Yesterday, we learned Anonymous put out their very own hackeriffic OS — a tricked out version of Linux filled with tools for mischief. Oops! It’s filled with trojans instead. Get used to more of this.
Word of the malware-filled pile word came from the AnonOps Twitter feed, one of the group’s quasi-official mouthpieces:
The Anon OS is fake it is wrapped in trojans. RT
Is it wrapped in trojans? Maybe! It wouldn’t be a novel occurrence; earlier this month, Symantec documented how many Anon groupies were tricked into downloading a trojan as part of Megaupload reprisal attacks. It’s happened before. Either way, we’re sure as hell not downloading it, and don’t recommend you do either.
But one thing it’s not is fake. It’s very much a real thing. And whether it belongs to Anonymous or not is at the heart of an existential crisis that makes the group more unpredictable — and threatening — than ever.
For as long as we’ve been covering Anon, they’ve held steadfast to the tenant that the group has no leadership, there is no one in charge, there are no rules; Anonymous is everyone and no one. It’s just an idea. Of course, this was false: there was an Anonymous elite — for a time more or less lead by turncoat Sabu — which was eventually betrayed and arrested. Now they’re gone, and a power vacuum has taken their place. Inadvertently, that means Anonymous has realised its ideal: now nobody is in charge, and it’s kind of ugly.
Without at least a spiritual leader like Sabu to keep a consistent ethos, Anonymous is truly whatever its members want it to be. Spreading viruses to be jackasses? Sure! How about being an arsehole and leaking the names of abortion clinic patrons, all in the name of Anonymous? Who’s going to stop someone like that? Who’s going to disavow it?
The truth is that Anon always fed off some general principles. Loose and at times juvenile principles, but principles: corporations and governments are generally awful. Privacy is sacred. Populism is essential. You can read these tenets — if you squint — in most of Anonymous’ greatest attacks, and they were handed down directly from the group’s elite. Now most of that aristocracy is either arrested, scared or disillusioned by Sabu’s sellout to control much of anything. Goodbye tenets, hello Linux downloads full of malware — the Anonymous that Anonymous always wanted to be.