Viewpoint: Anonymous 'hacktivists' set their sights on freedom
Numerous web pages for the Indian government were shut down this Thursday, including the official websites for their National Congress, Department of Communications and Supreme Court. These disruptions were caused by the widely known Internet vigilante group, Anonymous, as a part of its newest campaign.
#OpIndia is a response to a recent court decision mandating that Indian internet service providers block access to sharing sites such as Vimeo, The Pirate Bay and Dailymotion.
Anonymous declared: “We have come to the conclusion that the Indian government has failed. It is time that we all rise and stand against the corrupt government. The Department of Telecommunications has ordered Internet Service Providers to block file-sharing sites in India. We cannot let this happen.”
Anonymous has no central authority. As the name implies, Anonymous “hacktivists” take pride in their facelessness and do not expect personal recognition of their actions. The organization relies on the independent action of individuals or groups who share the goals.
Because it has no official leader or constitution, Anonymous has yet to come out with a direct mission statement. But the group seems to focus its energy on fighting censorship and what it considers abuses of power, especially when it comes to the Internet. The group has used its hacking expertise to expose numerous child-pornographic websites and even aid in the capture of some criminals.
Anonymous is famous for fighting back with distributed denial-of-serivice attacks (DDoS), which temporarily shuts down specific web pages. When the popular file sharing website Megaupload was shut down by the U.S. Department of Justice and the FBI, Anonymous unleashed its DDoS on those institutions. It also shut down the websites of Universal Music Group and the Motion Picture Association of America in protest of SOPA.
An Anonymous YouTube video explained: “We will continue to attack websites of those who are a danger to freedom on the Internet. We will continue to attack those who embrace censorship. You will not be able to hide your ludicrous ways to control us.”
Anonymous clearly views the Indian government as a “danger to the freedom on the internet.” But governments around the world act as if Anonymous is a danger as well. This year in the U.S. alone, the Pentagon plans to spend $2.3 billion on cyber security.
This may be partially because websites are much more difficult to secure than to hack: it requires millions of lines of code to protect top-secret information, but little more than 100 lines to attack. Nonetheless, it is quite clear that governments take their secrecy quite seriously.
According to FBI director Robert Muller, “the cyber threat will pose the number one threat to our country. We need to take lessons learned from terrorism and apply them to cyber crime.”
This seems like a bit of an extreme stance to hold towards a group that has not caused physical harm to anyone. Governments can be expected to protect their own interests and Anonymous does demonstrate capability to permanently shut down U.S. websites.
Their DDoS actions chiefly contribute in raising awareness of their cause and their real threat to security is in the public action they incite. If anything, governmental overreactions to temporary shut downs increase public sympathy for Anonymous. Arrests of Anonymous contributors such as Jake Davis expose the very abuses of power that Anonymous protests in the first place.
India has not yet responded to the Anonymous hack, but it will likely not respond favorably to this temporary DDoS that lacks substantial or lasting power. Yet Anonymous stands poised for its next course of action, ever vigilant for freedom of the Internet.
Jeremy Goldman is a Summer 2012 USA TODAY Collegiate Correspondent and a member of the Tufts Beelzebubs. Learn more about him here.
This story originally appeared on the USA TODAY College blog, a news source produced for college students by student journalists. The blog closed in September of 2017.