This document is here to hand you the mask, the cloak, and the hat.
Whether you choose to storm parliament is up to you.
First off, welcome to the internet.
We are Anonymous, and have been gaining popularity and press with stories ranging from
Wikileaks,
to Protests against Scientology,
to the Westboro Baptist Church,
to Stephen Colbert's The Colbert Report, to Bank of America,
to Mastercard and Paypal,
to the lawsuit against GeoHotz from Sony,
and to the HBGary Scandal (see 1st video below).
If you are unfamiliar with Anonymous, the videos below this paragraph sum it up quite well, so watch the super cool moving picture video thingyz directly below this to get an idea of what we do. If you're already familiar with Anonymous, these videos aren't really neccessary.
Wait, wut, ok, anyways. This is the tutorial information for #OpNewblood. Our mission is helping people interested in Anonymous get started, ranging from computer users who are constantly searching for the 'any key', to users who build and design supercomputers (ie Watson). Anyways, currently we cover helping you get a setup that allows you to stay in regular contact with other Anonymous and to help you browse and use the internet without exposing your location or any other sensitive information.
IRC Chatting
IRC Chatting on a regular basis allows for organization and lets us have lots of lulz. We use a very basic method of communication that has been around since 1988 called IRC, or Internet Relay Chat. You have not done ANYTHING WRONG by participating in discussions. You are entitled to the right of freedom of speech and TALKING should not be illegal anywhere. Anyways lets get started:
Hello Newbloods,
Welcome to your introduction to Internet Relay Chat. IRC is one of the oldest ways to communicate online and is the basis for most other online chats. IRC allows real time communications but requires few resources on the user's systems compared to other applications you may have used before. This form of chat is elegant in its simplicity but has alot of useful features including the ability to run scripts in Python or Perl, encrypting your messages with FiSHLiM and even transfering files, if so desired.
As a new user it is impossible for us to know your current level of understanding of the various components that make IRC so powerful and useful. That makes the creation of guides and tutorials difficult. Experienced netizens and those with a technical background will find much of this information boring and will want to bypass it all and get on with chatting. The more green recruits will find some things familiar but will have many questions.
However, no one knows everything so we recommend that you take some time and read through all the sections of this guide at least once before you jump in feet first. This will allow you to not only familiarize yourself with the terminology but will let you ask thoughtful questions which allows us to help you quickly and accurately. We maintain a dedicated channel on the network for this purpose with both network staff and knowledgable volunteers who are happy to help you set up your own IRC client and secure your connection. So have a look through the pages first then join us on the network.
Security and Anonymity
OK now comes the bad news. Nothing is 100% secure or safe from eavesdropping. As we have seen recently with revelations about the wholesale spying on the world by the NSA, the subject of security and maintaining your privacy is now much higher on the list than ever before. People who once thought nothing about sending their most intimate details to another are now rethinking that situation. The internet has always been open. A closed and monitored internet defeats the purpose for which it was intended: the free and easy sharing of information, thoughts, ideas and knowledge.
The Heartbleed SSL bug was big news and quite shocking to the security community and internet users in general. OpenSSL, which contained the error, has been fixed. Most applications that use OpenSSL have also been fixed. Website operators have been working to patch their systems, too. As for AnonOps, we use GnuTLS, a different encryption library which was not part of the Heartbleed bug. Our webchat has been updated to the correct version of SSL and our security certificates have been revoked and reissued.
Much is now heard about VPNs, encrypted connections, web pages and emails. So what are these mysterious things? Let us find out, shall we?
Virtual Private Network (VPN)
A virtual private network is a connection from your computer to another network. Some of you may be familiar with these type of connections as they are widely used by businesses to handle their internal communications needs and to allow employees to access systems from remote locations. Setup properly, they can also be used by anyone to create a safer connection to the internet and have the added benefit of disguising your true location. Click the link below for a short tutorial on the different types of VPN connections and encryption.
The Tor (The Onion Router) Network is a means of relaying your traffic to either an exit node (whereby your traffic then exits the network and into the open web) or to a hidden service/site maintained within the network itself. The traffic is routed through an 'untrusted' relay circuit, whereby each relay node only knows the node before it and the node after, thus no complete list of nodes used to route your traffic can be enumerated. The network exhibits end-to-end encryption but only within itself: if your traffic is not encrypted in the first place, any person data-sniffing the exit node will be able to see where you are then going and what you are doing while there.
Security online is a very long and involved subject. The various possibilities and methods of securing your client computer are combined by you to suit your unique environment. No one solution is good for every internet user. The reason for this is simple: We all use the internet in different ways. Some surf the web and read emails. Others spend their days on social media sites and twitter. Most do some degree of business online, either paying bills or making purchases. For these reasons, we cannot possibly cover every aspect of online life and we will make no attempt to cover every situation. We can give you a start and from there, we can assist you more once you are connected to the network. Click the link below and read the information, as many times as you have to until you have a basic understanding then we can move to the next phase.
Recent news of how extensive the NSA's efforts to compromise internet security might make privacy seem impossible, but there is still hope. Edward Snowden said it in an online Q&A soon after he made his first document public: "Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on." We've put together a short primer to help get you started with more secure email (and files).
The IRC client is the application that allows you to connect to the IRC servers. The clients are free, easy to use but the initial setup can be confusing. Each of the links below contain the basic information to get connected to our network. If you cannot connect to the network after following the guide use the webchat link further down the page.
Ready to get your feet wet? If you have followed our guide, you should have a basic knowledge of IRC networks, what they are and an idea of what is involved connecting to and using them safely. I know, you cannot possibly remember it all. Thats ok, no one knows everything and we dont expect you will. We do hope you found the information useful. You should also have questions. Lots and lots of questions. For those who googled for more info, you get +10 internets. Those who did not, dont sweat it. You are about to go down the rabbithole and the madhatters will be waiting to give you some answers. You will be joining a help channel. At times it is very busy in there so a little patience and courtesy will go a long way. We have heard all the questions before so do not be afraid to ask but we do expect you to do your part in all this. Try to find the answer yourself first. There is an infobot in the channel to assist you by providing answers to the most commonly asked questions. Please utilize this feature upon joining. We have little time for people who are there to create drama so consider this your warning. OK then, grab something to hang on to and click the link below to go to the next step. See you soon!
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