I read this morning about Anonymous hacking a security firm whose CEO was attempting to discover their real identities and go to the FBI.

I presume this is seen as a good thing, as Anonymous support Wikileaks, and therefore must be right in all things.

However…

It is worth thinking about some of what they do (though admittedly I know very little). Ok, perhaps you can characterise this episode as self-defence of a sort, but what did Anonymous do recently in support of Wikileaks? When Visa and Mastercard decided to stop processing payments to Wikileaks, Anonymous launched attacks against them.

Haha. That’ll show them.

Yeah – it’ll also “show” all those people around the world who want, and even need, to use their Visa or MasterCard. This had the potential to prevent some people from buying food.

Anonymous seem to act like an amoeba: stimulus-response. Visa/MasterCard hurt Wikileaks! We hurt them! No (apparent) thinking through. No discussion of why they have decided it’s ok to potentially cause problems for large numbers of individuals, just a childish “we are legion don’t f*ck with us” slice of dickish bravado.

On a side note, my iPhone wants to correct dickish to Sichuan

Anyway. Clearly these people are wielding a fair bit of power in today’s world. Think Spiderman: with great power comes great responsibility. That entails (among other things) thinking through the consequences of your actions – before acting. Their targets do not exist in a vacuum, and so Anonymous – if they want to claim the moral high ground – have to think more widely.

Maybe they could attend some NSW schools, now that ethics classes are go.