November 5 is a very special day for Anonymous, for this year Guy Fawkes Day and Caturday coincide. Guy Fawkes Day is the British fireworks holiday appropriated by Alan Moore in the 1982 comic V for Vendetta, which was made into a movie in 2006, which in turn inspired the iconic mask used by the group. Caturday is the celebratory day of the lolcat. This is like Kwanzaa, Yom Kippur, Easter, and Arbor Day all rolled into one for the people of lulzy collective.
Anons the world over are celebrating by drinking, watching V for Vendetta, crying over how cute kitten pictures are, and posting pages and pages of famous peoples’ personal data all over the web. On Tumblr, the Anonymous group CabinCr3w released information on a number of public figures including former U.S. Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, noted conservative donors the Koch Brothers, Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York, Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant, and finally for the lulz, Jesus himself.
While I haven’t had time to review all the material between shots of whiskey and getting my Alan Moore tramp stamp, it seems most of the information released is available through public data sources.
The documents include properties owned by the target; boards the subject sit on; names of associates, family, and friends; items from news reports; and statements made by the subject or others. While being d0xed is likely not comfortable for the target, many of these newsworthy figures have similar profiles written up in media organizations and in the files of beat reporters who cover them. Anonymous has just put them online, sans sources, making it harder but not impossible to verify the data.
Also, the trailer for a new documentary on Anonymous called We Are Legion was posted in time for November 5th:
With a ongoing operations including one chasing child pornographers and debates about going after a Mexican drug cartel happening as Anonymous moves into year four of harassing the Church of Scientology, supports the Occupy Wall Street movement and the ongoing Arab Spring, hacks law enforcement, and as ever, posts funny cat pictures, this next year promises to be interesting times for Anonymous.
This post is part of a special series from Quinn Norton, who is embedding with Occupy protestors and going beyond the headlines with Anonymous for Wired.com. For an introduction to the series, read Quinn’s description of the project.
Photo: Anonymous9000/Flickr