Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency
Starred review from June 18, 2012
In this spellbinding account of mischief and mayhem, Olson (London bureau chief for Forbes magazine) traces the evolution of the nebulous movement that spawned Anonymous and LulzSec, the most notorious hacking groups of the 21st century. Anonymous burst onto the scene with its 2008 takedown of the Church of Scientology website and went on to stun authorities in 2010 with their attacks on Paypal, Visa, and Mastercard, in response to international crackdowns on Wikileaks. They would later target Middle Eastern governments, an IT security firm, Sony, and other high-profile entities. Delving into the labyrinthine chat channels, Olson's narrative depicts the range of people involvedâfar from a group of organized criminal masterminds, Anonymous consists of a loose collection of individuals with various skill levels and motives. Some are merely looking for "Lulz"âlaughs at the expense of someone elseâwhile others are politically motivated "hacktivists" trying to incite revolution. With all the makings of a fast-paced espionage thriller, Olsonâbasing her work on plenty of research and exclusive interviews with hackers, including Hector "Sabu" Monsegurâmeticulously and impartially recreates the operations of Anonymous and LulzSec, leading up to the arrests of core members, and their betrayal by one of their own. Includes timeline and glossary.
June 15, 2012
A detailed account of the hacker collective Anonymous and its splinter group, LulzSec. In 2008, the website Gawker published a leaked video of a wild-eyed Tom Cruise cheerleading for Scientology, a video the Church of Scientology had been trying to suppress. The church retaliated by issuing a copyright violation against YouTube, where the video had eventually ended up. When the news reached 4chan--a site originally for discussion of Japanese anime that spread to include other Internet subcultures--a user posted a suggestion to one of its message boards: Hack the Scientology website. "It's time to use our resources to do something we believe is right," the post read. The idea quickly gained traction, and a handful of users banded together to lead a nebulous group of hackers and Internet activists collectively known as Anonymous. They not only took down the Scientology website, but went on to attack other targets, including the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church and the Tunisian government. Eventually, a faction of Anonymous split off on its own, called LulzSec; rather than attacking oppressors of free expression, they attacked companies just for the sake of publicly embarrassing them for laughs, or "lulz" (a play on LOL, the internet abbreviation for "laugh(ing) out loud"). The events that Forbes London bureau chief Olson describes are captivating, such as the story of how Jennifer Emick, a former Anonymous supporter and "middle-aged mom from Michigan," managed to track down and identify Hector Monsegur, one of Anonymous' chief hackers. However, the book is choked by jargon (though Olson provides a much-needed glossary) and lengthy, tiresome descriptions of the group's juvenile and petty squabbling, infighting and back-stabbing. The attention lavished on the minutiae of these relationships diminishes the impact of the narrative. Certain to thrill 4chan readers, hackers and others on the Internet's fringe, but may struggle to hold the interest of casual readers.
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Starred review from July 1, 2012
The loosely based group of hacktivists known as Anonymous began as an Internet subculture on the anime imageboard website 4chan. The site's Random board, known as /b/, is where users anonymously share Internet memes, porn, lolcats (captioned cat pictures), and generally try to shock and insult one another. The group is famous for organizing several DDoS (distributed denial-of-service) raids against the Church of Scientology and motion picture and recording industry trade association websites in retaliation against antipiracy campaigns. Described in the media as super hackers, they are more like a decentralized group of bored cyberpranksters. They appear in public at protests wearing stylized Guy Fawkes masks, with moustache and pointed beard, as popularized by the film V for Vendetta. Motivated by a desire to defend WikiLeaks, a splinter group calling themselves Lulz Security, or LulzSec, organized DDoS attacks against PBS, Fox News, PayPal, VISA, and MasterCard. In 2011, six LulzSec members were arrested by agents in the U.S. and UK. Olson traces the origins of Anonymous, unmasking its leading characters to reveal their personal lives and motivations. She is the London bureau chief for Forbes.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)