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We Are Anonymous: Inside The Hacker World Of LulzSec, Anonymous, And The Global Cyber Insurgency (2012)

by Parmy Olson(Favorite Author)

3.92 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

0316213543 (ISBN13: 9780316213547)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

review 1: When I'm in a non-fiction mood I like picking books on topics I know little about and let the world unfold a bit more for me. This was another good choice. I'd heard of Anonymous but not LulzSec, and other than a vague notion of them being a group of political hackers, I knew little of them. That made me the target audience for this book. Olson does a fine job of explaining to newbs like me the internet culture that gave birth to the titular groups. It's not a pretty culture. Let's just say there's some dark places on the internet, and when you spend all your waking time there, anonymously, consuming all manner of hate, spite, prejudice, depravity - well, it's not hard to understand why morality disappears in a world with no boundaries whatsoever. People who do suggest an ... moreaction or idea might be wrong are derided as "moral fags" and attacked. Manipulating someone into compromising their security or doing things they never would have otherwise done, or "social engineering", is a highly prized skill. Destroying a stranger's life by exposing personal info, correspondence, passwords, photos, etcetera is a routine night of fun for many. The cherished anonymity makes lies and rumours commonplace, and loyalties are fluid, shifting often. It's a chaotic world where ideas come and go a mile a minute and only a few capture the attention of the hordes. Political motivation is swirling around out there but it's not the prime mover, at least for the segment focused on here. Olson takes us through a few of the high profile hacks of the past decade. Very detailed summaries of how they developed. She must've had access to the chat logs for the key figures in order to drop so many quotes and paraphrases. Gets a bit much after awhile, but you really get a sense for how amorphous these hacks were. One of the surprising things was that many of the people in this world weren't even hackers. They knew their way around the net but they didn't have the technical skills to do much. Social engineering skills were often just as effective. Another surprising thing is how few people were involved in some very high profile hacks. Fascinating world, fascinating ideas. Good book. The narrator of the audiobook did a fine job, too.
review 2: I saw this post once: "This is generation is late to discover the ends of the earth. It's too young to discover space. But it is at the right time to discover the internet." The internet can be an asset or a liability but that depends on what you do with the internet as well as other technologies. Now, these 'hacktivists' used the internet for protest. We are Anonymous by Parmy Olson details the culture of the internet and its functions followed by the group of "Anonymous" to pranks then later escalate to activism. Most of the activist acts are rooted with pranking. I didn't finish or should I say skipped the second half of Part II because of the extensive internet functions. This was too much for me because I'm not that inclined to it. Still, I got the concept of hacking works and use it against those who own a site. The wild goose chase by law enforcement was also a good story because that's what I came for. less

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