A History of the Internet's Most Notorious Villains

Besides the fact that he once famously referred to the Internet as a "series of tubes," former Alaskan senator Ted Stevens was also a Congressional leader in the push against net neutrality. In 2006, Stevens authored the Communications, Consumer's Choice, and Broadband Deployment Act with co-sponsorship from two Democratic Senators in North Dakota and Maine who requested that an amendment be added to the bill before it was passed. Specifically, they were requesting that strict network neutrality mandates be added to the bill, conditions which Stevens vehemently refused. Many found Stevens' understanding of the Internet and its regulations to be outdated, as Stevens believed that ISPs should have been allowed to accept money so that certain companies could have a higher data priority in relation to other websites. For supporters of net neutrality, Stevens was the last person they wanted in charge of an issue as complex as this one.

Briefly infamous in 2007, Michael Crook was one of the worst trolls the Internet has ever known. A vicious web personality who was known for creating websites like ForsakeTheTroops.com and craigslist-pervert.org, Crook essentially made it his goal to piss off and embarrass anyone he could. On ForsakeTheTroops, Crook stated that American soldiers in Iraq deserved to die because of their willingness to enlist, went on to refer to them as "pukes" and "scumbags." Clearly, it takes one to know one. Even worse, on craigslist-pervert, Crook would set up a fake rendezvous with any interested strangers, or ask them to trade pictures and information. When he received the information, Crook would post it on craigslist-pervert, and embarrass any involved parties. Though he was never punished for his harassment and behavior, Crook certainly deserved any public shame he received as a result.

Blue Coat Systems—formerly known as CacheFlow—is a California-based security company that has recently earned a dubious reputation because of their role in aiding various dictatorships to censor the Internet from their citizens. The company's most notable client has been the Syrian government, which used the service to block messages of dissent and criticism, while also restricting Internet access to their country. Given that the company hails from the United States, it's pretty disappointing to see them helping out totalitarian governments just to make a quick buck. It's unethical to be sure but, more than anything, just plain hypocritical.

Built for the purpose of creating a stricter and censored Internet, the Stop Online Piracy Act was a bill authored by various members of the United States House of Representatives so that the government would have a tighter control over the web with regard to copyright infringement and counterfeit laws. On its face, the bill sounded like a noble endeavor, but after one reading, opponents of the act worried that it would be used to undermine the protections outlined by the DMCA, and would effectively enable the government to shut down websites at will. Many others saw it as the government blatantly pandering toward the music and film industries. Whatever the case, a wave of protest ensued when the bill was introduced to the floor, including a coordinated blackout by various websites like Wikipedia and Google that was meant to show the effect that SOPA's censorship would have on the Internet as we know it. Since it was introduced in 2012, nothing has come of the bill, though it has never officially been killed.

Born Kim Schmitz in 1974, the German-Finnish hacker and tech entrepreneur Kim Dotcom changed his surname in 2005 to honor the industry that made him his millions. However, that same industry is what has also made him such a target for the past few years, as Dotcom—the founder of the file-sharing website, Megaupload—was arrested in 2012 on charges of racketeering, conspiring to commit copyright infringement, and conspiring to commit money laundering. In that moment, Dotcom's days as a purveyor of free media were over, though he claimed that he had dedicated specific employees to keeping Megaupload free from copyright infringments before he was arrested. Now, Dotcom runs Mega, a private cloud service that allows users to share media among their personal devices, and he also just released an EDM album called, Good Times. Despite the fact that his largest empire has fallen, Dotcom appears to be doing alright for himself.

Born from a collection of hackers who support the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian Electronic Army has been coming up in headlines more and more over the past year, specifically for their hacks of high-profile companies and news sources like CNN, the New York Times, and Facebook. So far, their attacks have been fairly minor. The group seems to be more concerned with showing off their muscle than actually doing anything with it, as their moves have mostly resulted in Twitter hacks or web-page alterations. But their strength is certainly impressive considering that Facebook has some of the most heavily encrypted protection services in the world. The SEA is a group that we'll likely hear more from in the future, whether we like it or not.

By now, we're all familiar with the spy programs that the NSA has been involved with for the past few years, as news broke this past summer that the government agency had partnered with numerous tech companies to keep an eye out for any suspicious activity taking place over the web, and even your phone. The legality of such an operation has been up for debate, getting heated enough that some have asked the Supreme Court to rule on the matter. In any case, it's undeniably creepy that the government has the ability to look in on so many aspects of our private lives. But, in this day and age, should we really be that surprised? As M.I.A. once put it, "Headbone connects to the neckbone/Neckbone connects to the armbone/Armbone connects to the handbone/Handbone connects to the Internet/Connected to the Google/Connected to the government."

Before it was shut down by the FBI, Silk Road sold drugs and other illegal goodies like gangbusters. Behind the entire operation was Dread Pirate Roberts, born Ross William Ulbricht, who was taken into custody by the FBI on charges of money laundering, computer hacking, conspiracy to traffic narcotics, and attempting to kill six people. Yes, you read that last count correctly. Ulbricht had hired a hitman to eliminate some of his enemies and, while the killings were never actually carried out, Ulbricht paid the guy hundreds of thousands of dollars to execute the hit. Point of the story here: Ulbricht was not messing around. He was the Pablo Escobar of the Internet before Silk Road got taken down.

Breaking up with your boyfriend or girlfriend (or getting broken up with) is never easy, but becoming vengeful about the issue will never help anything. Unfortunately, no one ever told this to Hunter Moore, the founder of the now-defunct revenge porn website, Is Anyone Up? Founded in 2010 by Moore, the website allowed angry ex's or just generally awful people to post naked pictures of their old flames without the person's permission. Not only is the idea morally indefensible, but it's also deeply perverted. Thankfully, the site was closed in April of 2012, and Moore was recently arrested by the FBI on charges of conspiracy, unauthorized access to a protected computer, and aggravated identity theft. He certainly got what he had coming to him.

By the time 2014 comes to an end, we could remember it as the year that changed the Internet forever. With a federal judge's recent ruling that ISPs were no longer bound to the rules of net neutrality, the way you surf the Internet and pay for the service could end up looking very different by the end of the year. At the forefront of this push to de-regulate ISPs has been the ISPs themselves; companies like Verizon, Comcast and AT&T. Without guidelines on their service limitations, these companies are now free to exercise whatever form of data discrimination the market will allow them to do, essentially turning your Wi-Fi into a bundled, cable television package. Certainly, these companies are not without their proponents as well, but for many, the end of net neutrality is seen as the death knell of a free-roaming and accesible Internet.