Aug 3, 2026 · 45 min · 14 segments
How powerful is a joke? Anonymous, the online hacker collective, unleashes an army of pranksters against the Church of Scientology and finds out. Special thanks to Clare Chambers. See Privacy Policy…
Dan TaberskiHostMike VitaleGuest
Gabriella ColemanGuest
C.W. AndersonGuest
Kim Masters
[upbeat music] So put Operation Slick Pubes on the back burner for a minute, along with the deep philosophical drama that led to it.
It's an organization that's hard to describe, because in a way, they hardly exist at all, the hacker collective Anonymous.
[gentle music] Over the past 15 years, Anonymous has inserted itself into world events surreptitiously, mysteriously.
During the Arab Spring, they targeted the Egyptian government to restore internet to protesters.
It's a loose organization with players all over the world, their anonymity being their biggest asset.
But before all that, in the early aughts, they started as a bunch of kids, basically, a bunch of really annoying kids.
When I was, you know, maybe at 13, 14, when I was on AOL first, right after getting that computer, I, I immediately wanted to learn hacking stuff.
So I had been in my friends' houses, going into chat rooms and messing with people and all that sort of stuff already, so.
[upbeat music] So put Operation Slick Pubes on the back burner for a minute, along with the deep philosophical drama that led to it.
It's an organization that's hard to describe, because in a way, they hardly exist at all, the hacker collective Anonymous.
[gentle music] Over the past 15 years, Anonymous has inserted itself into world events surreptitiously, mysteriously.
During the Arab Spring, they targeted the Egyptian government to restore internet to protesters.
It's a loose organization with players all over the world, their anonymity being their biggest asset.
But before all that, in the early aughts, they started as a bunch of kids, basically, a bunch of really annoying kids.
When I was, you know, maybe at 13, 14, when I was on AOL first, right after getting that computer, I, I immediately wanted to learn hacking stuff.
So I had been in my friends' houses, going into chat rooms and messing with people and all that sort of stuff already, so.
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