You don't understand. The actual group of Anonymous are going harm and activists are looking up at this group of people and they are attributing themselves when they want to do something like DoDS some company web service. Anonymous are justifying their hacking and cracking by saying their targets have done the unjust. Why are they doing the unjust; as if Anonymous has the power to rule what is right and wrong, and acting as if they are an underground judge.

I honestly don't appreciate Anonymous. If you want to be an activist, show your face and your identity. The world doesn't need an incubator of batman.

No, I think it is you that does not understand:

> "The actual group of Anonymous [...]"

There is no such thing. Not in any traditional sense. Talking about "Anonymous, the group" is like talking about "Kilroy, the GI."

> Talking about "Anonymous, the group" is like talking about "Kilroy, the GI."

I wonder how many people here are even going to get that reference...

Apparently "Kilroy" is specifically an American thing, but I don't think it is too obscure. For the curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilroy_was_here

I thought it was a good comparison because of the "graffiti/website defacement" angle.

If not "Kilroy" then how about "Emmanuel Goldstein?"

Yeah, I don't look at Anonymous nearly the same way you do. I think of Anonymous as an idea or a principle rather than an actual group. I see no reason why anonymity cannot have a place in activism.

There are many groups (or a single very large fluid group) that call themselves Anonymous. That's more or less the point of the name.

>You know full well what "Anonymous" is, and attempting to attribute everything bad that's ever happened on the internet to every defendant that ever gets grouped in with "Anonymous" is ridiculous.

How is that different than working for the Gambinos? Anonymous members were part of an "ongoing criminal enterprise", and anybody who didn't realize what that means is too stupid to be out roaming the streets.

> How is that different than working for the Gambinos?

The Gambino crime family is actually an organization or group in the traditional sense. "Anonymous" is more analogous to "The Mafia". A useful term if you are okay with being imprecise, but the reality of "The Mafia" is encompasses a very broad set of groups that more often than not have absolutely nothing to do with each other.

Of course there are a few differences between the concept of "Anonymous" and the concept of "The Mafia". Groups that identify as "The Mafia" have more in common with each other than groups who identify as "Anonymous" (the former are all organized crime groups, the later can be any group from organized crime groups, to people who wear silly masks and protest fringe religions, to people who call the parents of kids who abuse cats and post pictures to facebook.) Furthermore, if I burn down a local business and then claim to be The Mafia, mainstream media would mock me for delusionally thinking I had any claim to the term. If I defaced a local businesses website and then claimed to be "Anonymous", the media would lap that bullshit up.

A lot of people would argue that it shouldnt happen in the case of the gambinos either and that RICO is an overreach

And I'd be one of those people. But you can't run around telling everyone you're a member of a shadowy criminal organization named Anonymous and not expect people to treat you like, you know, a member of a shadowy criminal organization named Anonymous.

it's the same distinction as setting up a shop selling pirated movies with fake dvd boxes vs using piratebay ocassionaly.