Hacker Group Anonymous Re-Emerges After Going Dark for Several Years

The group of so-called “hackers” known as “Anonymous” has been off the internet grid since somewhere around late 2012. Now they’re suddenly back and throwing their weight behind Antifa, or so it seems. Nobody can say for sure who’s lurking behind the sinister masks these days.

Anonymous message for the American Spring.

#Anonymous #JusticeForGeorgeFloyd #ICantBreathe #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/LY6XldgdNp

— Anonymous (@YourAnonCentral) May 31, 2020

The ‘Anonymous’ brand was hijacked

Both the beauty and the horror of anonymity is that you never know exactly who it is behind that Guy Fawkes mask. After the high profile coders who founded the Anonymous collective were locked away in prison cells, the anon movement fizzled into obscurity. The brand image was soon hijacked by groups on both sides of the fence.

Offshoot splinter groups appear to conduct anon style “operations” from time to time, while Q-Anon might just be a front for the Federal Bureau of Instigation. None of it has the same feel as the original movement spawned on message boards in the 1980’s. Now, the messaging is glossy, commercial, and often nothing but deceptive propaganda or misleading agitation. Like now. The Deep State forces of evil are desperate to stop President Donald Trump at any cost, even if they have to wipe out the planet to do it.

As cities across the nation blazed from unchecked looting and riots, someone using the Anonymous logos and masks “resurfaced to support those criticizing the Minneapolis Police Department.” A fairly fresh twitter account called YourAnonNews posted, “We stand in solidarity with the protesters and revolutionaries fighting the US oligarchy, fighting the injustice of a massively corrupt racist system that has continued on for generations. #BlackLivesMatter.”

Two messages the same day

Things started escalating quickly. After years of silence, they posted two messages in the same day. The second warned, “If the police can’t restrain themselves and are shooting reporters, kicking protesters, punching protesters, and engaging in violence – how can anyone expect the people to restrain themselves? People are done being brutalized and murdered.”

They followed up with a video threatening to “expose the Minneapolis Police Department’s many crimes.” That one came from YourAnonCentral. Saturday night, things started to get deadly. Someone managed to “take down the Minneapolis PD’s website,” while police radios were “hijacked by someone playing polka music and NWA’s “F**k the Police.” The effect was immediate, “the cops can’t communicate about the protests lmfao,” Elija Daniel posted.

The FBI claims to be investigating the incidents and “asked Minneapolis officials for any information that could help identify the hackers.” You can rest assured that they won’t follow any clues that lead back to their own basement. It seems very strange that just before the George Floyd murder was staged, “millions of Twitter accounts recently began following longstanding Anonymous posters and re-tweeting them, helping boost Anonymous into Twitter’s Trending column and greater attention,” Reuters reports. “Many of the boosted tweets opposed police actions, defended Black Lives Matter or faulted President Donald Trump.”

Anonymous apparently now been hacking Chicago PD radios all night and playing polka music and Fuck The Police so the cops can’t communicate about protests lmfao pic.twitter.com/cAGPRRcROX

— elijah daniel (@elijahdaniel) May 31, 2020

Anonymous denies that it’s them

When the administrators of the disused YourAnonNews noticed that their numbers were spiking without them posting anything, they tweeted that they “had no idea what was going on.” They tried to play along, “tweeting nonsense and asking not to be retweeted, only to see those tweets repeated hundreds of thousands of times.” Twitter is playing dumb about it.

Liz Kelley, a spokesperson for Twitter, announced that they haven’t seen any “evidence” of “substantial coordinated activity” between the old accounts but they did admit deleting “one spammy new one brought to its attention by a researcher Tuesday.” Not only that, they “have seen a few accounts change their profile names, photos, etc. in an attempt to visibly associate with the group and gain followers.”

For instance, AnonNewz “deleted all prior tweets before June 1, when it started promoting protests.” They missed a spot in their cleaning efforts. “it had neglected to delete its old ‘likes,’ which were about Korean pop music, and it had interacted in the past with other K-pop fans touting giveaways.” Twitter closed the account.

Kelley points out that “anyone can call themselves a member of Anonymous and adopt its Guy Fawkes mask, other imagery and slogans.” Just because they use the phrase “we are legion” doesn’t mean they are the real thing. Anonymous “has no acknowledged leaders, making it more of a brand than an ordinary assemblage.”