Background Info: Anonymous is a group of unknown individuals
that are all connected through the use of forums, sites, and various other
networks. They are fighting against internet censorship by various governments,
the main one being the Indian government, where majority of the users are
located. They have received a lot of media attention after their largest
internet attack happened in retaliation for the Department of Justice shutting
down megaupload.com.
In an article published in The Hindu on May 30, 2012 an interview was conducted among members
of Anonymous via IRC. Here they answered questions about their group. One question
grabbed my attention right off the bat.
“Question: How many
members are there in Anonymous?”
Their response was very well thought out … they had replied
with something along the lines that if they tracked the number of members they
currently have that they wouldn’t really be anonymous anymore as they are being
tracked.
Overall this type of use of IRC has brought me to discover
new unforeseeable futures. It has shown me that IRC is not just meant for
talking with friends and family, or even a business partner, but that IRC can
be used as a media center as well. As the article I have mentioned in the
begging you can even Interview multiple people from different regions all at
the same time without having to have two phone lines open or email someone
every 3 hours. Using IRC it has become much easier to gather info as The Hindu has done with the interview
above.
One nice feature with IRC is that it can even be used to
relay information to multiple people almost instantaneously. An example of this is when Anonymous decided
to rally in India on the 9th of June against censorship, but they
have also coordinated various other places to rally for those abroad. While
they may have a back record for bringing down some of the US authorities
websites they do conduct peaceful rallies such as the on mentioned above on June
9th.
I can see IRC helping me in the future. If enough people in my region or even if they
are not in my region, I can still make people aware of topics that I think are
important just how Anonymous has done with Censorship.
Not only can IRC help me but it can also help groups of
people to get information from people faster than calling everyone one-by-one
No comments:
Post a Comment