February 18, 2011, 1:10 PM — On our last episode of Thank You For Not Sharing, I spoke with Ben de Vries, wrongfully accused by HBGary security wonk Aaron Barr of being the mysterious and elusive Commander X, alleged puppet-master behind the Anonymous collective.
(And if you’re not up to speed on the ongoing saga of HBGary and Anonymous, read this, this, and this. I’ll wait.)
It turns out Commander X is not that elusive, though he’s still somewhat mysterious. Because – unlike Aaron Barr -- I just enjoyed a long and fascinating chat with him.
[ See also: That new Facebook friend might just be a spy ]
Far from being a leader of the Anons, Commander X says he’s a “peon” in the organization, though he also says has the ear of the older members who are trying to keep the young’uns in check. But he is one of the co-founders of the People’s Liberation Front, a “cyber militia” formed in 1985 (“during a hella LSD party”) that’s working with AnonOps to disrupt communications in Iran and Bahrain, just as they did in Tunisia and Egypt.
I got to chat with the Commander as he was coordinating DDOS attacks on the Web sites for the Iranian government. There are many things he declined to divulge – like the PLF’s source of funding, and the true nature of Anonymous' relationship to WikiLeaks – but he was remarkably candid in other ways. Here’s an edited version of that conversation.
The popular impression is that Anonymous grew out of 4chan and is dominated by a younger participants -- late teens and early 20s. But it’s clear you're at least 40 years old. So is the popular impression wrong?
The popular impression is....skewed. There are older people, from the direction of the Chaos Computer Club - that can if needed rein in the "kids" who appear to dominate Anon Ops.
So is there some kind of informal hierarchy, despite the talk of the collective “hive mind”?
That is correct.
Are you afraid of having your actual identity revealed? Would that put you in legal jeopardy?
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