Hackers on Steroids

by Oisín Sweeney

  Tom Jones was also to have the Atkins treatment done on him. ‘Sadie Mae’ would at knife point force Jones into having sex with her and at the moment of his climax she would slit his throat. Frank Sinatra was to be hung upside down in his own house by Atkins and other members of Manson’s gang and then skinned alive, with purses being made from his skin that Atkins wanted to then sell to hippy shops.

  Now, there can be absolutely no doubt at all that Susan Atkins truly believed in the conscious part of her unspeakably dysfunctional mind that what she was planning to do - and that what she had already been involved in doing to Sharon Tate and others - was for some sort of higher purpose (she believed Charlie to be none other than Jesus Christ come back), but it is also blatantly obvious that it all was at its core just an excuse for her to let her subhuman side run away with itself and live out its gruesome fantasies. Just as Charlie Manson could only give the lost and hopeless creations that came to him an illusion of a higher mission to go along with their already existing depravities, and Fred Phelps can only give the pathetic (mostly familial) adherents to his cult perverse moral justifications for their own sadism, the RIP trolling subculture only offers some sort of equally insane and equally false excuses for already crazed and evil individuals. The concept of ‘Helter Skelter’ as a reason to skin Frank Sinatra alive is no saner to my eyes than the concept of teaching some poor deceased kids right from wrong by torturing their families about their deaths. Yet just as there is no doubt at all that while the Manson Family did believe their own insane reasons as to why their psychotic behaviour was justified, there can too be little doubt that a great many of those trolls who claim moral justifications for their own demented and psychotic Internet behaviours do actually believe them - even when they are really just using them to indulge their evil urges. The fact that they actually expect people to accept that there are real ethical reasons as to why they are sending some poor set of parents’ pictures of their bloodied daughter lying dead shows how far gone into the blackest pit of madness which they have went.

  Of course, many trolls just outright state that they do it ‘for the lulz’ and for the lulz only. No social or moral pretensions there. Lulz, if you didn’t know, is LOLing at others misfortunes, or even adding to them - a more extreme and interactive form of schadenfreude. ‘I done it for the lulz,’ is a popular meme on 4Chan and beyond.

  By 2007, RIP trolling on /b/ was really coming along. A read through the pages of Encyclopedia Dramatica, a wiki site (that is an online user-generated encyclopaedia) dedicated to collecting 4Chan lore, shows a wide range of dead youngsters of all ages who in that year became - or rather their families and friends became - the target of spite from the trolls at /b/. If 2006 was the genesis of mass RIP trolling on the Web, then 2007 was the year when it truly became established as its own Internet subculture, with trolling raids by 4Chan on online memorial pages becoming commonplace. It has only grown and spread since then. RIP trolling itself has become a 4Chan-inspired meme.

  When in 2006 I first came across Sean Duffy, or ‘Truth’ as he was known only to me then, he was trying to shock users on various forums and on Youtube by writing sick comments about children who had died in circumstances that had been widely covered for years by media in Britain, such as the 1996 Dunblane gun massacre in Scotland of 16 primary schoolchildren and their teacher; or about Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, two 10-year-old English girls murdered by a paedophile school caretaker in 2002. But from about 2007 or ‘08 onwards some of his trolling was about young Americans whose deaths would not have been covered by British media but who did become the focus of trolling on 4Chan. One name that I can clearly recall and which also appears on Encyclopedia Dramatica is that of Anna Svidersky, 17 and from Washington state and whose online memorial book he desecrated with sexual slurs almost daily for weeks.

  He also trolled obsessively on both Youtube and Myspace about the suicide of 13-year-old Hannah Bond, and about the murder of 20-year-old Sophie Lancaster, both from England but both also featured on Encyclopedia Dramatica. He had joined the heavily-trolled Megan Moore RIP page with his real profile in order to say how disgusted he was by the trolling. It was common for him to appear as himself on places he had trolled, and so extremely likely that he trolled the Megan Moore page with a trolling alt. While it was a target for the main body of Facebook-based trolls, it was also a target for 4Chan - the link to the page having been posted onto /b/ - and Sean Duffy was never known by me to have had any links whatsoever with the main ring of Facebook-based trolls (apart from trolling some of the same RIP walls as them he never seemed to join their web). In 2010 he joined, again with his real-name Facebook account, a page for murdered 15-year-old Welsh girl Rebecca Aylward. It was being trolled by /b/ and only by /b/.

  His language also became more 4Chanish after 2006, becoming at times, especially when referring to sexual acts, more grounded in American slang, which is a dominant influence on /b/. All in all, it is not unreasonable to imagine that he started off as a lone sicko on the Web before being drawn like a fly to shite to 4Chan and /b/ somehow and at some time or another. It would be too amazing to think that he spent all those years trolling but had never once heard of /b/ and its trolls and even more amazing to think that he had visited it and didn’t feel at home so much that he wanted to stay. Coupled with this other evidence, I think it a pretty safe bet to assume that Sean Duffy was once a part of the 4Chan RIP trolling pack.

  So if you want a clear picture of the kind of creature from which has sprung up a whole subculture obsessed with the thoughts of children lying dead in their coffins, picture Sean Duffy. If ever you read the Encyclopedia Dramatica archives and want to understand what lies behind the ecstatic howls of delight that you can almost hear coming from its contributors whenever they recount the gory details of young kids’ deaths, then just picture Sean Duffy. It styles itself as a ‘satire’ site but the height of its ‘satire’ seems to be taking pictures of dead girls and writing words like ‘dead whore’ over them. If you want to understand who can possibly, actually, genuinely believe that to be satire, think of Sean Duffy. If you have never seen Sean Duffy then check out the picture of him in the first photographic section of this book. It was taken by the press and shows him on his way to court in Reading to be sentenced under the UK’s Malicious Communications Act.

  Did you look at him? He is an actual troll. I don’t just mean an Internet troll: I mean he is a troll itself. He has taken on the characteristics of an actual troll. If you search on the Web for video footage of him going into court you can see that he even moves like you would expect a troll to move. His slog is that of a troll. A hunched down vision of misery he looks like something that lives in a stinking hole in the ground. Or, indeed, in the dark, damp spaces underneath a bridge. Behind all the screaming evil and mockery and threats and psychological violence there lies that sight. His own solicitor at his sentencing said that he has an unhealthy obsession with serial killers, murder, and death. His whole life is death. Strip away his personal details like his name and his age etc, and perceive him as he truly is and all that he really is: a black hole of perpetual unhappiness and living death.

  Sean Duffy is the name to the pain. Sean Duffy is the real face of RIP trolling in all its infinitely pathetic reality. That is what lies behind it. It all makes a bit more sense now, doesn’t it?

  When much-loved kids die these RIP trolls like to make Internet images featuring the faces of the dead youths along with the words ‘LOL YOU’RE DEAD!,’ but a much more insightful mockery of tragic circumstances could be better achieved by making in a similar style images featuring the faces of trolls like Sean Duffy although inscribed instead with the legend ‘LOL YOU’RE ALIVE!’ Because the irony of this all is that for individuals like Sean Duffy, living is a much worse fate than being dead. My belief is that they envy the dead. They certainly envy the attention and the love that those deceased people are seen to be getting.

  I think this is the part of the book
now where I’m meant to balance out things by pointing out that it’s not all evil and nastiness on /b/ and that is has its marginally joyous side too, but really, I couldn’t be bothered. Who gives a fuck what else it has done or which slightly amusing memes it has spawned? None of it changes the fact that it encourages and empowers the worst psychopaths on the Web and that what has both gone on and been bred there has caused serious hurt to a lot of innocent people. Whatever happens to the site itself in the future, one of its enduring legacies will be that the strain of evil which was seeded and then allowed to grow tall on it back in 2006 will keep going on and on. I asked on Facebook four different trolls as to how they got immersed in RIP trolling. Three out of those four told me that it was through 4Chan. I don’t know what site owner Christopher Poole makes of organised RIP trolling but he certainly has never spoken out against it, and he knows exactly what his site breeds, as likewise his site’s users know exactly what congregates there. I have observed individuals post on it to ask other users to come with them and harass grieving people – including one gathering up other dead-inside little psychotics to come with him or her to Facebook to private message the friends of a boy at school who had just committed suicide (who the troll didn’t know personally but thought his death ‘lulzy’). In all cases of which I have observed of this sort of thing on the site, the trolls readily found many like-minded ghouls to join in with their proposed adventures.

  The only thing I will say is that, in fairness to it, not all of its users are horrible. /b/ doesn’t make people into psychos, it just gives said psychopaths a home and a community. Like Sean Duffy, they were already psycho when they first went there. It is like the Charlie Manson of the Internet: sucking in the lost, the stupid, the bad, and the mad, and if it twists some into committing acts of evil, well it’s probably because they were evil before they visited the place. I get the impression that some people just like to hang out in it because it has its finger on the pulse of the Net, being the home of many memes. Others go there out of boredom, or a morbid sense of voyeurism. It is a strange mix to be found on /b/ and nothing shows that better than the group which isn’t a group that is Anonymous, and it is important for us to understand the concept of Anonymous as it applies to trolls and trolling.

  An idea and not an organisation, Anonymous is whoever wants to be it. There is no one true Anonymous, and the power of the idea lies just with however many number of people are following any one action at any one time. Even though Anonymous has its own identifiable symbols and motto for Anons, that is people styling themselves as belonging to Anonymous, to rally around, that doesn’t mean that ‘Anonymous’ speaks with one voice. It’s just a culture and thus anyone who follows that culture can rightly say that they are ‘Anonymous.’ There are those who call themselves Anons and who organise actions in conjunction with other Anons and who are genuinely decent people interested in trying to do good in the world, and there are those Anons for whom the concept of Anonymous is more that of an Internet bullying cult whose adherents can be called on to attack the innocent and wreak havoc in their lives. Many of the RIP trolls style themselves as belonging to Anonymous and indeed there are a number of relatively well-known videos of RIP trolls speaking or dancing around while wearing that now famous/infamous Guy Fawkes mask.

  Although spread far and wide now, Anonymous found its beginnings as an idea on /b/, taking its name from the ‘Anonymous’ that comes up as the username whenever an unregistered poster (99.99% of /b/ users) makes a contribution. The idea is that all are anonymous and so all are one. The ominous and partially Biblical motto of the ‘group’ is ‘We are Anonymous. We are Legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us.’

  It all started off as a group identity for trolls to launch raids on other sites with. For instance, the Mitchell Henderson trolling was said to have been done by Anonymous, as were many other RIP trolling attacks. It wasn’t until the January of 2008 that people began to use the Anonymous banner for activist work. That all started with Project Chanology, in what was a concerted but utterly deluded effort to bring down the supremely creepy Church of Scientology, and the first time that Anonymous members began identifying themselves via use of the Guy Fawkes mask (possibly to let the CoS know that Anonymous thought it an ‘epic fail’). The CoS had incurred the Anons’ wrath because of its habit of trying to suppress information on the Web that was potentially damaging to its reputation - most notably a video of prominent Scientologist Tom Cruise rapping about his beliefs and which he comes across in as a total religious fanatic. If there’s one thing that most Anons will at least claim to agree on it is that information should be allowed to flow freely through the Web, and so the Church of Scientology with its tendency to use heavy-handed tactics in order to try and silence its critics became ripe for trolling.

  This saw the first time Anons took to the streets to protest with some several thousand Anons protesting outside CoS buildings in North America, Britain, and Australia in the February of 2008. Of course, Operation Chanology, which also involved prank calls, fax machine trolling (sending completely black faxes that use up all the ink in a machine), and attacks on the CoS computer systems, was done for the lulz as much as for anything else, but there can be no doubting the sincerity of many of the Anons involved.

  This was the moment when the Anonymous structure started to take on a moral dimension. Many of the Anons - especially many of those who didn’t actually take to the streets - only joined in the fun on Project Chanology for the sheer lulz of it all and weren’t too enamoured by the sincerity of those who took a leading role in organising the actions. These people they called ‘moralfags’ – ‘moralfag’ being 4Chan slang for just about anyone who isn’t a howling sociopath - and they began in turn to attack them. One of the leading organisers of Project Chanology, Gregg Housh, had his dox spread around the Net by some of the more trollish 4Chan Anons who wanted to keep Anonymous as a force for the lulz and for the lulz only. The trend towards the Anonymous name and culture being used for do-goodery moralfag activism had begun though, and since then the Anonymous label has exploded onto the global protest and activist scene, with people claiming affiliation to Anonymous most notably taking part in the recent anti-capitalist protests.

  There is also a very strong strain now in Anonymous of what is known as ‘hacktivism,’ that is attacking government or corporate computer systems for sins committed in the eyes of the Anons. Despite media hype, most of these are not real hacks at all, the majority being what are known as distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks. These DDoS attacks use a software program that floods a computer network with so many false requests for access that its crashes the whole system. Hundreds or even (at least according to Anonymous) thousands of Anons can be found to be taking part in coordinated DDoS attacks at any one time. Supporting WikiLeaks, the website headed by Julian Assange and which has leaked thousands of confidential government papers, has become a favourite cause for these hacktivists. After earning the ire of Anons for bowing to US government pressure and cutting off their services to Assange’s site, MasterCard, Bank of America, PayPal, and Western Union all had their systems crashed on a number of occasions by Anonymous and the similar but much smaller splinter group LulzSec. Even the CIA has come in for this treatment, showing that many Anons really want to play with the big boys now.

  And, needless to say, the big boys are going to win. Just this Monday (25th June 2012) four young people appeared in court in Britain to answer charges relating to both hack and DDoS attacks on the CIA and others. These attacks were carried out under the names of Anonymous, LulzSec, and Internet Feds. They were betrayed by former LulzSec leader 28-year-old Hector Xavier Monsegur from New York who turned rat after being arrested and broken by the FBI in 2011. When the prospect of prison for his games became all too real he forgot about any beliefs he may previously have held and agreed to become an FBI informant. The hacktivists he informed on though face many years in prison, and they aren’t the only ones wh
o have been scooped up by law enforcement worldwide for this sort of thing. Dozens of other people in many countries from Chile to Ireland to America to Spain and more have been sentenced or are awaiting sentence for taking part in attacks on computer systems organised by Anonymous or similar groups.

  This won’t kill Anonymous as Anonymous as a now deeply-rooted idea can’t be killed, but many of its members can be destroyed for what is really only a couple of levels past drawing a spunking penis on the front of one of teacher’s answer books when he isn’t looking. Sure it annoys and it will get you a great ole laugh but 15 years of your life in jail for some lulz is a little bit silly to be honest. It’s not going to change the world, it’s just going to make the lulz on you when you get caught.

  When I was 20 I probably had much the same desire to do something radical and right-on in a really, really cool way as what those crazy Anon kids who are going to show The Man and no mistake have today. Granted, I was always much too lazy, useless, drunk, and stoned to do anything about it but anyway … Whether you’re doing this kind of thing solely for the lulz or because you really think you’re a cyberguerrilla taking part in a world-changing war against The Man, you really are bloody stupid. It’s all fun and games until someone gets their ass violated in the prison showers.

  But whatever, it’s good to see that Anonymous as an idea has moved on from being nothing but a force for some of the most vicious behaviour imaginable. For many people working under the Anonymous banner their hearts are in the right place and it is important not to mistake all Anons for the scum involved in the RIP trolling subculture. But I do have to wonder as to what many of the activist Anons make of the RIP trolling as done by those who tie themselves to the Anonymous name. Is there a crossover of psycho-trolls into the now dominant Anonymous activist movement? It would seem almost impossible to imagine that the type of Anons who seem to care enough about the world to organise and take part in protests against out-of-control capitalism could want anything to do with the sickos who prey on dead kids’ families, but the Internet has thrown up some very strange characters indeed. Just like /b/ gave the psychos of the Net a home, being able to say that you belong to Anonymous - and believing with all your heart that it is The Most Important Thing In The World Ever - has empowered so many silly little beings with something which they never would otherwise have had.