It is to be expected that a pseudo-organization concocted (or shall I say "arisen") to combat a government which is itself magnificently designed to quickly and thoroughly shut down any organization formed in its opposition, that such a resisting force might have a hard-to-understand structure, purely out of necessity.
Basically, there's a virtual firehose of disgruntled people, and then there are a few (a "few" in this context meaning a few hundred) smart people who facilitate their efforts to do damage to the system they collectively revile. For example, I doubt that the creators of LOIC have ever used it themselves. Assange used to break into systems himself, but these days he just makes it easier for other people who break into systems to report what they find.
In the case of Wikileaks, these facilitators are at least themselves organized, lead by Julian Assange. In the case of Anonymous, they are less organized, spread across lots of random IRC channels, wikis, and imageboards, so that even the people running the show don't know who is running the show.
Such a system would, of course, collapse immediately, if there weren't a constant, massive influx of disgruntled people with Internet connections and plenty of free time to read through bugtraq archives and free online hacking guides, and the recklessness necessary to not care if you get caught (notice how various arrests haven't stopped anyone). Those who don't get caught, they eventually start teaching other people, providing kids who wander into lcirc asking "how does I hacked BoA" with the information necessary to make it happen. Recall that the hack that took down HBGary wasn't technically astounding; it was a combination of HBGary's total incompetence and Anon's willingness to try shit until it worked.
So, could this be Wikileaks operating under the banner of Anonymous, and is Wikileaks itself a part of Anonymous? It's hard to say, because Anonymous is itself more of a phenomenon than a group, a criticality accident of discontent, if you will. They both operate on the same principles, though.
Basically, there's a virtual firehose of disgruntled people, and then there are a few (a "few" in this context meaning a few hundred) smart people who facilitate their efforts to do damage to the system they collectively revile. For example, I doubt that the creators of LOIC have ever used it themselves. Assange used to break into systems himself, but these days he just makes it easier for other people who break into systems to report what they find.
In the case of Wikileaks, these facilitators are at least themselves organized, lead by Julian Assange. In the case of Anonymous, they are less organized, spread across lots of random IRC channels, wikis, and imageboards, so that even the people running the show don't know who is running the show.
Such a system would, of course, collapse immediately, if there weren't a constant, massive influx of disgruntled people with Internet connections and plenty of free time to read through bugtraq archives and free online hacking guides, and the recklessness necessary to not care if you get caught (notice how various arrests haven't stopped anyone). Those who don't get caught, they eventually start teaching other people, providing kids who wander into lcirc asking "how does I hacked BoA" with the information necessary to make it happen. Recall that the hack that took down HBGary wasn't technically astounding; it was a combination of HBGary's total incompetence and Anon's willingness to try shit until it worked.
So, could this be Wikileaks operating under the banner of Anonymous, and is Wikileaks itself a part of Anonymous? It's hard to say, because Anonymous is itself more of a phenomenon than a group, a criticality accident of discontent, if you will. They both operate on the same principles, though.
(see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticality_accident )