Anonymous Research Essay Example for Free

Anonymous Research Essay Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is a loosely associated hacktivist group. It (is estimated to have) 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.[2] It is also generally considered to be a blanket term for members of certain Internet subcultures, a way to refer to the actions of people in an environment where their actual identities are not known.[3] It strongly opposes Internet censorship and surveillance, and has hacked various government websites. It has also targeted major security corporations.[4][5][6] It also opposes Scientology, government corruption and homophobia. Its members can be distinguished in public by the wearing of stylised Guy Fawkes masks.[7] 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. Beginning with 2008, the Anonymous collective became increasingly associated with collaborative, international hacktivism. They undertook protests and other actions in retaliation against anti-digital piracy campaigns by motion picture and recording industry trade associations.[8][9] Actions credited to Anonymous were undertaken by unidentified individuals who applied the Anonymous label to themselves as attribution.[10] They have been called the freedom fighters of the Internet,[11] a digital Robin Hood,[12] and anarchic cyber-guerrillas.[13] Although not necessarily tied to a single online entity, many websites are strongly associated with Anonymous. This includes notable imageboardssuch as 4chan, their associated wikis, Encyclopà ¦dia Dramatica, and a number of forums.[14] After a series of controversial, widely publicized protests, distributed denial of service (DDoS) and website defacement attacks by Anonymous in 2008, incidents linked to its cadre members have increased.[15] In consideration of its capabilities, Anonymous has been posited by CNN to be one of the three major successors to WikiLeaks.[16] In 2012, Time named Anonymous as one of the most influential groups in the world.[17] Origins The name Anonymous itself is inspired by the perceived anonymity under which users post images and comments on the Internet. Usage of the term Anonymous in the sense of a shared identity began on imageboards.[14] A tag of Anonymous is assigned to visitors who leave comments without identifying the originator of the posted content. Users of imageboards sometimes jokingly acted as if Anonymous were a real person. The concept of the Anonymous entity advanced in 2004 when an administrator on the 4chan image board activated a Forced_Anon protocol that signed all posts as Anonymous.[14] As the popularity of imageboards increased, the idea of Anonymous as a collective of unnamed individuals became an Internet meme.[18] Anonymous broadly represents the concept of any and all people as an unnamed collective. As a multiple-use name, individuals who share in the Anonymous moniker also adopt a shared online identity, characterized as hedonistic and uninhibited. This is intended as a satirical, conscious adoption of the online disinhibition effect.[19] â€Å"| 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 wouldnt be able to do in regular society. Thats more or less the point of it. Do as you wish. Theres a common phrase: we are doing it for the lulz.| †| —Trent Peacock. Search Engine: The face of Anonymous, February 7, 2008.[19]| Definitions tend to emphasize that the concept, and by extension the collective of users, cannot be readily encompassed by a simple definition. Instead Anonymous is often defined by aphorismsdescribing perceived qualities.[2] One self-description, originating from a protest video targeted at the Church of Scientology, is: We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not fo rgive. We do not forget. Expect us.[20] Overview â€Å"| [Anonymous is] the first Internet-basedsuperconsciousness. Anonymous is a group, in the sense that a flock of birds is a group. How do you know theyre a group? Because theyre traveling in the same direction. At any given moment, more birds could join, leave, peel off in another direction entirely.| †| —Chris Landers. Baltimore City Paper, April 2, 2008.[2]| Anonymous consists largely of users from multiple imageboards and Internet forums. In addition, several wikis and Internet Relay Chat networks are maintained to overcome the limitations of traditional imageboards. These modes of communication are the means by which Anonymous protesters participating in Project Chanology communicate and organize upcoming protests.[21][22] A loose coalition of Internet denizens,[23] the group bands together through the Internet, using IRC channels[21] and sites such as 4chan,[21][23] 711chan,[21] Encyclopà ¦dia Dramatica,[24] and YouTube.[3] Social networking services, such as Facebook, are used for to mobilize groups for real-world protests.[25] Anonymous has no leader or controlling party and relies on the collective power of its individual participants acting in such a way that the net effect benefits the group.[23] Anyone who wants to can be Anonymous and work toward a set of goals a member of Anonymous explained to the Baltimore City Paper. We have this agenda that we all agree on and we all coordinate and act, but all act independently toward it, without any want for recognition. We just want to get something that we feel is important done[2] Anonymous members have previously collaborated with hacker group LulzSec.[citation needed] Membership It is impossible to join Anonymous, as there is no leadership, no ranking, and no single means of communication. Anonymous is spread over many mediums and languages, with membership being achieved simply by wishing to join.[26] Commander X and the Peoples Liberation Front A person known as Commander X provided interviews and videos about Anonymous.[27] In 2011, he was at the center of an investigation into Anonymous by HBGary CEO Aaron Barr, who claimed to have identified him as a San Francisco gardener. Interviewed following the attack on HBGary Federal, Commander X revealed that while Barr suspected that he was a leader of the group, he was in his own words a peon. However, Commander X did claim to be a skilled hacker and founding member of an allied organization, the Peoples Liberation Front (PLF).[28] According to Commander X, Peoples Liberation Front, a collective of hactivists founded in 1985, acted with AnonOps, another sub-group of Anonymous, to carry out denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks against government websites in Tunisia, Iran, Egypt, and Bahrain. Explaining the relationship between Anonymous and the PLF, he suggested an analogy to NATO, with the PLF being a smaller sub-group that could choose to opt in or out of a specific project. AnonOps and the PLF are both capable of creating huge Internet armies. The main difference is AnonOps moves with huge force, but very slowly because of their decision making process. The PLF moves with great speed, like a scalpel.[29] On September 23, 2011, a homeless man in California named Christopher Doyon was arrested and stated by officials to have used the Commander X screen name.[30] He pleaded not guilty.[31] Low Orbit Ion Cannon Main article: LOIC The Low Orbit Ion Cannon is a network stress testing application that has been used by Anonymous to accomplish its DDOS attacks. Individual users download the LOIC and voluntarily contribute their computer to a bot net. This bot net is then directed against the target by AnonOps.[32] Joining the bot net and volunteering ones resources for the use of the group is thus one way of being a member, a concept that is otherwise hard to define. The Pirate Bay In April 2009, after The Pirate Bay co-defendants were found guilty of facilitating extensive copyright infringement in a commercial and organized form, Anonymous launched a coordinated DDoS attack against the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), an organisation responsible for safeguarding recording artists rights.[33] When co-founders lost their appeal against convictions for encouraging piracy, Anonymous again targeted the IFPI, labelling them parasites. A statement read: We will continue to attack those who embrace censorship. You will not be able to hide your ludicrous ways to control us. Megaupload On January 19, 2012, Megaupload, a website providing file-sharing services, was shut down by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[36] In the hours following the shutdown, hackers took down the sites of the DOJ and FBI, as well as the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) using distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks.[37]Barrett Brown, described as a spokesperson for Anonymous, called the attack the single largest Internet attack in [Anonymous] history.[38] With the protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) protests only a day old, Brown stated that internet users were by-and-far ready to defend an open Internet.[38] Although the actions of Anonymous received support,[citation needed] some commentators argued that the denial of service attack risked damaging the anti-SOPA case. Molly Wood of CNET wrote that [i]f the SOPA/PIPA protests were the Webs moment of inspiring, non-violent, hand-holding civil disobedience, #OpMegaUpload feels like the unsettling wave of car-burning hooligans that sweep in and incite the riot portion of the play.[39] Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle concurred, stating that Anonymous actions hurt the movement to kill SOPA/PIPA by highlighting online lawlessness.[40] The Oxford Internet Institutes Joss Wright wrote that In one sense the actions of Anonymous are themselves, anonymously and unaccountably, censoring websites in response to positions with which they disagree.[37] Government websites Anonymous claimed responsibility for taking down government websites in the UK in April 2012 in protest against government extradition and surveillance policies. A message was left on Twitter saying it was for your draconian surveillance proposals.[41] Occupy movement Anonymous activists merged with Occupy Wall Street protesters. Anonymous members descended on New Yorks Zucotti Park and organized it partly. After it became known that some Occupy protesters would get violent, Anonymous used social networking to urge Occupy protesters to avoid disorder. Anonymous used Twitter trends to keep protests peaceful.[42] A similar protest occurred outside the London Stock Exchange in early May 2012 during a May Day Occupy protest.[43] Internet pedophilia Alleged Internet predator Chris Forcand, 53, was charged with child sexual and firearm offenses.[44] A newspaper report stated that Forcand was already being tracked by cyber-vigilantes before police investigations commenced.[45] A television report identified a self-described Internet vigilante group called Anonymous who contacted the police after some members were propositioned by Forcand. The report stated this was the first time a suspected Internet predator was arrested by the police as a result of Internet vigilantism.[46] In October 2011, Operation Darknet was launched as an attempt to cease the activities of child porn sites accessed through hidden services in the deep web.[47] Anonymous published in apastebin link what it claimed were the user names of 1,589 members of Lolita City, a child porn site accessed via the Tor network. Anonymous said that it had found the site via The Hidden Wiki, and that it contained over 100 gigabytes of child pornography. Anonymous launched a d enial-of-service attack to take Lolita City offline. Cyber-attacks and other activities The group is responsible for cyber-attacks on the Pentagon, News Corp and has also threatened to destroy Facebook.[54] In October 2011, Anonymous hackers threatened the Mexican drug cartel known as Los Zetas in an online video after one of their members was kidnapped.[55] In late May 2012 alleged Anonymous members claimed responsibility for taking down a GM crops website.[56] In early September 2012 alleged Anonymous members claimed responsibility for taking down GoDaddys Domain Name Servers, affecting small businesses around the globe.[57] In mid-September 2012, Anonymous hackers threatened the Hong Kong government organization, known as National Education Centre. In their online video, Anonymous members claimed responsibility for leaking classified government documents and taking down the National Education Centre website, after the Hong Kong government repeatedly ignored months of wide-scale protests against the establishment of a new core Moral and National Education curriculum for children from 6–18 years of age. The new syllabus came under heavy criticism and international media attention, as it does not award students based on how much factual information is learned, but instead grades and evaluates students based on their level of emotional attachment and approval of the Communist Party of China, almost in blind brain-washing fashion.[58] Israel In response to Operation Pillar of Cloud in November 2012, Anonymous launched a series of attacks on Israeli government websites. Anonymous protested what they called the barbaric, brutal and despicable treatment of the Palestinian people.[59] Syria On November 30, 2012, the group declared an operation to shut down websites of the Syrian government, in response to a internet blackout the previous day believed to be imposed by Syrian authorities in an attempt to silence opposition groups of the Syrian civil war Reaction from law enforcement agencies Arrests â€Å"| First, who is this group called Anonymous? Put simply, it is an international cabal of criminal hackers dating back to 2003, who have shut down the websites of the U.S. Department of Justice and the F.B.I. They have hacked into the phone lines of Scotland Yard. They are responsible for attacks against MasterCard, Visa, Sony and the Governments of the U.S., U.K., Turkey, Australia, Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand.| †| —Canadian MP Marc Garneau, 2012[67]| In December 2010, the Dutch police arrested a 16-year old for cyberattacks against Visa, MasterCard and PayPal in conjunction with Anonymous DDoS attacks against companies opposing Wikileaks.[68] In January 2011, the FBI issued more than 40 search warrants in a probe against the Anonymous attacks on companies that opposed Wikileaks. The FBI did not issue any arrest warrants, but issued a statement that participating in DDoS attacks is a criminal offense with a sentence of up to 10 years in prison.[69][70] In January 2011, the British police arrested five male suspects between the ages of 15 and 26 with suspicion of participating in Anonymous DDoS attacks.[71] Matthew George, a Newcastle, New South Wales resident, concerned with forthcoming Australian internet filtration legislation, was arrested for his participation in Anonymous DDoS activities. George participated in Anonymous IRC discussions, and allowed his computer to be used in a denial of service attack associated with Operati on Titstorm. Tracked down by authorities, he was fined $550, though he was not fully aware that his actions were illegal, and believed his participation in Operation Titstorm had been a legal form of civil protest. His experience left him disillusioned with the potential of online anonymity, warning others: There is no way to hide on the internet, no matter how hard you cover your tracks you can get caught. Youre not invincible.[72] On June 10, 2011, the Spanish police captured three purported members of Anonymous in the cities of Gijon, Barcelona and Valencia. The operation deactivated the main server from which the three men coordinated DDoS attacks. This particular group had made attacks on the web servers of the PlayStation Store, BBVA, Bankia, and the websites of the governments of Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Iran, Chile, Colombia and New Zealand. The operation revealed that their structure consisted of cells which at any given time could coordinate attacks through the downloading of software; the decision-making process to attack occurred in chat rooms. The Spanish national police stated that this operation corresponds to the fact that the Spanish government and NATO considers this group of hackers a threat to national security.[73] On June 13, 2011, officials in Turkey arrested 32 individuals that were allegedly involved in DDoS attacks on Turkish government websites. These members of Anonymous were captured in different cities of Turkey including Istanbul and Ankara. According to PC Magazine these individuals were arrested after they attacked these websites as a response to the Turkish government demand to ISPs to implement a system of filters that many have perceived as censorship.[74][75] During July 19–20, 2011, as many as 20 or more arrests were made of suspected Anonymous hackers in the US, UK, and Netherlands following the 2010 Operation Avenge Assange in which the group attacked PayPal, as well as attacking MasterCard and Visa after they froze Wikileaks accounts. According to US officials statements suspects homes were raided and suspects were arrested in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington DC, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio, as well as a 16 year old boy being held by the police in south London on suspicion of breaching the Computer Misuse Act 1990, and four being held in the Netherlands.[76][77][78][79] On February 28, 2012, Interpol issued warrants for the arrests of 25 people with suspected links to Anonymous, according to a statement from the international police agency. The suspects, between the ages of 17 and 40, were all arrested.[80] On September 12, 2012; Anonymous spokesman Barrett Brown was arrested at his home in Dallas on charges of threatening an FBI agent. Agents arrested Brown while he was in the middle of aTinychat session.[81]

Reaction to The Reader :: Reader

Reaction to The Reader In part II, chapter eight of Bernhard Schlink's The Reader, the first-person narrator Michael describes reading the account written by a concentration camp who had survived along with her mother, the soul survivors in a large group of women who were being marched away from the camp. He says, "the book...creates distance. It does not invite one to identify with it and makes no one sympathetic..." The same could be said of The Reader. The book is written in such a way as to distance one from the characters. It prevents people from sympathizing with Hanna or Michael or anyone else, taking a sort of detached viewpoint from their problems. This can be paralleled to the efforts of the German people towards Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or "coping with the past." In coping with Germany's Nazi history, the Germans attempted to distance themselves from it and the moral implications it presented. They tried to understand it without involving themselves in it, since involving them selves could implicate them. The one person in the book who cannot distance herself, Hanna, is still unsympathetic because everyone else distances themselves from her, making it impossible to sympathize with any aspect of her plight. Hanna is symbolic of German history in this respect. As the narrator, Michael is particularly hard to sympathize with. The way he guides the story eschews emotional attachment. He himself feels detached from almost everything: "....I felt nothing: my feelings were numbed." His detachment transfers to the readers. None of his traits, or any of the situations he comes up against, makes one feel particularly sorry for him. Nothing makes one want to understand what he's going through or where he's coming from. He is simply there, dictating the story, telling us about his feelings without us getting involved. Further alienating is his tendency to fall into tangents which don't relate to the main narrative. These tangents are even harder to muster interest in than the true point of the book and don't serve any discernible purpose, in the end causing us to separate even further from the story. Michael's feelings of numbness and alienation--and, subsequently, the feelings of numbess and alienation that are produced in the book's audience--reflect the attempts made by the German people to distance themselves from the spectres of the Nazi past.

 Andy Mulligan’s Novel “Trash” Essay

Andy Mulligan’s 2010 Novel Trash explores the vital idea of poverty demonstrated by the condition Behala a trash dump, the area Gardo, Raphael and Rat call home, it appears a desparately squalid land where the most impoverished people dig through mountains of garbage to carve out a livelihood for themselves and their families.  Andy mulligan persuades throughout the book that status or wealth does not affect anyone’s resourcefulness. The boys teach us about resourcefulness and how we should never stop trying and is a key idea that strengthens this book. Raphael found a small leather bag and chose not to give it in to the police. That decision brought with it terrifying consequences. â€Å"The man was shaking, and everything was spinning, and there was my blood.† Soon the dumpsite boys used all of their cunning and courage to stay ahead of their pursuers. â€Å"Some other part of me begging me not to give it up maybe for Jose Angelico†. It was up to Raphael, Gardo, and Rat—boys who have no education, no parents, no homes, and no money to solve the mystery. Andy mulligan has written a powerful story about unimaginable poverty and the ambition that can transcend it. The world we are taken into in Trash was realistic and distressing at times. Especially if you think about the millions of children around the world who live in such conditions. â€Å"The absence of money is drought in which nothing can grow. Nobody knows the value of water until they have lived in a dry place like Behala.† Raphael and his friends Gardo and Jun-Jun are characters who are never sorry for themselves. They know life is tough and they get on with things, finding the positive in many things we take Andy mulligan informs us that key to success Is friendship is and teamwork. He ends the novel with the protagonist Raphael, Gardo and rat starting their new life together. In the course of the novel, they faced many challenges and their friendships grows. He shows the meaning of friendship through the bond between Raphhael and Gardo throughout the book. Gardo is like a big brother to Raphael. He is strong and protective, never leaving Raphael’s side. The two go through everything together. Such as when Raphael is arrested, Gardo feels it too, â€Å"Gardo was right with me at once, and he was talking fast, saying, â€Å"What are you doing? What has he done?† P. 56. This tells the reader just how much Gardo cares about Raphael and through out the whole book Gardo continues to display his caring nature.

The Olympics - Ancient Greek Funeral Games

Its a curious aspect of sports that even when they are part of a celebration of global peace, like the Olympics, they are nationalistic, competitive, violent, and potentially deadly. Substitute panhellenic (open to all Greeks) for global and the same could be said about the ancient Olympics. Sports, in general, could be described as ritualized warfare where one power competes with another, where each hero (star athlete) strives to defeat a worthy opponent within a setting where death is unlikely. Rituals of Compensation for the Catastrophe of Death Control and ritual seem to be the defining terms. In coming to grips with the eternally present fact of death (remember: antiquity was a time of high infant mortality, death by diseases we can now control, and almost incessant warfare), the ancients put on shows where death was under human control. Sometimes the outcome of these shows was purposeful submission to death (as in the gladiatorial games), at other times, it was ​a  victory. Origin of the Games in Funerals The[re] are a number of possible explanations of the custom of funeral games such as to honor a dead warrior by reenacting his military skills, or as a renewal and affirmation of life to compensate for the loss of a warrior or as an expression of the aggressive impulses that accompany rage over the death. Perhaps they are all true at the same time.- Roger Dunkles Recreation and Games * In honor of his friend Patroclus, Achilles held funeral games (as described in Iliad 23). In honor of their father, Marcus and Decimus Brutus held the first gladiatorial games in Rome in 264 BCE. The Pythian Games celebrated Apollos slaying of the Python. The Isthmian games were a funeral tribute to the hero Melicertes. The Nemean games celebrated either Hercules killing of the Nemean lion or the funeral of Opheltes. All of these games celebrated death. But what about the Olympics? The Olympic games also began as a celebration of death, but like the Nemean games, the mythological explanations for the Olympics are confused. Two central figures used to explain the origins are Pelops and Hercules who are genealogically linked insofar as Hercules mortal father was Pelops grandson. Pelops Pelops wished to marry Hippodamia, the daughter of King Oenomaus of Pisa who had promised his daughter to the man who could win a chariot race against him. If the suitor lost the race, he would also lose his head. Through treachery, Oenomaus had kept his daughter unmarried and through treachery, Pelops won the race, killed the king, and married Hippodamia. Pelops celebrated his victory or King Oenomaus funeral with Olympic games. The site of the ancient Olympics was in Elis, which is in Pisa, in the Peloponnese. Hercules After Hercules cleaned the Augean stables, the king of Elis (in Pisa) welshed on his deal, so, when Hercules had a chance -- after he finished his labors -- he returned to Elis to wage war. The conclusion was foregone. After Hercules sacked the city, he put on the Olympic games to honor his father Zeus. In another version, Hercules merely regularized the games Pelops had instituted.