Rise of Anonymous

Anonymous is a decentralized online collective of activists and hackers with no formal leadership or membership, associated with the slogan of We are Legion. It arose around 2003 on imageboards such as 4chan, where users posted under the default name Anonymous, and its early activity consisted mostly of internet pranks. It gained wide attention in 2008 with Project Chanology, a campaign of protests and online actions against the Church of Scientology. Later it carried out denial-of-service attacks and data leaks aimed at governments, corporations and organizations, and expressed support for movements such as Occupy and the Arab Spring. Its members often wear Guy Fawkes masks, taken from the film V for Vendetta. Its loose structure makes claims about the group hard to verify.

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