Tech // Current TV

Occupy Wall Street And Anonymous: Turning A Fledgling Movement Into A Meme

Two weeks ago, Cornel West, Princeton professor and activist, showed up at a tent city erected by Occupy Wall Street protesters across the street from the Federal Reserve building in Boston. As he finished delivering an impromptu speech, a man who had been standing off to the side leaned in and gave him a hug. He was in his mid-thirties, with gray-dusted hair, a round face and dimples. Most people who witnessed this moment probably didn't think anything of it -- but then, most people aren't familiar with the faces of the online movement known Anonymous.

The man was Gregg Housh, an Internet technology consultant and one of the few people associated with Anonymous whose real name is known to the public. Housh occupies a special place in Anonymous lore. In 2008, he was among a small group of "Anons" who came up with the idea of releasing a video that declared war on the Church of Scientology, which in turn led to thousands of people protesting outside of Scientology centers around the world and heralded the moment when Anonymous first coalesced into something resembling a political movement.

Back then, Housh couldn't have been less interested in political or social change. Scientologists had provoked Anons by removing an embarrassing and, to the Anons, hilarious video of Tom Cruise from the Internet, and the Anons thought it would be funny to get back at them by standing around outside their centers wearing masks and shouting insults.

As for Housh himself, he had hardly lived the life of a typical activist. When in his twenties, he was arrested for helping to run a software piracy group, and spent three months in a maximum-security prison. This was just one episode in what he described as a long history of criminal mischief.

Within about two weeks of the first protesters descending on Wall Street, however, he was spending nearly every day at the Occupy Boston site, where he quickly fell into a central logistical and public relations role, talking to reporters, city officials and unions -- and, indeed, rubbing shoulders with none other than Cornel West, that prominent and cufflinked icon of progressivism.

"I've gone from not caring about anything at all but myself to pretty much a full-time activist," he said on the phone recently, sounding a bit surprised. "And I'm pretty happy with the transformation. It feels good to care about the world."

Housh is one of many participants in the Occupy Wall Street protests who trace their roots in the movement to the constellation of online networks and chat rooms that make up the Anonymous universe. A few days ago, I gave myself an online alias ("sakiknafo"), logged into one of the main Anonymous online networks (AnonOps) and entered a chat room labeled "#occupywallstreet," where I introduced myself as a reporter to someone with the handle "Velveeta."
More @ link http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/20/occupy-wall-street-anonymous-connection_n_1021665.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003Two weeks ago, Cornel West, Princeton professor and activist, showed up at a tent city... more

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Hackin' Green: Homeland Security puts out alert on Anonymous

A US Cybersecurity alert from Homeland Security -- exposed today by Anonymous -- reveals the United States is concerned about Anonymous and its new hacktivist agenda targeting corporations, including the Tar Sands energy companies and Monsanto.

The concern focuses on the Anonymous Operation Green Rights Project Tarmaggedon.

The alert states that Anonymous appears to now have a "hactivist" agenda and that most of the damage is by way of harassment, embarrassment and denials of service.

However, the report also attributes the successful protest of Tar Sands energy companies in Montana this summer to Anonymous.

"On 12 July 2011, Anonymous released a press report on a website titled 'Anonymous Operation Green Rights Project Tarmaggedon.'The report outlined Anonymous’ hacktivists concerns with global warming and called for protests against the Alberta Tar Sands (Canada) project along Highway 12 in Montana. As quoted from its posting, 'Anonymous Operation Green Rights calls your attention to an urgent situation in North America perpetuated by the boundless greed of the usual suspect: Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, Canadian Oil Sands Ltd. Imperial Oil, the Royal Bank of Scotland and many others.'"
"On 13 July 2011, according to open source reporting, seventy protesters ascended on the Montana state capitol building to protest the Alberta Tar Sands project and the Keystone, XL 36 inch underground pipeline project.e The NCCIC assesses that Anonymous’ participation in peaceful protests carries a moderate likelihood of being accompanied by cyber attacks or exploitations, though no malicious cyber activity was reported in association with this protest."

The report is the titled the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center Bulletin, and quotes Anonymous and national news articles.

The Bulletin also shares a concern for Monsanto.
"Monsanto is a U.S.-based global biotech seed company. Tom Helscher, the company director of corporate affairs, in an e-mail to msnbc.com confirmed that Monsanto 'experienced a disruption to its website that appeared to be from an organized cyber group.'"

Read the Bulletin:
http://info.publicintelligence.net/NCCIC-AnonymousICS.pdf

More @ link http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2011/10/hackin-green-homeland-security-puts-out.htmlA US Cybersecurity alert from Homeland Security -- exposed today by Anonymous --... more

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How Anonymous emerged to Occupy Wall Street

Mocked at first by some, Occupy Wall Street is showing the potential of online 'hacktivism' allied with street protest

Defying harsh critiques from Stephen Colbert and slews of bloggers who scoffed last week at the "leaderless", "directionless", Frisbee-throwing hipsters camping out on cardboard at a random New York City park in the financial district, Occupy Wall Street appears to be gaining ground. From the modest 200 occupiers last week, numbers of protesters rose to an estimated peak of approximately 3,000 to 5,000 at the weekend's march. Media attention has grown exponentially.

After taking their inspiration from the Egyptian "one demand" model, Occupy Wall Street have now released their list of "one" demands, bringing much-needed clarity to their objectives. The movement has moved to reach out to a broader base, including labor unions. Last week's execution of Troy Davis also contributed to the growth of Occupy Wall Street as crowds of protesters in Zucotti Park, renamed Liberty Plaza, swelled to approximately 1,500 last Thursday night demanding an end to capital punishment.

Violence caught on camera over the weekend of police arresting approximately 80 protesters and, in one now-notorious case, apparently spraying mace into the faces of female protesters has generated an outcry over the NYPD's "cowardly" use of force on peaceful protesters. Thanks to these two incidents, says one protester, Danny Garza, "Occupy Wall Street has gotten bigger than we ever thought it could be."

But the protest's profile cannot be measured purely in numbers of street protesters: on the periphery of Liberty Plaza is a parallel internet-based activism buttressing the movement. Under the banner of the virtual collective Anonymous, these "hacktivists" are now engaged in the physical action of street protest. "Groundfags" in Liberty Park communicate back and forth with online activists. The new dynamics of combined street and online activism have significantly underpinned Occupy Wall Street as a distinctive new movement.

"We can physically be at a protest one day and the next day show up online," according to an Anonymous activist who goes by the name of "MotorMouth". The most concrete example of this symbiotic relationship is the rapid online identification by Anonymous activists of an NYPD officer they claim to have been the perpetrator in the pepper-spray incident.

Naming an individual police officer may be a controversial tactic, but Occupy Wall Street has used social networking media as a positive organisational tool. When it emerged that a handful of activists were prepared to incite rioting and provoke the police days before Occupy Wall Street was to begin, Anonymous developed a Twitter application called URGE, launching an online campaign designed to quell potential violence. Anonymous "culture-jammed" Twitter with messages to keep protests peaceful, using top Twitter trends from around the world.

The involvement of Anonymous activists has also helped the movement make new connections. When activists expressed outrage at Troy Davis's execution on Wednesday night, Anonymous linked the death penalty with the protests. One Anonymous figure, by the name of "Jackal", says:

"This is a new way to protest. Many of us have done our fair share of street protesting. But they drag us into the streets, and they mace us. Now we have brought our protests into the online social media space. We do it all at once – the street protesting along with our distributed denial of service [DDoS] attacks. We are a bit of an online flash mob."

What will become of Occupy Wall Street is uncertain: protesters now face eviction from Zucotti Park; yet the movement has sparked similar activism in Chicago, Boston, Denver and other cities throughout the United States. Much has been written about the "Twitter revolution" dimension of the Arab Spring; now it looks as though, in this emerging alliance between street protest and online activism, the Arab Spring is turning to American Fall.Mocked at first by some, Occupy Wall Street is showing the potential of online... more

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