We Are Anonymous Chapter 8

Hey people and I have returned! And you know what that means; More stories about probably one of the most brilliant hacker organizations in the world. This time the chapter is about weapons that were used by the hackers in a vain attempt to attack some bigwig authority but backfired and caused havoc among the roots of the vigilantes. So without further ado, I should just start the story already (ahem). Dear readers, this is the story about weapons that Anonymous invented and backfired.

You may have thought that the weapons that backfired were new, experimental weapons that have never been used by Anonymous. After all, those are the types of weapons that go wrong the easiest. But NO, instead the government managed to turn perfectly normal hacker weapons into gadgets that could be utilized by the authorities for their own ends. Take LOIC (Low Orbit Ion Cannon), for example, which were used by the hackers for flooding their target websites in the same conscience as a DDoS attack: Flood the server with a massive amount of requests, causing denial of service.

However, the LOIC also had a critical downside when it came to its users' safety. It could be easily filtered in order for any law enforcers to discover its IP address and with it (the IP address, that is), they could uncover who the hackers were by examining the users of the hackers' IP address at the time of the crime, leading the cops straight to the hackers' doors.

Due to its safety reasons and very high risk of being busted by the feds, some hackers DID need some clarification if LOIC can still be used as a safe hacking weapon. They chatted to each other on the web if they were going to get busted for using LOIC (which someone replied by saying that you could easily get the cops off your track by calmly saying that your computer was infected with spyware), if you could evade it by playing dumb (some people said that you could pretend that you didn't know it was a virus and don't have the slightest idea how it got onto your computer in the first place), which, judging from the hackers' strict knowledge of LOIC, probably wasn't such a good idea.

Obviously, Anonymous needed some other device to replace LOIC. Something that could fire junk (useless files) at websites faster, more powerful and far-reaching. They succeeded, still using the name of LOIC. However, this was a new and improved one LOIC, despite the same name. However, in a short period of time, someone leaked the news to the FBI, who used their own hacking team to shut down the program. Not only that, but PayPal also sent info to the FBI about almost all the attackers of PayPal, creating a LONG hit list for the FBI on Anonymous's members.

However, Anonymous wasn't giving in to arrest THAT easily. There were still many hackers out there still inciting rebellion against the authorities. For example, a few Anonymous members managed to pull off a raid on Sarah Palin's official website. This wasn't the same group that assaulted PayPal and the online payment companies; these were different. Another operation called "OverLoad" became known for hitting EVERY SINGLE ".gov" and ".edu" site they could (and trust me, these hackers know a LOT of sites that end in those words).

So it looks like even in times of trouble, Anonymous still has a few cards left to play. Next up on We Are Anonymous, we're going to learn about some kind of revolt that Anonymous started in revenge for the cruelty of their government. But until next time, folks! See you when I see you!