Anonymous began as a loose gathering of pranksters on 4chan and grew into a force that rattled governments, corporations, and the Church of Scientology. This film traces that transformation through the hackers, journalists, and former members who lived it, from the 2008 protests against Scientology's attempts to suppress a leaked Tom Cruise video to the DDoS campaigns against PayPal and Mastercard after they cut off funding to WikiLeaks. Security researcher Aaron Barr's attempt to unmask the group's members, and the retaliation that followed when his own company HBGary Federal was hacked and its emails dumped online, becomes a case study in what happens when someone underestimates a movement with no leader and no membership list. Interviews lay out the split between those who saw Anonymous as digital activism and those who saw straightforward vandalism and crime. The film treats Anonymous less as an organization than as a tactic anyone could pick up, and asks what that means for power structures built on the assumption that dissent needs a name attached to it.