Question: I'm not security literate, and if I was, I probably wouldn't be asking this question. As a regular tech news follower, I'm really surprised by the [outrage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29#Activities) of [Anonymous (hacker group)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_%28group%29), but as a critical thinker, I'm unable to control my curiosity to dig out how exactly they are doing this? Frankly, this group really scares me.

One thing that I don't understand is how they haven't been caught yet. Their IP addresses should be traceable when they DDOS, even if they spoof it or go through a proxy.

* The server with which they are spoofing should have recorded the IPs of these guys in its logs. If the govt. ask the company (which owns the server) don't they give the logs?
* Even if it is a private server owned by these guys, doesn't IANA (or whoever the organization is) have the address & credit card details of the guy who bought & registered the server?
* Even if they don't have that, can't the ISPs trace back to the place these packets originated?

I know, if it was as simple as I said, the government would have caught them already. So how exactly are they able to escape? 

PS: If you feel there are any resources that would enlighten me, I'll be glad to read them.

[Update - this is equally appropriate when referring to the [Lulzsec group](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LulzSec), so have added a quick link to the Wikipedia page on them]

Answer: 
Well I responded to some posts above that had incorrect information, but I figured I should just post my own response to better explain.

Anonymous is made up of basically 2 subgroups: 

1. Skiddies (script kiddies) and newbies who have only the most basic security knowledge, and just sit in their IRC and basically be the pwns for the attack. These are the people that the FBI was knocking down their doors.
2. Anonymous core leadership, a group with some hacking knowledge that owned hbgary, but also got owned recently by ninja hack squad. You won't be able to trace this subgroup unless you are a security guru.

**How do they hide their tracks?** 

Like a previous answerers mentioned, 

1. **Through proxy servers** like Tor
2. **by compromising boxes and launching attacks from those boxes** (basically masquerading as that person's IP), or
3. **by using a VPN that's in a foreign country** and keeps no logs. With the VPN, all your traffic is relayed through it so wherever you connect it can only track back the IP addy to the VPN itself and no further (unless the VPN is keeping logs in which case you shouldn't use it anyways).

Hope this helps clarify a bit.
[Here is an article](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=tracking-cyber-hackers) asking (and answering) just that very question from the Scientific American site posted this month. The short answer to the question is spoofing of source addresses and the use of proxies.