"We Are Anonymous" - Parmy Olson

We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency

A thrilling, exclusive expose of the hacker collectives Anonymous and LulzSec.

In late 2010, thousands of hacktivists joined a mass digital assault by Anonymous on the websites of VISA, MasterCard, and PayPal to protest their treatment of WikiLeaks. Splinter groups then infiltrated the networks of totalitarian governments in Libya and Tunisia, and an elite team of six people calling themselves LulzSec, attacked the FBI, CIA, and Sony. They were flippant and taunting, grabbed headlines, and amassed more than a quarter of a million Twitter followers. The computer security world-and world at large-realized quickly that Anonymous and its splinter groups are something to treat with dead seriousness.

Through the stories of three key members, WE ARE ANONYMOUS offers a gripping, adrenaline-fueled narrative in the style of "The Accidental Billionaires," drawing upon hundreds of conversations with the members themselves, including exclusive interviews. By coming to know them-their childhoods, families, and personal demons-we come to know the human side of their virtual exploits, and why they're so passionate about disrupting the Internet's frontiers.

512 pages

Shipping on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0316213543/

"The last nickname was Gregg Housh, a longtime Anon in his midthirties who had helped coordinate the first wave of major DDoS attacks by Anonymous in 2008, against the Church of Scientology (COS). Topiary got things going."

Parmy Olson

Who?

Journalist/Blogger, at Forbes, last time I looked...

"Contains the first detailed account of how the leaking of a suppressed video of Tom Cruise, and a series of comments on an image board discussion thread, led to the landmark uprising for Anonymous in 2008 against the Church of Scientology. It shows how a few talented volunteers then sequestered themselves in a private chat room and organized hundreds of others in digital and physical protests, before the hordes were eventually divided by a civil war over objectives."

interesting tl;dr

history of chanology in 99 words: tommy cruise video pirated out. gawker has balls. chans. marblecaek. party van. enturbulation. channers, lolfags, moralfags, ex's, og, egofags, atheists, jews, christians, witches, feds, cops, and trolls all live together in harmony unless something needed to be killed with fire. the thing is killed with fire. all is good because this works. it works so let's get some assholes to fix it. splintered and spiraling. i'm a takin' this server: adios. scramble. why we protest. we're doing the best we can with those that are left and it still seems to be working. enjoy it while you can, scientology.

history in 2 words:

illegal preview

http://cryptome.org/2012/05/sabu-anon-lulzsec-assange.pdf

huh?
I see a few scanned pages, and a C&D nastygram spliced in the middle.
is that supposed to be the "illegal" part?

I see.
I figured that the "illegal" part was a full scan or some substantial copyright infringement.
Seven pages out of several hundred would normally seem to be covered by "fair use",
given the substantial public interest involved.

If lawyers are bawwwing over the 7-page leak, I can see why Cryptome flipped them the bird.

John Young (Cryptome) has an interesting review posted of Parmy's book:

Anonymous Battles Media Gorgons, May 26, 2012

By John Young "Cryptome" (New York, NY)

This review is from: We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency (Hardcover)

We Are Anonymous portrays the battle unfolding for control of the Internet era as insurgent skills and techniques for cyber and real world challenges are invented, shared and applied in a struggle with armies of governments, commerce and institutions accustomed to collusive domination.

Parmy Olson's highly informative account based on extensive interviews, IRC chats, emails of celebrated nics of Anonymous, LulzSec and other subversive inititatives demonstrates that these well-publicized skirmishes are only a small part of a much greater conflict underway between agile, swarming, anarchic, proficient dissidents and heirarchical, sclerotic, bloated and inept authorities worldwide.

This is a amply resourced book to learn about a rapidly spreading under-culture undermining the over-culture, to enjoy its Encyclopedia Dramatica humor, to be infected by its gutsy courage, for appreciating its generous, bountiful, defiant lulz.

Above all, though, this rollicking narrative of misbehavior and disobedience can inspire opposition to the pretentious, ponderous, manipulative ideology of using the Internet to enforce knowledge consumption manufactured by gov, com, edu and org.

More at the link - http://cryptome.org/2012/05/anon-gorgons.htm

Stupid thread never resets as a new thread no matter how many times you read it.

Well she isnt anonymous anymore since we all know her name now.

Actually, I think Anon meant to ask:

What the hell kind of silly name is "Parmy?!"

I know I can't be the only one wondering...

short for "Parmesan"?

Everyone is going to be short of Parmesan.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18224505

Hmm... actually, it sounds like it might get cheaper, if anything.

/derail

NY Times Review: We Are Anonymous? by Parmy Olson – nytimes.com

is this like a big advertisement?
how much did the author get paid for the book?

does parmy get to tell the forum what her nick was when she was here?
after all, she says she has personal emails, IRC chats and such.

http://www.salon.com/2012/06/03/anonymous_strikes_back/singleton/

And that tells everything anyone needs to know about Barr's qualification as a security consultant.

No.
"how much he charges" tells us everything we really need to know.

It says a lot about his customers too.

Damn, she writes well too!

Posted on Cryptome - Girlfight! @Parmy & Anonymous

https://anonnep.wordpress.com/2012/06/

Parmy Olson of Forbes (@Parmy) has written a book – We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec – which has drawn some strong responses from the Anonymous movement. A case in point:

Weeeelllll, @Parmy is one of the few ‘outsiders’ (along with @BiellaColeman) to have lurked moar in Anonymous related IRCs & forums since the late 2010/early 2011 online explosion. And, unlike others looking to make a quid off the movement, she’s done so by quietly building relationships & not expecting ‘special treatment’.

[Unlike a certain documentary film-maker I could mention who came into an #AntiSec channel I was chanop of, with a former, demoted, chanop, &, despite my requests to move to the #reporter channel for a Q&A, exhibited an overactive sense of personal entitlement by expecting all ongoing discussion to cease. And, even worse IMHO, did not disagree when his arrogant protector implied that we should feel honoured by the opportunity & attention - as he clearly did.]

So, while I haven’t read it, I give @Parmy her due for time-served in research & a decent attitude.

More @ the link...

I am doing a very short story on the Anon activity in India. I am a writer--not like Parmy. I am paid peanuts. I try to tell the truth and I am proud of what I do. I actually like Anon, for the most part. I think that the underground classic, DAEMON, merely hints at the potential of this particular cohort to change the balance of power in the world. I am all in favor of that.

I am just looking for contacts. I really don't have much time, this is a teensy story, but who knows? Maybe I might write a book of my own from a completely different perspective. You never know. If anybody has some ideas, just post here in the forum. I will be coming in and out during the day just to check.

There's Anon activity in India? Who knew?

Are you an elephant?

I finished reading the book this morning. I really enjoyed it. Riveting. Greatly looking forward to Gregg & Barrett's book, an' also Gabriella's. Reading Cole's book now, but I'll be honest, I ain't expecting much.

I found Cole's book disappointing. Thanks for the thumbs up on Parmy's book. I've read the excerpts, posted on the web in various places, and enjoyed those very much. Your endorsement moves me to buy the book and read the whole thing.

Reading Parmy's account of chanology at the moment and I'm getting irked by some of the basic factual errors being made.

For example these two comments about the Message to Scientology video:

"It climbed to new heights of hyperbole, vowing to “systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its current form.…For the good of your followers, for the good of mankind—for the laughs—we shall expel you from the Internet.” "

"The Message to Scientology YouTube video said: “If you want another name for your opponent, then call us Legion, for we are many.”"

It's one fucking video, if not THE fucking video, and the tool can't even quote from it properly??

If anyone's interested in a group fact-checking, you can add annotations here: https://pad.riseup.net/p/factcheck

More factual errors:

“One YouTube account associating itself with Anonymous ran a regular news program on YouTube called AnonyNews.”
The author seems to think this came about in 2008. Iirc this was by the Hamburgfags in about 2010. Was there anything like this earlier in 2008?

“There were between two hundred and three hundred people at the event, including ex-Scientologist celebrities and the son of founder L. Ron Hubbard.”
Is this a reference to Jamie DeWolf, the great grandson????

“His idea was to create an alternative to Gregg Housh’s more popular Enturbulation.com”
Ermm….no. Just no. Entrub had jack shit to do with Gregg. The only connection between enturb and WWP was WWP was started with a stolen copy of the enturb database. And the database got leaked because Daemon, an enturb admit, used the same password on IRC as for his email address which allowed enturb to be rooted.

Also – can someone explain to this dufus that chanology never stopped? Because that’s the impression given.

Not exactly.

::21:10:47:: solar> yeah
::21:10:49:: solar> story is
::21:10:58:: solar> denvetta got the login for entadmin from daemon's email
::21:11:07:: solar> i went in, setup a local ssh backdoor (a non-global one)
::21:11:10:: solar> got passwords
::21:11:12:: core> yup
::21:11:13:: solar> and ta-da

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lainnaf...chat-parmy-olson-on-anonymous-and-hacktivism/

Yep .. Parmy "0day" Olson is our ray of sunshine.Smart & beautiful, a really nice lady

I've never read the book...