Anonymous vs. the World

Anonymous remains a group that both fascinates and scares me. A group of coordinated hackers and internet Illuminati ("Internet Illuminati" sounds like just the kind of oxymoron that would make a perfect band name) seems like a likely product of the digital age. People from various places working in tandem is the definition of the internet, and it was only a matter of time before it was for a devious purpose. Anonymous uses its internet muscle to harass people they deem are worth the effort, usually with the horribly illicit images found on places like 4Chan.

Which makes the beginning of their crusade against The Westboro Baptist Church all the more interesting. A cease-and-desist with the immediate threat of force outside the legal system sounds like something out of a government conspiracy movie, where a team of "terrorists" who considers themselves noble makes demands of someone "or else." But at its core, it's a group of people who think that the Westboro folks are bad people and want to do something about it.

And if ever a group deserved the wrath of a group of Anonymous forum users, it's Westboro. The Baptist Church group -- though you'd be hard-pressed to find a Baptist outside the group who'd associate with them -- has a staunch anti-gay protests, picketing funerals, and other acts of general bigotry. When people try to point to "Evangelical Christians" as the cause of most hatred in America, these are the people they're imagining. The group is relatively small, but its ability to attract headlines its undisputed.

A skirmish between these two groups is bound to prove one of those media-hijacking stories that'll work like a train-wreck, provided that Westboro doesn't heed Anonymous' warning. The problem is that the whole debacle is bound to elevate the profile of both groups which is ultimately a problem. Anonymous works as well as it does because it's yet to go big-time with its pranks, and thus remains off most authoritative radars -- not that an investigation into the group would necessarily yield results, but it wouldn't be a good for the Anon either -- and Westboro will likely use the attack as a way to promote itself as being "under attack by a malicious, godless hate group. They may even rally more people who don't understand who Anon is into their cause because of it. But the they certainly won't stop what they're doing.

Westboro's site will go down, there'll be big outcry, a huge splash, and eventually, the commotion will die down. A group like Anon could be used to make changes akin to Wiki Leaks, if only they put their all into it. This seems like a good first step into turning the group from deviant troublemakers to the vigilantes they likely would like to be, but this particular case looks to me like trying to put out a fire by drowning it in gas.