Anonymous P.S.A.

“Anonymous Life”

Reading the current news today.

Wondering if they will get their way.

While something deep within,

Does not seem to think it is a sin.

Not sure of the consequence.

Typing frantically being attacked by contempt

Click…

Click...

Click! It has been sent.

After conversing Anonymously, the message was received.

The opponent is shocked with disbelief!

Shaking their hands, what does this mean?

Who are they?

What do they want? Reading further on.

Line after Line

This group wanted something that was so divine.

They wanted something that was unthinkable.

Thoughts ran through their heads…

It doesn’t matter!

Pressing the “new” button was difficult

But they simply could not revolt.

There was one word that was decided

NO!

1 new message was received

“They will experience great regret…”

Click…

Click…

Click…SEND!

The man opened the one new response

“The corrupt fear us, we do not forgive,

We do not forget,

 We fight for freedom,

WE ARE ANONYMOUS!

 

Is Anonymous Important to the world?

Hypothesis: Anonymous is a questionable group of individuals. They state what they personally feel is right, and what they feel should change. Recently (January- February 2013) Anonymous has been stealing bank accounts and has over 4000 bank I.D.s off employers. The questions asked in my survey are straight forward. These “easy” questions will tremendously help my decision on what I think Anonymous is about. “Do you care for middle eastern countries?” And “How often do you go on the internet?” These examples of some of the questions asked within my survey.

Context: My target audience is teenagers (14-19) specifically. Teenagers are the people of the future. I am interested to see how Anonymous will be in the future. Surveying teenagers will help me understand if the younger people are aware of Anonymous. Through my pilot testing my findings surprised me. At least 30% have heard about Anonymous either by Internet, TV, or through a person. Consider that I received a better response than I expected, I can say that my results are both reliable and valid. I would say that all of my questions are to the point. None of them seemed skewed or biased in anyway. Nobody seemed to have any trouble with how my questions were worded.

 

Demographic (age, race, gender, location)	Trends (What element is in common with this demographic group?)	Implications (How does this trend hurt or help my hypothesis? What does this mean?)
Age group	Question #4: Have you ever heard of the “Hacktivist” group Anonymous?	This will help me figure out whether or not people know about Anonymous already or not.
10-20	Yes-8 No-12	This is more than I personally expected to say yes. More teens are aware of the group
21-30	Yes-1 No-0	The one person that was over 21 has actually heard about the group. This in a way gives me the recognition about people within this age group.
31-40	Yes-0 No-1	This was what I expected from people in their 30’s. The group itself could have had more surveyed for a more broad opinion.
41 or greater	Yes-0 No-3	This is what I expected from the older group of people that I interviewed.
Age Group	Question #5 Does the US fell secure to you?	This is for me to take and figure out what people think. I want to get a lot of recognition for this question.
10-20	None of the time-2 Some of the time-17 Always feels secure-1	Based on this data not as many teens fell that the United States is secure all of the time or even none of the time.
21-30	None of the time-0 Some of the time-1 Always feels secure-0	People tend to think that the country is not always secure.
31-40	None of the time-0 Some of the time-1 Always feels secure-0	The older the age seems to rise, the people seem to lean more towards the choice of “Some of the time”.
41 and older	None of the time-0 Some of the time-3 Always feels secure-0	The choice seems more certain in the people above the age of 40. Adults above 40 most of the time seem more mature and focused on their beliefs.
Age Group	Question #7 Would you willing to see to view a documentary about Anonymous?	This is important to my research to see if surveyors will show a possible interest in my topic.
10-20	Yes-14 No- 4	This is great for what I was hoping for. This means that most teenagers would be willing to set down and watch the actual documentary on the group.
21-30	Yes-1 No-0	This does not give me a complete understanding. However, from what I do have I feel that people in their 20’s are open minded about this kind of stuff.
31-40	Yes-1 No-0	This is the same for 30 year olds as it is for 20 year olds. They can be more open minded about things of this nature.
41 and older	Yes-2 No-1	For the people who are in their 40’s or older, I feel I can say that some people would not want to see anything like this. This can all depend on the person alone.
Age Group	Question #10 How long do you use the internet each day?	This question was for me understanding the importance of internet in today’s society.
10-20	None at all-0 Less than an hour-3 1 to 3 hours-6 3 hours or greater-10	This shows a great importance of internet in teenagers in this day and age.
21-30	None at all-0 Less than an hour-0 1 to 3 hours- 1 3 hours or greater-0	This shows that the people as they get older tend to “stray away” from internet.
31-40	None at all-0 Less than an hour-0 1 to 3 hours- 0 3 hours or greater-1	This was taken from a teacher that works and Horry Georgetown Tech. This means that he must be on the internet 3 hours or greater a day to keep up with work.
41 and older	None at all-0 Less than an hour-0 1 to 3 hours- 3 3 hours or greater-0	People who get older were born in different time periods and have different perspectives on things like technology. This is why there is little internet usage.

Data Analysis: Throughout my survey, it seemed very different in answer choice for the more complex questions. I did notice multiple trends among the age groups that were given survey. Most of the people taking my survey wanted to ask questions that did not need to be asked in the first place. For example Question number three was asking: Do you know the “Hacktivist” group Anonymous? This was making people ask me questions about the group. However, the question was asking whether the person knew them or didn’t.  Question 1 and 2 consisted of simple questions such as: What is your age and Gender? These were questions that people were able to answer without thinking.

            Question 4 was stating that if they knew who Anonymous was where they heard about them from. The choices given to choose from were choices like: TV, Computer, A person, or any other thing that they could have received the information from. The people that actually circled them in gave me a better understanding of were Anonymous turned out to be heard of the most. The Internet were the group was created was the number one most circled answer.

            Question 6 was interesting because it was asking whether or not the surveyor was willing to help Middle Eastern countries. I received mixed opinions about this choice from all different age groups. Some people were willing to help in some form towards Middle Eastern. Then there was the people who completely disagreed with the concept of helping “them.” This lowered my expectations on the outcome of this question alone. Towards the end it was very opinionated and was straight to the point.

            Question 7 was one that I was looking forward to seeing people answer. The question asked whether or not the surveyor would be willing to view a documentary of the group Anonymous. For the most part people said that they would like to see a documentary on the group they took a survey about. I feel that this was mainly because of the fact that not a lot of people knew what Anonymous exactly was. This goes back to the question of whether or not the surveyor knew about Anonymous. This was one of the questions that were somehow linked to a previous question in the survey.

            Question 8 was linked back to question 6 within the survey. It asked: What is your opinion on Third World Countries? This question received a variety of answers. Some of which still surprise me looking at them. Some people wrote that they should not be given any support at all. One person said that they should be given support by because it could the United States to build more allies. It seemed almost as if some of the answers just were not given much thought.

            The last questions were Questions 9 and 10. Question 9 asked if the internet was important. While question tem stated, how often does the specific surveyor go on the internet every day. I suspected that there was going to be more time usage over all for every person who took the survey. Everyone did say that they thought that the internet was important. This is what I thought was going to happen for this particular question.

Conclusion: I feel that through the survey process this has immensely helped my point of view as to what I think that this topic will present to me. I will defiantly have a more clear perspective on what I think today society is like about Anonymous.

Follow-up: From this point in my research, I would like to go further in depth with what Anonymous is actually doing with Middle Eastern countries to help out. My 6^th question is the question I would like to talk about in possible research ahead. I feel that if I were to change anything about research it would be to reword or better explain some questions. The question about the Anonymous documentary could have included a description before the question itself. Some people were not entirely sure about the documentary. If people knew more about it they could possibly change their mind on the subject.

Anonymous is Anonymous

About a year ago, I was talking to a friend about current events. We were touching on subjects such as; terrorist stories; movies that were coming out; mainly news in the media. We kept on talking until we came across a subject that was different from all the rest. I responded back to what he said and it was really eye opening for me. Apparently, this group named Anonymous had hacked into the F.B.I.’s main website. This was startling to me because many ideas ran through my head on what could happen. This seems like an extremely powerful action that someone could have done. I was thinking that Anonymous could make drastic changes to the world. My friend also mentioned that they have also attacked other websites in the past. My curiosity really got me thinking at this point. The more this topic came up in the news, people started to give Anonymous the description “Hacktivists.” This just grew my knowledge on what type of effect Anonymous has on the United States, along with the Middle East.

From the point in which my friend brought up the subject, the point of writing this paper, a great deal of research has been done on my part. I was starting research on this topic just for my general knowledge a little over a year ago. This was all interesting to me about what this group of ordinary people could actually do to a wide spread community. Throughout the “soft” research I have done so far with this project, I have discovered a few recent events I probably wouldn’t have discovered. I learned that Anonymous recently started to provide full support towards helping Gaza keep their internet from being taken by their governments. This was known as Operation Israel. I feel that in doing this that this will be good for America because we are helping out globally. A documentary was released in September of 2012. The Documentary was named “We are Legion: The Story of Hacktivists.”This documentary was written and directed by Brian Knappenberger. He made the documentary because he wanted people to be aware of what Anonymous is all about. Anonymous is known for being loyal supporters of the Occupy Wall Street protests. However, this group has been protesting since about 2008. The year of 2008 was the time of the protest against the Church of Scientology. This was talked about throughout the documentary. This documentary was extremely helpful because it included actual people who were related to the Anonymous from its start. This helps me understand the history and generate more research questions. The initial research so far shows me that this topic seems to be current enough to where I could go on with this topic.

The main reason I want to research this topic is because I worry about the future.  I truly mean that when I say it. This group was able to take down federal websites. “Anonymous has even gone so far as to produce training manuals for new recruits with some members dedicating themselves full time to training these newcomers” (International Business Times). I often imagine what else they can do to other major organizations such as the FDA. While thinking about essential questions, it made me think about debatable questions. I want to have a question that is just as arguable as the next person. I created questions including: Is Anonymous helping or destroying America? Is Anonymous with or against our United States Government? Is Anonymous for or against the people? Some people know exactly how Anonymous would say that they are against people because they have attacked our government. Some people would say that they are for “the people.” This could be because of Operation Israel. This is a question that drives me the most to actually write about this topic.