Gabriella Coleman on Anonymous and LulzSec

Podcast via http://surprisinglyfree.com/2012/03/13/gabriella-coleman/

Description

"Gabriella Coleman, anthropologist and the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy in the Department of Art History & Communication Studies at McGill University, discusses hacktivist group, Anonymous. Coleman begins with an overview of Anonymous starting with its beginnings as a group of pranksters to its evolved state of political activism. The group, according to Coleman, started out pulling pranks, or “lulz,” on the message board 4chan. The pranks consisted of Internet memes and practical Internet jokes called trolling. She then discusses how the group moved into activism using denial of services attacks to shut down websites and issued a series of videos against the Church of Scientology. The discussion then turns to the recent arrest of several Lulzsec members, including Sabu, the hacker turned FBI informant."