Before the summer of 2011, Anonymous was an amorphous collective of hackers and pranksters ready to pour cold water on members' nascent political aspirations. By 2012, a growing antiauthority, anticensorship, anti-surveillance sentiment asserted itself, and everything changed.
![How Anonymous broke its own rules to break free](https://i0.wp.com/staging.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/partsofthebrain.jpg?fit=1&ssl=1&resize=600%2C4000)