Anonymous Operations: The Front Line in a Dark War
Today, I had one of the most disturbing conversations in my life.
Anonymous has long engaged in childish games with targets and friends alike. They coined the phrase "for the lulz" to use as a one-off excuse to pick on a target that they quite honestly just wanted to mess with. LulzSec, one of the most (in)famous Anonymous spin-off groups, has the word in their very name. Sometimes, the "for the lulz" excuse is just that: an excuse to cover up a wider, more complex motivation, but in many cases it's just trolls being trolls.
The story I present to you today is a reminder that not everything is fun and games in the decentralized, disorganized collective. I introduce you today to the warriors who have seen much more than scrolling code or government conspiracy. I introduce you today to the hackers who have a much more righteous motivation than fame, fortune, or "for the lulz".
The Library Presents: Anonymous Operations #OpPedo
Let me introduce you to Scott. Scott is a close friend with one of my close contacts A, and works with A in the daily fight against online propaganda. A primarily concerns himself with Islamic State's online presence, a daily battle against propagandists and extremist hackers. When he's not fighting the online battle against extremism, A teams up with Scott to head another collection of hackers devoted to fighting one of the most sinister enemies on the web.
The internet is not all cat pictures and dank memes. Since the inception of AIM Messenger chat rooms and multiplayer online video games for children, pedophiles have been using the web to exploit children. This takes many different forms, from non-technical perverts convincing children in their area to meet them in a secluded place, to hackers using the web to hack children's laptops to take pictures of them with their webcams.
Recently, I documented the takedown of two huge Dark Net Marketplaces by the international intelligence community. The primary economy in markets like these is drugs, but there are many more marketplaces that sell child pornography or traffic children as sex slaves. There could be as many as 20-30 million slaves in the market today, many of them children and most of them being used for sexual exploitation.
This highlights a huge portion of the issue of web-based pedophilia. From neighbors in a chatroom luring unsuspecting children to a windowless van to a faceless enemy lurking behind a child's webcam, internet pedophilia is a huge problem, and is only growing.
Anonymous Against Online Pedophilia
Enter Scott. Scott is a fighter in the battle against online pedophilia, and teamed up with A in the recent past for help in his online battle. A is an Anon with connections and experience, making him a good mentor for Scott and a good point of contact to "vet" new users, making sure they aren't pedophiles seeking to run counterintelligence operations on the group.
Scott organizes the group to battle pedophilia online on social media. I was incredibly surprised when Scott told me how bold pedophiles had become on social media, something he directly attributed to the normalization of pedophilia in society. He said that some of the easier targets used online handles that directly insinuated they were pedophiles, vulgar nicknames that they used to network with others.
Scott said they often posted mundane pictures of fully clothed children in every day circumstances. This has been seen in offline pedophilia as well. It's called "dog whistling", a way to call other pedophiles to their page with pictures that aren't illegal or criminal. These pictures are innocent, without context, but could still be taken without the children even being aware of the photographer. The pictures are posted on the profile with a link to another site, usually a host of illegal, hard core child pornography.
Even more sinister, these dog whistles can also be used for future targeting, almost like a Wanted poster. The dog whistling accounts often can't be directly reported to social media authorities unless they link to illegal activity or the accounts can be proven to be used to exploit children. Scott says that's where the second step comes in: linking pedophiles together in a web of perversion. If he finds one account clearly acting illegally, he will check other accounts, recording them as suspect and investigating them later on.
This web is an important piece of an intelligence operation. Building threat matrices allows you to better understand the enemy, and can make infiltration into an enemy group much easier.
A Lonely Battle
Scott says one of the biggest issues he faces is his lack of dialogue with authorities.
Anonymous faces this issue with many of their operations. Because of their anarchist beginnings, many of them are unwilling to work with federal authorities, or are afraid of being jailed themselves. Many times, federal authorities can't use evidence passed to them by the hacktivists because the evidence was obtained illegally in some cases. In other cases, federal authorities don't take Anonymous members seriously, thinking they are non-technical actors or kids with no intelligence experience.
Still, cooperation with authorities would give OpPedo boots on the ground. It's a lot easier to set up a new account on Twitter than to get out of jail after being charged with child pornography. Federal authorities would put muscle behind Anonymous's intelligence operations.
Many members of Anonymous agree, noting with frustration that you don't have to agree with everything the government does to fight online pedophilia alongside them. Anonymous members can't be expected to kick down doors and storm into pedophile's apartments, just like federal operatives have a hard time networking and running counterintelligence operations against more technically adept threats.
Scott's pleas for an open dialogue with law enforcement come with another request.
"One Improvement I've Seen Is Wider Outrage."
Scott believes that education and outrage is what the operation and the wider movement needs. He says that educating society on the importance of fighting pedophilia in all forms is incredibly important. One of Scott's biggest worries is the normalization of pedophilia in society, the tendency of mainstream media to ignore pedophillic activity or celebrities excusing it being primary examples.
Scott thinks that with wider education on the severity of this issue, children can be saved and some of society's most evil people can be tossed in a hole without a key. He says that if you really want to help, stop ignoring the problem. Spread awareness and call out those that tacitly support pedophiles, whether it be directly by taking part in it or indirectly by excusing it.
Spread awareness, Scott says. Educate yourself and others.
"The normalization of pedophilia is the reason it's prevalent on [social media platforms like] Twitter."
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This is the first episode of a series documenting the multitude of Operations that Anonymous is currently or has formerly been engaged in. Because of the nature of some of their Operations, I have worked with members of Anonymous to decide how they would like to be identified. The safety of my sources is paramount.
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