Enid Gabriella ‘Biella’ Coleman the American anthropologist, academic and author whose work focuses on hacker culture and online activism has published an article on Aljazeera about the Anonymous Hactivitst group. In the article Coleman states “… as a masked entity bearing the name Anonymous – it relays an urgent message about anonymity to contemplate. Given the contemporary reality of a corporate and state controlled surveillance apparatus, Anonymous stands out, compels, and enchants for a very particular reason: it has provided a small but potent oasis of anonymity in the current expansive desert of surveillance, much like the one quite literally being built in the Utah desert right now by the NSA. In an era when most of our personal data is archived online – in a time when states and corporations collect, market, and monetise our plans and preferences – there is indeed something hopeful, one might even say necessary, in Anonymous’ effacement of the self, in the cloaking of their identities, in striking at legislation seen to threaten privacy, and seeking to expose the depth and extent of privatised government contractors that have rapidly emerged as a security apparatus parallel to that of the national government.”
Inspired by Aljazeera ow.ly/aYePW image source Karora ow.ly/aYeN1
