"We Are Anonymous" Book Review

We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency by Parmy Olson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

"WE ARE ANONYMOUS is the first full account of how a loosely assembled group of hackers scattered across the globe formed a new kind of insurgency, seized headlines, and tortured the feds-and the ultimate betrayal that would eventually bring them down. Parmy Olson goes behind the headlines and into the world of Anonymous and LulzSec with unprecedented access, drawing upon hundreds of conversations with the hackers themselves, including exclusive interviews with all six core members of LulzSec.

"In late 2010, thousands of hacktivists joined a mass digital assault on the websites of VISA, MasterCard, and PayPal to protest their treatment of WikiLeaks. Other targets were wide ranging-the websites of corporations from Sony Entertainment and Fox to the Vatican and the Church of Scientology were hacked, defaced, and embarrassed-and the message was that no one was safe. Thousands of user accounts from pornography websites were released, exposing government employees and military personnel.

"Although some attacks were perpetrated by masses of users who were rallied on the message boards of 4Chan, many others were masterminded by a small, tight-knit group of hackers who formed a splinter group of Anonymous called LulzSec. The legend of Anonymous and LulzSec grew in the wake of each ambitious hack. But how were they penetrating intricate corporate security systems? Were they anarchists or activists? Teams or lone wolves? A cabal of skilled hackers or a disorganized bunch of kids?

"WE ARE ANONYMOUS delves deep into the internet's underbelly to tell the incredible full story of the global cyber insurgency movement, and its implications for the future of computer security."

You can tell it was written by a journalist: clean prose and well-edited, sometimes I really miss that in today's writing. It was well researched - has a timeline, notes and sources, index, and glossary, which is very helpful as these people have their own language and terms for everything.

I don't ever want to make these people angry; they will mess up your life.

It's quite a page-turner of a fascinating world of people. It's books like these that make me realize how big this world is: I had no idea there were so many skilled people out there. It's funny because I used to think I was computer literate (or, at least, where I live I am very computer literate) but these people would scoff at me.

It does make me wonder if the group of people called "Anonymous" like the attention this book is giving them. It does present them as both vigilantes for their cause as well as a huge threat towards the online community. It should be noted, and everyone should read this book, because of the way everything is going online now, it could be very dangerous for people and their stuff to be online and this book tells them, in great detail, why that is. For instance, I will never put all of my stuff in an iCloud. They can never make me, it will never happen.

The one person that I found that I couldn't sympathize with at all was Jennifer Emick. While I wouldn't say that Anonymous does wonderful things, I can kind of understand where they are coming from - they blasted the Church of Scientology and the Westboro Babtist Church, and nobody likes those people. And when they attack companies, it's like 'well, at least they're hitting the big man'. But Emick seems very odd to me. She claims to be raising her kids to be 'self-reliant' but they are not yet teenagers and they have to cook their own food, while she's on the computer for eighteen hour stretches. She got this idea from her parents who made her cook her own food and pay the bills before she was even fourteen, but they were alcoholics and therefore not the prime example for how to be a good parent. Also, Emick has pissed off a group of people who have no problem ruining her financial life by posting her social security number online numerous times and they have even started going after her family. I am wondering if her kids might grow up to really resent her. Also, there must be something off with her personality because she keeps falling out with her business partners and they have even turned around and started going after her, too. I'm wondering if the thrill of catching the bad guy is really all that is keeping her doing this, because she certainly doesn't seem concerned with the safety of her family. She obviously has an addiction to the computer for one thing.

Also, it's kind of interesting that a group whose basis of existence is that they are safe with their numbers and focus on their ability to be invisible, should focus so much on such a small group of people. Also interesting in that Hector 'Sabu' Montsegur should almost rule over these people so long because he has the same bombastic personality issues that Charles Manson and Jim Jones had, while also handing them over to the Feds. They are so emotionally detached and lost touch with reality.

It's a long read, but fascinating and I totally recommend it if you are even remotely interested in the online community.

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