Why?

Anonymous is a collective of online “hacktivists” whose origins can be traced to the early days of 4chan, an anonymous imageboard (hence the name). Members would organize raids of online chatrooms to troll users, but with time, their antics became socially and politically motivated.

Recently, the group declared a cyber war against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Dozens of hackers with alleged ties to Anonymous have been arrested, but with no real leadership or structure, the group continues to launch cyberattacks on world governments and million-dollar corporations in the name of social justice.  

Adrian Lamo is a grey-hat hacker through and through. Known as the “Homeless Hacker,” Lamo would travel around the country by Greyhound bus, hacking into corporations like AOL, Yahoo, and The New York Times and offering to fix their security vulnerabilities for free before notifying the media of his escapades. He did this not to cause harm but to prove how dangerous the internet could be for anyone who left themselves vulnerable.  

In the case of the Times, Lamo accessed their internal server in 2002 and added himself to their list of op-ed contributors. He was later caught and sentenced to six months of house arrest. Hacking one of the nation’s largest newspapers has its consequences, but in Lamo’s defense, he was only able to gain access because some Times employees were using their Social Security numbers as passwords.