Are "Anonymous" one of the most powerful groups in the world?

[BOLLOCKS]

I think that's bollocks.

They punked 'em, with teh powa of teh internetz.

[MARKBNLV]

They have also failed a lot,not to mentionif the government wanted them shut down it would happen fast.

[squealpiggy]

Mostly what they've done is hit some insecure sites and changed the front page, stolen some credit card details and more often than not engaged in DDOS attacks. I don't think they actually "hacked" the FBI site. I think what they did was managed to bring it offline by DDOSing the crap out of it.

[MARKBNLV]

Mostly what they've done is hit some insecure sites and changed the front page, stolen some credit card details and more often than not engaged in DDOS attacks. I don't think they actually "hacked" the FBI site. I think what they did was managed to bring it offline by DDOSing the crap out of it.

I love your sig cried at the end of Marley and me lolz

[NEETzsche]

lol

[Mohammedini]

They got people kidnapped by Mexican drug cartel freed.
They have exposed things, found criminals posting videos etc etc.

[Gojira]

Anonymous are just a bunch of obese, jobless neckbeards who spend all there time sitting at their computer. They look kind like this:



True story

[Chups]

Not really. You can't hack your way out of a jail cell.

They actually did. They threatened Sony to drop a lawsuit and freed a famous hacker on a possible jailtime.

[TheKza]

They havn't even flexed their muscles yet. They can easily do a lot more damage if needs be.

[MARKBNLV]

After the recent Megaupload shutdown, hacktivist group Anonymous retaliated against the Justice Department, Universal Music, the RIAA, and MPAA. DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks left the victim websites inaccessible for hours.
Denial of Service
A denial of service attack works by overloading a server with communication requests to the point where it can't respond to normal Web traffic. If the attacks all come from the same IP address or IP address range, the victim can easily recover by blocking those addresses entirely. To prevent this kind of solution attackers use a distributed attack, meaning the communication requests come from thousands of different sources.

How do the malefactors coordinate this kind of attack? One technique involves the use of a botnet. The botnet owner (or "bot herder") already has in place a network of computers infected with a bot, a tiny program that remains dormant until it receives orders from its command and control center. To launch a DDoS attack, the bot herder simply commands all the bots to make resource-heavy communication requests to the same server.

You're in the Army Now
According to Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, rather than rely on a botnet, these latest attacks by Anonymous used an army of clueless users. You may have participated without even knowing it.

Cluley explained the simple mechanism behind this attack in a post on Sophos's Naked Security blog. Anonymous started by seeding Twitter feeds with provocative posts like "Massive Collective Attack Against SOPA!" each of which included a shortened link.

Click the link and you become a soldier in the Anonymous DDoS army. According to Cluley, "If you visit the webpage, and do not have JavaScript disabled, you will instantly, without user interaction, begin to flood a website of Anonymous's choice with unwanted traffic, helping to perpetuate a DDoS attack." He goes on to note that DDoS attacks are illegal. "If you participate in such an attack you could find yourself receiving a lengthy jail sentence."

Don't worry. I doubt any innocents will be arrested for clicking a link. But this mode also allows Anonymous to claim they didn't launch the attack. It's just one more reason to refrain from clicking shortened links in tweets from unknown sources.