The bolder voices of Anonymous will tell you that there is no hierarchy, and the answers to all of these questions is simple: Anonymous is a hive-mind that communicates instantaneously with itself; hundreds of bodies that all share the same brain, the same expertise and knowledge. No matter which member of Anonymous is captured, the other members will carry on their singular vision of vengeance, undeterred. Frightening, like a zombie outbreak. Well, that's what Anonymous would like you to think, anyway.
Which brings me to my first point: Anonymous relies on the dissemination of misinformation to instill fear among observers (call it information-terrorism if you please). They want you to think that they're bigger and more powerful than they really are, and they're going to lie to you to achieve this goal. A fantastic example of this is the way they deceived their own followers into utilizing unsecure software to illegally disrupt the websites of their targets:
"The tool was written to do a stress test on your own servers and there was no intention for it to used to do denial of service, said Dr Pras, "because of that they did not do any anonymization."Furthermore, five members of Anonymous were arrested in the U.K., where "computer misuse" can carry a steep penalty of up to ten years in prison. Following those arrests, the FBI issued 40 search warrants for members of Anonymous spanning the United States. It seems that while "fighting for our freedom"--which includes reparations for horrific violations of our liberty, such as not being able to run Linux on gaming consoles--Anonymous has done more damage to itself than to anyone else. But that's beside the point.
The point is that Anonymous clearly has leaders, all of whom can be found and arrested. They can be stopped. This isn't the Zodiac Killer we're dealing with here... or are we? No--the Zodiac Killer was far more intelligent. But following the dethroning of former HBGary CEO Aaron Barr, members of Anonymous left him serial-killer-ish Facebook messages:
The threats have come through Facebook including one commenter who wrote: “I’m gonna find out all the people that you know and cause them pain. Death is too good for you.”That's what happens when you invite anyone and everyone to help you do your dirty work. Does it seem suspicious that while Anonymous claims to demand accountability from certain entities for their actions, Anonymous itself cannot and does not enforce accountability for the actions of its members? What could be the reason for such careless recruitment?
My thought is that Anonymous recruits its members so freely because it intends to use them as fodder--a smokescreen to help distract authorities from discovering the master manipulators. They don't care who gets hurt along the way. Anonymous is about the lust for power; thuggery from behind the comfort of a desk.
