Anonymous

Anonymous is a decentralized international activist/hacktivist collective/movement that is widely known for its various cyber attacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations, and the Church of Scientology.

Anonymous originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain. Anonymous members (known as Anons) can be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks in the style portrayed in the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta.However, this may not always be the case as some of the collective prefer to instead cover their face without using the well-known mask as a disguise. Some anons also opt to mask their voices through voice changers or text-to-speech programs.

In its early form, the concept was adopted by a decentralized online community acting anonymously in a coordinated manner, usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal and primarily focused on entertainment (or lulz). Beginning with Project Chanology in 2008 a series of protests, pranks, and hacks targeting the Church of Scientology

the Anonymous collective became increasingly associated with collaborative hacktivism on a number of issues internationally. Individuals claiming to align themselves with Anonymous undertook protests and other actions (including direct action) in retaliation against copyright-focused campaigns by motion picture and recording industry trade associations. Later targets of Anonymous hacktivism included government agencies of the United States, Israel, Tunisia, Uganda and others; the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant; child pornography sites; copyright protection agencies; the Westboro Baptist Church; and corporations such as PayPal, MasterCard, Visa, and Sony. Anons have publicly supported WikiLeaks and the Occupy movement. Related groups LulzSec and Operation AntiSec carried out cyberattacks on U.S. government agencies, media, video game companies, military contractors, military personnel, and police officers, resulting in the attention of law enforcement to the groups' activities.

We [Anonymous] just happen to be a group of people on the Internet who need just kind of an outlet to do as we wish, that we wouldn't be able to do in regular society. ...That's more or less the point of it. Do as you wish. ... There's a common phrase: 'we are doing it for the lulz.'

— Trent Peacock. Search Engine: The Face of Anonymous, February 7, 2008

𝑾𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒐𝒏𝒚𝒎𝒐𝒖𝒔. 𝑾𝒆 𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒍𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒐𝒏. 𝑾𝒆 𝒅𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒊𝒗𝒆. 𝑾𝒆 𝒅𝒐 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒈𝒆𝒕. 𝑬𝒙𝒄𝒆𝒑𝒕 𝑼𝑺.