While most of our attention has been focused on the different shows over at Glenn Beck’s network GBTV, he’s got quite a lot else on his plate. Like The Blaze, book publishing, and his group discount site. In addition to all those, there’s also Mercury One, his charitable organization designed “to inspire, organize and mobilize individuals to improve the human condition.” With a huge “Restoring Love” rally coming up in just a few months, it’s time for the organization to ramp up the publicity, however, they’ve chosen a strange way of doing that; by releasing an enigmatic video that directly antagonizes the “hacktivist” group Anonymous.

During CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, reporter Amber Lyon from the network’s Special Investigations unit took an undercover look at the secretive group, Anonymous, which has dominated the news for the past few years including recent involvement with the Occupy movement. What they discovered might surprise viewers.

The “Occupy Wall Street” protests have been a way to fuel people’s anger at Wall Street, and the Department of Homeland Security is concerned such high-profile events may inspire hackers to once again target big financial institutions.

The “hacktivist” group Anonymous appeared to have struck again when a video released this morning claimed they are planning to take down Facebook in November. Coming off of a busy summer than included hacks on Sony’s Playstation network and the Syrian Ministry of Defense, it seemed that Anonymous had set their sites on a new, larger network. However, this was not quite the case.

As the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad continue their violent crackdown on protesters, messages of support for the civilians have been flooding in across from the globe. This morning, one came from an unlikely place; the official website of the nation’s Ministry of Defense. Unsurprisingly, this was the result of another high profile hack, this one from the infamous “hacktivist” group Anonymous.

A special team of cyber crime specialists at Scotland Yard claims they’ve made a major arrest: a 19-year old they believe is “Topiary,” the online alias of a senior hacker for the group Anonymous. The Telegraph reports “he is currently being transported to a central London police station for questioning following a ‘pre-planned intelligence-led operation’.”

Hackers belonging to “Anonymous” — evidently either motivated and/or undeterred by a slew of raids and arrests made on Tuesday — today claimed to have breached NATO security, gaining access to scores of confidential material. In fact, the group says some of the material they’ve gathered is so confidential that it would be “irresponsible” of them to publish it all.

The FBI has searched homes belonging to suspected members of Anonymous, a group linked to various high-profile hackings. Ten agents raided a home in Baldwin, NY, as well as two others on Long Island and one in Brooklyn. The Long Island and Brooklyn raids are ongoing as of this morning.

In Baldwin, agents confiscated at least one laptop as they searched for computers and “computer-related accessories” belonging to Giordani Jordan. The equipment is thought to have been used in implementing denial of service attacks against a number of companies.

With hacking becoming a full-fledged epidemic for the American government, from the CIA and FBI to PBS.org and police departments having their files leaked, Daily Show correspondent John Hodgeman presented viewers with his delightful mustache– but also with a handy guide to protecting yourself from hackers. The first tip? A flattering remark a day keeps LulzSec away.

LulzSec (“Laughing at your security since 2011!”) is an offshoot of Anonymous that has gained increasing notoriety after its members successfully hacked websites belonging to major corporations (like Sony), networks, such as PBS, and government agencies.

The group is taking credit for taking CIA.gov offline yesterday afternoon, although the agency has yet to issue confirmation of a hack. In addition, it appears that the official website of the U.S. Senate may have been hacked by the group this week for a second time.

With the Sony Playstation Network hack being called by some the largest case of personal information theft ever, another high profile case is starting to seem even bigger than previously thought. Last week, news broke that hackers stole personal information of 250,000 potential contestants from Fox’s upcoming American remake of The X-Factor. Now, it seems the group also stole more information as they’ve leaked a database of around 300 Fox Broadcasting employees and associates.

Last night on The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert described Anonymous, the Internet group that originated on imageboard 4chan, as a “hornets nest” and described the actions of Aaron Barr, the computer security expert that tried to go up against the group, as “sticking your penis in the hornet’s nest.” However, Colbert had another message for the members of the group, one he delivered subliminally. The question now is…is Stephen Colbert actually a “/b/tard?”

Anonymous and Westboro Baptist Church are embroiled in a feud that Anonymous alleges was fabricated by the WBC to gain publicity and collect IP addresses for a possible lawsuit.

For the past few weeks Glenn Beck has joined the chorus of opinion-media personalities discussing the fascinating story of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. In Beck’s inimitable fashion, he cut straight to the part of the story that resonated emotionally with his audience, focusing on revolution and youth, represented by “hactivists” and “Operation Payback.” But now that someone claiming to represent the renegade vigilante set of hackers known as Anonymous has sent a message to Beck regarding his coverage, one can only wonder if he is in danger of painting a target on his own back.

Over the last 24 hours Gawker Media’s network of sites have been under attack from a group who have identified themselves “Gnosis,” a seemingly mysterious collective of hackers who has been falsely considered part of the 4chan-related group of renegade vigilantes knows as Anonymous. Via several private email exchanges with Mediaite, an individual claiming to represent “Gnosis” has explained both the reasoning and methodology of his actions, which has led to a compromised commenter database and a content management system.

After months of taunting over various extensive 4chan campaigns, someone purporting to be a member of internet “hacktivist” collective Anonymous now appears to be claiming it has hacked into Gawker Media and stolen 1.5 million usernames, emails, and passwords. Update – Gawker Editorial Director Scott Kidder says via Twitter “No evidence to suggest any Gawker user accounts were compromised, and passwords encrypted anyway.”

4channers are a formidable bunch. When AT&T blocked 4chan on Sunday, every blogger who knew what was what could see the dark clouds looming on the horizon. When AT&T restored service, and when they claimed that they had only suspended it to stop a DDoS attack (moot, the founder of 4chan, said “this wasn’t a sinister act of censorship, but rather a bit of a mistake and a poorly executed, disproportionate response on AT&T’s part”), the whole Internet breathed a collective sigh of relief. A crisis had been averted. But why?

For those unfamiliar with the depths of Internet sub-culture, “Anonymous” is a hard concept to understand. Simply put they are an anonymous crowdsourced set of vigilantes responsible for puling off some of the most newsworthy stunts in Internet history. But past projects like punking Scientology of flooding YouTube with porn fail in comparison to their recent attempts to disrupt the established entities who they deem to have alligned with the wrong side of justice over the WikiLeaks story. Now, in eerie and awesome fashion, a new video has been posted that describes their agenda in the most historic terms.

Even as websites for Paypal and Mastercard suffer “Anonymous” blowback for closing Wikileaks accounts, Amazon UK has made a Kindle version of the latest document dump available for download. Ironically, the same 4chan hackers who attacked Mastercard and Paypal (and Sarah Palin?) have promised a similar attack on Amazon.com today, in retaliation for the site shutting down Wikileaks’ US server for what it called a “Terms of Service” violation. It seems that Amazon, Paypal, and Visa can now have their cake and eat it, too.

ABC News’ Jake Tapper is reporting that Sarah Palin‘s website and personal credit card information “were cyber-attacked today by Wikileaks supporters” according to an email received from the former Alaskan governor. Earlier today reports surfaced of hackers from the infamous “Anonymous” group connected to the 4chan message boards attacking major institutions such as Mastercard, ostensibly in retaliation for their treatment of Wikileaks

The viral posters that compared Obama to the Joker and to Hitler feel tame compared to the latest nasty meme to hit the Internet: insinuations that Glenn Beck “raped and killed a young girl in 1990.”


Update #3, 4:30pm: “Glenn Beck murder” and “Glenn Beck rapist” are now top suggestions when you do a Google search for Glenn Beck.