Anonymous

Anonymous is the most famous ‘hacktivist’ group in the world. Anonymous originated in 2003 on the image board 4 chan, representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic group.The informal nature of the group makes its mechanics difficult to define.When people have technical skills, have access to the Internet, and understand how network infrastructure and servers work, it can be tempting to put that knowledge into having some effect on the world and that's what this organizations does.Anonymous promotes free speech, unimpeded access to information, and transparency in government and corporate activities. Anonymous comprises a diverse group of individuals connecting through social networking sites, forums and blogs scattered all over the world. Although the group was initially known for online pranks, it has become more serious and political in recent years. Activities of Anonymous have included targeting the websites of organizations that it considered hostile to Wiki Leaks or its founder Julian Assange.In December 2010, Anonymous allegedly used an open source hacking program to apply denial of service attacks to PayPal servers, resulting in PayPal unavailability over a four day period. PayPal, MasterCard and Visa closed all WikiLeaks' account activities after WikiLeaks published top-secret U.S. government reports that created instant humiliation and tension with key allies. For revenge, Anonymous, who was motivated by Assange's WikiLeaks' activities, instigated DoS attacks on PayPal by flooding PayPal servers and disabling user account access.On June 17, 2015, Anonymous targeted Canadian government websites with a Dos attack in protest of the passage of bill C-51, so-called anti-terror legislation that grants additional powers to Canadian intelligence agencies, arguably infringing on the rights of citizens to privacy and freedom of speech. They have recently been in the news after declaring war on ISIS after the Paris attack starting the #OpParis campaign. The group have hackers had prior encounters with the terrorist group in January after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris. Anonymous found a battle front that they knew best, the Internet by taking down thousands of ISIS twitter accounts/web pages. Anonymous is a vigilante group that does not obey the laws and strikes when they see fit. For these reasons governments also see the group as a threat due to the fact they don't have control over them. I feel that the group isn't harming anyone that doesn't deserve it.They fight for the people because they are the people. People don't know who they are because they are just normal people with skills in technology.