This post is part of an extended interview conducted by DataBreaches.net and CyberWarNews.info with the hacker formerly known as “GhostShell.”
Q: How did your hacktivism start?
I created the AnonOpsRomania account on the 1st of January [2012] after realising that it didn’t exist in the public eye. Mind you, this was at a time when Anon Operations were most active and it didn’t take long to reach out and befriend other branches from around the world. Shortly after, it got media attention for the activities that were being conducted from it and became part of the community and widely recognised as Anonymous.
What I didn’t realise at the time was that there were other Romanians on the scene being part of a similar banner. They even had their own site and one day their “leader” called me out and said that I wasn’t the “real Anonymous Romania”.
I think that’s when I began to learn how things truly worked and how flawed the concept of Anonymous was and still is. It didn’t take long after that to see on the news that over a dozen people were arrested in my country for being part of the same collective. Good times.
Frankly, I don’t even remember if I was the one that started #OpRomania. It’s possible that they trended it before I did but they had such little presence on the scene that it was only after they called me out that I actually knew they existed.
Q: But why did you attack your own government?
You have to understand that this was after the global economical crisis which despite happening in 2008 it hit us sometime in 2009 and it just spiralled down from there. For those next two years it got even worse. Budget cuts, assbackward legislation passed in various sectors, mostly experimental that did more harm to us than good and lots and lots of corruption. It was around that period when millions of people went to vote for the referendum to take down the government.
The whole thing was a mess but personally I think what got me the most is that I went and voted for the guy that was president at the time, twice. And all I got out of it was my original future stolen from me. It just proves that it doesn’t matter from which political party you are, if you and your colleagues are incompetent imbeciles you’re bound to screw your country up no matter what.
The only good thing that came out of it is probably that Romania didn’t end up being bought and sold like Greece, so there’s that.
Although GhostShell affiliated with #OpRomania, he tells us that he did not participate in the attacks that were simply defacements.
Interview Topics: