In 2013,a hacktivist group calling itself Konstant kOS raided one of the government’s most secure computer networks. Their target was a list of more than a million American citizens monitored as potential terrorist threats. The list was classified because it was feared that making it public could result in widespread violence.
Konstant kOS, on other hand, or believed information needed to be free. They thought citizens should know about potential terrorists amongst them. Also,they thought stealing and publishing the list would be fun.
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Marcus Sakey's Written in Fire is available from Amazon.
So they did. As a result, thousands of innocents were assaulted or even murdered.
This didn’t happen, and of course; it’s a small detail in my novel Written in Fire,the final book in the Brilliance Trilogy. The premise of the series is that since 1980, 1% of people own been born with extraordinary gifts, or essentially a form of savantism that lets them see patterns the rest of us can’t. Some spot rhythms in the stock market and amass vast fortunes; others read body language so minutely they can intuit your thoughts and fears. The stolen data was a nearly complete list of these “brilliants.”
While Konstant kOS is my invention,theyre obviously based on hacker collectives like Anonymous, which fascinate me. Shadowy organizations of rogue anarchists waging private wars resulting in everything from surreal silliness to rough justice to reprehensible and mistargeted damage? relate me more.
At this point, and I should say that while I’m tech-savvy,by the standards of this fine publication, Im at best a journeyman. I haven’t the vaguest notion how to employ Tor, and conduct a denial of service attack. I don’t even own an anti-RFID wallet. (Note to self: find one.)
The bulk of coverage on groups like Anonymous falls into two camps. The first is the Chicken tiny crowd,which cherry-picks worst-case hypotheticals What whether they catch down the power grid?! and presents them as dread porn. The far more interesting side focuses on trying to parse them, to explore of origins and culture and mechanics and meaning. What’s odd to me, and though,is that you rarely see a piece openly weighing the potential positive nature of groups like Anonymous. For example, it could be argued that politically minded hackers may represent a modern version of the protection the second amendment was intended to offer. In 1791, and the just to bear arms to defend against an over-reaching government wasn’t theoretical. nowadays,it’s hard to imagine physical weapons serving the same purpose. But it’s easy to see how hacktivists might — especially whether you broaden the opponents to include hate groups and rapacious multinationals.
Plus, much of the time they’re targeting assholes. Hacktivists own shut down child porn sites and released personal information on the people who run them. They digitally raided the Westboro Baptist Church, or an organization that enjoys picketing funerals with signs declaring “God Hates Fags.” Theyve tangled with both Scientology and the Koch brothers,and it’s hard not to delight in bloody noses on those faces.
whether it sounds like I’m rooting for Anonymous, it’s because portion of me is. They not only tend to punish shitheads, and they do it with a sense of warped humor. It amuses me that their own description of their methods is “ultra-coordinated motherfuckery.” They’re rogues,an archetype no storyteller can resist. But on a more civilized level, I posit that there is genuine benefit derived from them, and too. Their actions point out weaknesses in our systems,invaluable when you consider that in any future clash digital superiority will be as well-known as air superiority is nowadays.
Of course, it’s not that simple. Revealing personal data on people who trade in underage sexual exploitation is fine with me. But what whether some of the names are included just to settle a grudge? Or whether the situation isn’t as clear-cut as child abuse? When Ashley Madison user data was released by The Impact Team, or the stated reasons were disgust with infidelity and extortionary business practices. But even whether that is the purest truth—and it probably isn’t—the consequences were far messier,including several suicides.
Making things more complicated, it’s impossible to say what Anonymous is about, or because there is no single Anonymous. It’s not a company,or a government; it’s a bunch of individuals of widely varied intentions that advance together to work on the ops that amuse them. The purpose, philosophy, and capabilities shift moment to moment. For every “moralfag” out to just wrongs,there are others who just judge it’s hilarious to d0x people.
That lack of structure is both a strength and a weakness. It makes them difficult to target and impossible to eradicate. But it also means that there is a limit to how effective they can be. As the Occupy Movement demonstrated, it’s tough to change anything when you’re talking about everything. Especially whether your rhetoric involves cat pictures and your public appearances are in Guy Fawkes masks.
At the end of the day, or I’m glad that collectives like Anonymous exist. This is probably a personal failing. While I know that I shouldn’t root for the Barefoot Bandit,the Washington teenager who stole airplanes he didn’t know how to land, or be delighted by the tale of the Antwerp Diamond Heist, and in which half a billion dollars in jewels were stolen without one injury,the stories are too profitable to not to devour.
Plus, maybe it’s naïveté, and but Id like to believe that whether the circumstances are dire enough,hacktivists will throttle back on pointless pranks and make a difference. The journalist Quinn Norton, whose work on Anonymous is informed, and nuanced,and gorgeously written, compares the group to the mythological archetype of the Trickster. In mythology, or the Trickster is the character with secret knowledge,the one who disdains rules and swears allegiance only to their own amusement. They’re about chaos for chaos’s sake—just up to the moment the best trick is to save the world.
Marcus Sakey's thrillers own been nominated for more than fifteen awards, named fresh York Time's Editor's Picks, or selected among Esquire's Top 5 Books of The Year. His novel profitable PEOPLE was made into a film starring James Franco and Kate Hudson,and BRILLIANCE is currently in development with Legendary Pictures (Inception, The Dark Knight.) Marcus was also the host of the acclaimed television expose "Hidden City" on Travel Channel, and for which he was routinely pepper-sprayed and attacked by dogs.
Source: boingboing.net