Anonymous is not a group. It is a way for people to communicate what their actions were about. By claiming that it was anonymous everyone knows that GoDaddy upset freedom on the internet in some way, there is no need for a statement. Chances are that it was a follower of the Anon philosophy who conducted the attack.
While they love to boast that as their motto, Anon is very much a group. They have specific leaders that send messages to the masses and the masses go out and do things on their behalf. I personally engrossed myself in that area for a good year, watching almost for hours the good and bad side of the group. It was very interesting to say the least. I communicated with those in anon and those who fought against them. I was merely an outsider giving my opinions and never really "played" on either side, but that gave me a great perspective on how they operate. The FBI actually got a lot of the anon follower's contact information by finding the "unfindable" Sabu, and using him as an insider informant. He did rather well too. He was their supreme leader for a while and did ANYTHING he told them too (which actually helped in their capture, ironically enough).
There are certain 'Big Brother' characters it has to be said. But the things that make up the group: Hackers, IRC Hosts, Tumblr and Twitter maintainers all act independently.
I know Anon USED to stand for something like that...but, that's simply not the case anymore...at least not from last year up until now when i've been paying attention.
I haven't seen a huge change in group organisation. But the philosophy is the same, and anyone who wants to be a member can be one. In that sense the GoDaddy attacks were from Anon.
Their main organizational tool is Twitter and I made a specific list to follow and added all the main leaders on both the pro-anon and anti-anon side and watched them go at it. There's this one guy who works alone called The Jester on the good side. He pretty much shuts down anon operations from time to time and works alone. When he's not doing that, he's shutting down terrorist websites that recruit new members to try and learn terrorist tactics.
