'Anonymous' hacking organisation, heroes or villians in the wake of Paris attacks?

Hacking is a general term that governments in particular use to describe any type of cyber crime relating to the invasion of privacy by a group or an individual using technology most frequently the use of computers. As hacking in most circumstances is used to obtain personal information from someone or an organisation in particular and used for purposes that are illegal it is considered a crime but very difficult to regulate (Coleman, 2012). This is why authorities portray hackers as anti-social, dangerous individuals, who attack our computer systems, to invade privacy and to even in some circumstances threaten national security on a mass level (Coleman, 2011). Some hackers if use their knowledge and skills to access bank accounts to take money from their victims and this can be very difficult to prevent. However, there are some organisations of Hackers for example 'Anonymous' who use their knowledge to portray messages to the wider public but also to play some what of a vigilante against terrorist organisations. Since the attacks in Paris on the 13th of November 2015, the hacker group have issued a warning to ISIS threatening they will take down their network (Baker, 2015).  The hackers will therefore be aiding these governments in the take down of ISIS, the video uploaded after the attacks stated in French that they will launch the biggest cyber attack and members all around the world will 'hunt them down'. Defiantly, saying at the end that the French people are stronger than ISIS and they will defeat the evil within ISIS (Baker, 2015). There are many issues when looking into this type of hacking as, declaring war on ISIS an organisation the government are desperate to take down does this mean that their illegal means of doing so become legal? It will clearly be shown I believe that the governments fighting ISIS will not be interested in the illegal means of hacking that anonymous have shown over the years, they will want the information that they will subsequently provide. However, it is vital that the members stay anonymous as after ISIS have been brought to justice, they could face huge criminal charges for previous attacks even though they had been pivotal in the take down of ISIS. The debate that therefore comes from this, should they be punished for the previous 'crimes' if they have served their country and others in the destruction of this terrorist organisation. Similarly, if a murderer were to help their country take down a terrorist organisation would this eradicate all sins prior, it can be said that hacking and murdering are not the same morally however the point still stands, does one incredibly good deed help erase previous crimes before that?

Reference list

Baker, K. (2015). Hacking group Anonymous declares war on Isis in YouTube video. [online] Mail Online. Available at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3320055/Hacking-group-Anonymous-declares-war-Isis-YouTube-video.html [Accessed 17 Nov. 2015].

Coleman G (2011) Hacker politics and publics. Public Culture 23(3): 511–516.

Coleman G(2012) Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Coleman G (2014) Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous. London: Verso.

Doctorow C (2012) The problem with nerd politics. The Guardian, 14 May. Available at: guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/may/2014/problem-nerd-politics (accessed 24 July 2014).