How Anonymous Picks Targets, Launches Attacks, and Takes Powerful Organizations Down
www.wired.com/2012/07/ff_anonymous
From the page
Saved with the link. Notes from 2007 to 2016 are mostly the page's own words, so this is probably an excerpt.
Whats harder to comprehendbut just as important, if you want to grasp the future of Anonymous after the arrestsis the radical political consciousness that seized this innumerable throng of Internet misfits. Anonymous became dangerous to governments and corporations not just because of its skills (lots of hackers have those) or its scale but because of the fury of its convictions. In the beginning, Anonymous was just about self-amusement, the lulz, but somehow, over the course of the past few years, it grew up to become a sort of self-appointed immune system for the Internet, striking back at anyone the hive mind perceived as an enemy of freedom, online or offline. It started as a gang of nihilists but somehow evolved into a fervent group of believers. To understand that unlikely transformation, and Anonymous peculiar method of (non)organization, it is necessary to start at the very beginning.