Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy

September 22, 2014
In this eye-opening ethnography, cultural anthropologist Coleman (Coding Freedom) constructs a fascinating picture of the many facets of the Internet collective known as Anonymous, from tricksters and trolls to social crusaders and information warriors. She pulls back the curtain to reveal feuding factions, evolving purposes, scatological humor, and a healthy dose of bizarre in-jokes. In particular, she looks at how they’ve taken on corporations, governments, even Scientology, and come out on top almost every time. Her writing style is as irreverent and occasionally as profane as her subjects, drawing the reader in with a casual amiability, as if sharing the wild stories of impossible and unreliable acquaintances. Interviews, chat logs, leaked documents, and personal recollections help construct one of the most accessible and most illuminating profiles possible of a group that, by its very creed, can’t easily be defined or categorized. This all-access pass into the dark and wild corners of the Internet is timely, informative, and also frightening.

October 15, 2014
A fresh perspective on the covert, crusading Internet activist group Anonymous. Coleman (Scientific and Technological Literacy/McGill Univ.; Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking, 2012), a cultural anthropologist and Internet authority, spent several increasingly immersive years researching the calculated tactics of the global Anonymous collective. She tracks the hacktivist association's anarchic history from its nascent disruptive publicity stunts and trolled online raids through the "4chan" public chat-boards in 2003, executed in the spirit of "lulz" (public schadenfreude). Though the group's later, more pointed, collaborative machinations would attract the aggressive attention of the FBI, writes Coleman, their activities were still partly implemented in the same roguish, mischievous spirit. Though her treatment is permeated with buzzwords, initialisms and computer jargon, even Internet neophytes will find Coleman's text to be a consistently fascinating ethnography, as she folds the politics of hacking and website breaching techniques into intriguing stories from the stealth campaigns of microcosmic networks like AnonOps and LulzSec ("a crew of renegade hackers who broke away from Anonymous and double as traveling minstrels"), among others. The author examines the ways the Anonymous collective seeks justice (or, at the very least, a mean-spirited chuckle) through the seizure and release of digitized, classified information or by challenging corporate conglomerates, as demonstrated by the Wikileaks-Chelsea Manning scandal and an early, synchronized attack on Scientology, both of which Coleman generously references. The author is particularly enthusiastic about Anonymous' interior motivations and provides pages of interviews with infamous, incendiary trollers, snitches and hackers, verbatim bickering chat-room dialogue, and leaked documents. For such a frenzied collective defying easy categorization, Coleman's diligent and often sensationalistic spadework does great justice in representing the plight of these "misfits of activism" and their vigilante mischief. An intensive, potent profile of contemporary digital activism at its most unsettling-and most effective.

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November 15, 2014

Author and cultural anthropologist Coleman (Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy, McGill Univ., Canada; Coding Freedom) presents a rare look inside the complex, decentralized cabal that is the hacker group Anonymous. Using Internet chat-channel conversations and interviews with hackers, the author examines the group's rise and activities. Noteworthy of this cultural investigation are the antileader and antihierarchy norms, explored as a cultural anthropologist would--through the group's varied direct hacking actions and the unique vocabulary of Internet hacker chat rooms ("trolling," "the lulz," etc.). Many of Anonymous's exploits are detailed here, including Denial of Service (DoS) attacks on payment processing corporations in the wake of WikiLeaks, the technical attacks that defaced Tunisian government websites, and actions taken against the Church of Scientology. What truly resonates in this book is the process by which a leaderless but effective technical and social group plans, deploys, and then disperses. VERDICT Recommended for enthusiasts of Internet culture, this book is an accessible entry-level resource for untangling the many threads of Anonymous.--Jim Hahn, Univ. Lib., Univ. of Illinois, Urbana

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2014
In the last six years, the common moniker of Anonymous has been co-opted by a loose but pervasive collective of computer hackers around the world devoted to lampooning newscasters and corporate stuffed shirts as well as protesting assorted societal ills. On YouTube clips and other venues where imagery comes in handy, Anonymous is represented by the familiar goateed Guy Fawkes mask or the figure of a headless man in a suit. Most recently, Anonymous has become famous for playing key roles in the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring movements. In researching Anonymous' origins and many undertakings, anthropologist and technology expert Coleman faced daunting challenges, including intelligence agency scrutiny, since the hackers' activities are decentralized and straddle the line between legal dissent and cybercrime. With meticulous detail, Coleman follows Anonymous' evolution from satirizing establishment icons to becoming a bona fide political heavyweight. Although her prose leans a little to the dry side, reflecting her background in academia, Coleman's study is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the increasingly visible and powerful world of digital activism.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)