Crossing back from the other side

Another Anonymous-themed post, however it is on a topic that is particularly interesting and is a continuation of my core thesis. Two events of Anonymous' actions of recent times have come to my attention, and highlight the continuing adaptation, change and development of the collective into new and interesting areas.

The first is a spinoff movement towards conducting a guerilla campaign of security analysis - first targeting the already under-scrutiny Chinese agricultural compay Chaoda Modern Agriculture; questioning profit margins, curious resignations of auditing staff and investigating offshoot offices and websites for more details of and examples of fraud by the senior executive staff, publishing their report for free and in its entirety online, claiming that more than $400m has been funnelled out of the company under the guises of legitimate spending, with the ultimate goal being the total delisting of the company as a result of this investigation.

The second is an open threat by someone operating under the banner (or should I say, mask) of Anonymous to expose Mexican officials, journalists and others who are involved with the Zetas drug cartel, as a response to a member of Anonymous being kidnapped by the cartel in the town of Veracruz.

The first example highlights the diversity of the movement as a whole, as well as its acephalous and almost anarchic nature, and the absolute adherence to the core ideology of absolute freedom of information, especially information that particular individuals have a highly vested interest to keep under wraps. However the second example can be seen as a clear divergence from this core ideology - something which is impossible to control due to Anonymous' unorganised and inherently leaderless structure. There is nothing to stop anyone claiming that they are part of the collective, or that their actions are a collective response. In fact, in an inversion of conventional structural and organisational hierarchy and theory, these events and actions become part of Anonymous as a whole, regardless of how reckless and destabilising they may be.

As such the movement changes, evolves and adapts at a constant and unrelenting pace. It is entirely possible that this kind of direct vigilantism could become increasingly frequent, in which Anons attempt to "right wrongs" more than protect freedom of information, even using that same freedom to do so.

Anonymous back in the real world - a return to form?

During my Master's programme, I became increasingly interested in Anonymous as the next evolutionary step in the development of insurgency/politically subversive action, building the idea from a simple seminar presentation into my full dissertation, charting their origins, history, development, ideology, structure (or lack of), and attempting to understand the above through the application of insurgency/counterinsurgency theory. Part of the purpose of this blog is to continue to work and develop this topic - amongst similar related ones - in a constructive and catalogued fashion, as well as to make mention of material and ideas that did not make it into the already generous word limit of my original work.

The presence of Anonymous in the Occupy Wall Street protest movement in America - as well as the associated protests around the world - should come as no great surprise. Anonymous became involved in the Arab Spring uprisings in their own manner - offering workarounds and loopholes in government communications surveillance, channels for contact with external activists and diasporas, as well as through direct attack on the internet presences of the regimes being challenged by their populations.

This time however, with the protests taking place in western/westernised countries, they have been able to take part "IRL" (in real life) in addition to their usual, internet-based routes. A fairly common and naive opinion of Anonymous, LulzSec and other related/aligned movements is that they stick to protesting online as basement-dwelling pale nerds don't tend to do to well when faced with riot police, batons and kettling tactics, and would certainly fair even worse against the military regimes of North Africa and the Middle East.

In a way this viewpoint is both right and wrong, for almost the same reasons. Due to the deliberate eschewing of direct control structures, Anonymous operates globally in an acephalous manner, acting as a force multiplyer to existing causes that come to its attention, making use of increasingly sophisitcated public relations and culture jamming skills, the developmental trajectory of which can be clearly documented and analysed. The exact methodology of this I shall come to in a later blog, but they do not have the physical capability to protest on their own, certainly not like they managed in 2008 with the Project Chanology protests.

As such, they have taken the path of least resistance, and operate in an environment that adapts, changes and enables communication of information at a speed that governments and corporations have found difficult to keep pace with, which gives them the clear advantage in terms of influence and reaching target audiences in a way that said audience instinctively understands and uses on a constant basis.

As such it is interesting to see them return to participating in real world actions, however whether this is the moment that Anonymous emerges as a serious and recognisable entity outside of its native environment remains to be seen.

A Taste of things to come

Welcome to Internetual Analysis. This blog serves to A) force myself to keep up to date with current events in my fields of interest and B) that I think, write and analyse them consistently to stay in practise throughout my search for a gainful position in which I can do so professionally, maybe even beyond.

I hope that you find this interesting, I should have plenty of material to be getting on with.