commerce The Movement

Up til 2014 the Australian Federal Police spent two years investigating the online activity of members in the Anonymous group based in Australia. I think all of us have seen Anonymous across the internet before but it's weirdly startling to realise the harsh reality that some members are not these mysterious young men and women but a middle aged man with a vendetta against the government. Bennett went under the alias “Lorax” and even gained a following on social media with 10,000 followers on twitter and his radio show. Amongst his online fame he was able to connect with a then juvenile, only 17 years old in Australia. Together they hacked five non-government sites and switched the front pages for Anonymous propaganda erging users to join the fight against online privacy and vagueness of security by the government.

To add to the illegality of his actions and hackings with the teenage boy, Bennett performed multiple penetration tests on websites across Australia to essentially find out if there were vulnerabilities that could be possibly exploited. A judge we will later discuss described this as “peering through a window to check the doors were locked”.