The security forces all over the globe have been desperately trying to reveal the identities of LulzSec and Anonymous hackers, while journalist Parmy Olson obtained extraordinary access to the hacking groups and wrote a book.

Everyone remembers how in 2010 a new global superpower emerged, which was acting in unorthodox ways, was unaccountable and yet of the people – nameless, faceless and Anonymous. The group was created online and acted most decisively and effectively when it saw threats to the Internet itself. For example, its most successful operations were carried out after infamous WikiLeaks released the embassy cables and lots all sources of funding because major payment systems refused to take donations on its behalf under the pressure of the government.

You can learn from Parmy Olson, a reporter with Forbes and the author of “We Are Anonymous”, that it was WikiLeaks attacks that turned Anonymous political. Olson managed to create a clear, coherent narrative from lots of confusing detail, tracing Anonymous’ origins to the 4Chan site. Her book details the chronology of the group’s evolution, although everyone, including the media, police and even the hackers themselves, had their own opinions of what it really was.

The book also mentions LulzSec, a small group of talented hackers and activists, recognized as the most wanted cyber-criminals in the world, who easily hacked the CIA and the British Serious Organized Crime Agency. Good sense of humor they had – after PBS criticized WikiLeaks, LulzSec hacked into its server and published a story claiming that Tupac Shakur had been found alive and well in New Zealand. In addition, the hackers took down the Sun’s front page to replace it with another, saying that Rupert Murdoch had died in his famous topiary garden.

Everything is described in the book, which was written a year ago, as the author befriended the key members of the group before their identities were disclosed by the authorities. As you know, the FBI picked up one of the band members and turned him into an informer, and then the arrests followed. The review, posted by the Guardian, admits that “We Are Anonymous” has only one substantive flaw, which is even not the author’s fault – it is at the moment out of date because of the numerous legal issues surrounding the trials – so it contains no updates on the sentencing and nothing on the significance of the PRISM leaks by Snowden.