#71 Political hackers

A protest in San Francisco organized by Anonymous.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

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#1. Samsung v. Apple
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#67. Lytro camera
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#70. Cyberwarfare gets real
#71. Political hackers
#72. Larry Page
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#76. Jonathan Ive
#77. Curation becomes a form of expression
#78. Kim Dotcom
#79. Felix Baumgartner goes supersonic
#80. Nokia 808 PureView
#81. Square corners
#82. Mike Daisey
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#93. Video games arrive at a crossroads
#94. Women make advances in technology
#95. Gesture controls grow up
#96. Julian Assange
#97. John McAfee blogs on the run
#98. Scott Thompson
#99. IPv6
#100. James Cameron's deep-sea dive
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Hackers had a busy year. People identifying themselves with Anonymous launched a massive hacking campaign against Israel in protest of attacks against Gaza; conducted a DDoS attack against the U.K. Department of Justice in apparent protest over charges against Julian Assange; claimed to have stolen 1.7GB of data from the U.S. Justice Department; defaced hundreds of government and commercial Web sites in China; and targeted Syrian government Web sites -- just to name a few. AntiSec claimed to have stolen millions of Apple device IDs from the FBI, a claim the FBI disputed. And a group named Parastoo gained access to one of the servers of the United Nation's International Atomic Energy Agency.

In the dance with authorities, the police got in a few good moves too. A video showing one Anonymous hacker being arrested in his home circulated in September. Former LulzSec hacker "Sabu" was outed as an FBI informant. And a man from Texas was arrested when a picture he posted of his girlfriend gave police clues to his whereabouts.

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