Hard not to approve when Anonymous targets child porn

Given everything I’ve said about Anonymous and its tactics to date, this post will surprise some people. Critical comments are likely. But I can’t help but feel this way.

In its most recent attack, Anonymous claims it shut down more than 40 websites used for child porn and spilled information on some 1,500 users.

As a parent and uncle, I have zero tolerance for anyone who has anything to do with child porn. It’s safe to say that most law-abiding, ethical people feel this way. And so, I ask, what’s not to like about Anonymous doing this (as written by Christina DesMarais of sister publication PCWorld):

According to a timeline of events posted on text-storing website Pastebin, some Anonymous members stumbled upon a child pornography index while browsing a part of the Internet mostly used for illegal peer-to-peer file sharing that isn’t seen by search engines and can’t be accessed without a special browser. They then tracked most of the sites listed to a shared hosting server.

Anonymous said that after warnings to remove the illegal content went unheeded it infiltrated the server and shut down services to all users.

The hacker group boasted that one of the websites it took down was “one of the largest child pornography websites to date containing more than 100GB of child pornography.”

Anonymous said it released the information about users of that website, including usernames, how long they have been active on the site and how many images they have shared. According to the crime-related blog DreaminDemon, the hacking group also claims to have learned the identities of some of the people on the list and have invited the FBI to contact them if they wanted the details.

Anonymous did say recently that it was regrouping and changing direction. If this is what they meant, it’s hard not to approve.

I’ve questioned the methods of Anonymous several times in this blog. It remains the tactics I disagree with: The fact that all of this is done anonymously with a lot of unfair collateral damage.

I know what some of you are thinking: How do you launch a successful revolution out in the open, where those doing the fighting can be easily identified and pursued?

My answer is that if you look at history, you usually see the face of the leadership. While a lot of operatives were anonymous, the leadership always showed itself: George Washington and other Founding Fathers during the American Revolution remain the best example.

I also remain at odds with Anonymous over the collateral damage. Sure, it’s good to expose companies and governments that oppress people or fail to get security right. But when you spill the personal information of innocents, who are you really sticking it to?

When people have to spend large amounts of time cleaning up the damage they did not deserve — because they had the misfortune of doing business with incompetent and/or dishonest corporations they trusted — you are just oppressing them in a different way.

My opinion on those other fronts is unchanged.

But if Anonymous wants to devote its talents toward shutting down the evil of child pornographers and expose the sick souls who do business with them, I’d say they’ve taken a quantum leap in the right direction.

–Bill Brenner

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