Anonymous’ Epik Hack Undermined its Own Moral High Ground
Epik, a domain registrar and hosting service, has been a bastion of the far-right online community for years. The founder, Robert Monster, calls his company the “Swiss bank of domains,” likely referring to his laissez-faire approach to moderating the content of the websites he empowers. Epik picked up its first controversial charity case in 2018, when GoDaddy dropped the social media platform Gab following the shooting of 11 people in a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The shooter, Robert Bowers, posted “I’m going in” to Gab just hours before committing this atrocity. Epik’s resurrection of Gab attracted other far-right and conspiracy platforms to the domain service like moths to a flame. It has since harbored the likes of InfoWars, BitChute, Parler, 8chan, and the Daily Stormer. These sites’ rap sheets include spreading neo-Nazism, radicalizing users, and even assisting in the orchestration of the January 6 attack. Monster has undoubtedly established a safe haven for the internet's filth, but groups attempting to expose the people behind these websites are causing more harm than good.
Anonymous, a loosely-guided group of anarchic “hacktivists,” set its sights on Epik after the implementation of the Texas Heartbeat Act on September 1. This act is the most stringent in the country against abortion, limiting the time frame for abortions and allowing anybody to sue those involved in the process of giving or receiving an abortion. Anonymous was specifically targeting prolifewhistleblower.com, an Epik-hosted tip collection site where users could report individuals they suspected of having abortions. Closing this website and interfering with the propagation of anti-choice legislation to South Dakota and Oklahoma was dubbed Operation Jane, a reference to the pro-abortion Jane Collective of the late 1960s.
Epik stopped providing service to prolifewhistleblower.com on September 7 for violating the company’s terms, but Operation Jane had already been set into motion. The following week, Anonymous leaked over 180 GB of data stolen from Epik’s servers. This private information, made available through downloadable torrent files, contains a decade’s worth of passwords, personal phone numbers, addresses, and even credit card information of over 15 million people. Many of these individuals have nothing to do with the abortion reporting site or any of the aforementioned platforms and are now extremely vulnerable to phishing attacks from scammers.
The media seems to gloss over this crucial consequence of the hack, often praising Anonymous for their detective work. The Washington Post reports extremism experts calling this "the mother of all data lodes," yet is utterly unsupportive of Epik representatives who point out that only 1 percent of their sponsored domains include right-wing political material. While Epik undoubtedly contributes to extremism and hate online, Anonymous’ attacks have caused an unacceptable amount of collateral damage that must not be overlooked. By violating these users’ confidentiality, Anonymous is acting just as immorally as the anti-abortion legislation they are fighting against and should not be praised for this act of “hacktivism.” In the instance of this data leak, Anonymous is just as culpable as Epik for undermining an essential pillar of our democracy: the right to privacy.
Although not explicitly stated in the Constitution, a right to privacy has repeatedly been upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, specifically in its interpretations of the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. When the Supreme Court debated Roe v. Wade, which would go on to enable abortion access across the country, the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment offered validity to their claim that abortion access fits under the right to privacy. Accessing any information from a computer without authorization is illegal under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986, one of many federal laws passed to extend privacy rights to the online world. When the Supreme Court reviewed this act in Van Buren v. United States, it upheld that this act constitutionally prohibits users from obtaining information that exceeds their authorized access. In both landmark cases, the Supreme Court upheld the implicit right to privacy.
The more times our right to privacy is degraded, whether it be from Texas’s restrictive abortion laws or Anonymous violating individuals’ online security, the more acceptable breaches of this right will become in the future. Although one is a government entity and the other is a private organization, the undermining of rights by any institution in the public eye sets a perilous example for their respective followers. In the case of this hack, the Texas Heartbeat Act has been cast as the villain and Anonymous as the righteous vigilante, yet the similarities of their actions seem to be totally lost on the media. Vigilantism’s purpose is to prevent repeat offenses and deter others from committing the same act. By hacking Epik, Anonymous has done the exact opposite. Of course data privacy and medical privacy are not quite the same, but actions that degrade the aggregate demand for privacy devalue all facets of this right. Herein lies the paradox at the heart of all vigilantisms: to stop the conduct they deem morally corrupt, they must violate the same laws they seek to protect.
Since the first data leak, Anonymous has released more stolen information on two separate occasions, undoubtedly spurred on by the outpour of public support. After the second leak, an individual using the data provided by Anonymous attempted to steal $100,000 worth of cryptocurrency holdings from Monster’s personal accounts. Anonymous claims to be sharing this information to expose those behind extremist sites, but in reality, they are allowing cybercriminals to rob victims blind. Online security experts warn that any of the 15 million people impacted by Anonymous' operation are at high risk of being victims of similar criminal conduct, although many of these users are likely to be entirely ignorant of the breach.
The only way to deter Anonymous’ actions is to publicly unite against their reckless administration of justice and spread awareness of the hypocritical nature of vigilante behaviors. Activists opposing the Texas Heartbeat Act must show that any help from unlawful actors only serves to undermine their objective and that Anonymous' efforts are unwelcome. Although Anonymous has picked an honorable cause to defend, they have conducted their mission in a self-sabotaging manner that should not be praised by anyone who values a robust system of rights. Any narrative that prioritizes vigilantism over appropriate justice endangers the integrity of our judicial system and must be stopped immediately.