Inside Anonymous - ‘Civil War’ Over Its Fight With ISIS
For about two years now, Anonymous has waged its own online war against ISIS. Anonymous-affiliated hackers, as well as several splinter groups, have claimed to have taken down countless pro-ISIS Twitter accounts, websites, and even to have gathered crucial intelligence about the terrorist group’s operations.
No one know for sure how effective any of these efforts have been, but having hackers who identify as Anonymous members try to help police and intelligence agencies has been a shocking sight, considering the group has always cultivated an anti-government image.
It’s been a shock even for some longtime members of the hacktivist movement, who have opposed the idea of helping authorities.
To understand whether this divide has caused a significant chasm within Anonymous, Motherboard spoke with a hacker who calls himself Discordian, and has been a member of Anonymous since 2010. Discordian didn’t mince any word when speaking about how bad the internal conflict has been.
“I think you could almost call it a civil war, it’s that bad,” Discordian said.
Anonymous like any organisation cannot always agree on strategy and certainly on tactics.