We Are Anonymous by Parmy Olson: Admiring the Topiary but Missing the Forest
Summary: Overall this book is entertaining and informative. The writing is clear and skillful, with the significant exception of technical descriptions, which are consistently sloppy. But by not reading between the lines or looking outside of them to reach conclusions and context, Olson leaves out some of the most interesting parts of the story.
I've always been awed by painters who can capture the ocean on canvas. Writing about Anonymous must be a similar challenge: how to freeze in time something so vast and kaleidoscopic? Choosing the moment to capture is the first task, and here the timing seems premature. Court cases are ongoing, and who knows what interesting information they may reveal? Indeed, a trial currently prevents the release of the book in the UK.
I assume it was to capitalize on the press accompanying the trials that the book was rushed to press, and this hastiness is reflected in the text. There are many awkward bits which likely would have been caught with more thorough editing. Page 14 confusingly mentions "an Anonymous team of seven," but only four are mentioned until we get to page 22. Page 60 mentions "an image of earth in space." Where else would it be?
There are also peculiar overgeneralizations. She writes that "one-half of Anonymous . . . took the idea of revolution and protest seriously" while the others "thought Anonymous should be about fun and pranks." (Exactly half? Don't most think it should be both?) Anonymous "was supposed to fight for" free speech. (Says who?) At one point "no one knew anyone's name or had ever met in person." (How would she know?)
Despite the rushed quality, there is much to like about the book. It's chockablock with detail. Even if you've been actively participating in or observing Anonymous all along, you're likely to learn something new. For example, I liked the running tally of LulzSec's increasing number of Twitter followers. It's something I doubt others were keeping track of, and it serves as a neat shorthand for their increasing influence.
Chapter 1, in which she describes the utter destruction of HB Gary and Aaron Barr, was my favorite. It's a gripping tale, told just as entertainingly here (but with more detail) as in Stephen Colbert's classic video. Her description of this Fox News segment is suitably hilarious. And I like her metaphors, like "Sony had become something of a piñata for hackers."
I disagree with some of the criticism that has been leveled at the book so far. Quinn Norton and others have criticized Olson for not making clear how she chose whom to trust, or insufficiently warning the reader that those being quoted might be lying, or for being too trusting in general.
This is, for the most part, unfair. On the very first page, entitled "Before you read this book," Olson points out that hackers lie. This is reiterated in an endnote (p. 445): "did supporters of Anonymous lie to me in interviews? Sometimes, yes." It would be distracting and unnecessary for her to point this out repeatedly. Especially in the case of the pseudonymous "William" and others of questionable moral character, it would be a foolish reader who assumed all their boasts to be truthful. Regarding some conversations and events where it's self-evident that only the participants know what happened, she conversed with the participants and relayed what they told her. What more would a reader expect from her? Omniscience?
However, there is one segment where Olson clearly erred in leaving herself out of the story: the sad and touching meeting between Topiary and "William." The main text of the book is unclear whether she was in the meeting, although the end notes make it clear that she was. She is visible to Topiary and "William" (thus affecting the conversation), but deceptively invisible to the reader.
The analysis and commentary are clever, and I wish there were more. There's some provocative and insightful commentary about similarities between Anonymous and Westboro Baptist Church, about Anonymous and its future direction, about infighting. One example:
It is unclear if Sabu was in reality haunted by the fact that he was now also helping to implicate Assange. Six months prior, he had believed so passionately in the WikiLeaks cause that he was willing to risk bringing his hacker name out into the public for the first time in nine years. Another possibility: the FBI was encouraging Sabu to reach out to Assange to help gather evidence on one of the most notorious offenders of classified government data in recent times. It seems probable that if Sabu had helped, for instance, extradite Assange to the United States, it would have improved his settlement dramatically. (p. 328 - 329)
In this one passage, we see speculation about Sabu's emotions, the FBI's goals, and the legal implications of these events. However, such passages are few and far between. Instead, she sticks to facts even when they seem to call out for commentary and analysis:
"Sabu what are you thinking?" Topiary said. "You've got kids and need to stop this. At least change your nick from Sabu."
"It's too late anyway," Sabu said, simmering.
"What do you mean? You can't say it's too late. You don't want your kids to grow up with their dad in jail. . . . If I had kids I wouldn't be doing this." Sabu replied again that it was too late. . . . (p. 344)
So here we have Sabu — reportedly with an FBI agent literally looking over his shoulder — twice hinting to Topiary that he's already been arrested. What were Sabu's true allegiances, since he was trying to warn his alleged co-conspirator? Why didn't Topiary pick up on it? Why did the FBI allow Sabu to do this? Did the FBI agent who was supposed to be watching him get into trouble? These questions aren't so much as hinted at. Why has Olson left out the most interesting parts of the story?
Also consider this mixed message:
When [Sabu's] handlers needed him to pull in the reins, he complied, cautioning Anonymous on September 21, 2011, that attempts to DDoS Wall Street financial firms was "a fail . . . Not because of lack of manpower, but rather, wrong direction. Own them, don't waste resources DDoSing." (p. 388)
How is saying to "own them" a compliant pulling in of the reins?
One weakness is that the story is told from the perspectives of a relatively limited cast of characters. Thus it fails to give a complete picture of Anonymous, which includes a broad range of viewpoints. Some people who to me seem important are not mentioned at all (for example, DiscordiAnon), while others are mentioned only briefly in passing (for example, JoePie91). I should note that names mentioned only once in passing aren't in the index, and some quotes are unattributed. So if you're an Anon who's insulted that you're not in the index, that doesn't necessarily mean you weren't named or quoted in the book. But you'll have to read all 414 pages to find out.
Even the characters with a strong presence in the book seem to exist in a peculiarly isolated world. One question that kept coming to mind, and which was never answered, is Where are the parents? (We meet only Topiary's mom, Jennifer Davis.) And older Anons seemingly have few real-life responsibilities. One gets the impression of Anons living in some Never Never Land where parents and responsibilities simply don't exist. There is an overall lack of context in time, place and reality.
By far, the book's most noticeable flaw is the poor quality of the technical writing. If the book were about anything but hackers, it could perhaps be gotten away with, but it's inexplicable and inexcusable that apparently no technical expert was hired to review it. Programmers, working in a field where a single misplaced comma or apostrophe can "break" thousands of lines of code, can be expected to be picky. This book will likely be infuriating to them. Compared to the fluid writing in the rest of the book, the clumsy attempts at technical explanations stand out like innumerable sore thumbs. Even where passages aren't wrong, per se, they don't sound quite right, either. They sound like something got lost in translation.
Again, some of this seems attributable to rushing. For example, on page 72 she mentions "speech recognition technology" when clearly she means "text to speech technology." Surely she knows the difference. I've posted a more detailed list of the technical errors and typos here.
The "translation" problem also manifests itself in her decision to convert nearly all 1337-speak to standard English spelling. I'm no fan of th3j35t3r, but still find it inappropriate to misspell his or her name as "The Jester." While I can understand the reasoning behind changing, say, chat logs into standard English for readability, doing so with proper names is insulting. If she were writing a story for Forbes about someone named Francis, would she take it upon herself to change the name to Frank? Or change Carlos to Charles? We're not talking about someone like Muammar Gaddafi where proper spelling is debatable, but about people who consistently use and are known by specific names with specific spellings. She should have written something like "th3j35t3r (pronounced 'The Jester')" and spelled it correctly as th3j35ter thereafter, and likewise with other hacker names.
Although detailed factual narratives are definitely Olson's strength, there are four significant topics where I believe her telling is unclear or simply wrong. These are:
The overall depiction of the FBI
Apparently most of Olson's information about the FBI was gleaned from Anons and ex-Anons (who, based on the number of arrests, if nothing else, can hardly be seen as knowledgeable) and a mysterious (and apparently fairly uninformative) "source who had knowledge of the FBI investigation of Sabu." Consequently, the FBI is depicted as a malevolent cloud hanging over Anonymous, fully as mysterious, fickle and unaccountable as a Greek god. As an American taxpayer who values government transparency and accountability, I dislike this characterization. True, they're notoriously secretive, but it's not like nothing is known about them. It's not clear if she even tried contacting their press office. Could we at least have gotten something like "The FBI would not comment, but in other cases, they have been known to . . ."?
The ownership of LulzSec.com
In LulzSec's heyday, I noticed that the Whois for LulzSec.com was in the name of Adrian Lamo. I wondered about it, and hoped that this book would explain what was going on. Alas, now I'm even more confused.
We learn on page 271: "Kayla pointed out that Adrian Lamo . . . had even registered the web address LulzSec.com to stop the [LulzSec] team from using it as a website." Then on page 283, "[Topiary] and Tflow were putting up the new LulzSec website . . ." (No url is given here, but I remember it being LulzSec.com.) Wait — how did they get the URL from Adrian Lamo? Then on page 303: "Kayla suggested a mass disinformation campaign. Her idea was to create a Pastebin document revealing that Adrian Lamo owned the domain LulzSec.com . . ."
So did Lamo own LulzSec.com, or was this disinfo? If he owned it, how did LulzSec wind up using it? This is never explained.
When did Sabu become an informant?
Sabu becoming an informant is a pivotal moment in the story. Olson contradicts herself on this vitally important matter, and doesn't even realize it.
She writes that he was arrested on June 7th, and "as of Wednesday, June 8, on, Sabu was an FBI informant." (p. 308)
This "fact" has been reported by numerous news outlets, and I've been wondering how it's possible. Contrary to the impression one might get from Olson's overall depiction of the FBI, agents don't have some magic wand they can impulsively strike people with, and "Snitchiosum!" — in a cloud of magic Fed dust — "You're an informant!" In actuality, surely it's more bureaucracy than black art.
She offers mere hints of this: "On August 15, he stood before a judge . . . Sabu agreed to help the FBI, and federal prosecutors agreed not to try Sabu for several other crimes he had committed outside the world of hacking." (p. 389) "On August 16, a day after Sabu's second court appearance, where he had agreed in writing to work for the FBI . . ." (p. 391).
If Sabu first signed an agreement on August 15, then he was not officially an informant before then. So in what capacity was he working with the FBI? By what authority was the FBI working with him? Again, the most interesting questions are not asked, let alone answered.
Olson is wrong that there have been no other arrests
Olson writes: "Sabu had helped gather evidence against five people, all told: Topiary, Kayla, Tflow, Sup_g (Jeremy Hammond), and Palladium." (p. 401, emphasis added)
This is BS. No, I can't prove it, but I'll post photos of myself with a shoe on my head if there haven't been many more arrests not yet announced. Consider:
Sabu sometimes received more than two dozen vulnerabilities a day, and each time he would alert his FBI handlers. By August of 2011, he had helped the FBI patch a hundred and fifty vulnerabilities in computer networks that other hackers were targeting or was at least helping to mitigate the damage. Over the coming months, he would reportedly assist in alerting about three hundred government and corporate organizations about potential attacks by hackers with Anonymous, allowing them to patch flaws in their networks. (p. 392)
Are we really to believe that not one arrest resulted from these hundreds of reports? Clearly there were arrests. There are several possible reasons we haven't heard about them: the people arrested were minors, or the arrests were in non-English-speaking countries and received little attention elsewhere, or the applicable law enforcement agencies simply didn't issue press releases. Or those arrested became informants as Sabu did. I find it unbelievable that Olson, having spent so many pages discussing Sabu's role as an informant, never considered the possibility that there were and are others.
This inexplicable blindness to the likelihood of other informants within Anonymous, both before and after Sabu, significantly affects the story's tone. Consider this passage:
Soon Sabu and Kayla had moved into another secret channel that was slowly replacing #command as a tactical hub for Anonymous: #InternetFeds. This channel was so highly classified that it wasn't even on the AnonOps network but allegedly on the server of a hardcore hacktivist with Anonymous. About thirty people had found their way in, mainly via invitation. . . . Most were skilled hackers. (p. 131 - 132)
I'll take the liberty of modifying this to present a more realistic assessment (my additions in italics, with a hyperlink instead of explanatory text for brevity):
Soon Sabu and Kayla had moved into another secret channel that was slowly replacing #command as a tactical hub for Anonymous: #InternetFeds. This channel was so highly classified that it wasn't even on the AnonOps network but allegedly on the server of a hardcore hacktivist with Anonymous. There was a non-negligible possibility that this server was owned or being monitored by law enforcement. About thirty people had found their way in, mainly via invitation. . . . Most were skilled hackers and of the Americans, perhaps a quarter were FBI informants.
This paints a completely different picture, doesn't it? Now it's one with dangerous shoals beneath the sparkling waves. Why did Olson choose to depict the first and not the second? We can only speculate.
Conclusion
Ultimately I found the book informative but unfulfilling; a well-done but unimaginative recounting of facts. Olson did an admirable job of interviewing selected and better-known Anonymous participants, but there was insufficient input from the wider Anonymous community and outsiders who could have provided valuable context. I was left wondering: What overarching principles can be gleaned from all these events? What can we learn? What have the participants learned? What does it all mean? I would have liked to see deeper analysis and more informed speculation.
As good as the writing is, the most powerful segment is right at the end — as powerful as a kick in the gut, effortlessly making all that came before look amateurish and insignificant. Startlingly, this is the segment not by Olson but by Topiary. Olson could have ended the book with Topiary's writing, and we wouldn't know that somehow, after all this, she still doesn't get it. Alas, she had to have the last word. And those last paragraphs confirm that while admiring the Topiary, she's completely missed the forest.