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.