Posted on Sunday, 24th July 2011 by Nathan Thorpe

Last week, when the FBI announced the arrest of 14 Anonymous hackers, we thought this is the opportunity to see what this crew is really like.  Are they a band of crunchy hipsters seeking revenge on the system who live interesting lives on the edge? Are they the new underground protesters in the vein of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters?

According to a the NY Times, most of the hackers who were arrested have “unremarkable lives in small towns and suburbs across the country.”  Wait…what was that?  Unremarkable?  Yes, indeed most of the suspects are in their 20s and are not dynamic and charismatic characters.  Well, we guess they don’t have to be – they just have to be good at working a computer.

Here’s what the NY Times said about this group of arrested hackers:

But at least some of the suspects are not your typical hard-core hackers, judging from interviews with two of them and the online traces of others. Some did not bother to cover their digital tracks as they participated in what they saw as an online protest. And some say they were unaware that their feverish clicks on a home computer may have been against the law.

The suspects, mostly in their 20s and living unremarkable lives in small towns and suburbs across the country, now face up to 15 years in prison. Among them are a college student, an ex-Marine, a couple of self-taught computer programmers, even a young man whose only celebrity before last week’s arrest was that he dressed up as Harry Potter for a movie premiere.

In addition, these folks did not fully realize that they were breaking the law.  Instead they thought they were participating in a form on online protest.  Yes, they were doing that, but they were seriously breaking the law – which may ultimately get them 15 years in prison.

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