4chan Hacker
Leanna Perr
Until 2008, when his name was revealed in The Wall Street Journal,[5] Poole took great lengths to protect his identity, going under the pseudonym of Robert "Bob" Bopkins in real life and as moot online.[6][7] Several journalists, including Lev Grossman of Time and Monica Hesse of The Washington Post, noted that the name "Christopher Poole" could itself be a pseudonym.[8][9]
Poole believes in anonymity on the Internet, and spoke at the TED2010 conference in Long Beach, California, about the value of the concept.[10] In a MIT Technology Review piece entitled "Radical Opacity", Poole was described as being the antithesis of Mark Zuckerberg; while Zuckerberg is outspoken towards his advocacy for a transparent Internet, Poole advocates for a more opaque Internet.[11]
In 2009, The Washington Post reported that Poole had attended Virginia Commonwealth University for a few semesters before dropping out, and that he was living with his mother while trying to figure out how to monetize 4chan.[9]
In April 2009, Poole was voted the most influential person of 2008 with 16,794,368 votes by an open Internet poll conducted by Time, beating out the likes of Barack Obama, Vladimir Putin, and Oprah Winfrey.[12] It was soon discovered that the users of the /b/ board had manipulated the results of the poll in Poole's favor.[13] Several tools were developed to achieve this, including a website that would vote for Poole at a rate of about 100 votes per minute, and a program capable of voting for him at a rate of 300 votes per minute.[14] The other entries in the poll were also manipulated; the first letter of each entry in the poll spelled out an acrostic for "Marblecake, also the game", a reference to the IRC chatroom where Project Chanology was born and The Game, respectively.[15]
In April 2010, Poole gave testimony in the Sarah Palin email hacking trial, United States of America v. David Kernell. As a government witness, he explained the terminology on the site as part of his testimony, including "OP" and "lurker".[16]
In 2010, it was reported that Poole had raised $625,000 to create a new online enterprise, Canvas. Among the site's investors were Marc Andreessen and Joshua Schachter.[17] Canvas officially launched on January 31, 2011, in beta, and featured digitally modified images created by users of the site. In contrast to 4chan, users were required to identify themselves using Facebook Connect.[18] A similar app, called DrawQuest, launched on February 8, 2013.[19]
On January 21, 2015, Poole stepped down as the head administrator of 4chan.[2] Two days later, he held his final 4chan Q&A.[21] Following his departure from 4chan, he began to turn the site over to three anonymous 4chan moderators while looking for a buyer for the website.[22] On September 21, 2015, Hiroyuki Nishimura, the founder of 2channel, took over as the site's owner.[23]
On March 8, 2016, via a post on Tumblr, Poole announced that he had been hired by Google in an undisclosed position,[3] a decision that was met with anger from Google employees, who claimed that Poole's employment at Google was not compatible with its claims of diversity.[4] In June 2016, Poole became a partner at Google's in-house startup incubator, Area 120. He switched positions again in 2018 when he became a product manager for Google Maps.[24] On April 13, 2021, he left Google, after five years at the company.[4]
Anonymous is a decentralized international activist and hacktivist collective and movement primarily known for its various cyberattacks against several governments, government institutions and government agencies, corporations and the Church of Scientology.
Anonymous 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" or "hivemind".[2][3][4] Anonymous members (known as anons) can sometimes be distinguished in public by the wearing of Guy Fawkes masks in the style portrayed in the graphic novel and film V for Vendetta.[5] Some anons also opt to mask their voices through voice changers or text-to-speech programs.
Dozens of people have been arrested for involvement in Anonymous cyberattacks in countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, the Netherlands, South Africa,[6] Spain, India, and Turkey. Evaluations of the group's actions and effectiveness vary widely. Supporters have called the group "freedom fighters"[7] and digital Robin Hoods,[8] while critics have described them as "a cyber lynch-mob"[9] or "cyber terrorists".[10] In 2012, Time called Anonymous one of the "100 most influential people" in the world.[11] Anonymous' media profile diminished by 2018,[12][13] but the group re-emerged in 2020 to support the George Floyd protests and other causes.[14][15]
The philosophy of Anonymous offers insight into a long-standing political question that has gone unanswered with often tragic consequences for social movements: what does a new form of collective politics look like that wishes to go beyond the identity of the individual subject in late capitalism?[16]
Internal dissent is also a regular feature of the group.[17] A website associated with the group describes it as "an Internet gathering" with "a very loose and decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives".[17] Gabriella Coleman writes of the group: "In some ways, it may be impossible to gauge the intent and motive of thousands of participants, many of who don't even bother to leave a trace of their thoughts, motivations, and reactions. Among those that do, opinions vary considerably."[18]
Broadly speaking, Anons oppose Internet censorship and control and the majority of their actions target governments, organizations, and corporations that they accuse of censorship. Anons were early supporters of the global Occupy movement and the Arab Spring.[19] Since 2008, a frequent subject of disagreement within Anonymous is whether members should focus on pranking and entertainment or more serious (and, in some cases, political) activism.[20][21]
Because Anonymous has no leadership, no action can be attributed to the membership as a whole. Parmy Olson and others have criticized media coverage that presents the group as well-organized or homogeneous; Olson writes, "There was no single leader pulling the levers, but a few organizational minds that sometimes pooled together to start planning a stunt."[23] Some members protest using legal means, while others employ illegal measures such as DDoS attacks and hacking.[24] Membership is open to anyone who wishes to state they are a member of the collective;[25] British journalist Carole Cadwalladr of The Observer compared the group's decentralized structure to that of al-Qaeda: "If you believe in Anonymous, and call yourself Anonymous, you are Anonymous."[26] Olson, who formerly described Anonymous as a "brand", stated in 2012 that she now characterized it as a "movement" rather than a group: "anyone can be part of it. It is a crowd of people, a nebulous crowd of people, working together and doing things together for various purposes."[27]
The group's few rules include not disclosing one's identity, not talking about the group, and not attacking media.[28] Members commonly use the tagline "We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."[29] Brian Kelly writes that three of the group's key characteristics are "(1) an unrelenting moral stance on issues and rights, regardless of direct provocation; (2) a physical presence that accompaniesonline hacking activity; and (3) a distinctive brand."[30]
Journalists have commented that Anonymous' secrecy, fabrications, and media awareness pose an unusual challenge for reporting on the group's actions and motivations.[31][32] Quinn Norton of Wired writes that: "Anons lie when they have no reason to lie. They weave vast fabrications as a form of performance. Then they tell the truth at unexpected and unfortunate times, sometimes destroying themselves in the process. They are unpredictable."[31] Norton states that the difficulties in reporting on the group cause most writers, including herself, to focus on the "small groups of hackers who stole the limelight from a legion, defied their values, and crashed violently into the law" rather than "Anonymous's sea of voices, all experimenting with new ways of being in the world".[31]
Since 2009, dozens of people have been arrested for involvement in Anonymous cyberattacks, in countries including the U.S., UK, Australia, the Netherlands, Spain, and Turkey.[33] Anons generally protest these prosecutions and describe these individuals as martyrs to the movement.[34] The July 2011 arrest of LulzSec member Topiary became a particular rallying point, leading to a widespread "Free Topiary" movement.[35]
The first person to be sent to jail for participation in an Anonymous DDoS attack was Dmitriy Guzner, an American 19-year-old. He pleaded guilty to "unauthorized impairment of a protected computer" in November 2009 and was sentenced to 366 days in U.S. federal prison.[36][37]
On June 13, 2011, officials in Turkey arrested 32 individuals that were allegedly involved in DDoS attacks on Turkish government websites. These members of Anonymous were captured in different cities of Turkey including Istanbul and Ankara. According to PC Magazine, these individuals were arrested after they attacked websites as a response to the Turkish government demand to ISPs to implement a system of filters that many have perceived as censorship.[38][39]
Chris Doyon (alias "Commander X"), a self-described leader of Anonymous, was arrested in September 2011 for a cyberattack on the website of Santa Cruz County, California.[40][41] He jumped bail in February 2012 and fled across the border into Canada.[41]
In September 2012, journalist and Anonymous associate Barrett Brown, known for speaking to media on behalf of the group, was arrested hours after posting a video that appeared to threaten FBI agents with physical violence. Brown was subsequently charged with 17 offenses, including publishing personal credit card information from the Stratfor hack.[42]
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