The Anonymous Internet collective’s campaign against groups with whom they disagree surged into 2012 with “Operation Blitzkrieg,” which is targeting Neo-Nazi groups in Germany.
Their latest effort includes a Wikileaks-style Website, Nazi-leaks.net, to uncover and expose the identities of individuals affiliated with and sympathetic to Germany’s nationalist, far-right National Democratic Party (NDP) often associated with Neo-Nazi beliefs.
The site contains lists of names, locations, email addresses, and phone numbers belonging to NDP donors, and those who have visited, communicated or otherwise done business with any number of Web sites. It also includes the names and contact details of persons that have written for the Junge Freiheit, the central publication of Germany’s New Right movement.
According to Deutsche Welle, the attack is being heavily criticized. Simone Rafael, an anti-Nazi blogger, is cited as having said that it was good “to remove filth from the Net for a few days,” but then went on to criticize the illegal publication of personal information on the Internet.
Recent Anonymous activities indicate shifts within the shadowy Internet collective’s ideology in line with calls for online actions with a social bent. In recent months, the group has launched attacks against sites containing and encouraging child pornography and used its heft online to promote the Occupy Wall Street protests. However, the group has also continued in its anti establishment bent, hacking into systems used or frequented by law enforcement and military personnel and spilling their personal information online.
