Aubrey Cottle

Aubrey Cottle (born ), also known as Kirtaner, is a Canadian hacker, computer security researcher, software engineer and an early member of the hacktivist group Anonymous. Cottle was involved with Anonymous during the late 2000s and in its resurgence beginning in 2020, in which the group attempted to combat the far-right conspiracy movement QAnon. Anonymous Early years Cottle was an active user of 4chan and Something Awful in the mid-2000s, where he and others began collectively referring to themselves as "Anonymous", due to the 4chan moniker of the same name. During this time Anonymous began trolling and "raiding" other websites, online games and chat rooms, as well as black-hat hacking: targeting Hal Turner, The Church of Scientology and others. 4chan ultimately curtailed raiding from their platform, resulting in Cottle and others migrating to Cottle's website 420chan, an imageboard with a focus drug culture, LGBT discussion, and raiding. According to Cottle, upon being photographed by Scientologists during the 2008 Project Chanology rally, he began fearing for his family's safety. According to Cottle, he tried unsuccessfully to "shut down" Anonymous after this incident, and so attempted to generate bad press for the group so that they would lose public support. During a 2021 interview with Vice News, he claimed responsibility for the group's 2008 attack on the Epilepsy Foundation's website, where Anonymous members flooded the forum with flashing animations to trigger seizures in those with photosensitive or pattern-sensitive epilepsy. Cottle later expressed remorse for the attack.