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[Translated by SteveArcher]The Masked Avengers
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[Translating by SteveArcher]
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The Masked Avengers
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> How Anonymous incited online vigilantism from Tunisia to Ferguson.
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Anyone can join Anonymous simply by claiming affiliation. An anthropologist says that participants “remain subordinate to a focus on the epic win—and, especially, the lulz.”
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Paper Sculpture by Jeff Nishinaka / Photograph by Scott Dunbar
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In the mid-nineteen-seventies, when Christopher Doyon was a child in rural Maine, he spent hours chatting with strangers on CB radio. His handle was Big Red, for his hair. Transmitters lined the walls of his bedroom, and he persuaded his father to attach two directional antennas to the roof of their house. CB radio was associated primarily with truck drivers, but Doyon and others used it to form the sort of virtual community that later appeared on the Internet, with self-selected nicknames, inside jokes, and an earnest desire to effect change.
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Doyon’s mother died when he was a child, and he and his younger sister were reared by their father, who they both say was physically abusive. Doyon found solace, and a sense of purpose, in the CB-radio community. He and his friends took turns monitoring the local emergency channel. One friend’s father bought a bubble light and affixed it to the roof of his car; when the boys heard a distress call from a stranded motorist, he’d drive them to the side of the highway. There wasn’t much they could do beyond offering to call 911, but the adventure made them feel heroic.
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Small and wiry, with a thick New England accent, Doyon was fascinated by “Star Trek” and Isaac Asimov novels. When he saw an ad in Popular Mechanics for a build-your-own personal-computer kit, he asked his grandmother to buy it for him, and he spent months figuring out how to put it together and hook it up to the Internet. Compared with the sparsely populated CB airwaves, online chat rooms were a revelation. “I just click a button, hit this guy’s name, and I’m talking to him,” Doyon recalled recently. “It was just breathtaking.”
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At the age of fourteen, he ran away from home, and two years later he moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, a hub of the emerging computer counterculture. The Tech Model Railroad Club, which had been founded thirty-four years earlier by train hobbyists at M.I.T., had evolved into “hackers”—the first group to popularize the term. Richard Stallman, a computer scientist who worked in M.I.T.’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the time, says that these early hackers were more likely to pass around copies of “Gödel, Escher, Bach” than to incite technological warfare. “We didn’t have tenets,” Stallman said. “It wasn’t a movement. It was just a thing that people did to impress each other.” Some of their “hacks” were fun (coding video games); others were functional (improving computer-processing speeds); and some were pranks that took place in the real world (placing mock street signs near campus). Michael Patton, who helped run the T.M.R.C. in the seventies, told me that the original hackers had unwritten rules and that the first one was “Do no damage.”
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In Cambridge, Doyon supported himself through odd jobs and panhandling, preferring the freedom of sleeping on park benches to the monotony of a regular job. In 1985, he and a half-dozen other activists formed an electronic “militia.” Echoing the Animal Liberation Front, they called themselves the Peoples Liberation Front. They adopted aliases: the founder, a towering middle-aged man who claimed to be a military veteran, called himself Commander Adama; Doyon went by Commander X. Inspired by the Merry Pranksters, they sold LSD at Grateful Dead shows and used some of the cash to outfit an old school bus with bullhorns, cameras, and battery chargers. They also rented a basement apartment in Cambridge, where Doyon occasionally slept.
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Doyon was drawn to computers, but he was not an expert coder. In a series of conversations over the past year, he told me that he saw himself as an activist, in the radical tradition of Abbie Hoffman and Eldridge Cleaver; technology was merely his medium of dissent. In the eighties, students at Harvard and M.I.T. held rallies urging their schools to divest from South Africa. To help the protesters communicate over a secure channel, the P.L.F. built radio kits: mobile FM transmitters, retractable antennas, and microphones, all stuffed inside backpacks. Willard Johnson, an activist and a political scientist at M.I.T., said that hackers were not a transformative presence at rallies. “Most of our work was still done using a bullhorn,” he said.
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In 1992, at a Grateful Dead concert in Indiana, Doyon sold three hundred hits of acid to an undercover narcotics agent. He was sentenced to twelve years in Pendleton Correctional Facility, of which he served five. While there, he developed an interest in religion and philosophy and took classes from Ball State University.
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Netscape Navigator, the first commercial Web browser, was released in 1994, while Doyon was incarcerated. When he returned to Cambridge, the P.L.F. was still active, and their tools had a much wider reach. The change, Doyon recalls, “was gigantic—it was the difference between sending up smoke signals and being able to telegraph someone.” Hackers defaced an Indian military Web site with the words “Save Kashmir.” In Serbia, hackers took down an Albanian site. Stefan Wray, an early online activist, defended such tactics at an “anti-Columbus Day” rally in New York. “We see this as a form of electronic civil disobedience,” he told the crowd.
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In 1999, the Recording Industry Association of America sued Napster, the file-sharing service, for copyright infringement. As a result, Napster was shut down in 2001. Doyon and other hackers disabled the R.I.A.A. site for a weekend, using a Distributed Denial of Service, or DDoS, attack, which floods a site with so much data that it slows down or crashes. Doyon defended his actions, employing the heightened rhetoric of other “hacktivists.” “We quickly came to understand that the battle to defend Napster was symbolic of the battle to preserve a free internet,” he later wrote.
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One day in 2008, Doyon and Commander Adama met at the P.L.F.’s basement apartment in Cambridge. Adama showed Doyon the Web site of the Epilepsy Foundation, on which a link, instead of leading to a discussion forum, triggered a series of flashing colored lights. Some epileptics are sensitive to strobes; out of sheer malice, someone was trying to induce seizures in innocent people. There had been at least one victim already.
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Doyon was incensed. He asked Adama who would do such a thing.
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“Ever hear of a group called Anonymous?” Adama said.
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In 2003, Christopher Poole, a fifteen-year-old insomniac from New York City, launched 4chan, a discussion board where fans of anime could post photographs and snarky comments. The focus quickly widened to include many of the Internet’s earliest memes: LOLcats, Chocolate Rain, RickRolls. Users who did not enter a screen name were given the default handle Anonymous.
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“I need to talk about my inner life.”
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Poole hoped that anonymity would keep things irreverent. “We have no intention of partaking in intelligent discussions concerning foreign affairs,” he wrote on the site. One of the highest values within the 4chan community was the pursuit of “lulz,” a term derived from the acronym LOL. Lulz were often achieved by sharing puerile jokes or images, many of them pornographic or scatological. The most shocking of these were posted on a part of the site labelled /b/, whose users called themselves /b/tards. Doyon was aware of 4chan, but considered its users “a bunch of stupid little pranksters.” Around 2004, some people on /b/ started referring to “Anonymous” as an independent entity.
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It was a new kind of hacker collective. “It’s not a group,” Mikko Hypponen, a leading computer-security researcher, told me—rather, it could be thought of as a shape-shifting subculture. Barrett Brown, a Texas journalist and a well-known champion of Anonymous, has described it as “a series of relationships.” There was no membership fee or initiation. Anyone who wanted to be a part of Anonymous—an Anon—could simply claim allegiance.
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Despite 4chan’s focus on trivial topics, many Anons considered themselves crusaders for justice. They launched vigilante campaigns that were purposeful, if sometimes misguided. More than once, they posed as underage girls in order to entrap pedophiles, whose personal information they sent to the police. Other Anons were apolitical and sowed chaos for the lulz. One of them posted images on /b/ of what looked like pipe bombs; another threatened to blow up several football stadiums and was arrested by the F.B.I. In 2007, a local news affiliate in Los Angeles called Anonymous “an Internet hate machine.”
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In January, 2008, Gawker Media posted a video in which Tom Cruise enthusiastically touted the benefits of Scientology. The video was copyright-protected, and the Church of Scientology sent a cease-and-desist letter to Gawker, asking that the video be removed. Anonymous viewed the church’s demands as attempts at censorship. “I think it’s time for /b/ to do something big,” someone posted on 4chan. “I’m talking about ‘hacking’ or ‘taking down’ the official Scientology Web site.” An Anon used YouTube to issue a “press release,” which included stock footage of storm clouds and a computerized voice-over. “We shall proceed to expel you from the Internet and systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form,” the voice said. “You have nowhere to hide.” Within a few weeks, the YouTube video had been viewed more than two million times.
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Anonymous had outgrown 4chan. The hackers met in dedicated Internet Relay Chat channels, or I.R.C.s, to coördinate tactics. Using DDoS attacks, they caused the main Scientology Web site to crash intermittently for several days. Anons created a “Google bomb,” so that a search for “dangerous cult” would yield the main Scientology site at the top of the results page. Others sent hundreds of pizzas to Scientology centers in Europe, and overwhelmed the church’s Los Angeles headquarters with all-black faxes, draining the machines of ink. The Church of Scientology, an organization that reportedly has more than a billion dollars in assets, could withstand the depletion of its ink cartridges. But its leaders, who had also received death threats, contacted the F.B.I. to request an investigation into Anonymous.
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On March 15, 2008, several thousand Anons marched past Scientology churches in more than a hundred cities, from London to Sydney. In keeping with the theme of anonymity, the organizers decided that all the protesters should wear versions of the same mask. After considering Batman, they settled on the Guy Fawkes mask worn in “V for Vendetta,” a dystopian movie from 2005. “It was available in every major city, in large quantities, for cheap,” Gregg Housh, one of the organizers of the protests and a well-known Anon, told me. The mask was a caricature of a man with rosy cheeks, a handlebar mustache, and a wide grin.
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Anonymous did not “dismantle” the Church of Scientology. Still, the Tom Cruise video remained online. Anonymous had proved its tenacity. The collective adopted a bombastic slogan: “We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.”
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In 2010, Doyon moved to Santa Cruz, California, to join a local movement called Peace Camp. Using wood that he stole from a lumberyard, he built a shack in the mountains. He borrowed WiFi from a nearby mansion, drew power from salvaged solar panels, and harvested marijuana, which he sold for cash.
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At the time, the Peace Camp activists were sleeping on city property as a protest against a Santa Cruz anti-homelessness law that they considered extreme. Doyon appeared at Peace Camp meetings and offered to promote their cause online. He had an unkempt red beard and wore a floppy beige hat and quasi-military fatigues. Some of the activists called him Curbhugger Chris.
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Kelley Landaker, a member of Peace Camp, spoke with Doyon several times about hacking. Doyon sometimes bragged about his technical aptitude, but Landaker, an expert programmer, was unimpressed. “He was more of a spokesman than a hands-on-the-keyboard type of person,” Landaker told me. But the movement needed a passionate leader more than it needed a coder. “He was very enthusiastic and very outspoken,” Robert Norse, also a member of Peace Camp, told me. “He created more media attention for the issue than anyone I’ve seen, and I’ve been doing this for twenty years.”
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Commander Adama, Doyon’s superior in the P.L.F., who still lived in Cambridge and communicated with him via e-mail, had ordered Doyon to monitor Anonymous. Doyon’s brief was to observe their methods and to recruit members to the P.L.F. Recalling his revulsion at the Epilepsy Foundation hack, Doyon initially balked. Adama argued that the malicious hackers were a minority within Anonymous, and that the collective might inspire powerful new forms of activism. Doyon was skeptical. “The biggest movement in the world is going to come from 4chan?” he said. But, out of loyalty to the P.L.F., he obeyed Adama.
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Doyon spent much of his time at the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company, a café downtown, hunched over an Acer laptop. The main Anonymous I.R.C. did not require a password. Doyon logged in using the name PLF and followed along. Over time, he discovered back channels where smaller, more dedicated groups of Anons had dozens of overlapping conversations. To participate, you had to know the names of the back channels, which could be changed to deflect intruders. It was not a highly secure system, but it was adaptable. “These simultaneous cabals keep centralization from happening,” Gabriella Coleman, an anthropologist at McGill University, told me.
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Some Anons proposed an action called Operation Payback. As the journalist Parmy Olson wrote in a 2012 book, “We Are Anonymous,” Operation Payback started as another campaign in support of file-sharing sites like the Pirate Bay, a successor to Napster, but the focus soon broadened to include political speech. In late 2010, at the behest of the State Department, several companies, including MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal, stopped facilitating donations to WikiLeaks, the vigilante organization that had released hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables. In an online video, Anonymous called for revenge, promising to lash out at the companies that had impeded WikiLeaks. Doyon, attracted by the anti-corporate spirit of the project, decided to participate.
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During Operation Payback, in early December, Anonymous directed new recruits, or noobs, to a flyer headed “How to Join the Fucking Hive,” in which participants were instructed to “FIX YOUR GODDAMN INTERNET. THIS IS VERY FUCKING IMPORTANT.” They were also asked to download Low Orbit Ion Cannon, an easy-to-use tool that is publicly available. Doyon downloaded the software and watched the chat rooms, waiting for a cue. When the signal came, thousands of Anons fired at once. Doyon entered a target URL—say, www.visa.com—and, in the upper-right corner, clicked a button that said “IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZER.” (The operation also relied on more sophisticated hacking.) Over several days, Operation Payback disabled the home pages of Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal. In court filings, PayPal claimed that the attack had cost the company five and a half million dollars.
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To Doyon, this was activism made tangible. In Cambridge, protesting against apartheid, he could not see immediate results; now, with the tap of a button, he could help sabotage a major corporation’s site. A banner headline on the Huffington Post read “MasterCard DOWN.” One gloating Anon tweeted, “There are some things WikiLeaks can’t do. For everything else, there’s Operation Payback.”
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In the fall of 2010, the Peace Camp protests ended. With slight concessions, the anti-homelessness law remained in effect. Doyon hoped to use the tactics of Anonymous to reinvigorate the movement. He recalls thinking, “I could wield Anonymous against this tiny little city government and they would just be fucking wrecked. Plan was we were finally going to solve this homelessness problem, once and for all.”
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Joshua Covelli, a twenty-five-year-old Anon who went by the nickname Absolem, admired Doyon’s decisiveness. “Anonymous had been this clusterfuck of chaos,” Covelli told me. With Commander X, “there seemed to be a structure set up.” Covelli worked as a receptionist at a college in Fairborn, Ohio, and knew nothing about Santa Cruz politics. But when Doyon asked for help with Operation Peace Camp, Covelli e-mailed back immediately: “I’ve been waiting to join something like that my entire life.”
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Doyon, under the name PLF, invited Covelli into a private I.R.C.:
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> Absolem: Sorry to be so rude . . . Is PLF part of Anonymous or separate?
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> Absolem: I was just asking because you all seem very organized in chat.
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> PLF: You are not in the least rude. I am pleased to meet you. PLF is 22 year old hacker group originally from Boston. I started hacking in 81, not with computers but PBX (telephones).
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> PLF: We are all older 40 or over. Some of us are former military or intelligence. One of us, Commander Adama is currently sought by an alphabet soup of cops and spooks and in hiding.
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> Absolem: Wow that’s legit. I am really interested in helping this out in some way and Anonymous just seems too chaotic. I have some computer skills but very noob in hacking. I have some tools but no Idea how to use them.
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With ritual solemnity, Doyon accepted Covelli’s request to join the P.L.F.:
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> PLF: Encrypt the fuck out of all sensitive material that might incriminate you.
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> PLF: Yep, work with any PLFer to get a message to me. Call me . . . Commander X for now.
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In 2012, the Associated Press called Anonymous “a group of expert hackers”; Quinn Norton, in Wired, wrote that “Anonymous had figured out how to infiltrate anything,” resulting in “a wild string of brilliant hacks.” In fact some Anons are gifted coders, but the vast majority possess little technical skill. Coleman, the anthropologist, told me that only a fifth of Anons are hackers—the rest are “geeks and protesters.”
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On December 16, 2010, Doyon, as Commander X, sent an e-mail to several reporters. “At exactly noon local time tomorrow, the Peoples Liberation Front and Anonymous will remove from the Internet the Web site of the Santa Cruz County government,” he wrote. “And exactly 30 minutes later, we will return it to normal function.”
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The data-center staff for Santa Cruz County saw the warning and scrambled to prepare for the attack. They ran security scans on the servers and contacted A.T. & T., the county’s Internet provider, which suggested that they alert the F.B.I.
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The next day, Doyon entered a Starbucks and booted up his laptop. Even for a surfing town, he was notably eccentric: a homeless-looking man wearing fatigues and typing furiously. Covelli met him in a private chat room.
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> PLF: Go to Forum, sign in—and look at top right menu bar “chat.” Thats Ops for today. Thank you for standing with us.
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> Absolem: Anything for PLF, sir.
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They both opened DDoS software. Though only a handful of people were participating in Operation Peace Camp, Doyon gave orders as if he were addressing legions of troops:
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> PLF: ATTENTION: Everyone who supports the PLF or considers us their friend—or who cares about defeating evil and protecting the innocent: Operation Peace Camp is LIVE and an action is underway. TARGET: www.co.santa-cruz.ca.us. Fire At Will. Repeat: FIRE!
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>
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> Absolem: got it, sir.
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The data-center staff watched their servers, which showed a flurry of denial-of-service requests. Despite their best efforts, the site crashed. Twenty-five minutes later, Doyon decided that he had made his point. He typed “CEASE FIRE,” and the county’s site flickered back to life. (Despite the attack, the city’s anti-homelessness law did not change.)
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Doyon hardly had time to celebrate before he grew anxious. “I got to leave,” he typed to Covelli. He fled to his shack in the mountains. Doyon was right to be wary: an F.B.I. agent had been snooping in the I.R.C. The F.B.I. obtained a warrant to search Doyon’s laptop.
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A few weeks later, Doyon’s food ran out, and he returned to town. While he was at the Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company, two federal agents entered the shop. They brought him to the county police station. Doyon called Ed Frey, a lawyer and the founder of Peace Camp, who met him at the station. Doyon told Frey about his alter ego as Commander X.
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Doyon was released, but the F.B.I. kept his laptop, which was full of incriminating evidence. Frey, a civil-rights lawyer who knew little about cybersecurity, drove Doyon back to his hillside encampment. “What are you going to do?” Frey asked.
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“Zach is in the gifted-and-talented-and-you’re-not class.”
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He spoke in cinematic terms. “Run like hell,” he said. “I will go underground, try to stay free as long as I can, and keep fighting the bastards any way possible.” Frey gave him two twenty-dollar bills and wished him luck.
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Doyon hitchhiked to San Francisco and stayed there for three months. He spent his days at Coffee to the People, a quirky café in the Haight-Ashbury district, where he would sit for hours in front of his computer, interrupted only by outdoor cigarette breaks.
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In January, 2011, Doyon contacted Barrett Brown, the journalist and Anon. “What are we going to do next?” Doyon asked.
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“Tunisia,” Brown said.
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“Yeah, it’s a country in the Middle East,” Doyon said. “What about it?”
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“We’re gonna take down its dictator,” Brown said.
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“Oh, they have a dictator?” Doyon said.
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A couple of days later, Operation Tunisia began. Doyon volunteered to spam Tunisian government e-mail addresses in an attempt to clog their servers. “I would take the text of the press release for that op and just keep sending it over and over again,” he said. “Sometimes, I was so busy that I would just put ‘fuck you’ and send it.” In one day, the Anons brought down the Web sites of the Tunisian Stock Exchange, the Ministry of Industry, the President, and the Prime Minister. They replaced the Web page of the President’s office with an image of a pirate ship and the message “Payback is a bitch, isn’t it?”
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Doyon often spoke of his online battles as if he had just crawled out of a foxhole. “Dude, I turned black from doing it,” he told me. “My face, from all the smoke—it would cling to me. I would look up and I would literally be like a raccoon.” Most nights, he camped out in Golden Gate Park. “I would look at myself in the mirror and I’d be like, O.K., it’s been four days—maybe I should eat, bathe.”
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Anonymous-affiliated operations continued to be announced on YouTube: Operation Libya, Operation Bahrain, Operation Morocco. As protesters filled Tahrir Square, Doyon participated in Operation Egypt. A Facebook page disseminated information, including links to a “care package” for protesters on the ground. The package, distributed through the file-sharing site Megaupload, contained encryption software and a primer on defending against tear gas. Later, when the Egyptian government disabled Internet and cellular networks within the country, Anonymous helped the protesters find alternative ways to get online.
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In the summer of 2011, Doyon succeeded Adama as Supreme Commander of the P.L.F. Doyon recruited roughly half a dozen new members and attempted to position the P.L.F. as an élite squad within Anonymous. Covelli became one of his technical advisers. Another hacker, Crypt0nymous, made YouTube videos; others did research or assembled electronic care packages. Unlike Anonymous, the P.L.F. had a strict command structure. “X always called the shots on everything,” Covelli said. “It was his way or no way.” A hacker who founded a blog called AnonInsiders told me over encrypted chat that Doyon was willing to act unilaterally—a rare thing within Anonymous. “When we wanted to start an op, he didn’t mind if anyone would agree or not,” he said. “He would just write the press release by himself, list all the targets, open the I.R.C. channel, tell everyone to go in there, and start the DDoSing.”
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Some Anons viewed the P.L.F. as a vanity project and Doyon as a laughingstock. “He’s known for his exaggeration,” Mustafa Al-Bassam, an Anon who went by Tflow, told me. Others, even those who disapproved of Doyon’s egotism, grudgingly acknowledged his importance to the Anonymous movement. “He walks that tough line of sometimes being effective and sometimes being in the way,” Gregg Housh said, adding that he and other prominent Anons had faced similar challenges.
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Publicly, Anonymous persists in claiming to be non-hierarchical. In “We Are Legion,” a 2012 documentary about Anonymous by Brian Knappenberger, one activist uses the metaphor of a flock of birds, with various individuals taking turns drifting toward the front. Gabriella Coleman told me that, despite such claims, something resembling an informal leadership class did emerge within Anonymous. “The organizer is really important,” she said. “There are four or five individuals who are really good at it.” She counted Doyon among them. Still, Anons tend to rebel against institutional structure. In a forthcoming book about Anonymous, “Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy,” Coleman writes that, among Anons, “personal identity and the individual remain subordinate to a focus on the epic win—and, especially, the lulz.”
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Anons who seek individual attention are often dismissed as “egofags” or “namefags.” (Many Anons have yet to outgrow their penchant for offensive epithets.) “There are surprisingly few people who violate the rule” against attention-seeking, Coleman says. “Those who do, like X, are marginalized.” Last year, in an online discussion forum, a commenter wrote, “I stopped reading his BS when he started comparing himself to Batman.”
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Peter Fein, an online activist known by the nickname n0pants, was among the many Anons who were put off by Doyon’s self-aggrandizing rhetoric. Fein browsed the P.L.F. Web site, which featured a coat of arms and a manifesto about the group’s “epic battle for the very soul of humanity.” Fein was dismayed to find that Doyon had registered the site using his real name, leaving himself and possibly other Anons vulnerable to prosecution. “I’m basically okay with people DDoSing,” Fein recalls telling Doyon over private chat. “But if you’re going to do it, you’ve got to cover your ass.”
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On February 5, 2011, the Financial Times reported that Aaron Barr, the C.E.O. of a cybersecurity firm called HBGary Federal, had identified the “most senior” members of Anonymous. Barr’s research suggested that one of the top three was Commander X, a hacker based in California, who could “manage some significant firepower.” Barr contacted the F.B.I. and offered to share his work with them.
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Like Fein, Barr had seen that the P.L.F. site was registered to Christopher Doyon at an address on Haight Street. Based on Facebook and I.R.C. activity, Barr concluded that Commander X was Benjamin Spock de Vries, an online activist who had lived near the Haight Street address. Barr approached de Vries on Facebook. “Please tell the folks there that I am not out to get you guys,” Barr wrote. “Just want the ‘leadership’ to know what my intent is.”
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“ ‘Leadership’ lmao,” de Vries responded.
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Days after the Financial Times story appeared, Anonymous struck back. HBGary Federal’s Web site was defaced. Barr’s personal Twitter account was hijacked, thousands of his e-mails were leaked online, and Anons released his address and other personal information—a punishment known as doxing. Barr resigned from HBGary Federal within the month.
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In April, 2011, Doyon left San Francisco and hitchhiked around the West, camping in parks at night and spending his days at Starbucks outlets. In his backpack he kept his laptop, his Guy Fawkes mask, and several packs of Pall Malls.
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“This is what I learned during my summer at TED camp.”
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He followed internal Anonymous news. That spring, six élite Anons, all of whom had been instrumental in deflecting Barr’s investigation, formed a group called Lulz Security, or LulzSec. As their name indicated, they felt that Anonymous had become too self-serious; they aimed to bring the lulz back. While Anonymous continued supporting Arab Spring protesters, LulzSec hacked the Web site of PBS and posted a fake story claiming that the late rapper Tupac Shakur was alive in New Zealand.
|
||||
|
||||
Anons often share text through the Web site Pastebin.com. On the site, LulzSec issued a statement that read, “It has come to our unfortunate attention that NATO and our good friend Barrack Osama-Llama 24th-century Obama have recently upped the stakes with regard to hacking. They now treat hacking as an act of war.” The loftier the target, the greater the lulz. On June 15th, LulzSec took credit for crashing the C.I.A.’s Web site, tweeting, “Tango down—cia.gov—for the lulz.”
|
||||
|
||||
On June 20, 2011, Ryan Cleary, a nineteen-year-old member of LulzSec, was arrested for the DDoS attacks on the C.I.A. site. The next month, F.B.I. agents arrested fourteen other hackers for DDoS attacks on PayPal seven months earlier. Each of the PayPal Fourteen, as they became known, faced fifteen years in prison and a five-hundred-thousand-dollar fine. They were charged with conspiracy and intentional damage to protected computers under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. (The law allows for wide prosecutorial discretion and was widely criticized after Aaron Swartz, an Internet activist who was facing thirty-five years in prison, committed suicide last year.)
|
||||
|
||||
A petition was circulated on behalf of Jake (Topiary) Davis, a member of LulzSec, who needed help paying his legal fees. Doyon entered an I.R.C. to promote Davis’s cause:
|
||||
|
||||
> CommanderX: Please sign the petition and help Topiary…
|
||||
>
|
||||
> toad: you are an attention whore
|
||||
>
|
||||
> toad: so you get attention
|
||||
>
|
||||
> CommanderX: Toad your an asshole.
|
||||
>
|
||||
> katanon: sigh
|
||||
|
||||
Doyon had grown increasingly brazen. He DDoS’ed the Web site of the Chamber of Commerce of Orlando, Florida, after activists there were arrested for feeding the homeless. He launched the attacks from public WiFi networks, using his personal laptop, without making much effort to cover his tracks. “That’s brave but stupid,” a senior member of the P.L.F. who asked to be called Kalli told me. “He didn’t seem to care if he was caught. He was a suicide hacker.”
|
||||
|
||||
Two months later, Doyon participated in a DDoS strike against San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit, protesting an incident in which a BART police officer had killed a homeless man named Charles Hill. Doyon appeared on the “CBS Evening News” to defend the action, his voice disguised and his face obscured by a bandanna. He compared DDoS attacks to civil disobedience. “It’s no different, really, than taking up seats at the Woolworth lunch counters,” he said. Bob Schieffer, the CBS anchor, snickered and said, “It’s not quite the civil-rights movement, as I see it.”
|
||||
|
||||
On September 22, 2011, in a coffee shop in Mountain View, California, Doyon was arrested and charged with causing intentional damage to a protected computer. He was detained for a week and released on bond. Two days later, against his lawyer’s advice, he called a press conference on the steps of the Santa Cruz County Courthouse. His hair in a ponytail, he wore dark sunglasses, a black pirate hat, and a camouflage bandanna around his neck.
|
||||
|
||||
In characteristically melodramatic fashion, Doyon revealed his identity. “I am Commander X,” he told reporters. He raised his fist. “I am immensely proud, and humbled to the core, to be a part of the idea called Anonymous.” He told a journalist, “All you need to be a world-class hacker is a computer and a cool pair of sunglasses. And the computer is optional.”
|
||||
|
||||
Kalli worried that Doyon was placing his ego above the safety of other Anons. “It’s the weakest link in the chain that ends up taking everyone down,” he told me. Josh Covelli, the Anon who had been eager to help Doyon with Operation Peace Camp, told me that his “jaw dropped” when he saw a video of Doyon’s press conference online. “The way he presented himself and the way he acted had become more unhinged,” Covelli said.
|
||||
|
||||
Three months later, Doyon’s pro-bono lawyer, Jay Leiderman, was in a federal court in San Jose. Leiderman had not heard from Doyon in a couple of weeks. “I’m inquiring as to whether there’s a reason for that,” the judge said. Leiderman had no answer. Doyon was absent from another hearing two weeks later. The prosecutor stated the obvious: “It appears as though the defendant has fled.”
|
||||
|
||||
----------
|
||||
|
||||
Operation Xport was the first Anonymous operation of its kind. The goal was to smuggle Doyon, now a fugitive wanted for two felonies, out of the country. The coördinators were Kalli and a veteran Anon who had met Doyon at an acid party in Cambridge during the eighties. A retired software executive, he was widely respected within Anonymous.
|
||||
|
||||
Doyon’s ultimate destination was the software executive’s house, deep in rural Canada. In December, 2011, he hitchhiked to San Francisco and made his way to an Occupy encampment downtown. He found his designated contact, who helped him get to a pizzeria in Oakland. At 2 A.M., Doyon, using the pizzeria’s WiFi, received a message on encrypted chat.
|
||||
|
||||
“Are you near a window?” the message read.
|
||||
|
||||
“Yeah,” Doyon typed.
|
||||
|
||||
“Look across the street. Do you see the green mailbox? In exactly fifteen minutes, go and stand next to that mailbox and set your backpack down, and lay your mask on top of it.”
|
||||
|
||||
For a few weeks, Doyon shuttled among safe houses in the Bay Area, following instructions through encrypted chat. Eventually, he took a Greyhound bus to Seattle, where he stayed with a friend of the software executive. The friend, a wealthy retiree, spent hours using Google Earth to help Doyon plot a route to Canada. They went to a camping-supplies store, and the friend spent fifteen hundred dollars on gear for Doyon, including hiking boots and a new backpack. Then he drove Doyon two hours north and dropped him off in a remote area, several hundred miles from the border, where Doyon met up with Amber Lyon.
|
||||
|
||||
Months earlier, Lyon, a broadcast journalist, had interviewed Doyon for a CNN segment about Anonymous. He liked her report, and they stayed in touch. Lyon asked to join Doyon on his escape, to shoot footage for a possible documentary. The software executive thought that it was “nuts” to take the risk, but Doyon invited her anyway. “I think he wanted to make himself a face of the movement,” Lyon told me. For four days, she filmed him as he hiked north, camping in the woods. “It wasn’t very organized,” Lyon recalls. “He was functionally homeless, so he just kind of wandered out of the country.”
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
“This is the barn where we keep our feelings. If a feeling comes to you, bring it out here and lock it up.”
|
||||
|
||||
On February 11, 2012, a press release appeared on Pastebin. “The PLF is delighted to announce that Commander X, aka Christopher Mark Doyon, has fled the jurisdiction of the USA and entered the relative safety of the nation of Canada,” it read. “The PLF calls upon the government of the USA to come to its senses and cease the harassment, surveillance—and arrest of not only Anonymous, but all activists.”
|
||||
|
||||
----------
|
||||
|
||||
In Canada, Doyon spent a few days with the software executive in a small house in the woods. In a chat with Barrett Brown, Doyon was effusive.
|
||||
|
||||
> BarrettBrown: you have enough safe houses, etc? . . .
|
||||
>
|
||||
> CommanderX: Yes I am good here, money and houses a plenty in Canada.
|
||||
>
|
||||
> CommanderX: Amber Lyon asked me on camera about you.
|
||||
>
|
||||
> CommanderX: I think you will like my reply, and fuck the trolls Barrett. I have always loved you and always will.
|
||||
>
|
||||
> CommanderX: :-)
|
||||
>
|
||||
> CommanderX: I told her you were a hero.
|
||||
>
|
||||
> BarrettBrown: you’re a hero . . .
|
||||
>
|
||||
> BarrettBrown: glad you’re safe for now
|
||||
>
|
||||
> BarrettBrown: let me know if you need anything
|
||||
>
|
||||
> CommanderX: I am, and if this works we can get others out to . . . .
|
||||
>
|
||||
> BarrettBrown: good, we’re going to need that
|
||||
|
||||
Ten days after Doyon’s escape, the Wall Street Journal reported that Keith Alexander, then the N.S.A. and U.S. Cyber Command director, had held classified meetings in the White House and elsewhere during which he expressed concern about Anonymous. Within two years, Alexander warned, the group might be capable of destabilizing national power grids. General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Journal that an enemy of the U.S. “could give cyber malware capability to some fringe group,” adding, “We have to get after this.”
|
||||
|
||||
On March 8th, a briefing on cybersecurity was held for members of Congress at a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility near the Capitol Building. Many of the country’s top security officials attended the briefing, including Alexander, Dempsey, Robert Mueller, the head of the F.B.I., and Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security. Attendees were shown a computer simulation of what a cyberattack on the Eastern Seaboard’s electrical supply might look like. Anonymous was not yet capable of mounting an attack on this scale, but security officials worried that they might join forces with other, more sophisticated groups. “As we were dealing with this ever-increasing presence on the Net and ever-increasing risk, the government nuts and bolts were still being worked out,” Napolitano told me. When discussing potential cybersecurity threats, she added, “We often used Anonymous as Exhibit A.”
|
||||
|
||||
Anonymous might be the most powerful nongovernmental hacking collective in the world. Even so, it has never demonstrated an ability or desire to damage any key elements of public infrastructure. To some cybersecurity experts, the dire warnings about Anonymous sounded like fearmongering. “There’s a big gap between declaring war on Orlando and pulling off a Stuxnet attack,” James Andrew Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me, referring to the elaborate cyberstrike carried out by the U.S. and Israel against Iranian nuclear sites in 2007. Yochai Benkler, a professor at Harvard Law School, told me, “What we’ve seen is the use of drumbeating as justification for major defense spending of a form that would otherwise be hard to justify.”
|
||||
|
||||
Keith Alexander, who recently retired from the government, declined to comment for this story, as did representatives from the N.S.A., the F.B.I., the C.I.A., and the D.H.S. Although Anons have never seriously compromised government computer networks, they have a record of seeking revenge against individuals who anger them. Andy Purdy, the former head of the national-cybersecurity division of the D.H.S., told me that “a fear of retaliation,” both institutional and personal, prevents government representatives from speaking out against Anonymous. “Everyone is vulnerable,” he said.
|
||||
|
||||
----------
|
||||
|
||||
On March 6, 2012, Hector Xavier Monsegur, a key member of LulzSec with the screen name Sabu, was revealed to be an F.B.I. informant. In exchange for a reduced sentence, Monsegur had spent several months undercover, helping to gather evidence against other LulzSec members. The same day, five leading Anons were arrested and charged with several crimes, including computer conspiracy. An F.B.I. official told Fox News, “This is devastating to the organization. We’re chopping off the head of LulzSec.” Over the next ten months, Barrett Brown was indicted on seventeen federal charges, most of which were later dropped. (He will be sentenced in October.)
|
||||
|
||||
Doyon was distraught, but he continued to hack—and to seek attention. He appeared, masked, at a Toronto screening of a documentary about Anonymous. He gave an interview to a reporter from the National Post and boasted, without substantiation, “We have access to every classified database in the U.S. government. It’s a matter of when we leak the contents of those databases, not if.”
|
||||
|
||||
In January, 2013, after another Anon started an operation about the rape of a teen-age girl in Steubenville, Ohio, Doyon repurposed LocalLeaks, a site he had created two years earlier, as a clearinghouse for information about the rape. Like many Anonymous efforts, LocalLeaks was both influential and irresponsible. It was the first site to widely disseminate the twelve-minute video of a Steubenville High School graduate joking about the rape, which inflamed public outrage about the story. But the site also perpetuated several false rumors about the case and it failed to redact a court document, thus accidentally revealing the rape victim’s name. Doyon admitted to me that his strategy of releasing unexpurgated materials was controversial, but he recalled thinking, “We could either gut the Steubenville Files . . . or we could release everything we know, basically, with the caveat, Hey, you’ve got to trust us.”
|
||||
|
||||
In May, 2013, the Rustle League, a group of online trolls who often provoke Anonymous, hacked Doyon’s Twitter account. Shm00p, one of the leaders of Rustle League, told me, “We’re not trying to cause harm to the guy, but, just, the shit he was saying—it was comical to me.” The Rustle League implanted racist and anti-Semitic messages into Doyon’s account, such as a link to www.jewsdid911.org.
|
||||
|
||||
On August 27, 2013, Doyon posted a note announcing his retirement from Anonymous. “My entire life has been dedicated to fighting for justice and freedom,” he wrote. “ ‘Commander X’ may be invincible, but I am extremely ill from the exhaustion and stress of fighting in this epic global cyber war.” Reactions varied from compassion (“you deserve a rest”) to ridicule (“poor crazy old gnoll. Maybe he has some time for bathing now”). Covelli told me, “The persona has consumed him to the point where he can’t handle it anymore.”
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
August 17, 1998 “We still have Paris? Just thought I’d check.”
|
||||
|
||||
----------
|
||||
|
||||
The first Million Mask March took place on November 5, 2013. Several thousand people marched in support of Anonymous, in four hundred and fifty cities around the world. In a sign of how deeply Anonymous had penetrated popular culture, one protester in London removed his Guy Fawkes mask to reveal that he was the actor Russell Brand.
|
||||
|
||||
While I attended the rally in Washington, D.C., Doyon watched a livestream in Canada. I exchanged e-mails with him on my phone. “It is so surreal to sit here, sidelined and out of the game—and watch something that you helped create turn into this,” he wrote. “At least it all made a difference.”
|
||||
|
||||
We arranged a face-to-face meeting. Doyon insisted that I submit to elaborate plans made over encrypted chat. I was to fly to an airport several hours away, rent a car, drive to a remote location in Canada, and disable my phone.
|
||||
|
||||
I found him in a small, run-down apartment building in a quiet residential neighborhood. He wore a green Army-style jacket and a T-shirt featuring one of Anonymous’s logos: a black-suited man with a question mark instead of a face. The apartment was sparsely furnished and smelled of cigarette smoke. He discussed U.S. politics (“I have not voted in many elections—it’s all a rigged game”), militant Islam (“I believe that people in the Nigerian government essentially colluded to create a completely phony Al Qaeda affiliate called Boko Haram”), and his tenuous position within Anonymous (“These people who call themselves trolls are really just rotten, mean, evil people”).
|
||||
|
||||
Doyon had shaved his beard, and he looked gaunt. He told me that he was ill and that he rarely went outside. On his small desk were two laptops, a stack of books about Buddhism, and an overflowing ashtray. A Guy Fawkes mask hung on an otherwise bare yellow wall. He told me, “Underneath the whole X persona is a little old man who is in absolute agony at times.”
|
||||
|
||||
This past Christmas, the founder of the news site AnonInsiders visited him, bearing pie and cigarettes. Doyon asked the friend to succeed him as Supreme Commander of the P.L.F., offering “the keys to the kingdom”—all his passwords, as well as secret files relating to several Anonymous operations. The friend gently declined. “I have a life,” he told me.
|
||||
|
||||
----------
|
||||
|
||||
On August 9, 2014, at 5:09 P.M. local time, Kareem (Tef Poe) Jackson, a rapper and activist from Dellwood, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, tweeted about a crisis unfolding in a neighboring town. “Basically martial law is taking place in Ferguson all perimeters blocked coming and going,” he wrote. “National and international friends Help!!!” Five hours earlier in Ferguson, an unarmed eighteen-year-old African-American, Michael Brown, had been shot to death by a white police officer. The police claimed that Brown had reached for the officer’s gun. Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson, who was with him at the time, said that Brown’s only offense was refusing to leave the middle of the street.
|
||||
|
||||
Within two hours, Jackson received a reply from a Twitter account called CommanderXanon. “You can certainly expect us,” the message read. “See if you can get us some live streams going, that would be useful.” In recent weeks, Doyon, still in Canada, had come out of retirement. In June, two months before his fiftieth birthday, he quit smoking (“#hacktheaddiction #ecigaretteswork #old,” he later tweeted). The following month, after fighting broke out in Gaza, he tweeted in support of Anonymous’s Operation Save Gaza, a series of DDoS strikes against Israeli Web sites. Doyon found the events in Ferguson even more compelling. Despite his idiosyncrasies, he had a knack for being early to a cause.
|
||||
|
||||
“Start collecting URLs for cops, city government,” Doyon tweeted. Within ten minutes, he had created an I.R.C. channel. “Anonymous Operation Ferguson is engaged,” he tweeted. Only two people retweeted the message.
|
||||
|
||||
The next morning, Doyon posted a link to a rudimentary Web site, which included a message to the people of Ferguson—“You are not alone, we will support you in every way possible”—and an ultimatum to the police: “If you abuse, harass or harm in any way the protesters in Ferguson, we will take every Web based asset of your departments and governments off line. That is not a threat, it is a promise.” Doyon appealed to the most visible Anonymous Twitter account, YourAnonNews, which has 1.3 million followers. “Please support Operation Ferguson,” he wrote. A minute later, YourAnonNews complied. That day, the hashtag #OpFerguson was tweeted more than six thousand times.
|
||||
|
||||
The crisis became a top news story, and Anons rallied around Operation Ferguson. As with the Arab Spring operations, Anonymous sent electronic care packages to protesters on the ground, including a riot guide (“Pick up the gas emitter and lob it back at the police”) and printable Guy Fawkes masks. As Jackson and other protesters marched through Ferguson, the police attempted to subdue them with rubber bullets and tear gas. “It looked like a scene from a Bruce Willis movie,” Jackson told me. “Barack Obama hasn’t supported us to the degree Anonymous has,” he said. “It’s comforting to know that someone out there has your back.”
|
||||
|
||||
One site, www.opferguson.com, turned out to be a honeypot—a trap designed to collect the Internet Protocol addresses of visitors and turn them over to law-enforcement agencies. Some suspected Commander X of being a government informant. In the #OpFerguson I.R.C., someone named Sherlock wrote, “Everyone got me scared clicking links. Unless it’s from a name I’ve seen a lot, I just avoid them.”
|
||||
|
||||
Protesters in Ferguson asked the police to reveal the name of the officer who had shot Brown. Several times, Anons echoed this demand. Someone tweeted, “Ferguson police better release the shooter’s name before Anonymous does the work for them.” In a community meeting on August 12th, Jon Belmar, the Chief of the St. Louis Police Department, refused. “We do not do that until they’re charged with an offense,” he said.
|
||||
|
||||
In retaliation, a hacker with the handle TheAnonMessage tweeted a link to what he claimed was a two-hour audio file of a police radio scanner, recorded around the time of Brown’s death. TheAnonMessage also doxed Belmar, tweeting what he purported to be the police chief’s home address, phone number, and photographs of his family—one of his son sleeping on a couch, another of Belmar posing with his wife. “Nice photo, Jon,” TheAnonMessage tweeted. “Your wife actually looks good for her age. Have you had enough?” An hour later, TheAnonMessage threatened to dox Belmar’s daughter.
|
||||
|
||||
Richard Stallman, the first-generation hacker from M.I.T., told me that though he supports many of Anonymous’s causes, he considered these dox attacks reprehensible. Even internally, TheAnonMessage’s actions were divisive. “Why bother doxing people who weren’t involved?” one Anon asked over I.R.C., adding that threatening Belmar’s family was “beyond stupid.” But TheAnonMessage and other Anons continued to seek information that could be used in future dox attacks. The names of Ferguson Police Department employees were available online, and Anons scoured the Internet, trying to suss out which of the officers had killed Brown.
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
April 12, 1999“Which thing do I press?”
|
||||
|
||||
In the early morning of August 14th, a few Anons became convinced, based on Facebook photos and other disparate clues, that Brown’s shooter was a thirty-two-year-old man named Bryan Willman. According to a transcript of an I.R.C., one Anon posted a photo of Willman with a swollen face; another noted, “The shooter claimed to have been hit in the face.” Another user, Anonymous|11057, acknowledged that his suspicion of Willman involved “a leap of probably bad logic.” Still, he wrote, “i just can’t shake it. i really truly honestly and without a shred of hard evidence think it’s him.”
|
||||
|
||||
TheAnonMessage seemed amused by the conversation, writing, “#RIPBryanWillman.” Other Anons urged caution. “Please be sure,” Anonymous|2252 wrote. “It’s not just about a man’s life, Anon can easily be turned on by the public if something truly unjust comes of this.”
|
||||
|
||||
The debate went on for more than an hour. Several Anons pointed out that there was no way to confirm that Willman had ever been a Ferguson police officer.
|
||||
|
||||
> Anonymous|3549: @gs we still don’t have a confirmation that bry is even on PD
|
||||
>
|
||||
> Intangir: tensions are high enough right now where there is a slim chance someone might care enough to kill him
|
||||
>
|
||||
> Anonymous|11057: the only real way to get a confirmation would be an eyewitness report from the scene of the crime. otherwise it’s hearsay and shillery
|
||||
>
|
||||
> Anonymous|11057: the fastest way to eliminate a suspect is to call him a suspect . . . we are all terrified of being unjust, but the pegs keep fitting in the holes . . .
|
||||
|
||||
Many Anons remained uncomfortable with the idea of a dox. But around 7 A.M. a vote was taken. According to chat logs, of the eighty or so people in the I.R.C., fewer than ten participated. They decided to release Willman’s personal information.
|
||||
|
||||
> Anonymous|2252: is this going on twitter?
|
||||
>
|
||||
> anondepp: lol
|
||||
>
|
||||
> Anonymous|2252: via @theanonmessage ?
|
||||
>
|
||||
> TheAnonMessage: yup
|
||||
>
|
||||
> TheAnonMessage: just did
|
||||
>
|
||||
> anondepp: its up
|
||||
>
|
||||
> Anonymous|2252: shit
|
||||
>
|
||||
> TheAnonMessage: Lord in heaven…
|
||||
>
|
||||
> Anonymous|3549: . . .have mercy on our souls
|
||||
>
|
||||
> anondepp: lol
|
||||
|
||||
At 9:45 A.M., the St. Louis Police Department responded to TheAnonMessage. “Bryan Willman is not even an officer with Ferguson or St. Louis County PD,” the tweet read. “Do not release more info on this random citizen.” (The F.B.I. later opened an investigation into the hacking of police computers in Ferguson.) Twitter quickly suspended TheAnonMessage, but Willman’s name and address had been reported widely.
|
||||
|
||||
Willman is the head police dispatcher in St. Ann, a suburb west of Ferguson. When the St. Louis Police Department’s Intelligence Unit called to tell him that he had been named as the killer, Willman told me, “I thought it was the weirdest joke.” Within hours, he received hundreds of death threats on his social-media accounts. He stayed in his house for nearly a week, alone, under police protection. “I just want it all to go away,” he told me. He thinks that Anonymous has irreparably harmed his reputation. “I don’t see how they can ever think they can be trusted again,” he said.
|
||||
|
||||
“We are not perfect,” OpFerguson tweeted. “Anonymous makes mistakes, and we’ve made a few in the chaos of the past few days. For those, we apologize.” Though Doyon was not responsible for the errant dox attack, other Anons took the opportunity to shame him for having launched an operation that spiralled out of control. A Pastebin message, distributed by YourAnonNews, read, “You may notice contradictory tweets and information about #Ferguson and #OpFerguson from various Anonymous twitter accounts. Part of why there is dissension about this particular #op is that CommanderX is considered a ‘namefag/facefag’—a known entity who enjoys or at least doesn’t shun publicity—which is considered by most Anonymous to be bad form, for some probably fairly obvious reasons.”
|
||||
|
||||
On his personal Twitter account, Doyon denied any involvement with Op Ferguson and wrote, “I hate this shit. I don’t want drama and I don’t want to fight with people I thought were friends.” Within a couple of days, he was sounding hopeful again. He recently retweeted messages reading, “You call them rioters, we call them voices of the oppressed” and “Free Tibet.”
|
||||
|
||||
Doyon is still in hiding. Even Jay Leiderman, his attorney, does not know where he is. Leiderman says that, in addition to the charges in Santa Cruz, Doyon may face indictment for his role in the PayPal and Orlando attacks. If he is arrested and convicted on all counts, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. Following the example of Edward Snowden, he hopes to apply for asylum with the Russians. When we spoke, he used a lit cigarette to gesture around his apartment. “How is this better than a fucking jail cell? I never go out,” he said. “I will never speak with my family again. . . . It’s an incredibly high price to pay to do everything you can to keep people alive and free and informed.”
|
||||
|
||||
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
||||
|
||||
via: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/08/masked-avengers
|
||||
|
||||
作者：[David Kushner][a]
|
||||
译者：[译者ID](https://github.com/译者ID)
|
||||
校对：[校对者ID](https://github.com/校对者ID)
|
||||
|
||||
本文由 [LCTT](https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject) 原创翻译，[Linux中国](http://linux.cn/) 荣誉推出
|
||||
|
||||
[a]:http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/david-kushner
|
||||
377
translated/talk/20140904 The Masked Avengers.md
Normal file
377
translated/talk/20140904 The Masked Avengers.md
Normal file
@ -0,0 +1,377 @@
|
||||
<h1>戴着面具的复仇者 —— 揭秘：激进黑客组织“匿名者”</h1>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote><em>从“<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8C%89%E8%8E%89%E8%8A%B1%E9%9D%A9%E5%91%BD">突尼斯政变</a>”到“<a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%82%81%E5%85%8B%E7%88%BE%C2%B7%E5%B8%83%E6%9C%97%E6%A7%8D%E6%93%8A%E6%A1%88">弗格森枪击事件</a>”，“匿名者”组织是如何煽动起网络示威活动的。</em></blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><img src="https://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_r25419-690.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote><em>通过入会声明，任何人都能轻易加入“匿名者”组织。某人类学家称，组织成员会“根据影响程度对重大事件保持着不同关注，特别是那些能挑起强烈争端的事件”。</em></blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<small>布景：Jeff Nishinaka / 摄影：Scott Dunbar</small>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>1</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>上世纪七十年代中期，当 Christopher Doyon 还是一个生活在缅因州乡村的孩童时，就终日泡在 CB radio 上与各种陌生人聊天。他的昵称是“大红”，因为他有一头红色的头发。Christopher Doyon 把发射机挂在了卧室的墙壁上，并且说服了父亲在自家屋顶安装了两根天线。CB radio 主要用于卡车司机间的联络，但 Doyon 和一些人却将之用于不久后出现在 Internet 上的虚拟社交——自定义昵称、成员间才懂的笑话，以及施行变革的强烈愿望。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 很小的时候母亲就去世了，兄妹二人由父亲抚养长大，他俩都说受到过父亲的虐待。由此 Doyon 在 CB radio 社区中找到了慰藉和归属感。他和他的朋友们轮流监听当地紧急事件频道。其中一个朋友的父亲买了一个气泡灯并安装在了他的车顶上；每当这个孩子收听到来自孤立无援的乘车人的求助后，都会开车载着所有人到求助者所在的公路旁。除了拨打 911 外他们基本没有什么可做的，但这足以让他们感觉自己成为了英雄。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>短小精悍的 Doyon 有着一口浓厚的新英格兰口音，并且非常喜欢《星际迷航》和阿西莫夫的小说。当他在《大众机械》上看到一则“组装你的专属个人计算机”构件广告时，就央求祖父给他买一套，接下来 Doyon 花了数月的时间把计算机组装起来并连接到 Internet 上去。与鲜为人知的 CB 电波相比，在线聊天室确实不可同日而语。“我只需要点一下按钮，再选中某个家伙的名字，然后我就可以和他聊天了，” Doyon 在最近回忆时说道，“这真的很惊人。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>十四岁那年，Doyon 离家出走，两年后他搬到了马萨诸塞州的剑桥，那里是一个新出现的计算机反主流文化的中心。同一时间，早在 34 年前就已由麻省理工学院的铁路狂热爱好者们创立的铁路模型技术俱乐部，已经演变成了“黑客”——也是推广该词的第一个组织。Richard Stallman，在那时还是一名任职于麻省理工学院人工智能实验室的计算机科学家，指出早期黑客们比起引发技术战争更乐于讨论“哥德尔、艾舍尔、巴赫”之类的话题。“我们没有任何约束”，Stallman 说，“这不是一项运动，而是一种可以让人们相互留下深刻印象的行为。”其中有些“行为”很有趣（制作电子游戏）；有些非常实用（提高计算机处理速度）；还有些则属于发生在真实世界里的恶作剧（在校园内放置模拟街道标识）。Michael Patton，在七十年代里管理着铁路模型技术俱乐部的人，谈起初代黑客间不成文的规定，说第一条就是“不要搞破坏”。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>在剑桥，Doyon 以打零工和乞讨为生，他宁愿为了自由而睡在公园的长椅上，也不愿被单调的固定工作所束缚。1985 年，他和其他六个活跃分子共同组建了一支电子“义勇军”。模仿“动物解放阵线”，他们称呼自己为“人民解放阵线”（Peoples Liberation Front，PLF）。所有人都使用化名：如组织的创建者，声称自己是老兵的一位高大中年男子，自称“Commander Adama”；Doyon 则选择了“Commander X”这个称呼。受 “Merry Pranksters” 启示，他们在 Grateful Dead 的演唱会上出售 LSD（lysergic acid diethylamide，麦角酸酰二乙胺，一种迷幻药），并用收入的一部分购置了一辆二手校车，以及扩音器、相机，还有电源充电器。同时在剑桥租了一间地下公寓，Doyon 偶尔会在那里歇息。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 深深地沉溺于计算机中，虽然他并不是一位专业的程序员。在过去一年的几次谈话中，他告诉我他将自己视为激进主义分子，继承了 Abbie Hoffman 和 Eldridge Cleaver 的激进传统；技术不过是他抗议的工具。八十年代，哈佛大学和麻省理工学院的学生们举行集会，强烈抗议他们的学校从南非撤资。为了帮助抗议者通过安全渠道进行交流，PLF 制作了无线电套装：移动调频发射器、伸缩式天线，还有麦克风，所有部件都内置于背包内。Willard Johnson，麻省理工学院的一位激进分子和政治学家，表示黑客们出席集会并不意味着一次变革。“我们的大部分工作仍然是通过扩音器来完成的，”他解释道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>1992 年，在 Grateful Dead 的一场印第安纳的演唱会上，Doyon 秘密地向一位瘾君子出售了 300 粒药。由此他被判决在印第安纳州立监狱服役十二年，后来改为五年。服役期间，他对宗教和哲学产生了浓厚的兴趣，并于鲍尔州立大学学习了相应课程。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>1994 年，第一款商业 Web 浏览器网景领航员正式发布，同一年 Doyon 被捕入狱。当他出狱并再次回到剑桥后，PLF 依然活跃着，并且他们的工具有了实质性的飞跃。Doyon 回忆起和他入狱之前的变化，“非常巨大——好比是‘烽火狼烟’跟‘电报传信’之间那么大的差距。”黑客们入侵了一个印度的军事网站，并修改其首页文字为“拯救克什米尔”。在塞尔维亚，黑客们攻陷了一个阿尔巴尼亚网站。Stefan Wray，一位早期网络激进主义分子，为一次纽约“反哥伦布日”集会上的黑客行径辩护。“我们视之为电子形式的公众抗议，”他告诉大家。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>1999 年，美国唱片业协会因为版权侵犯问题起诉了 Napster，一款文件共享软件。最终，Napster 于 2001 年关闭。Doyon 与其他黑客使用分布式拒绝服务（Distributed Denial of Service，DDoS，使大量数据涌入网站导致其响应速度减缓直至奔溃）的手段，攻击了美国唱片业协会的网站，使之停运时间长达一星期之久。Doyon为自己的行为进行了辩解，并高度赞扬了其他的“黑客主义者”。“我们很快意识到保卫 Napster 的战争象征着保卫 Internet 自由的战争，”他在后来写道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2008 年的一天，Doyon 和 “Commander Adama” 在剑桥的 PLE 地下公寓相遇。Adama 当着 Doyon 的面点击了癫痫基金会的一个链接，与意料中将要打开的论坛不同，出现的是一连串闪烁的彩光。有些癫痫病患者对闪光灯非常敏感——这完全是出于恶意，有人想要在无辜群众中诱发癫痫病。已经出现了至少一名受害者。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 愤怒了。他质问 Adama 什么样的人才会做出这样的事来。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“你听说过‘匿名者’组织吗？” Adama 问。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>2</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2003 年，一位来自纽约的已经患病 15 年的失眠症患者 Christopher Poole，推出了 4chan 讨论社区，在这里用户们可以随意发布照片或者尖锐评论。随后其关注点迅速从动漫延伸到许多 Internet 的早期文化基因，如：LOLcats、Chocolate Rain、RickRolls。当用户没有按照屏幕上的要求输入昵称时，将会得到系统默认的“匿名者”（Anonymous）称呼。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><img src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_a18505-600.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><small>“我得谈谈我的感受。”</small></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Poole 希望匿名这一举措可以延续社区的尖锐性因素。“我们无意参与理智的涉外事件讨论，”他在网站上写道。4chan 社区里最具价值的事之一便是寻求“挑起强烈的争端”（lulz），这个词源自缩写 LOL。Lulz 经常是通过分享充满孩子气的笑话或图片来实现的，它们中的大部分不是色情的就是下流的。其中最令人震惊的部分被贴在了网站的“/b/”版块上，这里的用户们称呼自己为“/b/tards”。Doyon 知道 4chan 这个社区，但他认为那些用户是“一群愚昧无知的顽童”。2004 年前后，/b/ 上的部分用户开始把“匿名者”视为一个独立的实体。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>这是一个全新的黑客团体。“这不是一个传统意义上的组织，”一位领导计算机安全工作的研究员 Mikko Hypponen 告诉我——倒不如，视之为一个非传统的亚文化群体。Barrett Brown，德克萨斯州的一名记者,同时也是众所周知的“匿名者”高层领导，把“匿名者”描述为“一连串前仆后继的伟大友谊”。无需任何会费或者入会仪式。任何想要加入“匿名者”组织，成为一名匿名者（Anon）的人，都可以通过简短的象征性的宣誓加入。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>尽管 4chan 的关注焦点是一些琐碎的话题，但许多匿名者认为自己就是“正义的十字军”。如果网上有不良迹象出现，他们就会发起具有针对性的治安维护行动。不止一次，他们以未成年少女的身份套取恋童癖的私人信息，然后把这些信息交给警察局。其他匿名者则是政治的厌恶者，为了挑起争端想方设法散布混乱的信息。他们中的一些人在 /b/ 上发布看着像是雷管炸弹的图片；另一些则叫嚣着要炸毁足球场并因此被联邦调查局逮捕。2007 年，一家洛杉矶当地的新闻联盟机构称呼“匿名者”组织为“互联网负能量制造机”。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2008 年 1 月，Gawker Media 上传了一段关于汤姆克鲁斯大力吹捧山达基优点的视频。这段视频是受版权保护的，山达基教会致信 Gawker，勒令其删除这段视频。“匿名者”组织认为教会企图控制网络信息。“是时候让 /b/ 来干票大的了，”有人在 4chan 上写道。“我说的是‘入侵’或者‘攻陷’山达基官方网站。”一位匿名者使用 YouTube 放出一段“新闻稿”，其中包括暴雨云视频和经过计算机处理的语音。“我们要立刻把你们从 Internet 上赶出去，并且在现有规模上逐渐瓦解山达基教会，”那个声音说，“你们无处可躲。”不到一个星期，这段 YouTube 视频的点击率就超过了两百万次。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“匿名者”组织已经不仅限于 4chan 社区。黑客们在专用的互联网中继聊天（Internet Relay Chat channels，IRC 聊天室）频道内进行交流，协商策略。通过 DDoS 攻击手段，他们使山达基的主网站间歇性崩溃了好几天。匿名者们制造了“谷歌炸弹”，由此导致 “dangerous cult” 的搜索结果中的第一条结果就是山达基主网站。其余的匿名者向山达基的欧洲总部寄送了数以百计的披萨，并用大量全黑的传真单耗干了洛杉矶教会总部的传真机墨盒。山达基教会，据报道拥有超过十亿美元资产的组织，当然能经得起墨盒耗尽的考验。但山达基教会的高层可不这么认为，他们还收到了严厉的恐吓，由此他们不得不向 FBI 申请逮捕“匿名者”组织的成员。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2008 年 3 月 15 日，在从伦敦到悉尼的一百多个城市里，数以千计匿名者们游行示威山达基教会。为了切合“匿名”这个主题，组织者下令所有的抗议者都应该佩戴相同的面具。深思熟虑过蝙蝠侠后，他们选定了 2005 年上映的反乌托邦电影《 V 字仇杀队》中 Guy Fawkes 的面具。“在每个大城市里都能以很便宜的价格大量购买，”广为人知的匿名者、游行组织者之一 Gregg Housh 告诉我说道。漫画式的面具上是一个的脸颊红润的男人，八字胡，有着灿烂的笑容。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>匿名者们并未“瓦解”山达基教会。并且汤姆克鲁斯的那段视频任然保留在网络上。匿名者们证明了自己的顽强。组织选择了一个相当浮夸的口号：“我们是一体。绝不宽恕。永不遗忘。相信我们。”（We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.）</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>3</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2010 年，Doyon 搬到了加利福尼亚州的圣克鲁斯，并加入了当地的“和平阵营”组织。利用从木材堆置场偷来的木头，他在山上盖起了一间简陋的小屋，“借用”附近住宅的 WiFi，使用太阳能电池板发电，并通过贩卖种植的大麻换取现金。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>与此同时，“和平阵营”维权者们每天晚上开始在公共场所休息，以此抗议圣克鲁斯政府此前颁布的“流浪者管理法案”，他们认为这项法案严重侵犯了流浪者的生存权。Doyon 出席了“和平阵营”的会议，并在网上发起了抗议活动。他留着蓬乱的红色山羊胡，戴一顶米黄色软呢帽，像军人那样不知疲倦。因此维权者们送给了他“罪恶制裁克里斯”的称呼。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“和平阵营”的成员之一 Kelley Landaker 曾几次和 Doyong 讨论入侵事宜。Doyon 有时会吹嘘自己的技术是多么的厉害，但作为一名资深程序员的 Landaker 却不为所动。“他说得很棒，但却不是行动派的，”Landaker 告诉我。不过在那种场合下，的确更需要一位富有激情的领导者，而不是埋头苦干的技术员。“他非常热情并且坦率，”另一位成员 Robert Norse 如是对我说。“他创造出了大量的能够吸引媒体眼球的话题。我从事这行已经二十年了，在这一点上他比我见过的任何人都要厉害。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 在 PLF 的上司，Commander Adama 仍然住在剑桥，并且通过电子邮件和 Doyon 保持着联络，他下令让 Doyon 潜入“匿名者”组织。以此获知其运作方式，并伺机为 PLF 招募新成员。因为癫痫基金会网站入侵事件的那段不愉快回忆，Doyon 拒绝了 Adama。Adama 给 Doyon 解释说，在“匿名者”组织里不怀好意的黑客只占极少数，与此相反，这个组织经常会有一些的轰动世界举动。Doyon 对这点表示怀疑。“4chan 怎么可能会轰动世界？”他质问道。但出于对 PLF 的忠诚，他还是答应了 Adama 的请求。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 经常带着一台宏基笔记本电脑出入于圣克鲁斯的一家名为 Coffee Roasting Company 的咖啡厅。“匿名者”组织的 IRC 聊天室主频道无需密码就能进入。Doyon 使用 PLF 的昵称进行登录并加入了聊天室。一段时间后，他发现了组织内大量的专用匿名者行动聊天频道，这些频道的规模更小，并相互重复。要想参与行动，你必须知道行动的专用聊天频道名称，并且聊天频道随时会因为陌生的闯入者而进行变更。这套交流系统并不具备较高的安全系数，但它的确很凑效。“这些专用行动聊天频道确保了行动机密的高度集中，”麦吉尔大学的人类学家 Gabriella Coleman 告诉我。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>有些匿名者提议了一项行动，名为“反击行动”。如同新闻记者 Parmy Olson 于 2012 年在书中写道的，“我们是匿名者，”这项行动成为了又一次支援文件共享网站，如 Napster 的后继者海盗湾（Pirate Bay），的行动的前奏，但随后其目标却扩展到了政治领域。2010 年末，在美国国务院的要求下，包括万事达、Visa、PayPal 在内的几家公司终止了对维基解密，一家公布了成百上千份外交文件的民间组织，的捐助。在一段网络视频中，“匿名者”组织扬言要进行报复，发誓会对那些阻碍维基解密发展的公司进行惩罚。Doyon 被这种抗议企业的精神所吸引，决定参加这次行动。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><img src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_a18473-600.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><small>潘多拉的魔盒</small></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>在十二月初的“反击行动”中，“匿名者”组织指导那些新成员，或者说新兵，关于“如何他【哔~】加入组织”，教程中提到“首先配置你【哔~】的网络，这他【哔~】的很重要。”同时他们被要求下载“低轨道离子炮”，一款易于使用的开源软件。Doyon 下载了软件并在聊天室内等待着下一步指示。当开始的指令发出后，数千名匿名者将同时发动进攻。Doyon 收到了含有目标网址的指令——目标是，www.visa.com——同时，在软件的右上角有个按钮，上面写着“IMMA CHARGIN MAH LAZER.”（“反击行动”同时也发动了大量的复杂精密的入侵进攻。）几天后，“反击行动”攻陷了万事达、Visa、PayPal 公司的主页。在法院的控告单上，PayPal 称这次攻击给公司造成了 550 万美元的损失。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>但对 Doyon 来说，这是切实的激进主义体现。在剑桥反对种族隔离的行动中，他不能立即看到结果；而现在，只需指尖轻轻一点，就可以在攻陷大公司网站的行动中做出自己的贡献。隔天，赫芬顿邮报上出现了“万事达沦陷”的醒目标题。一位得意洋洋的匿名者发推特道：“有些事情维基解密是无能为力的。但这些事情却可以由‘反击行动’来完成。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>4</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2010 年的秋天，“和平阵营”的抗议活动终止，政府只做出了轻微的让步，“流浪者管理法案”仍然有效。Doyon 希望通过借助“匿名者”组织的方略扭转局势。他回忆当时自己的想法，“也许我可以发动‘匿名者’组织来教训这种看似不堪一击的市政府网站，这些人绝对会【哔~】地赞同我的提议。最终我们将使得市政府永久性的废除‘流浪者管理法案’。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Joshua Covelli 是一位 25 岁的匿名者，他的昵称是“Absolem”，他非常钦佩 Doyon 的果敢。“现在我们的组织完全是他【哔~】各种混乱的一盘散沙，”Covelli 告诉我道。在“Commander X”加入之后，“组织似乎开始变得有模有样了。”Covelli 的工作是俄亥俄州费尔伯恩的一所大学接待员，他从不了解任何有关圣克鲁斯的政治。但是当 Doyon 提及帮助“和平阵营”抗击活动的计划后，Covelli 立即回复了一封表示赞同的电子邮件：“我期待这样的行动很久了。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 使用 PLF 的昵称邀请 Covelli 在 IRC 聊天室进行了一次秘密谈话：</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Absolem：抱歉，有个比较冒犯的问题...请问 PLF 也是组织的一员吗？</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Absolem：我会这么问，是因为我在频道里看过你的聊天记录，你像是一名训练有素的黑客，不太像是来自组织里的成员。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>PLF：不不不，你的问题一点也不冒犯。很高兴遇到你。PLF 是一个来自波士顿的黑客组织，已经成立 22 年了。我在 1981 年就开始了我的黑客生涯，但那时我并没有使用计算机，而是使用的 PBX（Private Branch Exchange，电话交换机）。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>PLF：我们组织内所有成员的年龄都超过了 40 岁。我们当中有退伍士兵和学者。并且我们的成员“Commander Adama”，正在躲避一大帮警察还有间谍的追捕。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Absolem：听起来很棒！我对这次行动很感兴趣，不知道我是否可以提供一些帮助，我们的组织实在是太混乱了。我的电脑技术还不错，但我在入侵技术上还完全是一个新手。我有一些小工具，但不知道怎么去使用它们。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>庄重的入会仪式后，Doyon 正式接纳 Covelli 加入 PLF：</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>PLF：把所有可能对你不利的【哔~】敏感文件加密。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>PLF：还有，想要联系任何一位 PLF 成员的话，给我发消息就行。从现在起，请叫我... Commander X。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2012 年，美联社称“匿名者”组织为“一伙训练有素的黑客”；Quinn Norton 在《连线》杂志上发文称“‘匿名者’组织可以入侵任何坚不可摧的网站”，并在文末赞扬他们为“一群卓越的民间黑客”。事实上，有些匿名者的确是很有天赋的程序员，但绝大部分成员根本不懂任何技术。人类学家 Coleman 告诉我只有大约五分之一的匿名者是真正的黑客——其他匿名者则是“极客与抗议者”。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2010 年 12 月 16 日，Doyon 以 Commander X 的身份向几名记者发送了电子邮件。“明天当地时间 12：00 的时候，‘人民解放阵线’组织与‘匿名者’组织将大举进攻圣克鲁斯政府网站”，他在邮件中写道，“12:30 之后我们将恢复网站的正常运行。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>圣克鲁斯数据中心的工作人员收到了警告，匆忙地准备应对攻击。他们在服务器上运行起安全扫描软件，并向当地的互联网供应商 AT & T 求助，后者建议他们向 FBI 报警。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>第二天，Doyon 走进了一家星巴克并启动了笔记本电脑。即便是在这样一个小镇上，Doyon 也显得格外醒目：一个疲惫的流浪汉疯狂地敲击着键盘。随后，Covelli 和他在一间秘密聊天室碰头。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>PLF：去社区，登录——检查一下右上角的“聊天”菜单栏，上面有今天的具体方案。感谢你对我们的支持。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Absolem：一切为了 PLF，长官。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>他们都打开了 DDoS 软件。尽管只有少数人参加了这次“和平阵营”的行动，但 Doyon 好似统率千军万马般下令：</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>PLF：注意：每一位支持 PLF 或者站在我们这边的朋友——还有那些对抗邪恶保卫正义的勇士们：‘和平阵营’行动进行中，战斗的号角已经响起！目标：www.co.santa-cruz.ca.us。随意开火。重复指令：开火！</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Absolem：收到，长官。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>数据中心的工作人员紧张地盯着服务器，上面反馈出一连串拒绝服务的请求。尽管他们尽了最大的努力，网站还是崩溃了。25 分钟后，Doyon 决定遵守承诺。他下令“停止攻击”，政府网站开始恢复了正常运行。（这次攻击后，“流浪者管理法案”依旧没有废除。）</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 没有时间去庆祝胜利，他显得焦躁不安。“我得走了，”他告诉 Covelli。他飞一般得逃回了山中小屋。Doyon 的感觉是正确的：一位 FBI 的探员早就在 IRC 上盯住了他。这位 FBI 的探员已经获许搜查 Doyon 的笔记本电脑。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>几周后，Doyon 的食物吃完了，他不得不下山进行采购。当 Doyon在 Coffee Roasting Company 咖啡厅逗留的时候，两位联邦探员走了进来将他拘捕。Doyon 给“和平阵营”的创建者，同时也是一名律师的 Ed Frey 打了一个电话，Ed Frey 来到了警察局。Doyon 告诉了 Frey 他的另一个身份“Commander X”的事。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>随后 Doyon 被释放，但 FBI 没收了他的笔记本电脑，里面满是犯罪证据。Frey 一个几乎不了解网络世界的维权律师，把 Doyon 载回了他的山边露营。“接着你要怎么办？”Frey 问道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><img src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_a18447-600.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><small>“Zach 很聪明... 并且... 是一个天才... 但.. 你们... 不在一个班。”</small></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 引用了一句电影台词。“拼命地跑，”他说。“我会躲起来，尽可能保持我的行动自由，用尽全力和这帮杂种们作斗争。”Frey 给了他两张 20 美元的钞票并祝他好运。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>5</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 搭着便车来到了旧金山，并在这里呆了三个月。他经常混迹于 Haight 大街 Ashbury 区的一家杂乱的咖啡馆里，在计算机前一坐就是几个小时，只有在抽烟时他才会起身走到室外活动。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2011 年 1 月，Doyon 联系了新闻记者兼匿名者的 Barrett Brown。“我们的下一步计划是什么？”Doyon 问道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“突尼斯，” Brown 答道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“我知道，那是中东地区的一个国家，” Doyon 继续问，“然后呢？”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“我们准备打倒那里的独裁者，” Brown 再次答道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“啊？！那里有一位独裁者吗？” Doyon 有点惊讶。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>几天后，“突尼斯行动”正式展开。Doyon 作为参与者向突尼斯政府域名下的电子邮箱发送了大量的垃圾邮件，以此阻塞其服务器。“我会提前写好关于那次行动邮件，接着一次又一次地把它们发送出去，” Doyon 说，“有时候实在没有时间，我就只简短的写上一句问候对方母亲的的话，然后发送出去。”短短一天时间里，匿名者们就攻陷了包括突尼斯证券交易所、工业部、总统办公室、总理办公室在内的多个网站。他们把总统办公室网站的首页替换成了一艘海盗船的图片，并配以文字“‘报复’是个贱人，不是吗？”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 不时会谈起他的网上“战斗”经历，似乎他刚从弹坑里爬出来一样。“伙计，自从干了这行我就变黑了，”他向我诉苦道。“你看我的脸，全是抽烟的时候熏的——而且可能已经粘在我的脸上了。我仔细地照过镜子，毫不夸张地说我简直就是一头棕熊。”很多个夜晚，Doyon 都是在 Golden Gate 公园里露营过夜的。“我就那样干了四天，我看了看镜子里的‘我’，感觉还可以——但其实我觉得‘我’也许应该去吃点东西、洗个澡了。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“匿名者”组织接着又在 YouTube 上声明了将要进行的一系列行动：“利比亚行动”、“巴林行动”、“摩洛哥行动”。作为解放广场事件的抗议者，Doyon 参与了“埃及行动”。在 Facebook 针对这次行动的宣传专页中，有一个为当地示威者准备的“行动套装”链接。“行动套装”通过文件共享网站 Megaupload 进行分发，其中含有一份加密软件以及应对瓦斯袭击的保护措施。并且在不久后，埃及政府关闭了埃及的所有互联网及子网络的时候，继续向当地抗议者们提供连接网络的方法。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2011 年夏季，Doyon 接替 Adama 成为 PLF 的最高指挥官。Doyon 招募了六个新成员，并力图发展 PLF 成为“匿名者”组织的中坚力量。Covelli 成为了他的其中一技位术顾问。另一名黑客 Crypt0nymous 负责在 YouTube 上发布视频；其余的人负责研究以及组装电子设备。与松散的“匿名者”组织不同，PLF 内部有一套极其严格的管理体系。“Commander X 事必躬亲，”Covelli 说。“这是他的行事风格，也许不能称之为一种风格。”一位创立了 AnonInsiders 博客的黑客通过加密聊天告诉我，他认为 Doyon 总是一意孤行——这在“匿名者”组织中是很罕见的现象。“当我们策划发起一项行动时，他并不在乎其他人是否同意，”这位黑客补充道，“他会一个人列出行动方案，确定攻击目标，登录 IRC 聊天室，接着告诉所有人在哪里‘碰头’，然后发起 DDoS 攻击。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>一些匿名者把 PLF 视为可有可无的部分，认为 Doyon 的所作所为完全是个天大的笑柄。“他是因为吹牛出名的，”另一名昵称为 Tflow 的匿名者 Mustafa Al-Bassam 告诉我。不过，即使是那些极度反感 Doyon 的狂妄自大的人，也不得不承认他在“匿名者”组织发展过程中的重要性。“他所倡导的强硬路线有时很凑效，有时则完全不起作用，” Gregg Housh 说，并且补充道自己和其他优秀的匿名者都曾遇到过相同的问题。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“匿名者”组织对外坚持声称自己是不分层次的平等组织。在由 Brian Knappenberger 制作的一部纪录片，《我们是一个团体》中，一名成员使用“一群鸟”来比喻组织，它们轮流领飞带动整个组织不断前行。Gabriella Coleman 告诉我，这个比喻不太切合实际，“匿名者”组织内实际上早就出现了一个非正式的领导阶层。“领导者非常重要，”她说。“有四五个人可以看做是我们的领头羊。”她把 Doyon 也算在了其中。但是匿名者们仍然倾向于反抗这种具有体系的组织结构。在一本即将出版的关于“匿名者”组织的书，《黑客、骗子、告密者、间谍》中，Coleman 这么写道，在匿名者中，“成员个体以及那些特立独行的人依然在一些重大事件上保持着服从的态度，优先考虑集体——特别是那些能引发强烈争端的事件。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>匿名者们谑称那些特立独行的成员为“自尊心超强的疯子”和“想让自己出名的疯子”。（不过许多匿名者已经不会再随便给他人取那种具有冒犯性的称号了。）“但还是有令人惊讶的极少数成员违反规则”打破传统上的看法，Coleman 说。“这么做的人，像 Commander X 这样的，都会在组织里受到排斥。”去年，在一家网络论坛上，有人写道，“当他开始把自己比作‘蝙蝠侠’的时候我就不想理他了。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Peter Fein，是一位以 n0pants 为昵称而出名的网络激进分子，也是众多反对 Doyon 的浮夸行为的众多匿名者之一。Fein 浏览了 PLF 的网站，其封面上有一个徽章，还有关于组织的宣言——“为了解放众多人类的灵魂而不断战斗”。Fein 沮丧的发现 Doyon 早就使用真名为这家网站注册过了，使他这种，以及其他想要找事的匿名者们无机可乘。“如果有人要对我的网站进行 DDoS 攻击，那完全可以，” Fein 回想起通过私密聊天告诉 Doyon 时的情景，“但如果你要这么做了的话，我会揍扁你的屁股。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2011 年 2 月 5 日，《金融时报》报道了在一家名为 HBGary Federal 的网络安全公司里，首席执行官 HBGary Federal 已经得到了“匿名者”组织骨干成员名单的消息。Barr 的调查结果表明，三位最高领导人其中之一就是‘ Commander X’，这位潜伏在加利福尼亚州的黑客有能力“策划一些大型网络攻击事件”。Barr 联系了 FBI 并提交了自己的调查结果。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>和 Fein 一样，Barr 也发现了 PLF 网站的注册法人名为 Christopher Doyon，地址是 Haight 大街。基于 Facebook 和 IRC 聊天室的调查，Barr 断定‘ Commander X’的真实身份是一名家庭住址在 Haight 大街附近的网络激进分子 Benjamin Spock de Vries。Barr 通过 Facebook 和 de Vries 取得了联系。“请告诉组织里的普通阶层，我并不是来抓你们的，” Barr 留言道，“只是想让‘领导阶层’知晓我的意图。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“‘领导阶层’？ 2333，笑死我了，” de Vries 回复道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>《金融时报》发布报道的第二天，“匿名者”组织就进行了反击。HBGary Federal 的网站被进行了恶意篡改。Barr 的私人 Twitter 账户被盗取，他的上千封电子邮件被泄漏到了网上，同时匿名者们还公布了他的住址以及其他私人信息——这是一系列被称作“doxing”的惩罚。不到一个月后，Barr 就从 HBGary Federal 辞职了。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>6</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2011 年 4 月，Doyon 离开了旧金山搭便车向西部前行，过着夜晚露宿公园、白天混迹于星巴克的生活。他的背包里只有一台笔记本电脑、Guy Fawkes 面具，还有在 Pall 超市里购买的一些东西。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><img src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_a18563-600.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><small>“这是我在 TED 夏令营里学到的东西。”</small></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>他时刻关注着“匿名者”组织的内部消息。那年春季，在 Barr 调查报告中提到的六位匿名者精锐成员，组建了“LulzSec 安全”组织（Lulz Security），简称 LulzSec。这个组织正如其名，这些成员认为“匿名者”组织已经变得太过严肃；他们的目标是重新引发起那些“能挑起强烈争端”的事件。当“匿名者”组织还在继续支持“阿拉伯之春”的抗议者的时候，LulzSec 入侵了公共电视网（Public Broadcasting Service，PBS）网站，并发布了一则虚假声明称已故说唱歌手 Tupac Shakur 仍然生活在新西兰。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>匿名者之间会通过 Pastebin.com 网站来共享文字。在这个网站上，LulzSec 发表了一则声明，称“很不幸，我们注意到北约和我们的好总统巴拉克，奥萨马·本·美洲驼（拉登同学）的好朋友，来自 24 世纪的奥巴马，最近明显提高了对我们这些黑客的关注程度。他们把黑客入侵行为视作一种战争的表现。”目标越高远，挑起的纷争就越大。6 月 15 日，LulzSec 表示对 CIA 网站受到的袭击行为负责，他们发表了一条推特，上面写道“目标击毙（Tango down，亦即target down）—— cia.gov ——这是起挑衅行为。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2011 年 6 月 20 日，LulzSec 的一名十九岁的成员 Ryan Cleary 因为对 CIA 的网站进行了 DDoS 攻击而被捕。7 月，FBI 探员逮捕了七个月前对 PayPal 进行 DDoS 攻击的其他十四名黑客。这十四名黑客，每人都面临着 15 年的牢狱之灾以及 500 万美元的罚款。他们因为图谋不轨以及故意破坏互联网，而被控违反了计算机欺诈与滥用处理条例。（该法案允许检察官进行酌情处置，并在去年网络激进分子 Aaron Swartz 因为被判处 35 年牢狱之灾而自杀身亡之后，受到了广泛的质疑和批评。）</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>LulzSec 的成员之一 Jake (Topiary) Davis 因为付不起法律诉讼费，给组织的成员们写了一封请求帮助的信件。Doyon 进入了 IRC 聊天室把 Davis 需要帮助的消息进行了扩散：</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：那么请大家阅读信件并给予 Topiary 帮助...</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Toad：你真是和【哔~】一样消息灵通。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Toad：这么说你得到 Topiary 的消息了？</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：Toad 你这个混蛋！</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Katanon：唉...</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 越来越大胆。他在佛罗里达州当局逮捕了支持流浪者的激进分子后，就 DDoS 了奥兰多商务部商会网站。他使用个人笔记本电脑通过公用无线网络实施了攻击，并且没有花费太多精力来隐藏自己的网络行踪。“这种做法很勇敢，但也很愚蠢，”一位自称 Kalli 的 PLF 的资深成员告诉我。“他看起来并不在乎是否会被抓。他完全是一名自杀式黑客。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>两个月后，Doyon 参与了针对旧金山湾区快速交通系统（Bay Area Rapid Transit）的 DDoS 攻击，以此抗议一名 BART 的警官杀害一名叫做 Charles Hill 的流浪者的事件。随后 Doyon 现身“CBS 晚间新闻”为这次行动辩护，当然，他处理了自己的声音，把自己的脸用香蕉进行替代。他把 DDoS 攻击比作为公民的抗议行为。“与占用 Woolworth 午餐柜台的座位相比，这真的没什么不同，真的，”他说道。CBS 的主播 Bob Schieffer 笑称：“就我所见，它并不完全是一项民权运动。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2011 年 9 月 22 日，在加利福尼亚州的一家名为 Mountain View 的咖啡店里，Doyon 被捕，同时面临着“使用互联网非法破坏受保护的计算机”罪名指控。他被拘留了一个星期的时间，接着在签署协议之后获得假释。两天后，他不顾律师的反对，宣布将在圣克鲁斯郡法院召开新闻发布会。他梳起了马尾辫，戴着一副墨镜、一顶黑色海盗帽，同时还在脖子上围了一条五彩手帕。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 通过非常夸大的方式披露了自己的身份。“我就是 Commander X，”他告诉蜂拥的记者。他举起了拳头。“作为‘匿名者’组织的一员，作为一名核心成员，我感到非常的骄傲。”他在接受一名记者的采访时说，“想要成为一名顶尖黑客的话，你只需要准备一台电脑以及一副墨镜。任何一台电脑都行。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Kalli 非常担心 Doyon 会不小心泄露组织机密或者其他匿名者的信息。“这是所有环节中最薄弱的地方，如果这里出问题了，那么组织就完了，”他告诉我。曾在“和平阵营行动”中给予 Doyon 大力帮助的匿名者 Josh Covelli 告诉我，当他在网上看见 Doyon 的新闻发布会视频的时候，他感觉瞬间“下巴掉地下了”。“他的所作所为变得越来越不可捉摸，” Covelli 评价道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>三个月后，Doyon 的指定律师 Jay Leiderman 出席了圣荷西联邦法庭的辩护。Leiderman 已经好几个星期没有得到 Doyon 的消息了。“我需要得知被告无法出席的具体原因，”法官说。Leiderman 无法回答。Doyon 再次缺席了两星期后的另一场听证会。检控方表示：“很明显，看来被告已经逃跑了。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>7</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“Xport 行动”是“匿名者”组织进行的所有同类行动中的第一个行动。这次行动的目标是协助如今已经背负两项罪名的通缉犯 Doyon 潜逃出国。负责调度的人是 Kalli 以及另一位曾在八十年代剑桥的迷幻药派对上和 Doyon 见过面的匿名者老兵。这位老兵是一位已经退休的软件主管，在组织内部威望很高。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 的终点站是这位软件主管的家，位于加拿大的偏远乡村。2011 年 12 月，他搭便车前往旧金山，并辗转来到了市区组织大本营。他找到了他的指定联系人，后者带领他到达了奥克兰的一家披萨店。凌晨 2 点，Doyon 通过披萨店的无线网络，接收了一条加密聊天消息。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“你现在靠近窗户吗？”那条消息问道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“是的，” Doyon 回复道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“往大街对面看。看见一个绿色的邮箱了吗？十五分钟后，你去站到那个邮箱旁边，把你的背包取下来，然后把你的面具放在上面。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>一连几个星期的时间，Doyon 穿梭于海湾地区的安全屋之间，按照加密聊天那头的指示不断行动。最后，他搭上了前往西雅图的长途公交车，软件主管的一个朋友在那里接待了他。这个朋友是一名非常富有的退休人员，他花费了通过谷歌地球来帮助 Doyon 规划前往加拿大的路线。他们共同前往了一家野外用品供应商店，这位朋友为 Doyon 购置了价值 1500 美元的商品，包括登山鞋以及一个全新的背包。接着他又开车载着 Doyon 北上，两小时后到达距离国界只有几百英里的偏僻地区。随后 Doyon 见到了 Amber Lyon。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>几个月前，广播新闻记者 Lyon 曾在 CNN 的关于“匿名者”组织的节目里采访过 Doyon。Doyon 很欣赏她的报道，他们一直保持着联络。Lyon 要求加入 Doyon 的逃亡行程，为一部可能会发行的纪录片拍摄素材。软件主管认为这样太过冒险，但 Doyon 还是接受了她的请求。“我觉得他是想让自己出名，” Lyon 告诉我。四天的时间里，她用影像记录下了 Doyon 徒步北上，在林间露宿的行程。“那一切看起来不太像是仔细规划过的，” Lyon 回忆说。“他实在是无家可归了，所以他才会想要逃到国外去。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><img src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_a18506-600.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><small>“这里是我们存放各种感觉的仓库。如果你发现了某种感觉，把它带到这里然后锁起来。”</small></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2012 年 2 月 11 日，Pastebin 上出现了一条消息。“PLF 很高兴的宣布‘ Commander X’，也就是 Christopher Mark Doyon，已经离开了美国的司法管辖区，抵达了加拿大一个比较安全的地方，”上面写着，“PLF 呼吁美国政府，希望政府能够醒悟过来并停止无谓的骚扰与监视行为——不要仅仅逮捕‘匿名者’组织的成员，对所有的激进组织应该一视同仁。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>8</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
Doyon 和软件主管在加拿大的小木屋里呆了几天。在一次同 Barrett Brown 的聊天中，Doyon 难掩内心的喜悦之情。
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>BarrettBrown：你现在应该足够安全了吧，其他的呢？...</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：是的，我现在很安全，现在加拿大既不缺钱也不缺藏身的地方。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：Amber Lyon 想要你的一张照片。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：去他【哔~】的怪人，Barrett，相信你会喜欢我告诉她应该怎样评价你的。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：:-)</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：我告诉她你是一个英雄。</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>BarrettBrown：你才是真正的英雄...</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>BarrettBrown：很高兴你现在安全了</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>BarrettBrown：如果你还需要什么，告诉我一声就可以了</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>CommanderX：我会的，如果这种方式的确很凑效的话，可以让其他被通缉的人也这样逃出来....</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>BarrettBrown：当然，估计我们不久后也得这样了</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>在 Doyon 出逃十天后，《华尔街日报》上刊登了关于不久后升职为美国国家安全局及网络指挥部主任的 Keith Alexander 的报道，他在白宫举行的秘密会晤以及其他场合下，表达了对“匿名者”组织的高度关注。Alexander 发出警告，两年内，该组织必将会是国家电网改造的大患。参谋长联席会议的主席 General Martin Dempsey 告诉记者，这群人是国家的敌人。“他们有能力把这些使用恶意软件造成破坏的技术扩散到其他的边缘组织去，”随后又补充道，“我们必须防范这种情况发生。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>3 月 8 日，国会议员们在国会大厦附近的一个敏感信息隔离设施附近举行了关于网络安全的会议。包括 Alexander、Dempsey、美国联邦调查局局长 Robert Mueller，以及美国国土安全部部长 Janet Napolitano 在内的多名美国安全方面的高级官员出席了这次会议。会议上，通过计算机向与会者模拟了东部沿海地区电力设施可能会遭受到的网络攻击时的情境。“匿名者”组织目前应该还不具备发动此种规模攻击的能力，但安全方面的官员担心他们会联合其他更加危险的组织来共同发动攻击。“在我们着手于不断增加的网络风险事故时，政府仍在就具体的处理细节进行不断协商讨论，” Napolitano 告诉我。当谈及潜在的网络安全隐患时，她补充道，“我们通常会把‘匿名者’组织的行动当做 A 级威胁来应对。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“匿名者”也许是当今世界上最强大的无政府主义黑客组织。即使如此，它却从未表现出过任何的会对公共基础设施造成破坏的迹象或意愿。一些网络安全专家称，那些关于“匿名者”组织的谣传太过危言耸听。“在奥兰多发布战前宣言和实际发动 Stuxnet 蠕虫病毒攻击之间是有很大的差距的，” Internet 研究与战略中心的一位职员 James Andrew Lewis 告诉我，这和 2007 年美国与以色列对伊朗原子能网站发动的黑客袭击有关。哈佛大学法学院的教授 Yochai Benkler 告诉我，“我们所看见的只是以主要防御为理由而进行的开销，否则，将很难自圆其说。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Keith Alexander 最近刚从政府部门退休，他拒绝就此事发表评论，因为他并不能代表国家安全局、联邦调查局、中央情报局以及国土安全部。尽管匿名者们从未真正盯上过政府部门的计算机网络，但他们对于那些激怒他们的人有着强烈的报复心理。前国土安全部国家网络安全部门负责人 Andy Purdy 告诉我他们“害怕被报复，”无论机构还是个人，都不同意政府公然反对“匿名者”组织。“每个人都非常脆弱，”他说。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>9</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2012 年 3 月 6 日，Hector Xavier Monsegur，昵称为 Sabu 的 LulzSec 骨干成员，被发现是 FBI 派来的卧底。为了换取减刑，Monsegur 花费了数月的时间卧底，协助搜集其他 LulzSec 成员的罪证。同一天，五位匿名者领导被捕，同时面临着包括“计算机某犯罪”在内的多项罪名指控。联邦调查局的一名官员在接受福克斯新闻记者采访时说道，“这对那个组织是一个毁灭性的打击。我们的行动如同砍掉了 LulzSec 组织的头。”接下来的十个月里， Barrett Brown 收到了 17 项联邦罪名的指控，其中的大部分后来被撤销了。（他将在十月被宣判最终结果。）</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 感到很烦躁，但他还是继续扮演着一名黑客——以此吸引关注。他在多伦多上映的纪录片上以戴着面具的匿名者形象出现。在接受《National Post》的采访时，他向记者大肆吹嘘未经证实的消息，“我们已经入侵了美国政府的所有机密数据库。现在的问题是我们该何时泄露这些机密数据，而不是我们是否会泄露。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2013 年 1 月，在另一名匿名者介入俄亥俄州<a href="https://gist.githubusercontent.com/SteveArcher/cdffc917a507f875b956/raw/c7b49cc11ae1e790d30c87f7b8de95482c18ec74/%E6%96%AF%E6%89%98%E6%9C%AC%E7%BB%B4%E5%B0%94%E8%BD%AE%E5%A5%B8%E6%A1%88%E5%86%8D%E8%B5%B7%E9%A3%8E%E6%B3%A2%20%E9%BB%91%E5%AE%A2%E7%BB%84%E7%BB%87%E4%BB%8B%E5%85%A5">斯托本维尔未成年少女轮奸案</a>，发起抗议行动之后，Doyon 重新启用了他两年前创办的网站 LocalLeaks，作为那起轮奸事件的信息汇总处理中心。如同许多其他“匿名者”组织的所作所为一样，LocalLeaks 网站非常具有影响力，但却也不承担任何责任。LocalLeaks 网站是第一家公布 12 分钟斯托本维尔高中毕业生猥亵视频的网站，这激起了众多当事人的愤怒。LocalLeaks 网站上同时披露了几份未被法庭收录的关于案件的材料，并且由此不小心透漏出了案件受害人的名字。Doyon向我承认他公开这些未经证实的信息的策略是存在争议的，但他同时回忆起自己当时的想法，“我们可以选择去除这些斯托本维尔案件的材料...也可以选择公开所有我们搜集的信息，基本上，给公众以提醒，不过，前提是你们得相信我们。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2013 年 3 月，一个名为 Rustle League 的组织入侵了 Doyon 的 Twitter 账户，该组织此前经常挑衅“匿名者”组织。Rustle League 的领导者之一 Shm00p 告诉我，“我们的本意并不是伤害那些家伙，只不过，哦，那些家伙说的话你就当是在放屁好了——我会这么做只是因为我感到很好笑。” Rustle League 组织使用 Doyon 的账户发布了含有如 www.jewsdid911.org 链接这样的，种族主义和反犹太主义的信息。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2013 年 8 月 27 日，Doyon 发布了一则退出“匿名者”组织的声明。“我的一生都用在了追求正义和自由上，”他写道，“也许‘ Commander X’是无敌的，但我在这种高节奏的全球网络斗争中已经感到很累了，感觉自己好像病了。”各界对此反应不一，有同情的（“你是该休息了”），也有嘲讽的（“可怜的疯狂小老头。也许他现在有时间洗澡了”）。 Covelli 告诉我，“‘匿名者’的身份对他产生了较大的影响，他已经不能再应付了。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<cneter><img src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_roberts-1998-08-17-600.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><small>1998 年 8 月 17 日 “我们还有‘巴黎’吗？仔细想想，我等会儿去检查一下。”</small></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>10</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2013 年 11 月 5 日举行了第一次“百万面具游行”活动。在全世界四百五十个城市里，发起了数千人的支持“匿名者”组织的游行。伦敦的一名抗议者摘下了盖伊·福克斯面具后，露出了演员罗素·布兰德的脸。这种的迹象表明，“匿名者”组织已经深入到了流行文化中。</p>
|
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|
||||
<p>我参加了华盛顿的集会，Doyon 则呆在了加拿大观看现场直播。通过移动电话，我和 Doyon 不断交换着电子邮件。“只能坐在这里看直播而不能亲自去现场真的很令人沮丧——尤其是当这里面包含有你努力的结果的时候，”他在邮件里写道。“不过至少一切都已有所改变。”</p>
|
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|
||||
<p>我们约定了一次面谈。Doyon 坚持让我通过加密聊天把面谈的详细情况提前告诉他。我坐了几个小时的飞机，租车来到了加拿大的一个偏远小镇，并且禁用了我的电话。</p>
|
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|
||||
<p>最后，我在一个狭小安静的住宅区公寓里见到了 Doyon。他穿了一件绿色的军人夹克衫以及印有“匿名者”组织 logo 的 T 恤衫：一个脸被问号所替代的黑衣人形象。公寓里基本上没有什么家具，充满了一股烟味。他谈论起了美国政治（“我基本没怎么在众多的选举中投票——它们不过是暗箱操作的游戏罢了”），好战的伊斯兰教（“我相信，尼日利亚政府的人不过是相互勾结，以创建一个名为‘博科圣地’的基地组织的下属机构罢了”），以及他对“匿名者”组织的小小看法（“那些自称为怪人的人是真的是烂透了，意思是，邪恶的人”）。</p>
|
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|
||||
<p>Doyon 剃去了他的胡须，但他却显得更加憔悴了。他说那是因为他病了的原因，他几乎很少出去。很小的写字台上有两台笔记本电脑、一摞关于佛教的书，还有一个堆满烟灰的烟灰缸。另一面裸露的泛黄墙壁上挂着盖伊·福克斯面具。他告诉我，“所谓‘Commander X’不过是一个处于极度痛苦中的小老头罢了。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>在刚过去的圣诞节里，匿名者的新网站 AnonInsiders 的创建者拜访了 Doyon，并给他带来了馅饼和香烟。Doyon 询问来访的朋友是否可以继承自己的衣钵成为 PLF 的最高指挥官，同时希望能够递交出自己手里的“王国钥匙”——手里的所有密码，以及几份关于“匿名者”组织的机密文件。这位朋友委婉的拒绝了。“我有自己的生活，”他告诉了我拒绝的理由。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<h2>11</h2>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>2014 年 8 月 9 日，当地时间下午 5 时 09 分，来自密苏里州圣路易斯郊区德尔伍德的一位说唱歌手同时也是激进分子的 Kareem (Tef Poe) Jackson，在 Twitter 上谈起了邻近城镇的一系列令人担忧的举措。“基本可以断定弗格森已经实施了戒严，任何人都无法出入，”他在 Twitter 上写道。“国内的朋友还有因特网上的朋友请帮助我们！！！”五个小时前，弗格森，一位十八岁的手无寸铁的非裔美国人 Michael Brown，被一位白人警察射杀。射杀警察声称自己这么做的原因是 Brown 意图伸手抢夺自己的枪支。而事发当时和 Brown 在一起的朋友 Dorian Johnson 却说，Brown 唯一做得不对的地方在于他当时拒绝离开街道中间。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>不到两小时，Jackson 就收到了一位名为 CommanderXanon 的 Twitter 用户的回复。“你完全可以相信我们，”回复信息里写道。“你是否可以给我们详细描述一下现场情况，那样会对我们很有帮助。”近几周的时间里，仍然呆在加拿大的 Doyon 复出了。六月，他在还有两个月满 50 岁的时候，成功戒烟（“#戒瘾成功 #电子香烟功不可没 #老了，”他在戒烟成功后在 Twitter 上写道）。七月，在加沙地带爆发武装对抗之后，Doyon 发表 Twiter 支持“匿名者”组织的“拯救加沙行动”，并发动了一系列针对以色列网站的 DDoS 攻击。Doyon 认为弗格森枪击事件更加令人关注。抛开他本人的个性，他有在事件发展到引人注目之前的早期，就迅速注意该事件的能力。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“正在网上搜索关于那名警察以及当地政府的信息，” Doyon 发 Twitter 道。不到十分钟，他就为此专门在 IRC 聊天室里创建了一个频道。“‘匿名者’组织‘弗格森’行动正式启动，”他又发了一条 Twitter。但只有两个人转推了此消息。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>次日早晨，Doyon 发布了一条链接，链接指向的是一个初具雏形的网站，网站首页有一条致弗格森市民的信息——“你们并不孤单，我们将尽一切努力支持你们”——以及致当地警察的警告：“如果你们对对弗格森的抗议者们滥用职权、骚扰，或者伤害了他们，我们绝对会让你们所有政府部门的网站瘫痪。这不是威胁，这是承诺。”同时 Doyon 呼吁有 130 万粉丝的“匿名者”组织的 Twitter 账号 YourAnonNews 给与支持。“请支持‘弗格森’行动”，他发送了消息。一分钟后，YourAnonNews 回复表示同意。当天，包含话题 #OpFerguson 的 Twitter 发表/转推了超过六千次。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>这个事件迅速成为头条新闻，同时匿名者们在弗格森周围进行了大集会。与“阿拉伯之春行动”类似，“匿名者”组织向抗议者们发送了电子关怀包，包括抗暴指导（“把瓦斯弹捡起来回丢给警察”）与可打印的盖伊·福克斯面具。Jackson 和其他示威者在弗格森进行示威游行时，警察企图通过橡皮子弹和催泪瓦斯来驱散他们。“当时的情景真像是布鲁斯·威利斯的电影里的情节，” Jackson 后来告诉我。“不过巴拉克·奥巴马应该并不会支持‘匿名者’组织传授给我们的这些知识，”他笑称道。“让那些警察赶到束手无策真的是太爽了。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>有个域名是 www.opferguson.com 的网站，后来发现不过是一个骗局——一个用来收集访问者 ip 地址的陷阱，随后这些地址会被移交给执法机构。有些人怀疑 Commander X 是政府的线人。在 IRC 聊天室 #OpFerguson 频道，一个名叫 Sherlock 写道，“现在频道里每个人说的已经让我害怕去点击任何陌生的链接了。除非是一个我非常熟悉的网址，否则我绝对不会去点击。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>弗格森的抗议者要求当局公布射杀 Brown 的警察的名字。几天后，匿名者们附和了抗议者们的请求。有人在 Twitter 上写道，“弗格森警察局最好公布肇事警察的名字，否则‘匿名者’组织将会替他们公布。”8 月 12 的新闻发布会上，圣路易斯警察局的局长 Jon Belmar 拒绝了这个请求。“我们不会这样做，除非他们被某个罪名所指控，”他说道。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>作为报复，一名黑客使用名为 TheAnonMessage 的 Twitter 账户公布了一条链接，该链接指向一段来自警察的无线电设备所记录的音频文件，文件记录时间是 Brown 被枪杀的两小时左右。TheAnonMessage 同时也把矛头指向了 Belmar，在 Twitter 上公布了这位警察局长的家庭住址、电话号码以及他的家庭照片——一张是他的儿子在长椅上睡觉，另一张则是 Belmar 和他的妻子的合影。“不错的照片，Jon，” TheAnonMessage 在 Twitter 上写道。“你的妻子在她这个年龄算是一个美人了。你已经爱她爱得不耐烦了吗？”一个小时后，TheAnonMessage 又以 Belmar 的女儿为把柄进行了恐吓。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Richard Stallman，来自 MIT 的初代黑客，告诉我虽然他在很多地方赞同“匿名者”组织的行为，但他认为这些泄露私人信息的攻击行为是要受到谴责的。即使是在国内，TheAnonMessage 的行为也受到了谴责。“为何要泄露无辜的人的信息到网上？”一位匿名者通过 IRC 发问，并且表示威胁 Belmar 的家人实在是“相当愚蠢的行为”。但是 TheAnonMessage 和其他的一些匿名者仍然进行着不断搜寻，并企图在将来再次进行泄露信息的攻击。在互联网上可以得到所有弗格森警察局警员的名字，匿名者们不断地搜索着信息，企图找出具体是哪一个警察找出杀害了 Brown。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><img src="http://www.newyorker.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/140908_steig-1999-04-12-600.jpg" /></center>
|
||||
|
||||
<center><small></small>1999 年 4 月 12 日 “我应该把镜头对向谁？”</center>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>8 月 14 日清晨，及位匿名者基于 Facebook 上的照片还有其他的证据，确定了射杀 Brown 的凶手是一位名叫 Bryan Willman 的 32 岁男子。根据一份 IRC 聊天记录，一位匿名者贴出了 Willman 的浮夸面孔的照片；另一位匿名者提醒道，“凶手声称自己的脸没有被任何人看到。”另一位昵称为 Anonymous|11057 的匿名者承认他对 Willman 的怀疑确实是“跳跃性的可能错误的逻辑过程推导出来的。”不过他还是写道，“我只是无法动摇自己的想法。虽然我没有任何证据，但我非常非常地确信就是他。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>TheAnonMessage 看起来被这次对话逗乐了，写道，“#愿逝者安息，凶手是 BryanWillman。”另一位匿名者发出了强烈警告。“请务必确认，” Anonymous|2252 写道。“这不仅仅关乎到一个人的性命，我们可以不负责任地向公众公布我们的结果，但却很可能有无辜的人会因此受到不应受到的对待。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>争论超过了一个小时。一些匿名者指出没有证据表明 Willman 曾经在弗格森警察局任过职。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Anonymous|3549：@gs 我们依旧没有证据能够证明 Bryan 曾在警局呆过</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Intangir：现在的形势已经够紧张的了，一旦我们把这个消息公布出去，可能就会有人因此去杀了他</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Anonymous|11057：唯一的证明方法是犯罪现场目击者报告。否则我们的结果只是一个谣言</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Anonymous|11057：最快的排除嫌疑的方法是称他为嫌疑犯...我们都害怕犯下不公正的错误，但这种方法恰好可以避免这些...</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>大部分匿名者都反对在网上泄露他人信息。但是早晨七点左右匿名者们进行了一次投票。聊天记录显示，当时聊天室里有 80 人左右，只有不到十人参与了投票表决。因此他们决定在互联网上公布 Willman 的私人信息。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Anonymous|2252：还在 Twitter 上公布？</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>anondepp：lol</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Anonymous|2252：用 @theanonmessage 公布？</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>TheAnonMessage：当然</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>TheAnonMessage：去发吧</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>anondepp：搞定了</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Anonymous|2252：我去</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>TheAnonMessage：上帝保佑...</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>Anonymous|3549：...请拯救我们的灵魂</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<blockquote>anondepp：lol</blockquote>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>早晨 9 时 45 分，圣路易斯警察局对 TheAnonMessage 进行了答复。“Bryan Willman 从来没有在弗格森警察局或者圣路易斯警察局任过职，” 他们在 Twitter 上写道。“请不要再公布这位无辜市民的信息了。”（随后 FBI 对弗格森警察的电脑遭黑客入侵的事情展开了调查。）Twitter 管理员迅速封禁了 TheAnonMessage 的账户，但 Willman 的名字和家庭住址仍然被广泛传开。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>实际上，Willman 是弗格森西郊圣安区的警察外勤负责人。当圣路易斯警察局的情报处打电话告诉 Willman，他已经被“确认”为凶手时，他告诉我，“我以为不过是个奇怪的笑话。”几小时后，他的社交账号上就收到了数百条要杀死他的威胁。他在警察的保护下，独自一人在家里呆了将近一个星期。“我只希望这一切都尽快过去，”他告诉我他的感受。他认为“匿名者”组织已经不可挽回地损害了他的名誉。“我不知道他们怎么会以为自己可以被再次信任的，”他说。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>“我们并不完美，” OpFerguson 在 Twitter 上说道。“‘匿名者’组织确实犯错了，过去的几天我们制造一些混乱。为此，我们道歉。”尽管 Doyon 并不应该为这次错误的信息泄露攻击负责，但其他的匿名者却因为他发起了一次无法控制的行动，而归咎他。YourAnonNews 在 Pastebin 上发表了一则消息，上面写道，“你们也许注意到了组织不同的 Twitter 账户发表的话题 #Ferguson 和 #OpFerguson，这两个话题下的 Twitter 与信息是相互矛盾的。为什么会在这些关键话题上出现分歧，部分原因是因为 CommanderX 是一个‘想让自己出名的疯子/想让公众认识自己的疯子’——这种人喜欢，或者至少不回避媒体的宣传——并且显而易见的，组织内大部分成员并不喜欢这样。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>在个人 Twitter 上，Doyon 否认了所有关于“弗格森行动”的职责，他写道，“我讨厌这样。我不希望这样的情况发生，我也不希望和我认为是朋友的人战斗。”沉寂了几天后，他又再度获吹响了战斗的号角。他最近在 Twitter 上写道，“你们称他们是暴民，我们却称他们是压迫下的反抗之声”以及“解放西藏”。</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>Doyon 仍然处于藏匿状态。甚至连他的律师 Jay Leiderman 也不知道他在哪里。Leiderman 表示，除了在圣克鲁斯受到的指控，Doyon 很有可能因为攻击了 PayPal 和奥兰多而面临新的指控。一旦他被捕，所有的刑期加起来，他的余生就要在监狱里度过了。借鉴 Edward Snowden 的先例，他希望申请去俄罗斯避难。我们谈话时，他用一支点燃的香烟在他的公寓里比划着。“这里比他【哔~】的牢房强多了吧？我绝对不会出去，”他愤愤道。“我不会再联系我的家人了....这是相当高的代价，但我必须这么做，我会尽我的努力让所有人活得自由、明白。”</p>
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
|
||||
<p>via: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/08/masked-avengers</p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>作者：<a href="http://www.newyorker.com/contributors/david-kushner">David Kushner</a></p>
|
||||
<p>译者：<a href="https://github.com/SteveArcher">SteveArcher</a></p>
|
||||
<p>校对：<a href="https://github.com/校对者ID">校对者ID</a></p>
|
||||
|
||||
<p>本文由 <a href="https://github.com/LCTT/TranslateProject">LCTT</a> 原创翻译，<a href="http://linux.cn/">Linux中国</a>荣誉推出</p>
|
||||
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