Anonymous is an internet-based group.
Anonymous (group) . A website nominally associated with the group describes it as `` an Internet gathering '' with `` a very loose and decentralized command structure that operates on ideas rather than directives '' . The group became known for a series of well-publicized publicity stunts and distributed denial-of-service ( DDoS ) attacks on government , religious , and corporate websites . Anonymous originated in 2003 on the imageboard 4chan , representing the concept of many online and offline community users simultaneously existing as an anarchic , digitized global brain . In its early form , the concept was adopted by a decentralized online community acting anonymously in a coordinated manner , usually toward a loosely self-agreed goal , and primarily focused on entertainment , or `` lulz '' .