We Are Anonymous

Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency

By: Parmy Olson

Narrated by: Abby Craden

Length: 14 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

We Are Anonymous is a thrilling, exclusive expose of the hacker collectives Anonymous and LulzSec.

In late 2010, thousands of hacktivists joined a mass digital assault by Anonymous on the websites of VISA, MasterCard, and PayPal to protest their treatment of WikiLeaks. Splinter groups then infiltrated the networks of totalitarian governments in Libya and Tunisia, and an elite team of six people calling themselves LulzSec attacked the FBI, CIA, and Sony. They were flippant and taunting, grabbed headlines, and amassed more than a quarter of a million Twitter followers. The computer security world - and world at large - realized quickly that Anonymous and its splinter groups are something to treat with dead seriousness.

Through the stories of three key members, We Are Anonymous offers a gripping, adrenaline-fueled narrative in the style of The Accidental Billionaires, drawing upon hundreds of conversations with the members themselves, including exclusive interviews. By coming to know them - their childhoods, families, and personal demons - we come to know the human side of their virtual exploits, and why they're so passionate about disrupting the Internet's frontiers.

©2012 Parmy Olson (P)2012 Hacette Audio

Informative and very well narrated

If you want to know more about this social concept and important movement, this book will give you relevant and detailed information about the network and ops organic organization. All though sometimes you can get a bit lost in the sea of nicknames and IRC chatrooms in the overall it serves the purpose. Great narrator, even though some of the voices are very different to the real voices of the characters, probably their on line personas would sound more like her impersonation, which makes it very interesting and entertaining.

Very interesting and a little scary

Any additional comments?

This book is very thoughtful and well researched. It is really quite facinating. I felt like I got to know the Anons, their world(s) and a variety of dangers that I never even knew existed. I thought the characterization of the key "players" in LOLs raids were particularly strong and allowed me to connect with the people behind the screen names. In the end, I even felt sympathy for the characters and the "crimes" they had committed.

Maybe just read it...

Completely agree with most of the reviews. Amazing book, terrible accents. It was difficult to get through because of the accents but unfortunately I had to listen because I was driving while listening. If you can get past the accents, it's amazing. If you hate bad accents, maybe just read it.

Much more than Anonymous for Dummies.

What made the experience of listening to We Are Anonymous the most enjoyable?

A lively and informative book brought to life by Ms.Abby Craden! Olson gives a thorough history, and actual look inside, of these hacktivist groups. All the while doing so, she paints very real characters. Characters with real flaws who, at times, are mischievous, creepy, or all out megalomaniac! A very entertaining listen. My ONLY qualm with the book was her focus on the original Anon/LulzSec members, versus giving a broader viewpoint of other group members and those countries and law-enforcement involved. A must-read for those interested in pop-culture, current events, and information security!

Which character – as performed by Abby Craden – was your favorite?

Sabu

Informative and interesting

Enjoyable book that does not take itself to seriously, but still gets it mostly right. Good for anyone who wants to get a better handle on a new social aspect of the world.

Great book , great narration

Great book covering anonymous ! Narrator did a great job ! I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in anonymous/ hacking stories .

Insight to this little known, misunderstood world

What did you love best about We Are Anonymous?

The human element behind this group. Most of these people almost looked at this as a game. Not realizing quite the mess they were in. Also, interesting seeing how easily some were turned. Gives you insight into how little you can truly trust other people, especially on the internet.

Also it's interesting learning about the fact that much of this was caused by social engineering as much as it was by skilled hackers. Meaning that people often were easily fooled and tricked into doing things by these people. Also, it gives you a bit of insight into what you should and should not do with passwords pertaining to the internet.

What about Abby Craden’s performance did you like?

I loved it. Some others didn't enjoy her style but I really liked her dark almost ominous voice. I truly felt it was fitting for the content. The accents may have been a little off but whatever.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Hard to say without giving away spoilers. But when people started getting arrested and when one person was so easily turned. Kind of takes away your faith in the resolve of others to keep your secrets when pressed. Also when one person is discovered it comes as a bit of a surprise. Makes you wonder if you can truly have Anonymity on the Internet. It seems when pressed anyone can find your secrets alarmingly easily.

Any additional comments?

Written for people that have little to no knowledge of hacking so it's completely accessible to any layman who has a basic understanding of the internet. Helps you to understand things to do and not do on the internet to protect yourself. Gives some insight into the motivations of this group of people and it's successes and failures. Where they went wrong etc. Overall I felt engaged and was happy to gain insight into this secret world. Listened to this one whenever I could.

Distracting Narration

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The narrator used various voices with a wide range of accents when speaking what a character would say. It was distracting and frustrating, taking away from being absorbed into the story.

How could the performance have been better?

Just narrate the book, do not turn it into a play.

Armatures proving that Pros aren’t even Trying

Obviously when dealing with shadowy organizations (or anti-organizations) there are some limits to knowledge. The act of looking intently may change the situation, or acquiring deep insights of murky situations may take so long that the situation changes during the process, only becoming clear in retrospect. However, this book is about as accurate and as informative as is possible for a book about Anonymous. This is the primary reason to read it. It’s a good introduction; a reasonably balanced, reasonable acute reporting.

The important takeaways from this book seem to be: 1) that as a cyber-army Anonymous is shockingly low tech and 2) the corollary that as a society we are shockingly vulnerable to low tech attacks.

Anonymous is mostly a large group of board rowdy teenagers with nothing better to do, who meet up on sexually explicit and gore oriented bulletin boards, like 4chan or B, and from time to tie sally forth to experience a bit of mayhem. Sure they are a few elite security exports who may (or may not) be leading them (the whole question of leadership is controversial). But even the elite hackers within Anonymous are rather underwhelming, compared to other cyber-war or cybercrime groups, like author of the Conficker Worm, which was a team of world class professionals.

If you’re a believer in Anonymous as a cause this is probably reassuring (these are pretty ordinary people), if you’re not a believer this is the doubling unsettling. It reveals the extent to which IT professionals at your work, at companies you buy from, in the government, and behind the medical, financial, personal and computer services you must use in modern life, are not really trying to deal with computer security. It seems that they are not striving to fix the problems, but merely striving to put on a good show in the hopes of deflecting blame for the problem. That is, their goal is not security, but rather security theater. And the police are so out classed (with a few exceptions) that it’s like hiring a bunch of 12 year old girls as bouncers at a Megadeath concert (if you’re lucky they might avoid becoming victims themselves).

As a society we don’t seem to yet ready to do anything about this situation. Sure Anonymous terrorizes some innocent people, but they are mostly terrorizing each other, and they do some good. The problems seem tolerable. But history suggest that this unstable. Over time either someone will figure how to use Anonymous (or similar organizations) as their personal armies. This is roughly the way nearly all of history’s most evil megalomaniacs rose to power. Or Anonymous will gradually become more and more evil, corrupted from within by its own power.

The situation today is troubling, but far from dire. The scary bit is the trajectory; and it’s very dire.

A good overview despite some flaws

This book provides a great perspective into the inner workings of Lulzsec and other Anonymous related groups. By charting a through line, Parmy paints a compelling narrative about subterfuge and power.

There are a few mistakes, however, though most are small. A good example of this is a mention of hacker Geohotz -- Parmy credits him with hacking the PS2, but in actuality he hacked the PS3. Little things like this betray the author's authority in tech and the related material, making the reader question their understanding of the mechanical aspects of their subjects.

That being said the book is narrated excellently and is for the most part an enlightening, well researched read.