Pierluigi Paganini July 11, 2012

The hacktivists of Anonymous are always on and always operating despite many experts continue to downplay the importance and effectiveness of its operations.

In recent days the name of the collective was involved in a clamorous revelations for his contribution in the dissemination of precious “Syria Files” a collection of correspondences that detect uncomfortable murky business of Western companies with authoritarian regimes such as Syria.

But Anonymous and it’s story taught us that they are also social, they fight for internet freedom but they are also enemy of injustices and crimes.

Anonymous has launched a new action called Operation PedoChat ( #OpPedoChat ) which purpose is to eliminate pedophile sites all over the world.

I hope not misunderstand my words, I do not intend to write a manifesto to the group, which I follow as expert and I study its dynamics giving it the attention it deserves, but when I read of operations against such brutal crimes, I breathe a sigh of relief . I realize that similar operations may interfere with the due course of law enforcement inquiries, but the action against these despicable pedophiles is a proper act. Those who commit crimes against children does not deserve this land.

It’s not the first time that Anonymous declares war to pedophiles, the Anonymous’s #OPDarknet revealed in the end of 2011 over 1500 accounts from trading websites for pedophiles hosted in the deep web. The collective published a communique on Pastebin which explained that their campaign hinged upon finding a Hidden Wiki listing called “Hard Candy” that they say “was dedicated to links to child pornography.”

During the operation they noted that most of the pedophiles content sites listed on the Hidden Wiki “shared a digital fingerprint with the shared hosting server at Freedom Hosting”, and for this reason Anonymous declared war on the hosting service.

The operation of the group is the first example of a targeted attacks against pedophilia phenomenon in the Deep Web, a privileged place where these criminals can count on a total anonymity to exchange and sell “dirty material”.

In an official video the group declared:

“Recently it has come to our attention that there has been a surge of websites dedicated to paedophiles for chat and picture sharing. These paedophiles openly advocate concepts like “man-boy love”, stating that 8-year-old boys enjoy it and prey on their attention. This is not limited to boys, boards for little girls exist and operate with impunity. Child pornography is frequently traded and even innocent pictures of random children (at the beach, on a playground, in their homes) are publicly fantasised about.”

It continues: “Anonymous aim to diminish if not eradicate this plague from the internet. For the good of our followers, for the good of mankind, and for our own enjoyment we shall expel from the internet and systematically destroy any such boards that continue to operate. Anonymous recognises this as a serious undertaking and do not expect it to be completed in a short period of time. Factions of Anonymous from all over the globe are participating in sub-operations. Information on paedophiles is being gathered and released.”

The operation started on 7 July and, Anonymous hit with massive attacks several web sites that divulgate child pornography, the sites were knocked out, some of them already returned active but 85 are still down.

Common people hate the pedophilia, Anonymous’s attacks are the expression of desire of ordinary people , they are the voice of the people for this reason I believe that we cannot ignore it.

#OpPedoChat is still ongoing, we can consider it an open war according the messages released by the hacktivists on several social networks.

Curiosities on the operations

The video posted on official Anonymous YouTube channel misspells Anonymous as “Anonyomous” at the beginning. Well sometime also Anon get wrong ;-).

What is strange is that the information about #OpPedoChat was also published on PasteBin, but the collective had claimed that PasteBin censored users’ material, due this reason Anonymous proposed its own alternative AnonPaste.

But do we really need vigilant of the Internet?

While I approve the idea to bring down the  web sites that publish child pornography, I believe it could be really dangerous and not right to post information on  pedophiles.

I hate them too, but I hope that the collective could listen my proposal, send all the information to the law enforcement asking evidence of the results of their investigations. Today we have several options to preserve anonymity so an open dialogue with organization that fight the same battle is need.

During #OpPedoChat the group posted information includes the details of hundreds of pedophiles as well as e-mails between them. Let’s think how much useful is this material for law enforcement, maybe what has been hit by Anonymous is just the tip of the iceberg and with that material and a structured investigations is really possible to destroy entire organization of pedophiles.

Anonymous, please listen me, we fight the same battle, we hate the same criminals, don’t give them an advantage, if your purpose is to destroy pedophilia you need also of law enforcement collaboration and they need of your actions too.

Pierluigi Paganini