14 points

all of the people who were part of Anonymous who were worth a damn at hacking back in the day work for the state department now. The movement could very likely have been a psyop, given how many high-level hackers from that era there are on government payroll.

I stand in solidarity with the gay furry hackers.

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7 points
*

They (I use that term to mean the average 4channer) were co-opted by alt right propaganda.

Most neckbeard, incel, Andrew Tate followers are what Anon originally was. We just lied to ourselves that it wasn’t really racist and that we were fighting a good fight.

Now, its a bunch of sad lonely people that found acceptance in intolerance and hatred.

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12 points

Well that is kind of depressing.

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4 points

But its backed by real hard facts and sourced from one of the smallest neckbeards ever.

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1 point

If you only look at it from that angle, yeah. I bet the next generation of Anonymous is growing right now, though.

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-1 points

The chaff can’t perceive the wheat.

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7 points

I don’t think people who refer to “Anonymous” are referring to “the average 4channer”.

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65 points

They fizzled out, members probably moved on to various other groups and projects, while the rest simply went on with their lives. A danger of being decentralized is losing all of your momentum.

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61 points

A danger of being decentralized is losing all of your momentum.

fediverse growth nervously sweats

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2 points

Trust me bro.

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5 points
*

The other commenter is more right, anyway. A lot of the dudes got arrested. I think the chances of that are low here, for now.

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217 points

A lot of the actual, serious ones that knew what they were doing got caught. Some went to lulsec to be jerks with no agenda and were caught by the Feds. All that was left were script kiddies that downloaded the Low Orbit Ion Cannon and used scripts they find online. Then they left or were overtaken by alt right idiots.

The original Anonymous are in their 30s and 40s by now. Everyone ages out.

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26 points

Omg LOIC… I was trying to think of that name a few weeks ago and just couldn’t remember. That was fun.

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1 point

I think they prefer to stay without a name.

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4 points

What about Kiwi Farms?

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18 points

They shrunk their breakfast sausage product line and focus on grass fed meats.

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1 point
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Deleted by creator
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210 points

90s script kiddie here - a bunch of the shit you can do as a minor with low/no consequences becomes SERIOUS FUCKING BUSINESS as an adult with assets. It’s just not worth the risk to keep dicking around with things that might land you in prison or cost you everything you have.

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13 points

The delicious irony is that they now get to live in the world they helped create.

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1 point
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28 points

This is the truest answer thus far.

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37 points

I think the serious ones that didn’t get caught are now working in red team penetration testing, which is an industry that’s been growing exponentially since the years Anonymous did a lot of their big stuff

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12 points
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16 points
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IIRC it spammed websites with traffic, didn’t conceal your IP at all, and some people got arrested for using it to make some websites go down for a very brief period. Basically a way to use people who didn’t know what they were doing as cannon fodder

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5 points

Yep, that’s exactly what it did. Maybe there was a way to do it, say if you had a VPN, but people picked up pretty quick to ban a single IP.

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3 points
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4 points

It pioneered DDoS attacks so, uh, yeah

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6 points

Where did they get the name LOIC from in the first place?

The only place I am aware of, that uses this name, was the Unreal Tournament 2004.

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10 points

I think you’ve found your answer.

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56 points
*

Hacking got harder, and the enforced penalties for getting caught became a lot more severe (in the west at least). This meant that most hackers aren’t doing it for luls but for serious business.

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