[citation][nom]supall[/nom]And yet, MLK Jr managed to get his point across without violent protests.[/citation]
And yet the various Occupy Wall Street Protests have been summarily stomped out by the NYPD and the UC Davis Police (see the pepper spraying incident). MLK and his supporters were beaten, harassed and many were murdered. The "hippy" protests of the vietnam war in the late 60s turned violent after four protesters were murdered and seven more were shot at Kent State University. Young Iranians protesting for democracy were murdered in mass just a couple of years ago. What was originally peaceful protests in Egypt erupted into violence as well.
If you look back in history, peaceful protests often yields violence from the "establishment" and change, if any happens at all, is glacial. Active protests promotes rapid change, especially if it is supported by the mainstream.
While I do not condone "doxing" innocents, I don't see anything wrong with fighting back, especially considering that the "victims" are HTML files, unsecured databases, unencrypted text files and passwords. If nothing else, even if change does not happen, the benefit is that more attention is paid to cyber-security, which to this point is laughably inadequate in most systems.
What kind of unethical dealings were exposed during the hacks of HPGary and Aaron Barr? Shouldn't we applaud Anonymous for shutting down a child porn ring, doxing its members and uncovering Freedom Hosting which was openly supporting child porn, when the government/police could/would not?
Since Anonymous is a collective rather than a rigid hierarchy, there are certainly a bunch of misguided operations, poor decisions, innocent targets, etc., but there sure have been a lot of revelations that would otherwise have gone unnoticed.
Anonymity on the internet brings out both the best and worst in people, but for every troll, there is a white hat that is out there seeking the truth. This is an ugly world we live in and most of it is covered up, spun or otherwise sanitized for public consumption, but that doesn't mean that the ugly still isn't there.