Anonymous: I Like 'Em

First, read this.

Then think about how this bunch of blowhards have actually become a force to be reckoned with, not just some late-night teens in an IRC chat room. I like their style. I like how they like to take the wind out of REAL blowhards (as illustrated in the article). I like the idea of the Hive Mind watching the fences, so to speak, with no one physically at the helm to take down, because there IS no one physically at the helm, no Queen Bee, no Fuerher. Assassinate one who takes on the role, a dozen, no, a thousand take her place.

No Osama bin Mama here.

The Face of Anonymous?

I used to hang out on IRC in the 90s . . . #macfilez, to be precise -- and let me assure you, they're still going, and I'll bet all the oldsters are still tuned into that channel 24 hours a day seventeen years after it was created, even though their former wisps of bum fluff on their chins are now long grey beards . . . they never give up, these people, and I'll be a standing witness to that. Long after Usenet is just a term on Wikipedia, there are people in the alt forums, still trading little bits of obscure movies and talking their obscure alt talk.

And they are continually being replaced by neunauts (pronounced "noy-nawts"), to possibly coin a phrase -- a vanguard of anonymous dustbusters who have been given the Power of the Internet -- a very real, physical power that can have very real, physical consequences, something that didn't seem to occur to the science-fiction writers who instead conjured up a "rise of the machines" to be our next Armageddon.

Instead, it's a rise of those responsible for the machines; us, of course. Things that can mutate will mutate, often in entirely unexpected ways, and that is what is happening right now with sub-Internet hives like Anonymous.

One just has to hope that the mutation will largely be benevolent, that when it begins to flex its muscles and realizes its true powers, it doesn't just decide to do away with everything that isn't necessary to its existence.

Because just like the Terminator, in fact, far more likely than any assembly of machines, the day will come when the Majority just grows tired of the Minority, and hopefully for all, will mass-merge Humanity in its entirety into the Collective, for its own damn good.

Yes, I like Anonymous. Now: how do I become one?