Anonymous and Kira

Started by legacyblade, March 01, 2010, 03:13:36 am

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legacyblade

Hey everyone. Today my friend linked me to a video by anonymous called "A Message to the Church of Scientology". I'd heard of anonymous before, I read about them on articles explaining aspects of internet culture (I'm sorta new to the internet, I find this helps me understand what goes on here better. Yes, I am a nerd). As I was watching it, I thought of the Anime DeathNote, and how the second kira (aka misa) used a very similar method to try to contact kira. That got me to comparing Kira while anonymous. I can't quite express why I think this, but anonymous is disturbingly like Kira. A large following built up and led by someone no one has ever met in person (I know they don't have a central leadership, one person just mobilizes the rest of anonymous). They dedicate themselves to a (generally short-lived) cause and use their power to complete this. (often it involves hacking or spamming, a task in which they are unrivaled).

Anyone else have any thoughts on the issue? Just thinking about it as "Kira exists now" is kinda creeping me out.

Here's a link to the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCbKv9yiLiQ

Starrodkirby86

Ooh. I wonder if it's the Anonymous that /b/ is notorious for. If so, then whatever.

But really, if we're all talking about that Anonymous, then I don't really see the big fuss. There apparently have been news reports on these cyberbullies, but it seems a bit overrated. They're just uh, trolls doing troll-things I guess. :/

Oh well~

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legacyblade

Yes, the anonymous of /b/. I used to just dismiss them as trolls and hackers. But they posted a video calling anonymous to action to protest the church of Scientology. Thousands of people showed up at the sites in real life (generally during bad weather) to protest. I'm just kind of weirded out by the whole thing.

Starrodkirby86


What's osu!? It's a rhythm game. Thought I should have a signature with a working rank. ;P It's now clickable!
Still Aqua's biggest fan (Or am I?).




tSwitch

wow this happened ages ago.

Man since then Anonymous has gone crazy. 
They're like something out of a Tom Clancy novel. 

They've rigged the Time poll and hidden a message in it, as well as

The group mechanic is just brilliant, it's such an elegant concept.


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winkio

Rigging a poll is not that bad.  Bored college students do it all the time.

tSwitch

are you seriously telling me that stacking the first 21 results to a poll (especially one as big as a poll by Time Magazine) and accomplishing the mission isn't big?


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Subsonic_Noise

I'm more impressed by the shadow case, actually. Anonymous doesn't do many good things, but if they do, it's epic.

That being said, I dislike anonymous most of the time.

winkio

Quote from: Elite Four NAMKCOR on March 04, 2010, 01:16:05 pm
are you seriously telling me that stacking the first 21 results to a poll (especially one as big as a poll by Time Magazine) and accomplishing the mission isn't big?

pretty much yes.  A single harvey mudd student did it on a lesser poll, and georgia tech has been doing it for ages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Burdell

tSwitch

March 04, 2010, 03:18:24 pm #9 Last Edit: March 04, 2010, 03:23:16 pm by Elite Four NAMKCOR
Quote from: Arceus on March 04, 2010, 02:48:37 pm
Quote from: Elite Four NAMKCOR on March 04, 2010, 01:16:05 pm
are you seriously telling me that stacking the first 21 results to a poll (especially one as big as a poll by Time Magazine) and accomplishing the mission isn't big?

pretty much yes.  A single harvey mudd student did it on a lesser poll, and georgia tech has been doing it for ages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_P._Burdell


> lesser poll

Try reading the story, first they used bots like everyone does and Time got smart and put in a captcha, then they proceeded to decode the captcha formula, and create a program to allow people to vote 5 times faster, as well as a guide for how to beat captcha.

They didn't just stack ONE vote with an imaginary person, they figured out how many votes they'd need in what order and by the ending time to stack TWENTY ONE INDIVIDUAL VOTES, and they pulled it off in a poll lead by one of America's biggest Magazines.

I'd say it's a right accomplishment.

Basically comparing that to the Burdell thing is like comparing smashing a single can of beer against your forehead to picking up a keg and crunching it up against your cranium.  Yeah sure it's just a bigger version of the thing every drunk bastard does at a party but goddamn man it's the whole fucking KEG!

edit: oh right, and I forgot, the wiki says "at one point Lead the poll", implying that Burdell failed to become the most important person.  Fission Mailed.


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winkio

1.  whats the difference between rigging 1 option and rigging 20 of them?  Just doing the same thing 20 times.
2.  lesser poll or not, they are all still run the same way.  (link btw: http://cmcforum.com/life/10152009-harvey-mudd-1-victorias-secret-0)
3.  they only had to get 200k legitimate votes once they changed the security.  That is not an unbelievable amount.  In fact, in an internal poll competition at my college, me and a group of around 20 people have made over 2 million legitimate votes in one month.  And we actually have shitloads of classwork to do.

It's impressive, but it is not an "out of this world" feat, and it's nowhere near as big as Burdell.  Creating a fictitious person and getting him registered in multiple colleges, receiving real degrees, serving in the armed forces, and popping up in many other prominent places is a far more impressive accomplishment.

tSwitch

Burdell has been around since 1930 and has been done by generations of college students, no duh this one character is going to have a lot of qualifications, everybody uses it in their own way based on what they are able to accomplish  You can't compare something with an 80 year track record to an online group of people who have been doing shit for maybe a few years. 

Also if you watch the news, you know about Anonymous.  I'm 90% sure Burdell doesn't have that type of media penetration.

The difference between rigging failing to rig 1 option and successfully rigging 21 options is pretty clear.
One was a failed attempt, the other was a massive success that made the Time Magazine publishers look like a group of total idiots.


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winkio

Lol at people that can't see the big picture.

tSwitch

March 04, 2010, 04:53:06 pm #13 Last Edit: March 04, 2010, 04:55:40 pm by Elite Four NAMKCOR
Live in the moment man, legacies don't matter.  Something awesome happened recently, so it's fucking awesome, regardless of if it's been (failed) done on a smaller scale before, or by a group with an 80 year history.

The Red Socks went from 1918 without a World Series and then they won, so much for that legacy of disappointment eh?

Besides, pranks aren't about the 'big picture.'
Pranks are about making people look like total stooges.

Anon did a wonderful job of that.


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winkio

I was referring to the fact that you picked out small pieces of my argument to counter, instead of looking at the argument as a whole - not only have other people done it before, but people have done bigger before.

Then again, no use trying to state my position if you keep ignoring it.

tSwitch

Quote from: Arceus on March 04, 2010, 05:18:48 pm
I was referring to the fact that you picked out small pieces of my argument to counter, instead of looking at the argument as a whole - not only have other people done it before, but people have done bigger before.

Then again, no use trying to state my position if you keep ignoring it.


Quote from: Elite Four NAMKCOR on March 04, 2010, 04:53:06 pm
Pranks are about making people look like total stooges.


The bigger the audience, the better.
Anon is publicly worldwide making groups of people look like total dipshits.  Aside from the fact that -twice- they have drawn attention to somewhat important matters on society (a lot of the Scientology Conspiracies that get overlooked, as well as unnecessary censorship of 'small breasted women' and 'female ejaculation' by the Aus government).

Inside jokes are inside jokes, and sure it might be more elaborate, like pretending to be two people, or signing some invisible person up for the army or whatever, but what makes a really great prank isn't that you can laugh about it with all of 5 people because nobody else gets the joke, it's when someone gets their trousers dropped in the middle of time square with a camera pointed at them that displays it on the big screen in the middle of the intersection.

My conclusion, Anon is becoming somewhat of a revolutionary force.  Not in the traditional sense, but more of the idea that anyone and everyone can use the group, can be a part of it, and can create that kind of media publicity just with a business suit with a Guy Fawkes mask.  I say Anon is larger than most prank movements because of PUBLICITY, which is the whole point of a practical joke in the first place, and the level of nationwide publicity given to them makes them one of the biggest and most recognized groups of assholes in America.

So in a legacy and time standpoint sure Burdell is 'bigger' but in the level of exposure and publicity bringing attention the prank and the people involved, Anon has trumped Burdell several times over.


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Blizzard

It's true. If you have a big audience and do something small, it can have the same impact like a big thing with a small audience. In any case I hope Anonymous will continue. :3 The small man needs a real hero these days.
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legacyblade

Anon will be the god of this new world :P

Subsonic_Noise

Anon did more than pranks. As I said before, they tracked down the people who killed and beheaded shadow the dog in less than 4 days, just with a picture of it and a flickr account and then passed the information to the police. They did the same with the guy who tortured Dusty the cat and, last but not least, a pedophile who is in jail because of anonymous, too.
It doesn't matter to me if they do it for justice or for tje lulz, but these things are just epic and much more Kira-like than the scientology stuff, except they passed the info to the police instead of killing :P

tSwitch

in other words they went about it the right way :P


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Subsonic_Noise


(Hexamin)

Yarrrrr the anonymous rock.  Largely 'cause scientology has the foundational stability of a 72-story-skyscraper built from cotton-candy and rainbows.
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