Author: Kilgoar

Years before 4chan, I was the first person to create an Anonymous internet message board that had any effect at all in real life. As the most experienced Anon on Earth, I’m also the first person to realize what a piece of bullshit Anonymous has become. Your organization draws in script kiddies and conspiracy theorists. I am probably the only intelligent person who has been drawn into your “hacktivist” cesspool.

Anonymous is an organization. At one time it wasn’t, but it is now. The leaders only keep saying they aren’t leading to cover their own ass. Yes, you’re like a cult, but not because I think you’re a religious sect. You’re more like the people who believe 9/11 was an inside job. They’re very much a belief cult, sacrificing all skepticism to satisfy their own need for meaning. Anonymous is exactly the same, and this is why I call you a cult. I’m not trolling you poor suckers, I am just educating you by example. God knows, you need it.

Besides understanding the bigger picture better than everyone else, I’m also just plain smarter than you are. You call my writing bad, but I have a prose and style that shames your best writer, Barrett Brown. Few members of Anonymous can even write a proper sentence, and most have no grasp of grammar whatsoever. I use big words that cause dictionary.com’s servers to get overloaded by hordes of raging Anons. I consistently pick topics that mean the most to you just so I can turn them against you. I know, I know, hold your applause till the end.

So not everyone is a writer. Anonymous is a diverse group! Well, apparently, I’m better than your best social engineers, too. Social engineers are kind of like mental hackers who use simple tricks to get people to reveal personal information. I’ve been approached by unrealistic sycophantic personalities who are so painfully and obviously bad that I can’t help but lead them on. In fact, they’re kind of funny. So I’ll post some e-mails I’ve gotten from these especially poor social engineers just to prove how much better I am than Anonymous. This particular fellow is an “artist” like me. I suppose I should sympathize with him.

…asking you to register. I apologize. I didn’t really think through what I was asking of you, or rather, what it looked like I was asking of you. I had directed you to a forum community that was originally launched as an “Anonymous Operation” – the whole OpESR thing. Let me say first that I’m not part of Anonymous, I never claim to be part of it, I never want to be part of it. I wanted to get in touch with you on that website because I’m trying to pull people together. I want to try and get a real, constructive discussion going, with a goal and results oriented approach, instead of just having invisible faces stoking populist anger to direct them towards movements.

This is part of the first e-mail I received, but not the first communication. Social engineers are slippery like that, and will use any stupid trick to worm their way into your trust. I loled at this, and replied:

I am very interested in corresponding with you if you’ve got some interesting insights about Anonymous, or a relevant tale of your own to tell. Please, share with me.

I  also explained quite clearly that I wasn’t interested in helping out with any kind of activism. He replied with a very long and very boring e-mail that in retrospect has only one interesting part. It’s such an obvious regurgitation of “Why Anonymous is Completely Irrelevant” that I shit myself.  I just wrote that article to piss Anonymous off and get my name out there! The generalizations he made sicken me.

…I’ve met many of the feared Anonymous members in person, and all the stereotypes hold true; they’re socially awkward, outcast people who generally mean pretty well and, for lack of a reason to strive in life, they fill most of their time with the acquisition of monetary and material goods.

At the end of that e-mail was an attachment, listing all the issues that he ostensibly wanted to discuss with me. So I picked one that is near to my heart, education reform. The core of my message is here:

One of the underlying themes to my writing is that access to media is worthless unless one has the proper context from which to judge it. So many people lack the critical thinking to notice the way that media frames reporting to twist their own perception, and I see this as a failure in education.

We had a meaningful conversation about the problems with education, and as soon as he thought he had my trust, I received his first attempt at phishing. I tried to ignore it, just so I could keep him going, but after that he was quick to annoy me. I tried to make him go away by not replying to his e-mails, and he came back at me with this.

I just had a thought. Are you in the US? What about a movement to pressure Congress into passing legislation that allows students to actually be able to discharge their student debt?

Oh, I see. More activism that I don’t want to be involved with. Well, I don’t mind tossing around a few ideas for fun.

One idea I feel is quite potent on this topic is the organized non-payment of student loans. This would be somewhat similar to a labor strike in that its purpose would be to create a bargaining mechanism for everyone who has a student loan–whether they are struggling or not. Unlike with mortgages, there is no threat of foreclosure. Unemployed and underemployed graduates with little to lose may be very willing to participate. Considering it means extra money in their pockets to fight a good cause, I’d guess they’d be very willing indeed.

At this point, the lame social engineer thought I was hooked, so he went back to the same old shit. Trying to get me involved in something I’d declined two times already.

I want to be able to pull in everyone with this. I’ve already started a bit in Rochester NY, I’ve got some ideas. So far I’ve volunteered to teach after school classes, or rather, I’m trying to find out. I just had a chance encounter with someone who is doing the same. I guess my first course of action is to get a job, so I can feed myself (even if I don’t I’ve got nice enough family to keep me going at least through this summer). After that, I’m going to try to see about creating this sort of backdoor schooling system. I don’t want people to have to pay $160,000 for a college education, so I’d be happy to give it to folks for free. That being said; two questions;

1) Do you want to start something? and 2) Where do you think we should start it?

This was really just too much. What kind of maniac would read anything that I say and believe that I’m someone who can help out? Perhaps he believes that I am so self-absorbed as to think my endorsement will make or break a cause. There was no letting this invented identity continue down this sick path. The answer he was praying for was: Yes! I would love to help you start an Anonymous Operation. But he didn’t get it, and none of you ever will.

So Anon, you’ll have to call in the heavies if you want access to my accounts. Lame phishers and cocksuckers like this won’t work on me. I have more experience than any other Anon out there. Oh, I remember being 16 and creating an underage female persona who got DJs to play every single song I asked for. It was fucking hilarious. I’m the most experienced Anon ever, and don’t you forget it.

I’ll say it publicly, because I don’t want more failphishers trying to trick me into saying it privately. If you have no money and you want to change the world with a great idea, you’re fucked. Of course, there are two exceptions. One is Facebook, and the other is Anonymous. If you want to know why Anonymous hates Facebook so much, it’s because Facebook is what organized the democratic uprising in the Arab world. Everyone knows it was not you, Anonymous. Only you believe that you were responsible. But I’m smart enough to realize that the things Barrett Brown writes and says are twisted and designed to control you. You had no influence whatsoever on these democratic uprisings, and you are too fucking dumb to realize it. That is why I am so much better than you are.

I am Anonymous

I am Legion

I do not forgive

I do not forget

Expect me

So who are you? What are you? What are your goals? Where are you heading? How do you see the world changing? How do you see yourself as an actor in whatever events you predict?

~No-One

I’m a quiet, humble, and generally very shy person. That is, when I am not on the internet. Online, I’m outspoken, disagreeable, and prone to make wildly dramatic gestures. I am a Science Fiction junkie and a computer nerd. I was the kid who everyone thought of as a bad ass hacker genius in school. I wasn’t and still am not. That’s roughly who I am.

I created an anonymous message board in 2002, when I was in high school. I was threatened with lawsuits and punished in other ways. Every kid in school became too afraid to post anything, so I shut it down. I’ve written online in some form or another since 2001, but only this year have I had any significant readership. This is almost entirely due to AnonNews. That’s roughly what I am.

My goal is simple. I want Anonymous to look at itself critically.

Powerful organizations and individuals clamp down on the lives of the general populace for their own gain until the people rise up. It’s an endless cycle. I see the influence of communication technology quickening the pace of this cycle for both sides of this struggle. I’d say that this time, the people have the upper hand. That’s how I see the world changing.

My part in it all is hard for me to understand. I am compelled to write, and I don’t stop to wonder why. I do, however, wonder why people still read what I have to write. Perhaps it’s just because I keep spamming it on AnonNews. Maybe, just maybe, Anonymous secretly wants a conscience. I don’t think there is anything wrong with questioning the rightness of everything they do. To tie this in with my previously mentioned goal, I’ve got to ask: Has Anonymous become more critical of itself? I don’t really know. Anonymous hasn’t been around all that long, and I’ve been around for even less time. Still, I will mention Westboro Baptist and Sony, because they’re two cases, since I’ve been around, where Anonymous has criticized itself. I don’t know if Anonymous has ever denied DDoSing web sites before, but I think it is at least worth noting.

“…Anonymous has many of the characteristics of any other cult. The propagation of Anonymous is perhaps unique to the internet and also to history. I don’t know how informed or interested you are in Anonymous, but it is really of great interest to me.

Describing Anonymous is dicey and there aren’t a lot of good terms. By participating in large scale Anonymous message boards participants alter their own personality somewhat and lose their inhibition. The resulting group action is wild.

Concepts out of science fiction are worshiped by Anonymous. Members claim to be part of a hyper-conscious entity that lives in cyberspace. They often repeat a dogma that Anonymous will awaken humanity and lead the way to a better world. Of course, this is where the cult alarms start going off in my head. Still, Anonymous often postures itself as anti-cult. Anonymous is well known for protesting against Scientology and defacing the Westboro Baptist’s web site (godhatesfags.com). I see this as a way for Anonymous to deflect their own knowledge that they too are a cult…”

That is an excerpt from an e-mail I wrote, seeking the wisdom of someone smarter than myself. He agreed that it sounded cult-like, the way I described it. Not all Anons hold these beliefs, I know. It’s still important though, to be self-critical and conscious of the outside world’s view. Let me quote Wikipedia’s definition of Anonymous, which cites Chris Landers of the Baltimore City Paper.

Anonymous (used as a mass noun) is an Internet meme originating 2003 on the imageboard 4chan, representing the concept of many online community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic, digitized global brain.^[2]

So what’s the harm in coming off a little cultish? Appealing to the need each person has for meaning and purpose is only natural, of course. Well, I’d take a hard look at the significance of the movie V for Vendetta and the motto of Anonymous, even if they’re used tongue-in-cheek. I won’t forget that the combination of even a little bit of self-righteous ideology and the wrong imagery is a recipe for violence. To ignore that fact would be terribly naive. I hate to think of what damage one off-balance person with a Guy Fawkes mask and the wrong ideas could do to the lives of real human beings. If I could do just one thing for Anonymous, it would be to make their most important message non-violence.

Those are the best answers to your questions, No-one. Except for one. You asked where I am heading, and I have no idea. I leave that one for Anon to answer.

I’d like to make note of the role my friend Ol’ Brutus has played in these events. He’s always suffered more than I have for all this shit–in school, as well as at present. He was an instrumental part in the Anonymous message board in high school and even more so for the Chronicle. Nothing I have done would have been possible without him.