It 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.[4] 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.[5] It strongly opposes Internet censorship and surveillance, and has hacked various government websites. It has also targeted major security corporations.[6][7][8] Its members can be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks. In its early form, the concept has been 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 has become 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.[9][10] Actions credited to "Anonymous" are undertaken by unidentified individuals who apply the Anonymous label to themselves as attribution.[11] Some analysts have praised Anonymous as the freedom fighters of the internet,[12] and a digital Robin Hood,[13] although others have condemned them as "anarchic cyber-guerrillas".[14]
Although not necessarily tied to a single online entity, many websites are strongly associated with Anonymous. This includes notable imageboards such as 4chan, their associated wikis, Encyclopædia Dramatica, and a number of forums. 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, American magazine Time named Anonymous as one of the most influential groups of people in the world.[17]
A grey hat in the hacking community refers to a skilled hacker whose activities fall somewhere between white and black hat hackers on a variety of spectra. It may relate to whether they sometimes arguably act illegally, though in good will, or to show how they disclose vulnerabilities. They usually do not hack for personal gain or have malicious intentions, but may be prepared to technically commit crimes during the course of their technological exploits in order to achieve better security.[1] Whereas white hat hackers will tend to advise companies of security exploits quietly, grey hat hackers are prone to "advise the hacker community as well as the vendors and then watch the fallout".[2]
