KnightSec, an arm of the hacker collective that specifically targets rapists, demanded a public apology be issued to the young woman and warned that it would release personal information of Big Red football players and staff who have defended the accused young men. No apology was issued by the hackers' deadline of Jan. 1. That day, a video was leaked of a teenage boy -- a former Steubenville High baseball team member -- captured cruelly joking about the sexual assault.

"She is so raped," he laughs, continuing an offensive tirade including the lines, "They raped her quicker than Mike Tyson!" and "they raped her more than the Duke lacrosse team!" grossly quipping that the unconscious girl was "deader than Trayvon Martin,"  even as other voices captured in the video interject, saying, "That's not cool, bro ... That's like rape. It is rape. They raped her." Other teens in the video laugh along.

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As Wired's Quinn Norton extensively detailed earlier this year, 2011 and early 2012 presented the sprawling hacker collective with challenges both practical and existential. Hector Xavier Monsegur -- best known as Sabu, a central member of LulzsSec, the arm of Anonymous responsible for the famed Stratfor hack -- was arrested last year and revealed as an FBI informant in March 2012. Dozens of "Anons" across the world were outed by Sabu and picked up by the FBI and Interpol. Sabu's flip to informant not only lost Anonymous some of their most talented hackers, but also eroded the idea of Anonymous as an unbreakable, unfathomable legion.  Other faces of Anonymous emerged alongside the cold, grinning Guy Fawkes mask; real, human, flesh-and-blood faces of young men -- like 27-year-old Jeremy Hammond, a social justice activist from Chicago who could face life in prison for his alleged involvement in the Stratfor hack.

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Of course, it’s impossible to say with certainty which actions "Anonymous" actually pulled off, since its membership is ill-defined and anyone can claim association, not to mention that sometimes Anonymous hacktivists act alone or as part of a subgroup.  Even when Anonymous has put out one of its quintessential videos claiming responsibility for a hack or DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service—shutting down a website by flooding it with requests) attack, it hasn’t always turned out to be true.

Given that, below are Anonymous’ “Top 20” for 2012. With its widening arsenal and focus, one can only imagine what these Internet denizens have in store for 2013.

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Brown faces a host of charges, including a number relating to online threats made to an FBI agent unrelated to the Stratfor case. Within the newly announced grand jury indictment, however, Brown faces a charge for copying a link to a downloadable archive of compromised data -- specifically credit card information -- from one Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel and pasting it into another.

The indictment states:

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In 2009, hackers installed malware on construction firm Patco’s computers and stole its banking credentials to steal around $300,000. People’s United Bank has agreed to pay Patco Construction Co. all the money it lost plus interest. Although a U.S. District Court ruled that People’s United wasn’t responsible for the lost money as Patco claimed, the First Circuit Court of Appeals found the bank was responsible for an increased fraud risk and advised on the settlement.

"The case raised important questions about how much security banks and other financial institutions should be reasonably required to provide commercial customers," noted Wired. Jeremy Kirk at ComputerWorld.com wrote that the case is "a sign that small businesses are having greater success at shifting liability toward banks in online security meltdowns, including out-of-court settlements."

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Fresh from a campaign of thousands of hacks last week against Israeli government-related websites in retaliation for the military assault on Gaza, the hacker collective put out a release late Thursday vowing to take down "web assets belonging to the Assad regime" and provide communication avenues for Syrians in the Internet blackout.

The release also claims to have investigated and concluded that the ongoing Internet and mobile connection cut-off was perpetrated by the government:

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Nov. 28th: Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond was told last week by federal judge Loretta Preska that he was being denied bail and could face life in jail for his alleged involvement with the Anonymous/LulzSec hack into the computers of the private intelligence firm Stratfor.

Civil liberties advocates have decried the state's harsh treatment of the activist, who was reportedly held in solitary confinement for five days in Manhattan’s Metropolitan Correctional Center and has so far been imprisoned for eight months without trial. Now, Hammond's supporters believe they have an extra and important string to their bow: a release from Anonymous reported that the federal judge who denied Hammond bail is married to a client of Stratfor and was personally affected by the infamous hack.

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The U.N. nuclear watchdog commented Tuesday after a previously unknown group critical of Israel's undeclared nuclear weapons program posted contact information for more than 100 experts working for the IAEA.

A group called "Parastoo" — Farsi for a swallow bird and a common Iranian girl's name — claimed responsibility for posting the names on its website two days ago.

Israel is commonly acknowledged to possess nuclear weapons — something it neither confirms nor denies. It says Iran is secretly working on nuclear arms — something Tehran denies — and describes the Islamic republic as the greatest threat to the Mideast.

Iran and Arab countries, however, say the Jewish state's nuclear capacities pose the greatest menace.

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When it comes to cyber-warfare, however, the IDF's foes are legion. Diffuse hacker collective Anonymous on Thursday announced #OpIsrael via Twitter in response to Israel's threats. In a release posted on Pastebin, Anonymous wrote:

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As Salon reported, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta foregrounded the report's sentiments in an October speech in which he warned of a possible "cyber Pear Harbor," in which cyber-attacks could dismantle major aspects of U.S. infrastructure. Panetta specifically named China as a concern -- one echoed in the commission's report, which does, however, stress that most Chinese intrusions against U.S. government and military systems appear intended to collect intelligence or technology rather than launch attacks. Bloomberg reprinted passages of the report draft, illustrating that the commission sees China's ability to manage sophisticated computer systems as limited but growing, bolstered by a doggedness:

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McKinnon has admitted to breaking into Pentagon and NASA computers but insists he was only looking for information on UFOs. Nonetheless, in 2002 Paul McNulty, the U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, called McKinnon's activity "the biggest military computer hack of all time."

Tuesday's extradition block was not a judgment on McKinnon's guilt, but according to British Home Secretary Theresa May, was based on human rights considerations. May said that since McKinnon has been diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome and suffers from depressive illness, "there is such a high risk of him ending his own life that a decision to extradite would be incompatible with his human rights."

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Panetta said (via The New York Times):

An aggressor nation or extremist group could use these kinds of cyber tools to gain control of critical switches. They could derail passenger trains, or even more dangerous, derail passenger trains loaded with lethal chemicals. They could contaminate the water supply in major cities, or shut down the power grid across large parts of the country.

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On Wednesday, WikiLeaks began to leak a batch of documents relating to the presidential election. The organization invited supporters to browse the trove of emails provided to the secret-spilling site by Anonymous from its famed Statfor hack. In a move that Anonymous called a "betrayal," WikiLeaks put the documents behind a pay wall, which prompted readers for donations.

"This is a filthy and rotten, wholly unethical action - and Anonymous is enraged," stated a release from Anonymous Global. "We are aware that the donation pay wall can be circumvented by disabling Javascript. However, this is not the point. Neither is Anonymous concerned that WikiLeaks is asking for donations," the Anonymous release notes, explaining that most readers would not know how to avoid the pay wall.

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These GI Files releases will shed insight into key U.S. federal election players... Through this release WikiLeaks aims to inform the U.S. electorate in an unbiased way through the release of source documents from one of the most oddly influential companies in the U.S. today.

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“We are seeing the threat grow from exploitation to disruption to destruction,” Alexander told a forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. He warned that attacks could impact organizations ranging from stock markets to power grid operators. “Think about a company that loses all the data on its system … If you wipe out the data, you wipe out the ability of the system to operate," he said.

The cyber-chief recommended the implementation of an information sharing system between the private sector and the government -- the very sort of legislation that failed early this year in Congress.

Hackers with their sights on major corporations and institutions will no doubt take Alexander's compliment with a pinch of "lulz."

[h/t TheNewsTribe.com]

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Within hours, the White House had contacted Politico (without solicitation) to confirm but downplay the report.

The Free Beacon suggested that the hack may have compromised sensitive information that could be used "during a future conflict to intercept presidential communications, locate the president for targeting purposes, or disrupt strategic command and control by the president to U.S. forces in both the United States and abroad."

However, the White House volunteered to Politico that no harm had been done:

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The Twitter account, @YourAnonNews, often used to make announcements for the hacker collective, first publicly posted the phone number connected to the fascist group's Queens-based office and invited followers to "give them a warm welcome to the neighborhood."

A follow up tweet asserted, in characteristically playful parlance, that the hackers had disabled Golden Dawn's New York chapter website:

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Indeed, emails from Salon readers following up on our Monday story about the office's opening confirm that Golden Dawn's website was temporarily down. As of this writing, the site is once again running, but is missing much of the content available before the reported hack.

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Why is AnonymousOwn3r targeting the provider (who has not been without controversy)? The motives remain unclear, but AnonymousOwn3er tweeted this earlier today:

@film_girl I'm taking godaddy down bacause well i'd like to test how the cyber security is safe and for more reasons that i can not talk now

— Anonymous Own3r (@AnonymousOwn3r) September 10, 2012

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Dotcom, a German national, was arrested in January after local police, responding to an FBI request, swooped in on his multimillion-dollar residency outside of Auckland.

He has been accused of breaching copyright laws costing owners more than $500 million.

Dotcom took to Twitter to make his offer:

Hey DOJ, we will go to the US. No need for extradition. We want bail, funds unfrozen for lawyers & living expenses.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/articl… — Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) July 10, 2012

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