Anonymous Must Evolve Or Break Down, Say Researchers
Anonymous is a complex and chaotic movement: It is the heroic free speech efforts that helped protesters in Tunisia and Egypt; it is the lulz -- oddball, and sometimes vicious, pranks -- pulled to prove a point; and it is the AntiSec movement that compromises companies and critics to show that no one is beyond reach.
But Anonymous is also a brand, and one that is in danger of being overwhelmed by its own chaotic nature, argued two security professionals in a keynote at the SOURCE Boston conference this week. Brian "Jericho" Martin, a former hacker and current security expert, and Josh Corman, director of security intelligence at Akamai Technologies, have studied Anonymous for the past year and believe that the movement could easily degenerate into chaos and cause a lot of collateral damage in the process.
Instead, they are hoping -- and through an article series, offering to help -- the metagroup evolve into a better and more focused, Anonymous. "Anonymous as they are is a crude blunt weapon; they don't do a lot of good, and they make a lot of noise," Martin, who works for Tenable Network Security, told conference attendees. "So why don't you want a better Anonymous that is more efficient, gets stuff done, and most importantly, creates less collateral damage."
