats from a gang of

538. computer hackers calling

539. themselves "anonymous."

540. I've had seven different

541. passwords, and they've got them

542. all so far.

543. Anonymous hacked his site and

544. plastered it with gay-sex

545. pictures.

546. His girlfriend left him.

547. She thought that I was

548. cheating on her with guys.

549. As long as I can think back,

550. anonymous has done some pretty

551. off-color things in the name of

552. getting cheap laughs, you know?

553. But, I mean, that's part of the

554. culture.

555. They get what

556. they call "lulz."

557. "Lulz" is a corruption of

558. "lol," which stands for laugh

559. out loud.

560. Anonymous gets big "lulz" from

561. pulling random pranks.

562. For example, messing with online

563. children's games like

564. "habbo hotel."

565. "Habbo hotel" was this online

566. community where you had an

567. avatar and you walked around and

568. talked to other people.

569. It was kind of like an early

570. version of "world of warcraft"

571. or "second life" or any of those

572. virtual worlds.

573. What the people on /bl did was

574. invade "habbo hotel," created

575. thousands of avatars.

576. They all had this one uniform of

577. a black guy with a big afro

578. wearing a black suit.

579. And so there would be thousands

580. of these people... black guys,

581. black suit, huge afro... walking

582. around this world, and they

583. would do things like form a

584. swastika out of themselves.

585. And I think that was a real

586. landmark because it was when

587. they were able to see that they

588. can use their numbers to do

589. something really interesting and

590. really disruptive.

591. Those kids loved that pool.

592. They loved the shit out of their

593. pool.

594. The goal was actually to

595. offend everyone, simply because

596. the idea that we could offend

597. you by drawing a little shape on

598. the screen was stupid to the

599. people involved in it.

600. They were like, "really?"

601. You're gonna get that mad over

602. us doing... just drawing this on

603. the screen?

604. Wow, well, you need to refocus a

605. little on life, 'cause this

606. should not be upsetting you that

607. "much."

608. Barrett brown, I'm the

609. director of project pm and a

610. former operative with anonymous.

611. We were targeting furries, which

612. meant we entered a subculture of

613. people, of course, who a lot of

614. people on 4chan find irritating

615. by virtue of they're being

616. irritating.

617. A furry is someone, generally a

618. male in his 20s, who identifies

619. with animals and often times has

620. sexual attraction to other

621. people dressed as animals.

622. We had furry infiltrators,

623. people trying, you know... we

624. had secret groups.

625. Mine was called the

626. "illuminati/I/illuminati," and

627. our goal was to wreak as much

628. havoc as possible, because it

629. was stupid.

630. There was a point when I

631. otherwise seemed a respectable

632. writer, in 2007, and my first

633. book had come out like that, but

634. I spent my evenings on

635. "second life," that big virtual

636. world riding around in a virtual

637. spaceship with the words

638. "faggory daggory do" written on

639. it, wearing afros, and dropping

640. virtual bombs on little villages

641. and concerts, and waving giant

642. penises around.

643. And that was the most fun time I

644. ever had in my life.

645. All these different

646. organizations online, whether

647. it's 4chan or just any website,

648. there's typically a community

649. aspect to it.

650. This is where people have their

651. social relationships.

652. This is where their friends are.

653. This is where they have a

654. creative outlet.

655. And so all those aspects are

656. going in to groups like

657. anonymous where people feel like

658. they're part of a bigger thing

659. and they're able to express

660. themselves within that group.

661. There were certain words,

662. certain phrases, certain ways

663. people respond to things,

664. certain images that are posted

665. that created a pattern, and that

666. pattern was, I guess, the origin

667. of what is now anonymous.

668. It's like free masons with a

669. sense of humor, in so much that

670. they have this common symbology

671. and one of their chief joys,

672. which is kind of wrapped up in

673. power and secrecy, was the fact

674. that they could recognize each

675. other by referencing these

676. symbols, referencing these

677. phrases... "over 9,000."

678. It's over 9,000!

679. "I lost my iPod,"mudkipz,"

680. anything involving mudkipz.

681. So you have this weird sort of

682. international culture developing

683. with people across the world,

684. wherever they may be.

685. In late '06, and into early

686. '07, there's a bit of a sea

687. change where instead of just

688. posting a bunch of content, or

689. randomly saying, "we're going to"

690. go over to some website and post

691. a bunch of dirty comments

692. "against someone," it becomes a

693. little more organized.

694. Welcome to

695. "the hal Turner show"!

696. They went after a guy named

697. hal Turner.

698. I am being discriminated

699. against because I'm white.

700. Hal Turner was a Neo-Nazi who

701. was big online and had a

702. podcast.

703. I think that the 14th

704. amendment was not ratified

705. properly, and I think,

706. therefore, it is still okay to

707. have negroes as slaves in

708. America.

709. I'm like, "yeah, screw that"

710. racist son of a bitch!

711. "Let's do this," you know?

712. So I joined in, and I made some

713. of the phone calls and I played

714. around on the chat thing on his

715. website and posted in the

716. threads, and whatnot.

717. Who are you?

718. Where you calling from?

719. Hola!

720. This is Pedro! From San Diego!

721. Spic, don't call my radio

722. show anymore, you filthy spic

723. animal!

724. The college that I go to has

725. begun an integration program

726. where they try and purposely

727. lower standards to bring more

728. blacks and "diversify" the

729. campus.

730. And by the end of the next five

731. years, they intend to bring

732. over 9,000.

733. He was just a horribly racist

734. radio personality who seemed to

735. handle it well when you called

736. in.

737. Like, he could handle being

738. berated by anonymous.

739. And that made it very

740. interesting.

741. It made it a bit of a challenge.

742. It wasn't some guy who just

743. either crumbled or stopped

744. answering the phone.

745. It was a guy who would yell

746. back.

747. I don't see really where

748. you're going with this.

749. Where I'm going is I believe

750. Barack Obama is genetically

751. incapable of exercising the

752. power necessary to govern the

753. most complicated nation on

754. earth.

755. That's where I'm going with

756. this.

757. And I think part of the reason

758. he's incapable of doing it is

759. because of racial-genetic

760. inferiority.

761. Is that clear enough for you?

762. No, you changed the subject

763. again.

764. Wait a second, you asked

765. me...

766. Hal Turner wasn't the first

767. actual person that anonymous had

768. caused trouble for, but the

769. circumstances ended up being

770. significant.

771. They ddos'd his website, stuff

772. like that, costing him thousands

773. of dollars in bandwidth fees.

774. And then they ended up

775. getting some real hackers to

776. help them out, like this wasn't

777. sort of pranks.

778. They actually were able to get

779. into hal Turner's private

780. servers and his mail servers and

781. find some interesting e-mails

782. that he was serving as an FBI

783. informant, which if you're a

784. right-wing Neo-Nazi is not a

785. good thing be.

786. And obviously, him being an

787. FBI informant, and also his

788. reaction... his sort of

789. douche-baggy reaction... to the

790. raids damaged his credibility

791. within the white nationalists

792. scene, which is a shame.

793. Hal Turner's gone.

794. He's been prosecuted by the feds

795. for threatening judges.

796. It wasn't supposed to be

797. different, but it ended up being

798. different.

799. People who observe anonymous see

800. this group called anonymous is

801. going after this white

802. nationalist and say, "oh, hey",

803. look, anonymous must be some

804. "kind of activist organization."

805. So, by virtue of those people

806. joining anonymous, anonymous

807. becomes more of an activist

808. organization.

809. What follows is a period of

810. confusion and anger in which the

811. original anonymous people... the

812. sort who want to keep anonymous

813. as this nihilist little

814. ridiculous group... are upset

815. that now the most terrible thing

816. on the Internet is now becoming

817. a force for good all of a

818. sudden.

819. Anonymous has never been

820. about getting media attention or

821. getting all of this attention

822. towards it.

823. I mean, it's a community, a

824. pretty sometimes insular

825. community that just kind of kept

826. to itself, made jokes and made

827. content.

828. But that was, of course, changed

829. completely.

830. It's thrown completely on its

831. head when chanology started.

832. Anonymous began to become

833. less just of a culture, you

834. know, of people who wanted to

835. perform pranks and more of the.

836. Internet's first army.

837. I'm Mike vitale, and my

838. handle's "sethdood."

839. Now, this is January 2008.

840. Anonymous is strong now.

841. You know, we're not a little

842. dinky fucking group anymore.

843. Like, this is, like, millions of

844. people worldwide, and we're

845. watching.

846. And then scientology stepped in

847. with a big target on its chest.

848. A video came out of

849. Tom Cruise.

850. It was supposed to be, like, an

851. internal scientology video

852. talking about secrets of

853. scientology.

854. Being a scientologist, when

855. you drive past an accident, it's

856. not like anyone else.

857. As you drive past, you know you

858. have to do something about it

859. because you know you're the only

860. one that can really help.

861. Talks about "you're the only"

862. one who can stop, you know, bad

863. "things from happening."

864. And so, this is kind of wildly

865. mocked online.

866. It circulated like wildfire.

867. There's nothing

868. parting a wave for me.

869. It's just "whoo!"

870. These people found it

871. humorous and goofy.

872. And the church of scientology

873. went into their legal mode, and

874. they threatened websites with

875. lawsuits if they didn't pull

876. down the video.

877. Instantly, the scientologists

878. post a dmca... digital

879. millennium copyright act.

880. And this is a way that if you

881. own content, you can go to video

882. sites, upload sites and have

883. your content pulled when someone

884. uploads it illegally.

885. Scientology's always at odds

886. with the Internet, always trying

887. to legally bully people out of

888. fucking them over on the

889. Internet.

890. They always did that.

891. And then here they are trying

892. again, but you know what?

893. Anonymous saw that, and they

894. said, "oh, you guys just fucked"

895. around badly.

896. Like, you're trying to censor

897. our Internet.

898. You know, like, are you trying

899. to take a joke away from

900. anonymous?

901. "Like, you don't do that."

902. What these people did, in

903. this case... gregg housh and

904. these other people... was, they

905. decided, you know, "we can"

906. probably harness anonymous in

907. this case and target

908. "scientology."

909. A few anons, a few people on

910. 4chan posted "hey, we should"

911. grab that video and post it on a

912. "few other sites."

913. And I was one of the people in

914. that thread talking about it.

915. We got the original source of

916. the video by reaching out to the

917. person behind the accounts and

918. everything.

919. We start posting it.

920. The surprising thing was how

921. fast they were dmcaing them on

922. every site.

923. It looked to us like they must

924. have direct contact with the

925. lawyers and the team who

926. actually pulls videos at all of

927. these sites.

928. Like, it was... it was minutes

929. and these things were falling

930. down.

931. We're like, "holy crap."

932. That's messed up."

933. What followed was... this is

934. a term called the

935. Barbra Streisand effect... and

936. this video, as they're

937. attempting to suppress it, went

938. everywhere.

939. Like, everywhere you look on the

940. Internet, you were gonna stumble

941. upon this video.

942. Actually, gawker, the site

943. that I work for, was, I think,

944. the first one to put it on the

945. website, and we got in a huge

946. legal battle with scientology,

947. who wanted us to take it down.

948. A guy joins the channel, and

949. he says, "you should all look at"

950. gawker."

951. So, we go over to gawker, and

952. the strangest thing has

953. happened.

954. This big media company had the

955. video up on their front page and

956. basically had a comment

957. underneath of it that stated

958. very clearly that they were sick

959. of this abuse that was going on.

960. That made us think, "what have"

961. we got ourself mixed up in

962. "here?"

963. Scientology is an interesting

964. target, because in some ways,

965. it's the perfect inversion of

966. what geeks and hackers value.

967. At so many different levels...

968. Science fiction, intellectual

969. property, discourses of freedom,

970. science and technology.

971. It's very proprietary.

972. It's closed.

973. And so, in some ways, if you had

974. something like a cultural

975. inversion machine and you stuck

976. geeks and hackers in there,

977. you'd get something that looks a

978. lot like scientology.

979. So it's quite offensive, and

980. there's a real pleasure in

981. attacking your perfect Nemesis.

982. What really kind of dared us

983. and set us off about scientology

984. is specifically the treatment of

985. their critics.

986. Anybody who says anything bad

987. about scientology is

988. automatically some sort of

989. criminal, some sort of crazy

990. person, a drug addict.

991. It's just that kind of

992. mentality, that kind of... like,

993. if anybody says anything bad

994. about you, we're gonna fuck you

995. over in the worst possible way.

996. It's just... it resonated, like,

997. this feeling of disgust within

998. us.

999. That was a big problem.

1000. That was the big problem, the

1001. censorship aspect of it, the

1002. audacity of this cult, this

1003. creepy cult, to go into our

1004. territory and tell us that we

1005. can't post this?

1006. No. Fuck them.

1007. No. It's not gonna happen.

1008. And people who knew what

1009. anonymous was to begin with were

1010. like, "oh, my god."

1011. Anonymous is gonna go to war

1012. with scientology?

1013. This should be really

1014. "interesting."

1015. Especially 'cause it's two

1016. weird-ass groups.

1017. I mean, you know, I've been an

1018. anon for a long fucking time.

1019. I know anonymous is really

1020. strange.

1021. Like, they're weird, and the

1022. stuff we like is weird, and it's

1023. really not mainstream at all.

1024. Now you have scientology... also

1025. really weird.

1026. A lot of crazy shit goes down.

1027. Anybody on the outside who's

1028. seen this is going, "let's watch"

1029. these two retards fight.

1030. Like, both their pants are gonna

1031. fall down.

1032. They're gonna trip, and it's

1033. gonna hurt everybody, and it's

1034. "gonna be hysterical."

1035. And what happened was all these

1036. people who were geared up, the

1037. infrastructure was built to war

1038. with other anons, said, "you"

1039. know what... fuck it.

1040. Everybody's gonna get together

1041. and pound the fuck out of

1042. "scientology."

1043. And then that's when 4chan

1044. kind of reared into action,

1045. really reared into action.

1046. And they started to troll the

1047. church of scientology.

1048. And this took the form of

1049. pranking the dianetics hotline,

1050. ordering pizzas.

1051. Every fax number we get, and

1052. we're sharing them all.

1053. You know, every number we get,

1054. we'd send black pieces of paper

1055. on a loop until it wastes all

1056. their ink.

1057. I go to call them on the phone,

1058. and it's busy, busy, busy.

1059. You know, and that's their main

1060. fucking dianetics hotline, their

1061. dianetics 800-number.

1062. You can't get through because

1063. anons have completely fucking

1064. clogged it and just probably

1065. saying stupid shit.

1066. The whole idea was just you call

1067. them just to keep them on the

1068. phone.

1069. "What's an elrond?

1070. How do I dianetics my face?"

1071. They were not expecting that,

1072. and they couldn't handle it.

1073. I'm Brian mettenbrink.

1074. I always liked anything

1075. technical, mechanical, anything

1076. sciencey, really.

1077. Computers do what you tell them

1078. to.

1079. They don't all of a sudden start

1080. doing weird stuff.

1081. And if they do, it's probably

1082. your fault, and I always like

1083. that, you know.

1084. They're perfect, really, in a

1085. way.

1086. I'd just gone to 4chan just on

1087. pure happenstance, and I saw a

1088. post about the scientology

1089. thing, and I started looking up

1090. stuff.

1091. And I'm like, "oh, this is"

1092. actually for a decent cause.

1093. I think I'll, you know, do

1094. "this."

1095. Anonymous members have

1096. developed a distributed

1097. denial-of-service attack tool

1098. called low-orbit ion Cannon,

1099. which is a name taken from a

1100. computer game.

1101. Low-orbit ion Cannon is

1102. what's called an endgame weapon

1103. in "red alert."

1104. All you had to do was literally

1105. follow instructions step by

1106. step.

1107. I downloaded a program that's

1108. free and legal for anyone to

1109. download and use.

1110. And I followed the instructions,

1111. and I typed in

1112. www.scientology.org, and I

1113. pushed "go."

1114. And what it does is it tells

1115. scientology.org, in this case...

1116. It tells them to send their

1117. website to my computer about, I

1118. think, it was 800,000 times in a

1119. weekend.

1120. And I'm pretty sure I probably

1121. took it down myself a couple of

1122. times.

1123. This tool is low-orbit ion

1124. Cannon, sometimes referred to as

1125. "loic."

1126. I am actually not breaking any

1127. laws by using this tool against

1128. my own computer, 127.0.0.1,

1129. which is a non-routable address.

1130. But, of course, if I were to

1131. have attacked one of those other

1132. bigger sites out there, I would

1133. have severely been breaking the

1134. law and would have been doing it

1135. in a way that was quite easy to

1136. track.

1137. What you do is, you put in the

1138. site.

1139. You see that the I.P. Is

1140. correct.

1141. You make sure that all these

1142. settings are good, and you hit

1143. the button.

1144. And off it goes.

1145. It felt like you were making

1146. a difference, you know, just you

1147. yourself and you didn't even

1148. have to leave your home, you

1149. know?

1150. You just sat at your computer

1151. and followed instructions and

1152. stood up for what you believe

1153. in, so to speak.

1154. You made your say in the world,

1155. and hopefully it turns out

1156. better for it.

1157. And like I said, we need to

1158. make a video.

1159. We have to make a video.

1160. Hello, leaders of

1161. scientology.

1162. We are anonymous.

1163. When the video came out on

1164. January 21st, that was one of

1165. the first times that anonymous

1166. as a culture started referring

1167. to itself as "anonymous," as a

1168. movement and declared that it

1169. was going to take down and

1170. destroy the church of

1171. scientology.

1172. That video probably changed

1173. everything.

1174. Knowledge is free.

1175. We are anonymous. We are legion.

1176. We do not forgive.

1177. We do not forget. Expect us.

1178. It basically looked like if a

1179. computer was going to tell you

1180. that he was gonna beat the shit

1181. out of you, this is what it

1182. would look like.

1183. That one video, it really

1184. galvanized that moment, that

1185. moment of innovation that that's

1186. exactly... like, with that

1187. video, Internet activism, as

1188. it's known today, was born.

1189. What the video was saying

1190. was, "it's over."

1191. You're not going to be able to

1192. follow people back to their

1193. house anymore with impunity.

1194. You're not going to be able to

1195. just issue a cease-and-desist

1196. letter to any reporter who wants

1197. to write some shit about you

1198. that you don't like, you know.

1199. That's done with.

1200. Every time you do that,

1201. anonymous is gonna hit you

1202. "harder."

1203. So, we made a video named

1204. "call to arms."

1205. It said "we're going to the"

1206. streets.

1207. Every major city of the world

1208. "has a scientology building."

1209. Be very wary of the 10th of

1210. February.

1211. Anonymous invites you to join us

1212. in an act of solidarity.

1213. Anonymous invites you to take up

1214. the banner of free speech, of

1215. human rights, of family and

1216. freedom.

1217. Join us in protest outside of

1218. scientology centers worldwide.

1219. And you just see this

1220. consensus forming that it's

1221. going to happen.

1222. So we made the third video, the

1223. "code of conduct."

1224. "Don't bring weapons."

1225. Dress accordingly.

1226. Cover your faces 'cause they

1227. will try and find out who you

1228. "are and screw with your life."

1229. Rule number 17... cover your

1230. face.

1231. This will prevent your

1232. identification from videos taken

1233. by hostiles.

1234. Scientology has a history of

1235. harassing, stalking, and just

1236. doing horrible things to its

1237. critics.

1238. So people needed a way to hide

1239. their identities.

1240. A lot of people had very

1241. legitimate fears.

1242. They don't want to be followed

1243. home.

1244. They don't want to be stalked.

1245. They don't want to put their

1246. families and themselves in

1247. danger.

1248. Everyone was going, "well",

1249. we're gonna wear a mask.

1250. What's the only fucking mask

1251. that we already know or have a

1252. "joke about?"

1253. And it's the guy Fawkes mask.

1254. You see the movie

1255. "v for vendetta."

1256. You know, the ending scene where

1257. everyone's wearing the

1258. guy Fawkes mask, that is very

1259. reminiscent of what anonymous

1260. thinks anonymous is.

1261. We wanted to represent anonymity

1262. in some way when it moved into

1263. real life.

1264. I think that the guy Fawkes mask

1265. was one of the most natural

1266. things to happen.

1267. It is the idea that none of us

1268. are as cruel as all of us.

1269. You have this massive crowd of

1270. people who are anonymous that is

1271. going to fight against a bigger

1272. thing and win.

1273. Even after watching the

1274. videos, like, "yeah, this is"

1275. great, but who's actually gonna

1276. do it?

1277. Who's gonna step up?

1278. Are people actually gonna get

1279. "out of their house?"

1280. Like... and I guess we were

1281. really affected by the

1282. stereotype of that whole

1283. community, being Internet nerds.

1284. They're too afraid to leave

1285. their moms' basements.

1286. I figured maybe 15 nerds from

1287. every city somewhere might show

1288. up and wear their masks at a

1289. building for awhile and leave.

1290. No one thought that they were

1291. gonna come out.

1292. This is me on the way there.

1293. I haven't slept.

1294. I'm very fucking tired.

1295. And I remember going to the park

1296. that day, and it's really

1297. fucking early in the morning,

1298. which I thought was a bad idea.

1299. And I'm smoking a cigarette, and

1300. I'm looking around like, "where"

1301. the fuck is everybody?

1302. "Like, there's nobody here."

1303. So, here I am sitting in

1304. Bryant park.

1305. Waiting for the other anons to

1306. show up.

1307. I remember thinking like, "oh",

1308. fuck.

1309. Like, am I gonna be the only one

1310. in the park?

1311. Am I gonna walk to scientology

1312. with fucking six or seven

1313. people, which totally defeats

1314. the entire purpose of this

1315. because now they could single me

1316. "out?"

1317. You know, then I get up, and I

1318. start walking around, and I see

1319. there's a lot of green balloons

1320. over there for some reason.

1321. On the other side of the park,

1322. there was like fucking 200

1323. people.

1324. There was guy Fawkes masks

1325. everywhere, and I'm like, "holy"

1326. shit, this is huge!"

1327. There's a fucking lot of us.

1328. That's pretty good.

1329. I had no idea how many anons

1330. there were until we started

1331. moving.

1332. Ha ha.

1333. And it just fucking got bigger.

1334. I remember walking through.

1335. Times Square, and everybody in.

1336. Times Square was an anon.

1337. Like, you know, this is, like, a

1338. fucking 1,000-person per, like,

1339. fucking minute foot-traffic

1340. area, and everywhere I'm

1341. looking, I'm seeing fucking anon

1342. symbols.

1343. It was fucking wild.

1344. It was really wild.

1345. [ Crowd chanting

1346. Whoo!

1347. Hell, yeah!

1348. So we start getting numbers

1349. in, and Sydney.

1350. We're thinking that it's going

1351. to be 50 people.

1352. And before 10:00 A.M., before

1353. even time, there's already 50

1354. people there, and there are

1355. still streams of people walking

1356. down the streets.

1357. A couple hours into it, you

1358. know, 'cause I didn't go to bed

1359. until 1:00 in the morning, you

1360. know, you're looking at Sydney

1361. as, "wow, there's 250 people in"

1362. Sydney.

1363. The cops are estimating higher

1364. than that for their reports.

1365. What just happened?

1366. Adelaide, Perth, and Melbourne

1367. happened.

1368. And, you know, over 200 at each

1369. of them.

1370. We nearly broke 1,000 leaving

1371. Australia.

1372. Now, the next protest was.

1373. Tel Aviv, which had actually

1374. gotten its first scientology

1375. building right before this.

1376. There were Palestinians and

1377. Israelis at this protest both

1378. holding their flags.

1379. And at one point, they actually

1380. switched flags and held up each

1381. other's flags and whatnot.

1382. It was awesome to see.

1383. I call our guy in London,

1384. briternon, and I say, "hey",

1385. what's going on there?"

1386. And he's like, "did you just get"

1387. out of bed?"

1388. I said, "yeah, I haven't even"

1389. turned on the computer.

1390. "I just figured I'd call you."

1391. And he said, "we got 600 people"

1392. and the cops are really, really

1393. "mad at me."

1394. All the major cities were

1395. having hundreds of people come

1396. out.

1397. It was massive.

1398. Clearwater had like 300 people.

1399. I don't think anyone beat out.

1400. I.A.

1401. I think I.A. had over 1,000

1402. people.

1403. The thing that happened was

1404. something completely different.

1405. Hundreds and hundreds of people

1406. from every city just swarmed the

1407. streets.

1408. It was kind of overwhelming, a

1409. little even scary, but scary in

1410. a good way.

1411. Soon, you know, we're at

1412. around the 10,000 Mark, you

1413. know, and we were joking the

1414. whole time "over 9,000," you

1415. know, one of those memes.

1416. It was too surreal.

1417. It was not believable.

1418. And you go by what name?

1419. We are anonymous.

1420. It was very empowering,

1421. especially after people saw the

1422. thousands of people showing up.

1423. This was it.

1424. We owned the world at that

1425. point.

1426. You've got lolcats and you've

1427. got rickrolling.

1428. You've got all these other

1429. things that anonymous has been

1430. involved in.

1431. Then, you know, take us a month

1432. later and, you know, 10,000

1433. people were just in the streets

1434. and in every major country in

1435. the world in every major city

1436. in the world and what the hell

1437. just happened?

1438. What changed, you know?

1439. Who flipped the switch?

1440. The world looked very different

1441. to me at that point.

1442. We all met each other.

1443. The idea of an anon is you're

1444. fucking alone until you get to

1445. 4chan, you know, and then these

1446. people think like you, you know.

1447. Then all of a sudden, you're not

1448. alone.

1449. You are with fucking 500 others,

1450. you know.

1451. They all know the same jokes as

1452. you.

1453. They all have... clearly have

1454. similar interests as you.

1455. Here's your culture.

1456. You meet your own people

1457. finally.

1458. [ Crowd chanting

1459. Immediately, you felt like

1460. you were at home.

1461. If you were an anon, you were at

1462. home.

1463. We all, like, spent years in the

1464. same place, looking at the same

1465. pictures, laughing at the same

1466. jokes, and we pretty much were

1467. already friends even though

1468. we've never, every met.

1469. It was very happy.

1470. It's perhaps a little

1471. surprising.

1472. It's not just preteens or

1473. teenagers.

1474. There's a far more even mix of

1475. males and females than you would

1476. imagine otherwise.

1477. Everyone always figured

1478. anonymous was a very male, you

1479. know, thing, but it wasn't like

1480. that at all... at all.

1481. There's some fucking hot girls

1482. come through.

1483. Like, there's some really...

1484. Like, you'd be surprised.

1485. And, you know, there were a

1486. lot of... a lot of, you know,

1487. these so-called guys who weren't

1488. socially good.

1489. They were very awkward.

1490. They still lived at home at

1491. 23... half of them are virgins.

1492. And I'll tell you the amount of

1493. those people who got laid from

1494. these protests happening is in

1495. the thousands... that would not

1496. have, for years probably.

1497. And that's why those protests

1498. were so important.

1499. It was a chance to finally meet

1500. other people that were

1501. previously anonymous and

1502. unknown, and hence it was the

1503. moment of the end of their

1504. anonymity.

1505. Scientology... they kind of

1506. fought back, so to speak.

1507. They posted stuff online.

1508. While claiming they are

1509. peaceful, in less than three

1510. weeks, anonymous members made or

1511. encouraged 8,139 harassing or

1512. threatening phone calls, 3.6

1513. million malicious e-mails, 141

1514. million hits against church

1515. websites, 10 acts of vandalism,

1516. 22 bomb threats, and 8 death

1517. threats against members and

1518. officials of the church of

1519. scientology.

1520. They wanted to find me.

1521. They did. They hired p.I.S.

1522. They started taking pictures

1523. of us, threatening to sue us.

1524. People were getting followed.

1525. People were getting followed

1526. home.

1527. It'd be a regular thing for

1528. someone to say, "oh, I had to..."

1529. I had to lose someone on the

1530. subway.

1531. I saw someone from the

1532. scientology center, and they

1533. "were following me."

1534. They would follow us to our

1535. houses, try to intimidate us,

1536. send us cease-and-desist

1537. letters.

1538. These old tactics that they used

1539. to fight the activism they faced

1540. before the Internet were

1541. completely ineffective against

1542. chanology.

1543. You know, most of the people

1544. who received them actually

1545. framed them and put them on

1546. their wall.

1547. I've seen multiple of them

1548. framed and put on the wall.

1549. Mine's sitting in my closet

1550. somewhere in a box.

1551. I did the whole low-orbit ion

1552. Cannon stuff, and then I pretty

1553. much just went about my life

1554. after that for probably, let's

1555. see, I think it's six months.

1556. And then the FBI showed up here

1557. at my parents' house, where I

1558. wasn't, looking for me.

1559. Two men got out of the car,

1560. and took their jackets off, and

1561. laid their guns on the front

1562. seat, and came up to ask us if

1563. Brian was home, and explained

1564. that they were the FBI and they

1565. were looking for Brian.

1566. And I've never been so scared.

1567. And then my parents directed

1568. them to where I was living, and

1569. they showed up and said, "I'd"

1570. like to have a friendly

1571. "conversation with you."

1572. And I had the worst friendly

1573. conversation of my life.

1574. We sat down at my dining-room

1575. table, and they just started

1576. asking me questions.

1577. And I'm trying to figure out

1578. what they're here for 'cause I

1579. have no idea.

1580. And they eventually started

1581. asking me questions about

1582. anonymous.

1583. I was scared to death.

1584. I mean, my son is... Is looking

1585. at five years in jail and a

1586. $100,000 fine.

1587. You know, I had no idea that

1588. it was any sort of... this big

1589. of a crime to do what I did.

1590. I thought it was the kind of

1591. "slap on a wrist," $200-fine

1592. type crime.

1593. So, I actually told them that I

1594. did it at that point.

1595. Then it went from there.

1596. Yeah.

1597. As he explained it to me at

1598. the time, it was like pushing

1599. the refresh button over and over

1600. and over and over 800,000 times.

1601. And it seems like such a little

1602. thing.

1603. I did the second-most damage

1604. is what scientology said I did.

1605. I sent the second-most out of

1606. everybody so I got the maximum

1607. for my category, which was one

1608. year in prison and one year

1609. supervised release.

1610. I think... you know, the way I

1611. feel is, for what I did... was

1612. one of the most, like, lopsided

1613. punishments I've ever, like,

1614. read about or heard of.

1615. Yeah, I think it's ridiculous,

1616. especially the year supervised

1617. release where I can't touch a

1618. computer for a year.

1619. I'm not sure what that's

1620. supposed to solve, except make

1621. my, like, life difficult.

1622. So, that computer behind me,

1623. back there, I could go back to

1624. prison if I went over and

1625. touched it, because I can't

1626. knowingly associate with members

1627. of anonymous.

1628. They just made a big deal about

1629. scientology as a religion and

1630. that this is America and you can

1631. believe in whatever you want to

1632. believe.

1633. I'm pretty sure they actually

1634. compared me to, like, the kkk

1635. and the Nazis and stuff in the

1636. courtroom.

1637. Yeah, it's... it's a

1638. completely different issue.

1639. I'm very proud of what he did.

1640. He stood up for what he believed

1641. in, but that was never, ever

1642. mentioned.

1643. I never would even dream of

1644. hurting anybody, you know.

1645. It's just... Not me.

1646. Prior to anonymous, critics

1647. of the church still had to be

1648. very, very careful because of

1649. the aggressive lawsuits that

1650. were launched against academics,

1651. journalists, and other critics.

1652. I would say that era is over.

1653. And anonymous more than any

1654. other sort of intervention is

1655. probably responsible for that

1656. change.

1657. This actually caused a decent

1658. rift in anonymous.

1659. There was one big group...

1660. Significant group of people, who

1661. would say, "this chanology"

1662. stuff, it's cancer, it's awful,

1663. it's bad, it's... it's just

1664. bringing attention to us that we

1665. "don't want."

1666. The trolling isn't happening.

1667. We aren't getting our jollies.

1668. Like, now this is all really

1669. serious and moral and somber.

1670. And, like, "well, that's not"

1671. what I signed up for... that

1672. "kind of thing."

1673. And then there are the people

1674. who were on the other side, who

1675. were going, "well, I only signed"

1676. up for the serious and somber.

1677. You guys, go away.

1678. "This is... this is," you know.

1679. And, you know, there became this

1680. very fierce clash of ideologies,

1681. and it was alien to us.

1682. And they decided... in their

1683. own words, which I was privy to,

1684. 'cause it was told to me...

1685. "stop ruining our bad name."

1686. So, to make anonymous look bad,

1687. they go off and they post

1688. animated gifs... animated

1689. images... to epilepsy forums,

1690. that are black and white, just

1691. strobing really quickly, so any

1692. of the epilepsy people on these

1693. support forums see it and they

1694. fall off their chairs, you know,

1695. in seizure.

1696. You start hearing this term,

1697. "moralfag."

1698. If you're not out there making

1699. epileptics have seizures, then

1700. you're doing it wrong...

1701. So, you're a moralfag.

1702. Which is what I am... a

1703. moralfag, those who want to

1704. use anonymous as, you know, a

1705. tool for good in some sense

1706. rather than just doing what we

1707. used to do, which was to screw

1708. with video games.

1709. One anon said it well once.

1710. "There is no leader."

1711. Their ops have... Momentary

1712. "leaders, de facto leaders."

1713. Almost through meritocracy.

1714. There's more respected or more

1715. persistent participants.

1716. Some people participate in a

1717. single operation and are never

1718. heard from again.

1719. It might even be a housewife who

1720. just, you know, agrees with that

1721. political statement or that

1722. protest.

1723. If you had asked me all

1724. throughout 2008 and most of

1725. 2009, "is the politics of"

1726. anonymous always gonna be

1727. sutured and hinged to the church

1728. "of scientology?" I would have

1729. said yes.

1730. And it became unsutured,

1731. unhinged, when a different

1732. political wing was born in 2010.

1733. It's our task to find secret

1734. abusive plans and expose them

1735. where they can be opposed before

1736. they're implemented.

1737. The interesting thing about

1738. someone like assange is that he

1739. actually also sprang from, you

1740. know, a hacker culture.

1741. It's a mentality of spreading

1742. information.

1743. Julian was mendax.

1744. He was the greatest hacker that

1745. ever walked the face of the

1746. earth when I was a kid.

1747. I mean, they rumored he could

1748. move satellites around in space

1749. by hacking into NASA.

1750. I mean, you know, maybe it never

1751. happened but, I mean, you know,

1752. it was a myth that kept young

1753. kids like me wanting to, like,

1754. you know, plug a computer into a

1755. modem and see if I can move some

1756. satellites around.

1757. Wikileaks is an extension of

1758. the hackers ethos... truth wants

1759. to be free, and we want to

1760. liberate it.

1761. Wikileaks released a huge

1762. trove of diplomatic cables.

1763. There was a lot of controversy

1764. from every quarter of society.

1765. The wikileaks website

1766. released nearly 400,000 secret.

1767. U.S. files on the Iraq war late

1768. today.

1769. It was the largest leak of

1770. classified U.S. files in

1771. history.

1772. The diplomatic cables show

1773. the U.S. is spying on its

1774. allies.

1775. Lots of things which were

1776. understood in private and may

1777. have been not even talked about

1778. explicitly... suddenly they're

1779. out there in the cold light of

1780. day, and it's gonna make some

1781. governments and some individuals

1782. very uncomfortable.

1783. There was one particular

1784. moment that really sparked the

1785. fire, and this was when PayPal,

1786. mastercard, and Amazon pulled

1787. services for wikileaks.

1788. So, all of a sudden, there's

1789. no way to actually, like,

1790. process donations to wikileaks.

1791. And then people went and found,

1792. like, Neo-Nazi groups.

1793. Visa and mastercard were

1794. perfectly fine with you being

1795. able to, like, you know, PayPal,

1796. being able to, like, make

1797. donations to them.

1798. But wikileaks... no.

1799. Anonymous very quickly moved

1800. into an attack mode.

1801. Cyber protests, sit-ins...

1802. However you want to look at

1803. it... ddos is a tool that is a

1804. big giant... it's like driving a

1805. finish nail in with a

1806. sledgehammer.

1807. The numbers of participants

1808. were massive... massive.

1809. And they manage over the course

1810. of a couple of days to disable

1811. the websites of mastercard and

1812. PayPal.

1813. It was like watching the hack

1814. magician finally get a trick

1815. right, because you're not

1816. expecting it and then it's

1817. magnificent.

1818. It was beautiful.

1819. 'Cause what you had is people

1820. finding you stood up for

1821. something.

1822. How long has it been since we

1823. had a huge, really relevant

1824. protest.

1825. I'm not talking tea party, "I

1826. want to bring my guns in

1827. "public."

1828. I'm talking... I'm talking 10,000

1829. angry people said, "this is not"

1830. right, and I want to do

1831. "something about it."

1832. Soon after, wikileaks was

1833. blocked in Tunisia.

1834. And anonymous got wind of that.

1835. They then intervened... at

1836. first, solely for the purposes

1837. of, like, stopping the kind of

1838. censorship that was happening.

1839. And they did some ddosing.

1840. And this was a time period where

1841. they were getting involved with

1842. what I would call

1843. "non-internety" social

1844. movements and building lines of

1845. solidarity.

1846. My name's Pete fein.

1847. You can call me an internaut or

1848. a hacktivist.

1849. Telecomix is an ad hoc cluster

1850. of volunteer net activists who

1851. have have spent much of last

1852. year trying to keep the Internet

1853. running in the middle east.

1854. During that time, we saw the

1855. Tunisian government not only

1856. censoring and filtering the

1857. Internet but also doing some

1858. kind of technical trickery to

1859. steal people's Facebook

1860. passwords and delete their

1861. posts and see who was posting

1862. what and, you know, fake

1863. posts... stuff like that.

1864. Some Tunisian hackers came to

1865. us.

1866. They were members of anonymous,

1867. and I didn't even know we had

1868. members of anonymous in Tunisia,

1869. so it was a shock to me.

1870. And they had some... they had

1871. the keys to some parts of the

1872. kingdom, so to speak, when it

1873. came to the dictator in Tunisia.

1874. We went in on behalf of those

1875. Tunisian anons, and we helped

1876. them get that and extract it,

1877. and then it went to wikileaks.

1878. The Tunisians overthrew

1879. Ben Ali, who was kind of a

1880. repressive dictator.

1881. A revolution that was

1882. facilitated by... by the

1883. Internet, by Facebook, and by

1884. Twitter.

1885. Not caused by it.

1886. I mean, 50 years of dictatorship

1887. has caused the arab spring, but

1888. the Internet has certainly been

1889. helping.

1890. The same group of hackers

1891. that target anti-wikileaks sites

1892. have now turned their attention

1893. to Egypt.

1894. In kind of the lead-up to the

1895. Egyptian revolution, we would

1896. tweet on people's behalf.

1897. We'd get people from Egypt who

1898. were unable to access Twitter on

1899. their own, on our r.C. Network,

1900. and we would take reports from

1901. them and tweet them out using...

1902. Using our account to kind of

1903. help them get the word out about

1904. what they were experiencing.

1905. Some of this shit is

1906. personal, and one of the things

1907. about the movement as a whole

1908. when Egypt rolled around is that

1909. Egypt broke us emotionally.

1910. Watching in real-time with live

1911. feeds that we helped set up,

1912. Egyptians getting massacred with

1913. machine guns.

1914. It was different, and I have

1915. never in cyber-activism wept

1916. before.

1917. It's never bothered me like

1918. that.

1919. It's never been able to touch

1920. me the way Egypt touched me.

1921. It was fucked up that we were

1922. watching people killed for no

1923. reason other than leaving their

1924. homes, that these people had

1925. every right to freedom, that

1926. they had every right to choose

1927. their government.

1928. And then January 27th,

1929. January 28th rolls around and

1930. the Egyptian government starts

1931. shutting down the Internet.

1932. I mean, just... for the whole

1933. country, for the whole country.

1934. There's this fantastic traffic

1935. graph that you can see the

1936. traffic coming out Egypt, and it

1937. looks like... you know, like

1938. this.

1939. Just totally stops.

1940. And we were just shocked.

1941. We were just like, "what the"

1942. fuck... like, what the fuck?"

1943. To think that a country would

1944. completely cut itself off as

1945. much as it was able to from the

1946. outside world was pretty

1947. unthinkable.

1948. You know, we know... we know bad

1949. things go on in the dark places.

1950. I put myself in their place,

1951. and I found myself in a desert

1952. of nothingness because he just

1953. wiped out everything that my

1954. world incorporated.

1955. That just showed me and

1956. everybody else that this same

1957. thing can happen at anytime,

1958. anywhere, in any government.

1959. Anonymous and the people on

1960. the Internet stood up and said,

1961. "go fuck yourself."

1962. You want to shut down their

1963. Internet... fine.

1964. The people on the Internet will

1965. show them how to turn it back

1966. on.

1967. In Egypt, the care package we

1968. put together included some kind

1969. of rcom information, the ham

1970. radio and dial modem details.

1971. In total, we helped coordinate

1972. and run about 500 dial-up modem

1973. lines.

1974. We also googled treatments for

1975. tear gas and other kind of basic

1976. medical treatment and found

1977. folks who could translate that

1978. into arabic... sort of put this

1979. together in a nice one-page pdf

1980. and fax, and off it goes.

1981. I think the most effective

1982. thing was shutting down

1983. government websites.

1984. We're taking your dictator's

1985. web pages down.

1986. President hosni mubarak has

1987. decided to step down from the

1988. office of president of the

1989. Republic.

1990. We had Egyptians come thank

1991. us as we're doing this stuff,

1992. and I said... I'm like, "look",

1993. you guys just get our back if

1994. "stuff goes down here."

1995. The FBI is now investigating

1996. anonymous... a loose collection

1997. of rogue, tech-savvy hackers

1998. credited with bringing down the

1999. websites of mastercard and visa

2000. last December.

2001. So, over 40 raids back then,

2002. they seize computers,

2003. cellphones, and those kinds of

2004. technical apparatus, sometimes

2005. including, in the case of the

2006. 19-year-old girl living with her

2007. family, they took her parents'

2008. stuff, too.

2009. There's always been a sort of

2010. cat-and-mouse dynamic, not just

2011. in relation to the feds but also

2012. to these sort of groups that

2013. have appointed themselves as

2014. guardians of the Republic.

2015. Suddenly on February 5th,

2016. a financial times article comes

2017. out that we all see.

2018. It's quoting this guy named

2019. Aaron barr, who's the c.E.O. Of

2020. hbgary federal, which is an

2021. intelligence contractor, and

2022. Aaron barr is telling this

2023. financial times journalist

2024. Joseph menn that he's been

2025. secretly monitoring the anonops

2026. server, where all this is going

2027. on, and has done so for several

2028. weeks, and using his own custom

2029. brand of information-operations

2030. techniques has managed to

2031. identify the alleged leadership

2032. of anonymous, including 25

2033. "lieutenants" of some sort.

2034. We have to see this document.

2035. Everyone wants to know.

2036. We don't need to destroy him.

2037. We don't need to destroy his

2038. company.

2039. We just need to see the

2040. document, and we'll decided what

2041. comes next after looking at the

2042. document.

2043. So, they get it.

2044. It was unbelievably easy to get

2045. into that network.

2046. And my name was on there...

2047. As a screen name.

2048. And gregg housh was listed there

2049. by his screen name.

2050. The fact of the matter is what

2051. he told financial times was...

2052. Everything he told them was

2053. demonstratively untrue and very

2054. much hilariously so.

2055. He had to be shut up.

2056. It had to be proven to the world

2057. that this guy was a retard and

2058. that his information was in no

2059. way valid.

2060. And to put that in hacker

2061. terms, anonymous is a hornet's

2062. nest and barr said, "I'm gonna"

2063. stick my penis in that thing."

2064. In a mere 24 hours, he was

2065. owned, pwned completely by a

2066. small group of participants who

2067. basically went on a hacking

2068. rampage.

2069. Faster than you can say, "get"

2070. these hornets off my penis,"

2071. anonymous took down barr's

2072. website, stole his e-mail,

2073. deleted the company's backup

2074. data, trashed his Twitter

2075. account, and remotely wiped his

2076. iPad.

2077. And he had just reached the

2078. "ham 'em high" level on

2079. "angry birds."

2080. The hbgary hack brought about

2081. 70,000 e-mails.

2082. Probably the most important

2083. ones had to do with a proposal

2084. that hbgary had already

2085. formulated.

2086. It was packaged up as a nice

2087. powerpoint presentation.

2088. Kind of act as privatized agent

2089. provocateurs where they were

2090. gonna discredit wikileaks.

2091. Hbgary was proposing

2092. submitting fake documents to

2093. wikileaks and then, when

2094. discovered as fake, the error

2095. could be called out and it would

2096. discredit wikileaks.

2097. So, there's a lot of, like,

2098. specifics I can't talk about, so

2099. let me try to answer that,

2100. though, in a general sense.

2101. Well, first of all, I'm... it's

2102. probably no surprise to anybody

2103. I'm not a big fan of wikileaks.

2104. I think that the broad purpose

2105. of trying to get as much

2106. information... proprietary or

2107. classified information for the

2108. government... expose that, is an

2109. extremely destructive and

2110. dangerous purpose.

2111. The proposals involved

2112. conducting information war on

2113. wikileaks and its supporters,

2114. creating dissension within

2115. wikileaks, ddos attacks.

2116. You also wanted to launch

2117. cyber attacks on wikileaks

2118. infrastructure to get

2119. information on document

2120. submitters.

2121. One thing, I guess, I want to

2122. make sure is clear is...

2123. None of those activities had

2124. actually occurred.

2125. You know, there's... in

2126. business, there's... You know,

2127. when you start proposing or

2128. thinking about an idea, there's

2129. a brainstorming phase.

2130. And somebody says, "well, what"

2131. if, you know... what could we

2132. do?

2133. "What's theoretically possible?"

2134. Well, still, this was an

2135. idea.

2136. This was proposed.

2137. This was something that you

2138. thought about.

2139. Right.

2140. They also wanted to go on a

2141. campaign kind of targeting

2142. Glenn greenwald, who's a

2143. reporter for salon, who's an

2144. outspoken kind of critic of the

2145. government and supporter of

2146. wikileaks.

2147. It seems like you're trying

2148. to attack a journalist here.

2149. Yeah, and I, you know... I

2150. don't want to talk too much more

2151. about Glenn greenwald, but other

2152. than, you know, what I

2153. previously said is, you know...

2154. There was never an intent to

2155. attack... journalists.

2156. Not on my part.

2157. You know... I guess I should

2158. say... I should generalize that

2159. and to say that, you know, I

2160. would never just outwardly

2161. attack a journalist other than

2162. if I felt that there was a

2163. journalist, in my mind, that was

2164. acting unethically.

2165. That's a fair game for having a

2166. public discussion about it.

2167. They were walking a very fine

2168. ethical line at points, and, in

2169. many cases, the mass opinion is,

2170. "no, they stepped well past it."

2171. I will not support broad

2172. theft of... of information

2173. released to the public 'cause

2174. that's nothing but destructive.

2175. If somebody has information

2176. that's been stolen from them,

2177. and whether or not wikileaks

2178. encouraged the theft of that or

2179. whether or not it was just put

2180. in their lap... still,

2181. they're... they're threatening

2182. to release the information that

2183. was the private property of

2184. another organization.

2185. So, your choices are to just

2186. allow that to happen or to try

2187. to stop it.

2188. How offensive is too offensive?

2189. You know, we've certainly seen a

2190. lot of strategy coming out of

2191. governments across the world

2192. now, saying, you know...

2193. Publicly admitting that they

2194. need to become... they need to

2195. develop better offensive

2196. strategies in cyber security,

2197. because defense as a whole isn't

2198. enough.

2199. It never is enough.

2200. In the court of public

2201. opinion that took hbgary quickly

2202. from being a perceived victim to

2203. being a perceived villain

2204. themselves.

2205. It was becoming harder and

2206. harder to distinguish the good

2207. guys from the bad guys.

2208. Hbgary changed anonymous...

2209. As tremendously as optunisia

2210. did.

2211. And within essentially a month

2212. of each other, these two events

2213. were totally formative for the

2214. collective.

2215. Optunisia was where it got its

2216. moral compass and its sense that

2217. it could affect the world.

2218. Hbgary is where it got its

2219. swagger.

2220. George hotz made it possible

2221. for PlayStation to run

2222. homebrewed software, which also

2223. lets you run pirated software.

2224. Yo! It's g.O. Hot.

2225. And for those that don't know,

2226. I'm getting sued by Sony.

2227. So, Sony went after him,

2228. claiming it was a dmca

2229. violation.

2230. They just kind of mass-lawyer

2231. nastygrammed him and shut him

2232. down and did sue him.

2233. He settled.

2234. And the response to that was

2235. immediate and brutal.

2236. Sony has confirmed that

2237. hackers broke into its

2238. PlayStation network, exposing

2239. the personal information of up

2240. to 77 million users worldwide.

2241. Over the next six to eight

2242. months, they were hacked over 20

2243. times.

2244. There's no evidence that

2245. anonymous was anywhere near the

2246. majority of the hacks.

2247. One of the reasons why it

2248. captured so much of the media

2249. imagination when anonymous did

2250. it, as opposed to when other

2251. people did it, is because they

2252. were loud and bombastic, and

2253. they had a great image you could

2254. throw on the top of your

2255. article, and they made

2256. statements that, when you're

2257. constructing a story, you just

2258. can't resist.

2259. And then, kind of seemingly

2260. out of the blue, there was

2261. something by the name lulzsec

2262. that sailed into the seas.

2263. Lulzsec... it's a sort of a

2264. group, mostly from anonymous,

2265. who... large part of the same

2266. people who hacked hbgary.

2267. And they decided to form this

2268. little group and carry on

2269. operations outside the purview

2270. of anonymous for awhile.

2271. Lulzsec tried to say it

2272. wasn't anonymous for awhile.

2273. They tried to divide itself off.

2274. I don't think anyone bought it

2275. for a minute.

2276. There was no way that lulzsec

2277. was not anonymous, but the

2278. majority of time, the majority

2279. of anons were not doing anything

2280. particularly illegal.

2281. When they are, a huge number of

2282. them try to do that in a very

2283. specific political context.

2284. For those people, what lulzsec

2285. was doing... they were funny but

2286. they were attacking random

2287. targets.

2288. They were breaking the

2289. quasi-rules by attacking media.

2290. There was a lot of

2291. in-fighting about it because

2292. their way, you know, wasn't

2293. really our way.

2294. We will not attack the media.

2295. Pbs's "frontline" runs a

2296. documentary mainly focused on

2297. Bradley Manning, the alleged

2298. leaker to wikileaks, and a lot

2299. of Bradley Manning supporters

2300. didn't like it.

2301. They hacked the website,

2302. putting a story that 2pac and

2303. biggie had kind of escaped the

2304. world of celebrity, fame, and

2305. attention and retired quietly

2306. and discreetly in New Zealand.

2307. Lulzsec, when they attacked

2308. pbs, you know, that gave me the

2309. creeps, you know.

2310. As a journalist, I'm not too

2311. thrilled with the idea of

2312. someone judging that, "we don't"

2313. like you to write that.

2314. We don't like your reporting, so

2315. we're gonna shut down your

2316. "website."

2317. I'm uncomfortable with that.

2318. It could be me, and I could be

2319. writing something about a group

2320. that they didn't like.

2321. And I'm happy to sit and talk

2322. with them about it, but, you

2323. know, don't shut my website

2324. down.

2325. Hacktivism started to

2326. become... sort of... I would say

2327. almost more nasty, using, you

2328. know, sort of more

2329. no-holds-barred kind of

2330. attacks... sort of more vicious

2331. attacks.

2332. Lulzsec adds this dimension

2333. of bombastic lawbreaking to

2334. anonymous.

2335. For the people who are focused

2336. on things like the freedomops,

2337. who want anonymous to be a way

2338. of standing up to the powers

2339. that be, this is diluting and

2340. possibly counterproductive to

2341. their project in anonymous.

2342. You can try to make a case

2343. for civil disobedience and for,

2344. you might call it, crowd-sourced

2345. investigations using

2346. sometimes illegal means.

2347. It's hard to keep making that

2348. case, it's hard to maintain that

2349. case when you have these people

2350. from the movement...

2351. Fucking with people, you know,

2352. just fucking with people.

2353. They sort of saw themselves

2354. as going out there and breaking

2355. into, like, anything,

2356. everything... government,

2357. corporations, police

2358. departments... largely for the

2359. same reason that anonymous

2360. would.

2361. They went after Arizona for

2362. immigration policy.

2363. 50-day run causing mayhem,

2364. havoc... and then ended it.

2365. The computer hacking group

2366. lulzsecurity has announced it's

2367. disbanding, saying it had

2368. achieved its mission to disrupt

2369. government and corporate

2370. organizations for fun.

2371. I call this whole thing the

2372. rise of the chaotic actor.

2373. And chaotic could be chaotic

2374. good, neutral, or evil.

2375. And if you go back to the old

2376. "dungeons & dragons" charts...

2377. And some people see it on ops

2378. initially and will stick with

2379. anonymous as chaotic good.

2380. They saw operation payback or

2381. they saw attacking scientology,

2382. and they say, "that's good."

2383. It's like Robin hood, right?"

2384. Chaotic good... outside the

2385. system but doing something good.

2386. Other people saw anon as chaotic

2387. evil like the joker.

2388. They just want to see the world

2389. burn and are doing potentially

2390. irreparable damage.

2391. And the truth is, yes, it's the

2392. entire column of chaotic.

2393. I'm actually a little less

2394. concerned about some of the

2395. things lulzsec has done and more

2396. concerned about the next

2397. generation of lulzsec, the next

2398. turn of the crank of "who takes"

2399. it further or is more

2400. "aggressive?"

2401. Whoever fights monsters, you

2402. know, should see to it that they

2403. don't themselves become one.

2404. Sabu was probably the most

2405. famous anon who managed to kind

2406. of remain famous for awhile.

2407. Somebody who gets famous in anon

2408. generally gets punished very

2409. harshly by anonymous.

2410. But sabu managed to avoid that a

2411. few ways.

2412. I mean, he was a controversial

2413. figure... incredibly

2414. controversial figure... inside

2415. of anonymous.

2416. He was bombastic.

2417. He was thuggish.

2418. But he was also very good at

2419. mentoring and encouraging people

2420. and giving them permission to

2421. try things.

2422. And that was, I think, one of

2423. the most pivotal things about

2424. sabu's role.

2425. And it also speaks to the

2426. absolutely soul-crushing level

2427. of betrayal... When it was

2428. revealed that sabu was working

2429. for the FBI.

2430. There are still people who

2431. cannot let go of the idea that

2432. he was somehow on their side,

2433. that somehow he had to have been

2434. working against the FBI to help

2435. them... no matter how much is

2436. revealed.

2437. But he had betrayed the

2438. collective.

2439. It devastated everyone that he

2440. had touched.

2441. Hugh Davies.

2442. I'm an independent barrister.

2443. Amongst the cases I'm working on

2444. at the moment are the lulzsec

2445. base prosecution.

2446. I can't comment on sabu, but

2447. with cyber criminals, whatever

2448. their motivation, it may not be

2449. personal profit, but it is a

2450. very strong, sometimes

2451. destructive motive simply for

2452. those with whom they disagree.

2453. In criminal terms, it's

2454. vandalism.

2455. One has to be extremely careful

2456. that one person's exercise of

2457. freedom of speech is not at the

2458. expense of some other quite

2459. legitimate organization's equal

2460. right to have a lawful website

2461. operating, available to the

2462. public in a Democratic society.

2463. And simply taking out lawful

2464. websites 'cause you disagree

2465. with them is an erosion of

2466. freedom of speech rather than

2467. extending it.

2468. Really, as powerful as they

2469. seem to be, lulzsec and

2470. anonymous are really small

2471. potatoes compared to the bigger

2472. operations that are going on

2473. that we don't hear about, maybe

2474. operations funded by

2475. governments.

2476. The criminal hackers... this

2477. is not some lone idiot, you

2478. know, hunkered down like

2479. beavis or butt-head, cackling at

2480. midnight over his computer.

2481. There are a few of those but

2482. it's organized.

2483. There are ad hoc contract

2484. workers.

2485. It comes out of Russia, comes

2486. out of Romania, comes out of

2487. Iran... comes out of wherever.

2488. But they work on behalf of the

2489. usual criminal enterprises

2490. the computer-security

2491. industry has just been growing

2492. and growing and growing over the

2493. last, you know, 10, 15 years.

2494. There's $10 billion companies in

2495. the computer-security industry.

2496. I don't know what the total

2497. market cap is, but it's

2498. certainly in the billions of

2499. dollars.

2500. Black hat, when I first started

2501. coming, like 15 years ago, there

2502. was, like, 500 people.

2503. And there's 8,500 people today.

2504. So, every year, more and more

2505. people come to learn about what

2506. are the attacks.

2507. Companies come to, you know,

2508. sell new products.

2509. And the government is coming,

2510. saying, "we want to recruit"

2511. you to come be our new cyber

2512. "warriors."

2513. The kind of thing that drives

2514. people to something like

2515. anonymous is that sense that

2516. their government is going to

2517. watch them every moment of the

2518. day and, in America, our

2519. government is kind of watching

2520. us all the time.

2521. Like, we now know that with the

2522. warrantless wiretapping.

2523. You know, we live under constant

2524. cctvs.

2525. We have that sense that not only

2526. are we being tracked, but it's

2527. about to get a lot worse.

2528. The NSA has embraced domestic

2529. spying.

2530. They're building a giant

2531. spy center in Utah.

2532. And the only thing... the only

2533. thing... that even gives them

2534. pause is encryption.

2535. Anonymous gives people a way to

2536. exist outside of this system.

2537. There's a certain online

2538. culture that believes in certain

2539. values like freedom of

2540. expression.

2541. They're against corruption.

2542. They're against governments

2543. controlling their citizens.

2544. And when they see those values

2545. harmed in some way by some

2546. organization, the hacktivists

2547. strike back.

2548. 16 people were arrested

2549. today.

2550. Dozens of FBI agents targeted

2551. alleged members of a loose-knit

2552. hacking group.

2553. Armed with search warrants,

2554. agents hit six homes in.

2555. New York, along with locations

2556. across the country.

2557. The people arrested yesterday

2558. were suspected of attacking.

2559. PayPal's website after the

2560. company shut off payments to

2561. wikileaks.

2562. Defenders of the hackers say

2563. they're merely engaged in civil

2564. protest, but FBI officials worry

2565. the disruptive cyber attacks

2566. could move in a more dangerous

2567. direction.

2568. So, the FBI shows up.

2569. It's 6:00 in the morning, and it

2570. was really obnoxious.

2571. And I remember being frustrated

2572. and angry because there was

2573. nothing that I had done that

2574. would have justified an FBI

2575. search warrant.

2576. They came and... Guns blazing

2577. and all this other good stuff...

2578. Busted down the door.

2579. I immediately just dropped down

2580. on the floor, 180.

2581. I wasn't trying to fight nobody.

2582. The theory of the case is

2583. they were, you know... they

2584. flooded... "a number of people"

2585. flooded access to PayPal,

2586. thereby creating economic

2587. distress to a protected

2588. "corporation."

2589. End of story.

2590. This isn't... this is not a case

2591. involving identity theft,

2592. involving outing e-mails,

2593. involving violating privilege,

2594. involving theft of services,

2595. involving, you know, shutting

2596. down business.

2597. It is a pure case of Internet or

2598. cyber sit-ins.

2599. I think when barrack Obama gets

2600. on television and says, "flood"

2601. the switchboard, shut down the

2602. Republicans, send the

2603. "message"... that's legal.

2604. And even if you accept what the

2605. theory of this prosecution is,

2606. it's no different.

2607. This is an electronic sit-in at

2608. its finest.

2609. So, what I'm facing is a

2610. felony... 15 years in federal

2611. prison and a $250,000 fine.

2612. If you're a pedophile, the

2613. average is 11 years.

2614. That's ridiculous.

2615. I mean, you can go molest

2616. children and get less of a

2617. sentence than you would for

2618. breaking into someone's phone.

2619. If you... even if you accept

2620. what the government is saying is

2621. true, what is important is that

2622. people are participating in the

2623. process.

2624. It is very much the process.

2625. It is sitting in at a counter in

2626. Selma, Alabama, 500 freedom

2627. riders refusing to allow people

2628. to go sit in at a segregated

2629. lunch counter.

2630. They write books about that

2631. stuff.

2632. It is demonstrating at a street

2633. corner saying no to a war.

2634. It's just a different... it's

2635. just a different vehicle.

2636. It's the same result.

2637. You know, I would never

2638. compare myself to people like

2639. Gandhi or.

2640. Dr. Martin Luther King, but they

2641. were one person, and they were

2642. willing to go out and change the

2643. world.

2644. And their messages live on every

2645. day through everybody.

2646. And to not take the chance of

2647. having something like that to do

2648. is foolish.

2649. I only wish we had 50 million

2650. Mercedes haefer.

2651. I'd feel a lot more comfortable

2652. as a guy getting towards the

2653. tail end of his career if there

2654. were more Mercedes.

2655. There's always gonna be legal

2656. consequence when you decide to

2657. break the law.

2658. That comes with the territory.

2659. And it would be naive not to

2660. expect that.

2661. The question is whether the

2662. punishment will be proportional

2663. to the crime.

2664. And I suspect it might not be.

2665. People will be watching very

2666. closely to see how these cases

2667. proceed on what grounds and

2668. whether there's any room during

2669. the trials to think especially

2670. of the denial-of-service attacks

2671. as a legitimate form of protest.

2672. So much of our lives are now

2673. configured at least in part on

2674. the Internet, so we better start

2675. thinking about how we claim

2676. parts of the Internet as spaces

2677. that we can also protest.

2678. This is the point in history

2679. at which you decide whether or

2680. not protesting is possible

2681. online.

2682. You can stand up, and you can

2683. say freedom of speech extends to

2684. online.

2685. We have the right to not be

2686. monitored by our government

2687. because of our opinions.

2688. It's up to you.

2689. You're in the position of

2690. huck Finn.

2691. Do you remember huck Finn at the

2692. end of the book?

2693. He's told he's got to take that

2694. slave and give it back.

2695. Two things will happen if he

2696. doesn't.

2697. One... legally, he'll go to

2698. jail, as Jim is property.

2699. Two... he'll be damned eternally

2700. and burn in hellfire 'cause he's

2701. in an Evangelical environment in

2702. Missouri.

2703. And huck smokes his corncob pipe

2704. all night, thinks about it.

2705. And next morning, he says,

2706. "well, damn it, I'll go to hell,

2707. then."

2708. In other words, he discovered

2709. that in order to be an expert at

2710. ethics, you had to transcend the

2711. legal and sanctioned religious

2712. appropriate truths of the day in

2713. order to access the meta truth

2714. of both legality and

2715. righteousness.

2716. Well, hackers see themselves as

2717. huck putting down that corncob

2718. pipe and saying, "all right",

2719. I'll go to jail.

2720. All right, I'll go to hell.

2721. But I'm gonna do the right

2722. "thing."

2723. I suppose the question you

2724. really want to ask is, would I

2725. do it again?

2726. And honestly, after thinking

2727. about it, I felt that I did what

2728. was right.

2729. I had a belief... I still do...

2730. That what I did was the right

2731. thing.

2732. And hopefully someone got some

2733. good out of it.

2734. You know, I'd love to think that

2735. maybe I stopped someone from

2736. joining a cult, you know.

2737. Probably wouldn't tell on myself

2738. next time, but, you know, I

2739. don't think I would have changed

2740. a single thing other than the

2741. whole "talking to the FBI"

2742. thing.

2743. Just that little detail.

2744. Yeah, just the little detail

2745. that kind of changed everything.

2746. Yeah.

2747. I'm angry.

2748. Occasionally, I have small

2749. breakdown moments of terror.

2750. But I haven't stopped believing

2751. what I believe.

2752. I haven't stopped wanting to

2753. fight.

2754. I haven't stopped caring.

2755. Show me what democracy looks

2756. like!

2757. This is what democracy

2758. looks like!

2759. Show me what democracy looks

2760. like!

2761. We got sold out!

2762. I don't think this whole

2763. issue is a technical hacking

2764. thing.

2765. This is more about human

2766. philosophy and psychology,

2767. what's motivating us, why is

2768. there so much unrest or

2769. disenfranchisement or anger that

2770. would lead people to want to

2771. take matters into their own

2772. hands and join them.

2773. Whether you think it's bad or

2774. not is irrelevant.

2775. It's not going away.

2776. I have stood upon the

2777. mountaintop known as anonymous

2778. and looked down on a world

2779. enflamed with revolution.

2780. What can you say?

2781. Your spine tingles when you're

2782. at the cusp of history.

2783. When you're surfing, you know,

2784. the waves of history, your spine

2785. tingles.

2786. Descent has a face now.

2787. It has an aesthetic.

2788. There's this package it can pick

2789. up and put on anywhere in the

2790. world for any cause it wants.

2791. And sometimes that's gonna be

2792. terrible, and sometimes it's

2793. going to be wonderful.

2794. One thing I can kind of promise

2795. is that it's gonna be

2796. interesting.

2797. It's rare in history that new

2798. things happen, but I think this

2799. is one of them.

2800. If you have power in real

2801. life and you have money in real

2802. life, you know, it doesn't

2803. fucking matter on the Internet.

2804. What matters on the Internet is

2805. your actual ideas, you know, how

2806. smart you are, the quality of

2807. you.

2808. And when certain organizations

2809. that, you know... they want to

2810. extend their real-life power

2811. onto the Internet, it's not

2812. gonna fucking take because of

2813. anonymous.

2814. I don't care if you're a

2815. democrat or a republican or an

2816. independent or if you like

2817. Ron Paul or if you worship

2818. pigeons or scientology or if

2819. you're catholic or atheist or

2820. methodist.

2821. I don't care about that.

2822. Your opinion matters.

2823. I don't care if I disagree with

2824. it.

2825. I don't care if I hate your

2826. guts.

2827. Your opinion matters.

2828. Is there going to be any

2829. further action?

2830. I mean, does anonymous intend to

2831. prove that they can, in fact,

2832. manipulate the westboro baptist

2833. church network of websites?

2834. What can we expect going

2835. forward, anonymous?

2836. Actually, I'm working on that

2837. right now.

2838. He's working on that right

2839. now!

2840. Oh, yay.

2841. So, hold on.

2842. I am getting a thumbs up from my

2843. producer that there has been a

2844. message posted that appears to

2845. be from anonymous on downloads.

2846. Westborobaptistchurch.com.

2847. Anonymous, are you taking

2848. responsibility for this?

2849. Yep.

2850. We just did it right now this

2851. very second.

2852. That is so special.

2853. That's so special.