The People's History of Anonymous

Partially inherited from the Partyvan wiki article; needs cleanup

Here's a good article at the New Yorker to source from.

Events

The operations that defined the history of Anonymous. (ordered from most recent to oldest)

Operation No2ISIS (September 2014)

Anonymous returns out of it's slumber to oppose one of the bloodiest regimes that has ever manifested upon this Earth; The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

ISIS, an offshoot branch of Al-Qaeda, decided to exploit the chaos brought on by the Syrian Civil War. This terrible conflict forged experienced, moderately armed veteran jihadists easily pushed off the moderate Free Syrian Army to establish their new Caliphate; a flashback to the harsh Sharia rule of the 12th Century. And soon, they would collaborate with escaped Baathists from Abu Gharib to overrun the entire Sunni regions of Iraq.

ISIS is a complete affront to all that Anonymous represents; especially when many anons were veterans of the moderate Arab Spring. These jihadists are trying to turn back mankind's clock to the 12th century, yet hypocritically use 21st century technology to coordinate their operations.

Since ISIS has a huge social media presence on Facebook and Twitter thanks to turncoat Westerners, which allows them to quickly and efficiently coordinate attacks and recruit more jihadists to their cause. Anonymous's strategy is crush this network in an attempt to cripple the airwaves of the Islamic State.

It is a grudging war of attrition, since, much like Anonymous itself, ISIS easily manages to repair their network, launch counterattacks, and create new accounts. Still, new strategies are constantly being devised and tested, and it might just work out. There is no better foe for Anonymous to oppose.

• Source: Vice Motherboard - Anonymous really wants a cyberwar with the Islamic State

OpSony (2012)

OpSony was launched in response to Sony's attempt to censor and prosecute Geohot and anyone who obtained his PS3 jailbreaking keys.

However, a huge scandal occurred when a few unknown hackers took advantage of the chaos and stole credit card numbers and passwords from PlayStation Network. These hackers left a note simply saying "Anonymous", and the public shitstorm commenced.

The events of OpSony ended in defeat and humiliation for Anonymous. The public discredited their movement, and the illogical nature of attacking their own power base forced Anonymous into dormancy for quite a while.

Occupy Movement

The Occupy Movement was a major protest in the Western world against the greed of the 1%, regulator collusion, and bungled national policies that tried to deal with the 2008 Economic Crisis. Anonymous played a major role by providing their existing infrastructure to help the protesters keep coordinated, and Guy Fawkes masks were a common sight.

Unfortunately, the Occupy movement lacked support from politicians, and most of all, could not suggest any solutions to the social problems they protested. As a result, public support became indifferent, and the protesters were slowly but surely forced out by police.

The Arab Spring

Imagine if real anons became part of a new revolutionary government. This happened many times over in the nations of the Arab Spring, with the heavy support of anons worldwide.

Operation Payback (Extended): Wikileaks

The crisis of the decade begins when Wikileaks, a major secure information disseminator, obtains a massive cache of US Government diplomatic cables spanning an entire decade. In response, the US Government attempts to shut down Wikileaks forever, freeze their funding (cutting off Mastercard, Visa and Paypal accounts) and try to scrub the cables off the web.

The inevitable Streisand Effect of the shutdown kicks Operation Payback and AnonOps back into action, this time for an unprecedented massive permanent deployment that transform Anonymous forever.

While the Wikileaks discoveries had little effect on the US itself (the Wikileaks team had made sure that leaked information would not cause grievous damage), it was the straw that broke the camel's back for the Arab Spring.

However, the infinite deployment of Anonymous outside of 4chan causes a permanent divergence in their history; when, upon return, anons find themselves unwelcome in their very own homeland.

Operation Payback: Aiplex Software

When news breaks that a company known as Aiplex Software was paid to DDoS torrent trackers, anons on 4chan were called to action again, deciding to launch a counter-DDoS in the same vein as Project Chanology.

A group of anons fashion together a new IRC network to coordinate a new weapon in the conflict; LOIC (with IRC extensions), known more generally as the Voluntary Botnet. This IRC network would be known as AnonOps, and would dominate Anonymous operations in the new decade.

Project Chanology

In a nutshell:

1. Scientology Tom Cruise propaganda video leaks onto internet.
2. Scientology decide to censor the video and have it removed from the internet.
3. Anonymous dislikes this censorship and takes up arms, launching a crippling online assault against Scientology.
4. This raid draws vast media attention.
5. Thus raid becomes corrupted by newfags (of the moral kind) and mutates from online battle into a peaceful, worldwide protest.
6. Anonymous withdraws, leaving moralfags to carry on the fight alone.

For more see Project Chanology.

Habbo Hotel

Harbl Hotel is a shitty game played by children. Very exploitable. It all began during the summer, when 4channers decided it would be hilarious to form swastikas (SwastiGETS) and block of users. And it was. /b/ called the entire Anonymous to arms. An epic raid. One that would haunt the faggots of Habbo, and send them running out of their rooms. July 12th. Every room was filled with "nigras" spamming, blocking, and forming SwastiGETS. A few less epic raids occurred, like on MLK Day, September 11th, and World AIDS Day. The second major raid also occurred on July 12th the next year. But sadly, this would be the end to the epic Habbo raids. /b/ lost interest, you can no longer block, less people show up, most people are retarded and can't form SwastiGETS, and it's a pile of fail. A plan has been organized for 2010, see Habbo Hotel.

Subeta

Subeta, a kid's game, adds in a meme. Anonymous does not liek. The raid became known as the "Longcat Crusade". At first he was shitstormed with angry Anons telling him to remove it, but he refused. Keith, the owner of Subeta, put up a message that was a giant middle finger to Anonymous. They did not like it. No, not one bit. Then, the shitstorm came. Thousands of Anons, spamming, DDoSing, and many bruteforcing and fucking up Subeta. Keith, despite all this, refused to give up. Anonymous halted for about a few days, as they were planning. Planning something incredible, something epic. The epic plan? Phishing sites. Hundreds of Subetafaggots became victims as they had their accounts on lots of things stolen. Nearly a whole month later the raid was still in full gear. It ended once somebody stole his GoDaddy account and redirected it to a picture of Will Smith.

Hal Turner

Organizations

AnonOps

No organization has been more important to the history of Anonymous than AnonOps.

LulzSec

A small elite splinter group of anons who launched daring offensive operations during Operation Payback.

Unfortunately, most of their ranks were found out and put in jail by an infiltrated traitor.

AnonNews