While for a lot of us online privacy means worrying about our Facebook privacy settings, there are some for whom it means a whole lot more. Nowhere is this more so than in the hacking community, where anonymity can be absolutely paramount. Anonymity can easily mean the difference between success and failure, and, depending on your intentions, sometimes even keeps you out of prison.
That drive towards anonymity was clearly a motivating factor behind the formation and concept of Anonymous, the world’s most famous hacking collective, who have made the V for Vendetta Guy Fawkes mask famous as a symbol for their anonymity and protest.
But they’re not the only ones. The White Hat Alliance, an ethical hacking group with some big name clients, have also prided themselves on their anonymity. As a business, that poses exactly the sort of problems that you might expect. How do clients get in touch with a company of anonymous individuals? How do clients even find them? For the WHA, the solution so far has been to approach clients themselves. Starting with big banks like Wells Fargo, the WHA approached companies to persuade them to take on their services as white hat hackers, testing and refining security systems, as well as defending against less ethically minded hackers.
However, that anonymity is all changing. From their previously limited public online presence, simply a Twitter account, they’ve recently launched a new website, and seem ready to step into the public eye. More importantly than that, their first member has stepped out of the shadows of anonymity. Robin Haynes, known online as Black Mamba, has revealed himself to be a member of WHA. Based in the UK, Haynes is a key member of their British team, dealing with many of their UK-based clients.
Haynes is young, but don’t let his lack of experience fool you. The young hacker is a bit of a prodigy, with abilities that far outstrip his age - which is why it’s a good thing that with the WHA he’s turning himself to ethical hacking. It’s especially great news for his clients, who stand the chance to benefit from all of his skills, carefully honed over his teenage years. He was part of the WHA teams behind the defence of Wells Fargo and other banks from bot attacks. He's also known to have hacked a few other major corporations, alerting of them of these security vulnerabilities so that they have the chance to fix them. He also put his skills to work in creating mods and benign hacks for a few games such as Counterstrike, and has demonstrated both creativity and the ability to get past some of the toughest security in the world.
With his anonymity out the window, you can expect to hear the name ‘Robin Haynes’ quite a bit more from now on.
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