We interview a hacker from the Anonymous movement about 4chan, freedom and whether hackers will bring down the net censorship scheme.

“I don’t think they’re going to build a firewall that we can’t get around,” said Anonymous as we sat in a noisy café. “There’s always a way to get around, and there are always loopholes in the latest firewalls. It’s just the amount of time that it takes to, say, crack a password.

“To crack a 256bit password could take three times the age of the universe while using all the computers in the world, and four dedicated nuclear reactors to power them. We’re talking about a lot of time.

“But on a technical level the filters are useless, easily passed, and slowing down the internet. That’s the message we need to get to people.”

The Anonymous movement grew out of a website called 4chan, a home for hackers, social misfits and the underground internet scene. The movement has no leader, nor any stated goals, though sometimes its members will come together to achieve a common aim. The group is responsible for some of the biggest pranks and disruptions on the internet, including a spirited attempt to ‘remove Scientology from the net’.

“Most certainly,” Anonymous tells me when I ask whether there’s talk on 4chan about the censorship. “Mostly it’s been complaints from Anonymous users from Australia saying how stupid it is. I don’t think I’ve seen any positivity towards the filters. You’re seeing a lot of people saying, ‘Ha, ha, Australia sucks’ and taking the crap out of Australians.

“Because of the content on 4chan itself, it’s not seen as a good thing. Possibly 4chan will be blocked.”

Anonymous said that there was a slang name for people that advocated filters: ‘delete fucking everything people’.

“A lot of politicians or people who are anti freedom of speech, especially the German government clamping down on a lot of internet content, or are [groups like] white supremacists — people who don’t understand the internet.

“It’s very ignorant. They see something they don’t like, and instead of ignoring it, it has to be stopped. It’s extremely selfish.”

Anonymous said that so far, there are no co-ordinated plans for the Anonymous movement to respond to the filters, but expects a response of some sort in time.

“What I would expect is a massive response. Possibly vandalism of Wikipedia articles, spam emails, DDOS attacks, attempts around the filter with secure sockets and encryption. They might spam [Senator] Conroy’s email address, put the meatspin in everyone’s departments, or hijack every available computer system being used for the filters.

“The script kiddies and proper hackers will be trying to get their way into the systems. Some might decide to brute force the filter servers, attack it with all the bandwidth they have.”

Australian Anonymous members were more laid-back than others, said Anonymous.

“From what I gather the Australian Anonymous are the laid back types; there are laid-back geeks. They might merge with another anti-blocking organisation. A lot of them have been doing that. Not sure if you’ll see a ‘stop the block’ movement from Anonymous.”

Anonymous said that he himself would try to break the filters.

“Basically yes, I’d try and break it. To see what it blocks, out of interest. To see what ways there are around it.”

But he predicted that the net filters wouldn’t last long after the live trials, scheduled to start on 24 December.

“I think they’ll try out the filters, and a lot of technicians will go, ‘This is a joke.’ Speeds will slow down, and there will be all kinds of people complaining: technicians, engineers, coders, hackers.

“It’ll get through the trial phase and then get abandoned,” said Anonymous. “It’ll be an interesting summer.”