What are Anonymous and 4Chan?

very interesting group of people. But I think you have something to read to us first. Yes, actually, this topic comes to us courtesy of a little listener mail. This list your mail comes to us from Jack, and Jack says, Dear tech Stuff, I believe a discussion on the subject of four Chan, the Japanese image board, and the internet group anonymous is more than overdue. They have been in the news several times and are very important in the

Internet community. Please consider my request. Thank you, Jack Um. All right, Jack, I actually wrote back to Jack earlier. Uh this he he requested this um early in November of two thousand nine, So we're just now getting to it. The reason why we're slow getting to it, well, there's a couple of reasons. One is just that we have a lot of topics on our topic list that you know, to work our way through. But another is that we had to really think about whether or not we were

going to tackle this one because the subjects are somewhat controversial. Yes, definitely. So as a matter of fact, he wrote about this not terribly long ago. Yes, I I did it under a pseudonym. No, No, I didn't. I actually put my name to it. Um well, in a way I wrote about a related subject. Right, Because again, this is this is controversial on multiple levels. Let's let's start with the very basics with four chan before we talk about anything else.

That's true actually that the idea behind four chan is is not particularly controversial at all. No, it's it's like many other websites on the web. It's was designed to be a community, an image uh an image posting community primarily, rather than a lot of other message boards in which you would post uh, you know, written material. Theoretically, the idea was, you know, I guess the idea behind it being something along lines of a picture is worth a

thousand words. You would post a photo or an image of some kind to express your your thoughts, and they were mainly in the case of four chan, it was all about really kind of a Japanese animation as well as UH manga, the the illustrated. Essentially, they're like comic books or graphic novels, um but you know, they they and they they range from very simple stories for for kids all the way up to material that specifically meant for adult consumption. It's not you know, these aren't necessarily

comic books for little kids. A lot of people hear the phrase comic books even today and still think, oh, that's something that little kids enjoy. But in fact, you know, they're just like in the United States, the comic books in Japan cater to all different age groups and demographics, and UH four chane was kind of a place where people who enjoyed this sort of art could share that

kind of UH enthusiasm with each other. UM. And one of the interesting things about four chan is that it would allow people to post content without any identification whatsoever. You didn't have to register a handle or anything like that in order to go to four chan and contribute,

which is UH very different from most other communities. And other communities, of course, you want to establish an identity that's how you make friends, it's how people know to contact you, it's how you can start up conversations on four Chan. You could do it completely anonymously with would theoretically protect you if you were to say, I don't know post material that might violate copyright, right, And I wanted to point out to UM when you mentioned that

there there is adult art. We're not talking about pornography necessarily, necessarily because you're just talking about adult themes. Sure, because

that's one of the few. I mean, even though you can post post things anonymously, one of the you know, you're not theoretically supposed to post pornography if I'm not not unless and except in a couple of the couple of the rooms within or the sections in four Chune do allow you to post stuff, all right, I was an impresson that was completely forbidden on the same So it's only in very specific area, yeah, very specific areas. It actually tells you which areas are are meant for

mature audiences. Is kind of I kind of hesitate to use that word considering some of the content that shows up on Fortune, But you know what I'm talking about, right of eighteen or older, let's say there are certain sections that are only meant for eighteen or older. Um, although one would argue that I think most of the people who are on those sections are not that of that age group, based upon the content and uh commentary

that you find within those sections. Um. Now, the we're getting into, we're getting We're kind of getting ahead a little bit. I didn't mean to get ahead. I just was trying to clarify the adult sure sure the so well, like Chris was saying, Yeah, the adult themes don't necessarily mean pornography. I mean it's the same way as I would I would call like Law and Order an adult show. Yeah, and and one. It just has themes that that children

don't grasp. You know, it's more sophisticated than what a child, uh considers entertainment. So same thing with these these these comics and cartoons or anime. I mean, people are gonna get upset, but has I'll call it a cartoon or a comic book. But I'm just trying to give an analog for people who are unfamiliar with the art forms. Um or I could just called japanamation. Hey man, that's when I was a kid. That's what that's what we

called it. I remember that I was saying, you probably earned yourself ten listener meals right and in there well for calling a japanamation. I used to watch a lot of japanamation. I enjoyed japanamation. I remember when there was a section of the store that was called Japanimation, back

before Animal became a popular before. Yeah, well, and animal is anime is definitely a more a more appropriate term because not all of this kind of animation comes from Japan, I mean, because that's unfortunately people would use the term japanamation to mean animation coming from any Asian country, which

of course is you know, it's not really accurate. But at any rate, um, so four chance a community that is mostly based around that, although people began to in other interests as well, so it began to flesh out a bit, right. It wasn't just things that had to do with anime or manga. Um. You had people who would bring in stuff about video games and other kinds of pop culture entertainment, even music things like that. Um. And then there's also a specific channel where anything goes.

It is the Random channel, the slash b channel, and uh, it is this channel that probably has gained four Chan the notoriety that it has people. When people say four chan and they're talking about things like controversy, um or trolling or anything like that, they're really mainly talking about this B channel, the random channel where anything goes because I think, um, I think Obi wan Kenobi would describe this channel as a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

I'm not making any kind of judgment on the people who go there, but I will say that they enjoy winding each other up. Yeah yeah, well, uh, you're not the first person to have made that exact comparison. Actually found other references were using that exact phrase. It's to the random Channel. It's probably in people's signatures and things like fortune B Channel, wretched hive of scum and villany. Well, that's the thing. I mean, that's one of the things

about the Internet in general. A lot of websites uh produced communities of like minded people, people who have similar interests. And it makes sense that you know, people who like to uh uh to wind each other up, as you say, would would want to gather somewhere and this is just an opportunity for them to do that. Yeah, I don't I don't necessarily think that the people who are posting in that channel are particularly sinister or mean spirited. They're

more mischievous than anything else. Now, sometimes this mischief boils over into acts that are that go beyond on mischief into the realm of being criminal acts um or at the very least uh questionable, So it goes beyond just like ha ha pulled a prank on YouTube while you've actually caused damage in some way, whether that's you know, through a calculable monetary unit or psychological damage or emotional damage or whatever. Um. But they enjoy pushing people's buttons.

Mostly they're pushing each other's buttons because a lot of the shenanigans that go on in the random channel on four chane, that's where they stay. They pretty much are going back and forth. Um. It's it's a group of people who have not necessarily identified themselves in any way. So there's it's it's hard to get organized when when you do that. It's not impossible, as we'll get to when we get to anonymous, but it makes it a

little more difficult. And U, I mean, this hasn't stopped them from cre eating some pretty popular ideas that eventually kind of took a life of their own and became Internet memes. Yeah. You you might be actually surprised to hear some of the the trains of thought that have escaped from that area and and made their way across the internet and even onto national TV. As I have seen, um, and I'm not sure that you know some of them

are are are really pretty funny the truth. Yeah, I mean things from some of the some of the things you've seen online or that you've probably seen online, either they got their start on four Chan or they were popular rised on four Chan and then immediately exploded on the internet. Things like loll cats. Yes, so that the cheeseburger, right, Yes, you see a cute picture of a cat with a funny caption written in some sort of sub English apparently

the kind of English that cats thinking kitty pigeon? Is that what's called? Okay? Yea? So anyway that, um, you can you can attribute that to uh to four chan. You can also things like rick rolling, which is a should we explain? Oh well yeah, sure for the for the two people out in the audience who have never well, it is possible they know what it is and don't know that it has a name for it. Um, yes, this uh, this is when you are are given um

a video or actually it could be virtually anything. Somebody gives you a phone and they've changed your ring to Rick Astley is never Gonna give you Up? You've been Rick rolled, or somebody says you have to check out this cool loll cat video and uh what turns out it's Rick Astley's never Gonna Give You Up video. And then there's the float from the two thousand and eight Macy's Thanksgiving the Parade from Cartoon Network in which Rick Ghastly actually stepped out and sang the song himself on

National TV. Actually theres by that point and it actually become yea Steele joke. It was already but yeah, by the time Thanksgiving to those neighbors all around, it was considered to be pretty old. And then a year later we start seeing the iPhone worm go out that replaced people's jailbroken iPhone background image with Rick Astley, and I'm thinking, seriously, how much longer is this joke gonna go. I'm sure it will come and go in spurts, as these things do.

I'm sure it will, But I mean the other thing that we can count on is the fact that eventually there will be another weird meme that will come out of four Chan. So I was going to point out to speaking the law Cats meme that um they did

an interview. Actually, Love Grossman of Time magazine did an interview with Moot, the founder of four chan, about the law cats, because um, that appeared on four chan, and then somebody else basically took the idea and ran with it and made the site um which sold for two million dollars. And uh, basically Moot said, well, you know, that's cool, that's fine. He didn't seem to be at least according to Mr Grossman, he didn't seem to be

too really concerned that he wasn't seeing a penny of that. Yeah, but it's amazing how some of these things take off and then leave the channel and yeah, leave home and start their own families. Yeah, we'll getting back to the random channel. Uh. So, first of all, I I guess we should have said this earlier. UM, I don't recommend you go to four chan and check out the random Channel. In fact, I I advise against doing it. If you are going to do it, uh, don't do it at school,

don't do it at work. Uh, you might want to turn images off on your computer because they're they're posting stuff deliberately designed to get your goat, right. And not only that, but I mean you can and in the random channel you can encounter things like pornography. I mean, it's gonna be there. The only thing that is specifically against the rules in the random channel is no child pornography. Anything else is considered fair game. So everything other than

child porn is fair game. And so I mean that's a lot of stuff people, And I'm telling you, you know, some of you might be thinking, hey, that sounds kind of cool. It's um an interesting experience. It's disturbing, Yeah, I yeah. When I was researching how how internet trolls work, I specifically went to four chan to check it out because a lot of trolling um is attributed to four chan. Because again we're talking about mischievous people who like to

push buttons. So sometimes they'll go to other Internet communities specifically to cause a little mischief and and raise a ruckus. And uh, and so you know you want to go to the source, you go to four Chan. Well, I had to turn my images off almost immediately as soon as I got there, because I realized that if I did try to surf that while at work, even though it was research, I would likely have to watch that video from HR again, and I don't want to have

to do that if I don't have to. Uh So, Anyway, the kind of stuff that you'll see on a random channel if you were to go includes lots and lots of very dark humor, I mean like gallows humor stuff where people if if you remember, like after any huge tragedy, almost immediately there start people start making jokes about that tragedy as a coping mechanism, and for some people that is just so insensitive and taboo that it's immediately offensive. That's the kind of stuff you're gonna find the random

channel buttons. Yes, So if someone famous has just recently passed away, I guarantee you the first place you're gonna see a joke about it will be on four Chan in that random channel. You know it. As soon as someone's heard about, they're gonna be there, like, how do I make a punchline where this person's name is the joke? Um.

So that's the kind of material you'll find on there. However, something kind of um unusual really came from chane that was not necessarily an Internet meme, but U a group that has occasionally tried to to mobilize to protest specific uh other groups and other policies. And by that, I'm talking about anonymous, and that sort of takes its name from the ability to remain anonymous while on four chan. Yeah, essentially,

and they're an anonymous. The members of anonymous aren't all necessarily members of four chane or people who contribute to four chan. Uh. The anonymous actually spans across several different communities, and some people who didn't even belong to any of those communities just heard about it, agreed with the the general principles of anonymous, and kind of went along for the ride. So it's like this enormous anonymous mob of

Internet users. Yeah, they don't necessarily know who one another are. Yeah. Yeah, you don't necessarily know the identity of other members. Um. There is no cent realized leadership, which is both a blessing and accurse to this group. Part of the blessing is that if the group as a whole has done something to tick off some other organization, there's no one specific you can point to and say this person is

to blame. There's no accountability. Uh. But part of the curse is also that it can be very difficult to organize a group to do any particular task because you don't have a centralized leadership. You have to be able to to suggest in an anonymous way a course of action and have other enough people agree who you know share your same perspective, agree to it, and for that to catch on. So it has to kind of spread viral. E Yes. But and but it has been effective because

they've been able to stage protests in cities around the world. Yes, now the biggest target of their protests has been the Church of Scientology, now members of anonymous. And here's the other here's another issue with anonymous. When you have a big anonymous group and there's no centralized figure, there's also no centralized voice for the group. Uh. You have what

the majority of the group seems to believe in. But then there are people around the edges who may have different beliefs or a stronger uh conviction about a certain principle than others and will take things to a greater length than the group itself might want to go. And so that's what. How do you make a set of rules to govern a group where it's a group filled with people who are all anonymous and no one has accountability.

It's really tricky. So arguably you would say that the the original group anonymous group when they started Project Chernology, which is the the specific initiative aimed against the practices of the Church of Scientology. Uh, they were moderate in their approach in the sense that they said they were not targeting the church as a church. They were targeting

specific practices that that the church allegedly follows. So they lay they they alleged that the church was, for instance, uh, bankrupting its members and brainwashing people, or at least separating them from their support system and cutting them off from the outside world so that they become completely dependent upon the church itself, right right, I remember seeing that they were that those were the things that they had accused of the Church of Scientology, and taking people away from

their families and and and also accusing the Church of Scientology itself of using very draconian tactics to silence any kind of protest, any sort of Uh, anyone who would say anything against the church would receive um an enormous amount of pressure from the church in various ways. And and really it would range from the threat of lawsuits to actual criminal acts committed against you or harassment against

you and your family. Um. So you know, you're talking about a group of anonymous people with no sense of accountability and an organization that is being accused of uh, some pretty scary tactics. Uh. This is like the stuff of movies. I mean, you know, you don't you don't normally think about this kind of stuff happening in real life, and yet it is unfolding in cities around the world, um,

throughout the year. I mean, you'll find it here about anonymous protests, usually somewhere in the vicinity of a Church of Scientology location. Uh. If the if the area in which they are protesting allows it, many of them will wear masks. Uh, and many of them have adopted the guy Fox mask used in DA Right. The whole idea this is a kind of standing up for the individual down with this tyrannical organization sort of thing. Um goes

with the theme. Yeah. Now, the group also says that if it is not legal to wear a mask too, to not do it. We don't don't don't break the law in your efforts to protests the church, and the reasoning behind that is you're more likely to do more harm to your cause than to help it. Yeah, and that uh, I haven't seen any reports that they have done any you know, physical damage or broken any laws necessarily.

And in fact, I remember reading that at at least one protest they brought cake and they were offering a cake to people. Um. Basically, I think is a way of saying, look, you know, we're just saying we don't with their practices. Um, we just want some attention drawn

to this. Although they they are um, at least in one case, I remember reading that they were attempting to have their tax codes change with regard to the Church of Scientology, so that they're um, you know that they are actually trying to achieve that one at least that one end goal, rather than doing any you know, serious harm to it. They're trying to change the way the government sees the church. Yeah. And um. There are several

YouTube videos that are attributed to Anonymous. This is kind of funny because when you think about it, anyone could create those videos, whether they are part of Anonymous or not. And Some of these videos are um, you know, they're just they're very blunt and they lay out what the groups um complaints are against the Church of Scientology, why the group is uh as organized protests against the Church of Scientology. Um, And it's you know, just very straightforward.

Others are a little more sinister and uh spooky. And here's where it really gets kind of crazy, I mean really crazy. You get the Church of Scientology saying, hey, look this proves that Anonymous are there. They're terrorists, you know, they are trying to use terror to to cow us into changing the way that we operate, whereas Anonymous is saying, hey, that's not us. Our policy is outlined in this video over here. That's what we think. We aren't the ones

posting that. And here's the thing is that you don't know if it's someone in Anonymous or not, because like I said, yeah, there may be people an Anonymous who think that the the group's policy doesn't take a heard enough stance, or here's an alternative. They're just some mischief makers who are posing as Anonymous just to stir up trouble. Like they don't care one way or another if Anonymous

achieved use its goals. What they care about is pushing buttons, getting back to that, So you can't relieve in tell what the motives are behind the people who are posting these things. Or you know, you may hear of a report of the Church of Scientology saying that, um, that someone hacked into their computer systems, and they'll they'll say, well, this has to be anonymous. Well it could be. It could be that it was a group of people with

an anonymous who took that initiative. Um, but it could also be that it was completely unrelated and there and anonymous is the scapegoat. I mean, again, here's the trouble of having a big group of people with no centralized leadership. And you know, uh, arguably you would say, well, according to the quote unquote official anonymous approach, and again it's hard to define what that is, but according to that, any such attacks would be against the group's principles. But

you know, again, you don't know. Maybe it's people on the fringe of anonymous who who are trying to up the vigilante activity. Maybe it's just someone who wants to cause as much mischief as they possibly can. Uh. That's why it's kind of hard to talk about these folks. I mean, they're they're very clever, maybe too clever for their own good in a way. Well, they're so decentralized too, that it's kind of hard to pin down, you know, a course set of values and beliefs that Anonymous represents.

They're so dis and and the group itself has also been accused of other activities besides things that are not related to the Church of Scientology at all, other kinds of mischief um. In some some cases that was a kind of civil disobedience in order to protest a particular set of policies. In other cases, it just seemed like it was kind of a mean spirited joke that was done for no other reason than to cause a stir um.

And once again, it's impossible to say which ones like because Anonymous itself doesn't have I mean, there's no firm membership role. It could be that this is a splinter group of the full group of Anonymous. It could be that it's a large portion of Anonymous. It could be

its people who aren't even related to Anonymous. But for example, there was not that long ago there was a whole thing about a website that was designed to be a forum for people who suffered from epilepsy and migraine headaches and um A group essentially created uh handles within this forum and began to post images of flashing lights things that would theoretically set off could set off an epileptic attack or perhaps trigger a migraine, depending on if you know,

if you had that visual stimulation, if that's what set you off, and you know, what's the point of that? Why do that? But it's the fact that you know, you're just causing as much trouble as possible. I mean, ultimately, if your tactic works, you are possibly actually causing harm to another individual. I mean in a way that's even if you don't want to call it terrorism, it's at least,

you know, just just malicious, mean spirited. Yeah. And you know, is is that the same group that's protesting draconium practices by you know, by another group? Is that or is it a totally different group. I mean again, it could be it could be any anybody doing that and anonymous taking the blame for it, regardless of what it's an anonymous member or not. So um. Yeah, it's weird stuff. I mean, there there's some some things that are attributed

to the group that just don't really add up. But again, uh, it could even be that there are some people who are active and anonymous, who are at protests, who go to every single one they can, who don't really believe in the ultimate cause. They just like the the noise. There's that too, So people who just enjoy being a rabble rouser um. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a place for civil disobedience. I think that that is if if you have if your rights are are whittled away,

you start to have very few other options. Um. But there's a right way to go about it and a wrong way to go about and I think maybe causing people to have epileptic seizures is possibly not the right way. But hey, you know we don't right, we don't know who it is. That's the brilliance behind anonymous um or anyone who manages to be on the Internet and not leave a a easily trackable record of who they are. And that's that's difficult. Yeah, it's actually really tricky. In fact,

a lot of the people who are in anonymous. If you were really determined and you put enough pressure on the right people, you could figure out who most of them are, um, but it would it would take a lot because you would essentially have to be able to pressure Internet service providers into giving you the information about you know, I s p s and things like that, and are rather not I s p s but IP

addresses and things like that. Um, And that's most I s p s would never really do that without a court order because it you know, once you start violating the trust of your customers, you don't have customers anymore. So so they have a pretty good net of protection around them. But I wouldn't say they're impervious, all right, Well,

fascinating group of people. Yeah, and of course, you know, we didn't really get into the whole trolling thing, but uh yeah, there are a lot of people and four chane have also been accused of or at least the kind of mentality that you find in four chan is often um the four Chune random channel, I should say, is as often associated with trolling in general on the Internet.

People who just like to go to different communities and cause misery and and make conversations breakdown into flame wars that kind of thing, just because I get their jollies out of derailing any kind of civil conversation. Um, you know lulls. Yeah, same people who are griefers and games will go onto a game and just they're only the way they get enjoyment from a game is by causing

other people frustration. Um. I think a lot of people eventually grow out of that, which is another reason why people will say that the folks on on the random channel at Fortune seemed to fall into the fifteen year old board boy category. One of the articles I read about about Anonymous suggested that they a lot of them

were middle class teenage people. So yeah, I think I think a lot of the along with that, the people I've seen in the pictures at the at the actual protests tend to fall into um, older teens and early early to mid twenties, based upon their build and uh and things like that, because in most cases their mask, their their masks looked very youthful. Yeah, they were very young. Guy Fox um, and Guy Fox is just one of the kinds of masks they wear. That's it's probably one

of the more popular ones. But you'll see people wear like, you know, just the dust mask or whatever. Um. But at any rate, so yeah, I hope that, Um, that's a good little overview of four Chin and Anonymous. Now, granted there's a lot more that we did not go into this. These are very deep subjects, both of them in fact, and uh, we could probably do two or three podcasts on them if we weren't afraid of getting attacked for the lulls, which I live in constant fear

being attacked for the lulls. Please don't attack me for the lulls. It's not that funny. But um, are are you? Are you exhausted by the subject. Yeah, it's just it's just one of those things that it's interesting to me because it's so hard to pin down, you know, and uh, you know, I understand why other people would be interested in it. Yeah, yeah, it's you know, if it weren't for the fact that I have to disengage half of my Internet browsers capabilities before I go to such a site,

I would probably check it out a little more often. Also, I think it's blocked in our network now, it wasn't back when I was researching trolls lesson learned. All right, Well, I guess that'll bring us around to our second A bout of listener mail. List listener mail comes from Emily and he says, Chris and Jonathan, thanks for a better than Josh and Chuck podcast, even though it was a while ago. I have a comment on your two thousand thirty eight podcast. I have a Palm pilot M five

oh five that runs with Legacy. I've tried many times to download the off that allows me to use the email application and sync the Palm with my computer. It does not work. There's no version of the software that works with newer systems like Windows Vista. In the process, I also discovered that there is no tech support for old poems. If the same thing happens with most machines that run with Legacy, it will not work with many other computers, and when that person encounters the problem, they

will not be able to fix it. So unless this person is very intent on keeping the system because it is ancient, and willing to spend the money they could use to buy a new system on fixing the old one, the person should get a new system. Thanks and keep

pod guessing. You're nine grade devotee Emily you know she says, by the way, I love puns, pie and awful jokes, three things you won't get on stuff you should know, and by the By the way, could you talk about internet blocking systems like the ones in place at school that don't allow you to go on Facebook or YouTube. That's funny that she should mention that. Sure, why is that because we were just talking about it four chance. Yeah. Firewalls. Yeah,

it's essentially a firewall. Um. I mean, there are many different versions and variations of the firewall, but it's not that hard. It's it's a It can either be hardware or software, and you just most of them have a setting where you can tell it specific u r l's that it will not allow people to access. So you try and go to it and you'll get a message

back saying you can't access that site. Uh. Many of them will come with a list pre programmed of of u r l's that are known to be either time sucks like Facebook and Twitter, or um, you know, have questionable content on them like four chan. There you go. I mean, it's it's sort of like a set of parental controls for an entire network, right. And it seems to me like she was talking about legacy as being

a kind of, uh, like a specific program. What we're talking about when we're talking about legacy systems is not necessarily a specific program, but older programs that have been used within a an organization for years and years and years and there is no longer any support for them because the company that created it is no longer around or has moved on to other systems and no longer

supports it. That's what a legacy system is. Yeah, And unfortunately the uh, the original palm os is uh sort of in that boat because you know it is it

still functions. As a matter of fact, Lennox has it, you know, built in support for it, but you know, you have to go to third party clients at this point to to get support for the palm Os And I think that a lot of in a lot of cases, they're just going to let it drop now, especially with the new web os it comes webs and when the we boss webs um that comes with the Palm Prex

and the Pixie. Yes, and Emily may very well have meant that, it was just kind of difficult to tell from the way she praised that, so I just wanted to cover all the bases there. Well. Thanks for the email, Emily, and thanks Jack for your question that started off this whole podcast. If any of you have any questions, suggestions, anything like that, send us an email tech Stuff at

how stuff works dot com. Remember, every Tuesday at one pm we have tech stuff Live and you can check that out at the blogs at how stuff works dot com. Just look on the right hands side. You'll see the links there. Chris and I will talk to you again, possibly anonymously, really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com, and be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog now on the house stuff works homepage, brought to

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