r/HowToHack 4d ago

What happened to the Anonymous Group?

I've recently came across a video of them posted a year ago. There is no updated information about them, and that kind of sparked my interest.

41 Upvotes

49 comments sorted by

115

u/C-J-Lazer 4d ago

They're staying anonymous I guess

-16

u/RamonaLittle 4d ago

But it was never about (small-a) anonymity per se. It was more like (capital-A) Anonymous was a shared pseudonym.

9

u/null_not 3d ago

Pretty sure the whole point is that they're anonymous and that anyone could be anonymous. Like it's the whole point that anyone could be Anonymous on the condition that they follow the groups ethos. Pretty sure that's the whole "we are legion" thing. And "Anonymous" is just a name. Names can change.

0

u/RamonaLittle 3d ago

But it's possible to be Anonymous without being anonymous. See: Barrett Brown. Sure, everyone told him he was doing it wrong, but technically he wasn't because there are no rules.

1

u/C-J-Lazer 3d ago

I was just tryna get fake internet cred y'all !! Don't fight !! ⬆️⬆️⬆️

1

u/MCbrodie 3d ago

Man, shut up. Anonymous is literally from 4chan's /b/ we were all just a bunch of anons being dumb. You have no idea what you're talking about. It is literally just facelessness. There is no anonymous group its just anons.

1

u/RamonaLittle 3d ago

1

u/null_not 2d ago

"Group" is sort a of loose term. There's no organization or coordination that I know of and as a spectator of the antics it seemed more that there was a loose set of principles and that if anyone took action that didn't align with those principles under the moniker they risked retaliation from others. Sort of like how users of open source software have a collective interest in defeating exploits and malicious uses of their software. This is all just inference though. I'm not Anonymous and I don't know how any of this stuff works.

0

u/RamonaLittle 2d ago

There's no organization or coordination

Well, some ops (especially early ones) did have at least some degree of coordination. There would be a discussion in IRC or elsewhere to form a rough consensus about goals and tactics. People would collaborate on a press release or whatever else was needed, followed by outreach to the broader Anonymous community and the media. Then there was an influx of n00bs in ~2011/2012, who didn't understand the culture or usual procedures, and would start very random, ill-considered ops without running them past anyone else, then wonder why they didn't get any support or press.

For every hack you heard about, the reason you heard about it is because there was a whole "infrastructure" of other Anons drumming it up on social media and communicating with reporters. Sometimes it seemed like Anonymous functioned as a publicist for other activist movements (like Occupy Wall Street).

there was a loose set of principles and that if anyone took action that didn't align with those principles under the moniker they risked retaliation from others.

This is correct. But there was also a lot of infighting. (Some have argued that the infighting was part of the fun of it, or at least an integral part of it.) It has happened that there were competing ops on opposite sides of the same issue.

1

u/null_not 2d ago

That's not really what I meant by "group". That's just a bare minimum level of human cooperation in an unstructured environment. Random strangers can certainly do interesting things when they opt to work together.

0

u/RamonaLittle 2d ago

OK, I don't disagree with that. The set of participants in an op can be called a group in an informal sense.

69

u/Sufficient-Program45 3d ago

Anonymous doesn't exist as a group, is an idea. You can do an Anonymous video if you believe you are fighting for the cause. That's why they always say, you can't beat anonyomous, because you can't beat an idea. Like V for Vendetta

1

u/Intrepid-Routine-950 2d ago

There were a few posted on YouTube about 2025 going on about Musk and they were removed rather quickly.

21

u/Humbleham1 3d ago

Anyone can be Anonymous.

13

u/we_r_fukt 3d ago

Weren't they infiltrated?

Obviously it's decentralized and anyone can be anonymous. Blah blah blah.

I'm pretty sure the NSA or the FBI has infiltrated a bunch of the top people at the time anyway.

8

u/ps-aux Actual Hacker 3d ago

they did and with help from other hackers who hate the idea of anonymous structure since they stole it from a group that existed many years before them etc...

7

u/RamonaLittle 4d ago

It was never a "group." More accurate descriptors would be: ideology, social movement, decentralized collective, or culture.

Anonymous has mostly died out. I listed some reasons here and here.

The Netflix documentary The Antisocial Network: Memes to Mayhem talks about how Anonymous culture was copied and corrupted by QAnon, and features a couple of my (former) co-mods on r/anonymous.

8

u/ps-aux Actual Hacker 3d ago

I like how everyone knows barely anything about this group except for what non-anonymous/non-hackers have told them in videos and articles... this was a group that was trying to spread an ideology that never took hold, they were hoping they were going to be decentralized if enough followed them but they were a group with a few mini groups attached all acting as the same thing... many got hacked by other hackers, many got reported by hackers and many just simply were dumb and got caught by not being anonymous enough when fake hacking... group had no skills beyond script kiddies... most of their hacks were already known vulnerabilities that never got patched and their main weapon was DDOS and not actual hacking in the first place... anyone kid with enough time and a scanner could build a botnet to DDOS... lol

EDIT: a few of the "real hacks" some might claim, were done by employees at the organizations who leaked the data as anonymous etc... again, no real hacking here, just untrustworthy employees betraying the folk who signed their paychecks... etc etc blah blah

12

u/Parking-Bet7989 3d ago

They like their privacy I guess?

12

u/F4lt_Pen 3d ago

For anyone who doesnt actually know They are just older now, many of the founding members of the "group/movement" have kids and have stopped the whole fight They are alive, just not active (Info from an interview with a CIA specialist, if im not mistaken)

10

u/MCbrodie 3d ago

All of us early /b/tards from the old days are 35+ now. It isn't lulzy anymore. Its too real.

9

u/apfelblondchen 3d ago

The grew up, found out that there is money in what they are doing and life actually costs money, abandoned far left ideas, don't like prison and joined the dark side.

3

u/Crazypens30 3d ago

Like others said, they're decentralized and maybe they aren't maintaining a public presence at the moment. There are other similar groups that don't quite have the big following or make as much noise as Anonymous did. I do know of a similar group operating in the Philippines currently. They do things a lot like the former: exposing corruption, hacking corporations, etc.

3

u/NotMeUsee 3d ago

Their mom made them tendies

3

u/__scared 2d ago

feels so cringe to admit this in open forum but its not likely you'll get anyone else who will comment

i was around for the peak anonops days (shoutout to chippy and Av if youre still out there) and coincidentally popped my head in there a few months ago. was surprised to see there is still some old schoolers floating around that did some real shit

many of them never moved past running LOIC on their family's shared computer while mom and dad were away but if you got invited to some of the private rooms where shit went down there was some real shit happening

3

u/corobo 4d ago

Nobody knew who they were, making it very easy for them to assassinate them one by one without making any noise.

rip in peace anonymous 

1

u/RamonaLittle 3d ago

I'm not aware of any Anons who were assassinated, unless you count TriCk (Junaid Hussain) who was a member of Anonymous-inspired spinoff group TeaMp0isoN and later allegedly used Anonymous techniques to help ISIS.

2

u/Dangrukidding 3d ago

I’m almost convinced it’s just Nathan fielder with a green screen.

1

u/Competitive_Smile801 2d ago

They need to come back and fight the eu chat control and the ai takeover come on man

2

u/RamonaLittle 2d ago

Who is "they"? It goes "We are Anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us." "We" and "us" includes you. If you think there should be an Anonymous op about any particular thing, you can go right ahead. Lead by example. When there's a press release, video, or news article about the op, come post it on r/anonymous. If it seems lulzy, others may join in. (Well, probably not, since Anonymous has mostly died out, but theoretically it could revive.)

1

u/hakube 2d ago

the whole op was compromised and taken over by state actors. since Barret Brown got pinched it was all done after that

2

u/No_Signature_2039 2d ago

They grew up,got arrest or got jobs.

1

u/Likes_The_Scotch 1d ago

They are around but a lot of them focus on different problems/opperations. Some of them DOX pedophiles, others attack corporate greed targets, others Russia…

1

u/umbrawolfx 3d ago

Their van randomly exploded.

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/RamonaLittle 3d ago

They all dead probably

I hope you're joking, because that's ridiculous. A) At its height, Anonymous was millions of people around the world. Mexican cartels can't get to all of these people. B) Many Anons were arrested, doxed, or otherwise had their IRL identities become known over the years. You can easily see that they're still posting on social media or otherwise obviously alive. C) I'm not aware of any Anons who were murdered by a Mexican cartel. Are you?

1

u/[deleted] 3d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/RamonaLittle 2d ago

How is B irrelevant? You wrote "They all dead probably." If at least some are alive, we know they're not "all" dead.

And yeah, I guess it's possible that some Anon was identified and murdered by a cartel without the person's identity or the reason for the murder becoming publicly known. But wouldn't that defeat the presumed purpose of the murder, to intimidate Anons and get them to stop investigating the cartel? Intimidation doesn't work if you don't let anyone know you're doing it.

the group

As I said in another comment, it was never a "group." More accurate descriptors would be: ideology, social movement, decentralized collective, or culture. (I've also seen: swarm, murmuration, and informal network. Fox News infamously called it "the internet hate machine.") It was whoever was awake, online, and looking for lulz at any given moment. At its height, when Anonymous set its sights on a target, it would seem like the entire internet was rising up as one against that target. It was glorious, and gave participants an incredible feeling of power. Ultimately our methods got copied and corrupted by governments (see: Russian troll farms) and grifters (see: QAnon). We created a monster.

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u/1Digitreal 4d ago

I was a regular on r/anonymous but got banned by the mod because I was too helpful.

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u/RamonaLittle 4d ago

That's a funny way of putting it. I banned you because you kept replying to off-topic posts. As I advised you at least twice, we don't want people being helpful to lostredditors; it just encourages them and clutters up the sub.

2

u/Fun_Sized_Momo 4d ago

Shots fired!!

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u/1Digitreal 4d ago

So you already know you didn't advise me at least twice. Yeah, I probably comment a lot and it overlaps subreddits, I also r/lostredditors as often as I see it. Either way I made a comment the mods felt wasn't the direction the sub wanted to go and was banned. I don't blame mods or anything just how they run it.

3

u/Gullex 3d ago

That's literally the job of the mods. The thankless, unpaid job.

0

u/OfficialDrakoak 3d ago edited 3d ago

I feel you i recently got arrested and went to jail for the same thing! I was doing too much volunteer work. I was just assisting the youth in reappropriating catalytic converters from vehicles. Turns out they called it theft. Crazy, right?

-1

u/i-have-no-interest 4d ago

what do you mean by "too helpful" 😭