Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy

This is usually a topic I'm super interested in, but the book left me with such a strong sense of foreboding and anxiety that - just damn. I can't say I enjoyed it.

First, this book feels instantly outdated, because it ends right with the sublimation of Anonymous's radical/anarchic/mostly lefty ideals in the Great Moral Drama that was Edward Snowden's whistleblowing in spring 2013. That's all fine and well. Snowden's leak might be seen ambiguously by some, but I believe he made the right call in exposing the surveillance state in America. And, if you're an admirer of Cory Doctorow, Aaron Swartz, Larry Lessig, etc, Snowden's act was courageous and important and good. And you can feel good about it. Go hacksors.

And there the book concludes - after giving a (largely sympathetic) portrayal of Anonymous's origins in the primordial Internet soup that is 4chan, to its central role in the Arab Spring, Occupy, and the Steubenville/challenging of America's rape culture. This makes it seem like, for however chaotic and “punk” and self-aggrandizing the el333tee haxxors are, they're still largely fighting for pretty robust causes: taking down anti-democratic despots, challenging a broken financial system, etc. Fine. Good.

But! Spring 2013 was probably a tectonic shift; in my mind, at least. It's like Coleman finishes the book right before the Empire strikes back, and, oh btw, everyone dies and Obi-Wan and Yoda now live as exiles. She ends on a note of hope, and that just feels totally, completely WRONG, given the world we live in today. We're living in the dark timeline, people.

2013 was the year that Gamergate started happening, and, as soon as that died down, the toxic shitstorm that was the 2016 presidential campaign began, and WikiLeaks suddenly decided to publish DNC emails that Russian hackers sent them - errr, what about RNC emails, Julian bro? Ya, thanks. Meanwhile, Reddit almost got waterlogged by the troll army in /r/the_donald and Twitter was a shitpile of Pepe the Nazi memes and a man walked into a DC restaurant with a gun to “self-investigate” HASHTAG PIZZAGATE. Because people are stupid and the web is poison and oh my god.

Which is all to say that it's hard to get all warm and fuzzy (as Coleman does) about the digital direct actions of Anonymous's yesteryore, given that the same platforms and same tactics (doxxing, ddosing) and same humor (u mad bro?) are being used to effectively silence and frighten people, and the Internet has now become a perpetual outrage machine. ARGHRHJRKJERJLK SEE!! I'M OUTRAGED! THIS WAS JUST SUPPOSED TO BE A REVIEW!!

Anyway.

To practice what I preach and bring back some MODERATION to the toobs, I did really enjoy Coleman's deep dive into Anonymous from an anthropological POV. It was cool to learn about its primal social rules: (1) erect tall barriers with shock language, shock humor, etc. (indeed, I cannot type the slurs they use, I was too disturbed), and (2) practice radical ego-suicide (one of the biggest sins Anons can do, according to Coleman, is seek self-promotion). On (2), it was excellent and interesting to learn about how the no-ego mentality extends to never sharing any info about yourself (name, age, gender, etc), since Anon philosophy correctly identifies that, as soon as you do that, you introduce power dynamics which sully the purity of... the IRC channel? The ideas being exchanged, I guess.

Recommended if you like learning about tech stuff and this crazy modern world. Not recommended if you need a break from the insanity. Not recommended as an audio book, since hearing someone read out timestamped IRC chats and emails and long pastebin URLs is, at first, funny, but then very, very tiresome. Yes, ha ha.