After police in the UK finally caught up to the online vigilante group that calls itself, ‘Anonymous,’ the group fought back and released a statement that read in part that it viewed the arrest as a declaration of war. It is strange that a group of people on the Internet felt that the police would ignore their efforts to bring down the websites of several major corporations, but there may be a glimmer of trust in their statement. For the most part, hackers work alone or in small groups that work closely together in their personal lives. Anonymous is quite different. First, they do not seek monetary gain for their actions, which is what the bulk of other hackers are after. Secondly, they used the web to join forced and they organize and plan their attacks only after getting the go ahead from an unidentified source. Some say that Julian Assange himself is responsible for Anonymous, but there is no way to prove their theory as of yet.
Internet experts believe that Anonymous will yet again unleash a series of DDoS attacks aimed at the UK government, but it will likely come when they least expect it. As it stands, the Office of Cyber Security has already outlined a series of possible scenarios and the group is working on educating government officials of what they can expect. Although a few members of Anonymous have been identified and arrested, it is unlikely that they will be able to help authorities to locate the remainder of their cohorts.
