Oppose ISIS, but don't credit anonymous

For the first time in history we now have super-computers which are capable of collecting and analysing all of the data coming from everyday mobile devices.

This analysis is being used by businesses and governments to predict likely shifts in human behaviour. It is reshaping the design of furniture, medical prosthetics, cars – driverless and otherwise – and entire cities.

It is also being used to design new civic programmes for reducing crime and recidivism.

When handled correctly, predictive analysis will enrich our lives. It will also boost our care for the vulnerable in natural, economic and medical emergencies and improve our record when it comes to the environment.

Meanwhile, holographics, haptic virtual reality and artificially intelligent machines will move us further from simply going online to living an 'onlife', in which the line between the digital and the real is even more blurred than it is today.

Imagine then, within this near-future scenario, the havoc internet lone-rangers with sophisticated hacking skills might wreak on economic, transport, healthcare and security services.

Not long ago, in a test of hacking capabilities, McAfee researchers remotely programmed insulin test pumps to release what would under normal circumstances have been lethal doses of the substance. They wanted to demonstrate how vulnerable computerised medical machines can be to interference.

In theory, any computerised device can be hacked. Talk of payment chip implants to replace credit cards raises the dystopian possibility of human bodies becoming hackable (and trackable) devices.

The positive benefits of technology – and there are many – could so easily be swallowed up by the negative impact of maverick groups like Anonymous. It believes that it has a sovereign right and a civic responsibility to bring down systems it happens not to like.

Anonymous has launched hack attacks on such companies as Sony, PayPal, MasterCard and Visa. Similar hacking groups have cyber-attacked US government agencies, media organisations, military contractors and police and military personnel.

Is there a need for accountability platforms in the online media space? Absolutely. However, accountability can only be credibly offered when the body providing it is itself answerable to the wider public.

Anonymous is accountable only within its internal structures, whatever those are. Its members are faceless, hiding behind masks and computer screens. There is no vote, corporate or political, on the rightness of either its means or its ends.